Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/5315
www.postmagazine.com December 2009 • Post 15 now that give you all these oppor tunities to create and do almost anything, especially when you combine what can be done digitally with animation and compositing, and combining shots and being able to take a moment where an actor was speaking and wishing he hadn't, and suddenly he's not. And not only being able to replace a line of dialogue, but having an actor say something on-screen that he hadn't originally said — that's amazing. "I remember in Star Trek there was this one shot I absolutely hated, that I wished had a foreground element. So when we did the DI with Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3, we literally added these out-of-focus black marks that made it look as if there were all these foreground elements, and the shot was so much better. It was like a visual effects shot that we just did in the DI room." THREATS: "Again, it's a quality thing. If theatres continue to give audiences a poor movie-going experience, especially in terms of poor sound and picture, it hurts everyone. But I do feel that's improving." OUTLOOK 2010: "I'm very optimistic about movies in general. Even on slow weekends in the last year, attendance levels have been up, so I'm hoping that movie-going will continue to increase and that theatre owners will have the incentive to make the experience bet- ter. The bad economy is obviously affecting us all, but if the result is that fewer films get made and get a longer shot in the theatres with- out being pulled within a week of release, that's a good thing." SHAWN LEVY Director Night at the Museum 1 and 2,What Happens in Vegas,The Pink Panther, Cheaper By The Dozen STRENGTHS: "Technology and the post process have now evolved to a point where you are really still re- making your movie through the end of post production.You're able — through every single thing in the process, ranging from editorial to the complexity of sound design to the DI — to continuously mold, adjust, tweak and in many, many small ways, remake your movie until you're absolutely satisfied." WEAKNESSES: "There's no question that theatre projection is still lagging way behind. Many directors like to theatre hop on their opening weekend and hide in the back and see their film play with regular paying audiences. But I never do that. I find it agony, because nine out of 10 times the sound or the picture is substantially crap- pier than what I made and intended. And I literally cannot bear to watch or listen to my film played on sub-par projectors or sound systems. So the lack of uniformity, the lack of consistent quality in exhibition is sometimes ver y, ver y frustrating, and it really is the weak link in the whole chain." OPPORTUNITIES: "I've found it very encouraging to be able to get new ideas late in the game, and then execute them. The ability to make changes on the fly, even deep in the post process, is very gratifying, as it means you can still be very creative right up until the very end, and there are always ways and time to implement those new creative ideas. My films always have a lot of improvisation and that carries over into the post process, so it's great for me to have those opportunities." THREATS: "Here's the thing:You can do a lot of the filmmaking process down and dirty, but it's very hard to do a good job in post down and dir ty. There are still hard costs that are just unavoidable, and it'd be nice to see the post stage democratized in much the same ways as the shooting process has." OUTLOOK 2010: "There's so much talk about film being dead. Look, I shot the first Night with DP Guillermo Navarro, and the sec- ond with John Schwartzman, and as long as there are phenomenally talented shooters like those guys, who are staunch and vehement advocates of film over digital, film will not die. Maybe in a decade or two, we'll see that shift, but I still personally know too many DPs with power and clout who believe passionately in the superior qual- ity of film. So, to paraphrase Mark Twain, 'Reports of film's death are greatly exaggerated.'" CARLOS SALDANHA Director The Ice Age trilogy, Robots STRENGTHS: "[When making a film] you al- ways have to be aware that something could go wrong until the very last minute, so for me post is crucial in keeping the focus. It's not like you create the movie and walk away. You have to focus on ever y step — putting in music, sound effects, doing the color timing — it all needs to be J.J.Abrams' Star Trek. directors