Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/680196
FILMMAKING www.postmagazine.com 18 POST MAY 2016 build the cameras and develop new technologies, just outside of Toronto. The company started here. It's film dis- tribution and Hollywood wing is in Los Angeles, and has corporate head offices in New York, and centers in London and China. It's all over the place now. The technology wing has always been in Toronto, just outside, in a suburb." Can you tell us about your set up? "We have a few offices and edit on Premiere Pro. And my assistants have their facilities and more computers. I work with my co-producer, Judy Carroll, she has an office. And we have a little kitchen and that's it. Not glamorous." You've edited many of these IMAX/NASA films? "I went from a Steenbeck in the film days. The Dream Is Alive (1985), Blue Planet (1990), Destiny In Space (1994), Mission to Mir (1997) — until we got to Space Station 3D (2002) — I cut everything on 35mm print down. That's how we used to do it, from IMAX 70mm negatives, they would make a 35mm print down, which was coded to match, so I cut on film. "I moved over to Final Cut Pro for Space Station. And also did Hubble 3D (2010) on Final Cut Pro. For this, I moved over to Premiere Pro. Premiere was good because it deals with multiple formats very well. We archive everything here at Technicolor, where I am now mixing. That's just around the corner, and that's one big reason to be downtown." As an editor, what resolution are you working at, knowing it will be released in the IMAX format? "I'm working principally at HD, but we can look at things in 4K or 5K at the same facility. But to store a whole cutting copy at that resolution is just a little prohibitive." You post at Technicolor? "Sometimes we do, but normally, because in the course of starting this film, the IMAX laser projectors came online, and that is the acid test. They are absolutely fantastic! Those are full-size IMAX. They are the full-height, 1.43:1 format. They are phenomenal. You see every pixel. There's one in Toronto at the Scotiabank Theater here, and there's one at the IMAX facility at the technology center. You have to make a special DCP in order to see it, but you'd be crazy not to check things that way." At what stage of post production are you at now? "We passed half way mark in mixing. There's a beautiful score, and this is go- ing to be a 12.0 sound mix, as well as six, depending on the theater. We have both the score and the Jennifer Lawrence nar- ration in, and that's wonderful. We're in an advanced stage with the soundtrack, but not the final mix. We're getting there. "We've done most of the color bal- ancing, so we are well on the way. The premiere is in New York, and that's on a film projector because that's what the theater has at Lincoln Square." Are you pleased with the results? "As you know, every film project is collaborative. I may have worn a lot of hats here, but… I have a retired astronaut named Marsha Ivins, and Marsha flew five times in space on the Shuttle. She in- stalled the lab in the Space Station. She's in Space Station. She's on our team and she's helped immeasurably with the train- ing, getting the data down and working from inside out. "Graeme (Ferguson) is still very much a player, and James Neihouse, who trained all the astronauts on the me- chanics of the camera. And the crew gets credit." Commander Terry Virts prepares for a shoot using one of the crew's Canon cameras.