Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/869840
www.postmagazine.com 11 POST SEPTEMBER 2017 DIRECTOR'S CHAIR You're well-known for your run-and- gun, guerilla-style of shooting. Was that how you shot this? JS: "No, we had the most permission on this movie of anything we've ever done, and we actually got permits and stuff." BS: "But there were still a couple of scenes we just did on the spur of the moment, as it's so embedded in our DNA in how we shoot and stretch a dollar. So we'd have a permit for one street and then go, 'But that street looks better,' and we wouldn't have the permit but we'd just shoot there anyway. And then we'd be blocking traffic on our own. Obviously when you use cops you're limited and you have to follow the law." JS: "We shot in a mall, and we had all the permits, but our instincts were to go in and shoot as if we were stealing. The whole idea was to protect the footage — meaning that, if disaster struck, would we still have enough coverage to edit the film? So you get the bare essentials first, and then fill in the blanks." Where did you do the post? BS: "All in New York. My son had just been born, and I started editing at home, which was very difficult. We cut it on Adobe Premiere, which is this very tactile system and the closest thing to Final Cut. And you can also do a lot of sound work in it, which I love." JS: "And co-editor Ronald Bronstein was editing at his place, and I was going back and forth between them. It's the longest we've ever spent on post — about nine months, and it was a very interesting process as we originally shot for about 26 days, as we lost a very key location for the ending. But we were nev- er quite happy with that ending, so we took it as a blessing, and cut a week off the shoot and began editing the footage we had. That took about five months. Then we wrote a whole new ending, and Rob came back and we shot another five days, and then during the rest of post we also did a few extra things with a sprinter crew — just six or eight crew, shooting a handful of days here and there. So the whole post and editing process was very organic, and that way of working was very new for us. The thing we love about post is that at every stage, you're breath- ing new life into your footage. You start editing, and it starts to change, and we were really aware of the need to not rush and to get it just right." BS: "We didn't even do an assembly on this. We didn't cut a frame until we sat down after the shoot and watched it all, and I think that kept it fresh for us. It was like a new world." You have a great score by composer Daniel Lopatin, who records as Oneohtrix Point Never, and who also collaborated with Iggy Pop on the original closing-credits song, "The Pure and the Damned." How important is sound and music for you? JS: "It's so huge. We did the sound mix at Heard City and it took about three months, and I was involved in every beat of it, sitting next to Daniel, who even let me play the synths a couple of times. And Benny's very involved in all the sound design." BS: "I can't even cut a scene without the sound, and I'll have over a dozen audio tracks for just a normal scene, as I love layering it and making it sound real. The hardest thing about the mix was mixing the music and removing those music frequencies that were inhab- ited by the audio, so that we could jack it all up and still keep the dialogue audi- ble. So we treated the dialogue almost like vocals in the music tracks, and that took a lot of trial and effort and labor." How many visual effects shots are there in the film? JS: "Quite a few little things, and Adam Teninbaum of AST was our VFX super. He used to be a render-farm guy for DreamWorks, and if we needed a cop car, say, going by in the distance, he'd do that with CG." The DI must have been vital? JS: "Yes, and we did all the color at Technicolor Postworks with colorist Jack Lewars, and had about two weeks to really work on the look, which is the most time we've ever had. And Technicolor and Kodak were really supportive." What's next? BS: "Our thriller, Uncut Gems, which we've been researching for five years, and doing weird camera tests and so on. We hope to start early next year, and Scorsese got involved after seeing and loving our last film, so it's very exciting." Good Time Good Time Good was shot at various Queens locations in New York. The Safdies not only directed Pattinson (left) and Leigh (above), but also co-wrote, edited, completed audio and acted in the film as well.