Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/910366
www.postmagazine.com 11 POST NOVEMBER 2017 DIRECTOR'S CHAIR and a good mix, and good at keeping the scale and spectacle as well as the loose, comic tone I wanted." What were the main editing challenges? "For me, finding the right tone is always the hardest thing in the edit. It's far easier to fix all the other usual problems — like, there's too much exposition here, not enough there, this scene goes on too long, this one's too short. You can work all that out, as it's more about logistics. You can carefully place one line of dia- logue in the right place and it can take care of a lot of other problems. But in all my films, finding the right tone and bal- ance between humor and drama was the most challenging aspect, especially as I like to mix comedy and drama. You don't want it to get too funny, to the point of being ridiculous, and making the char- acters look stupid, but you don't want it to get too heavy either, and too somber where people are not having a good time. So this was very tricky in that sense, but I think we go the balance just right." How many visual effects shots are there in the film and who did them? "In the end we had well over 2,000 shots I think, and I had a great VFX supervi- sor — Jake Morrison (see page 14), who did Marvel's last Thor: The Dark World and Ant-Man. There was so much work involved that we used a lot of different vendors — something like 16 or 18, from all over the world, including ILM, who did all the Hulk stuff. Then studios like Double Negative, Framestore, Method, Rising Sun, Luma, Digital Domain and Clear Angle shared all the different worlds and looks, and some took care of CG characters. So there was a lot of time spent talking with them on the phone, and for me it was such a special part of all the post, seeing these shots coming in and finally seeing stuff that looked photo-real, with all the textures and light- ing. For a year it'd just been someone sitting on a chair in front of a blue screen, and suddenly you're looking at all this amazing stuff, which just blew me away. Visual effects have advanced so much in recent years. I grew up with films where you could still see the pixilated matte lines — almost like watching the weather- man on TV with those maps. Now it's so integrated and seamless, and after eight, nine months of post, looking at all the same old footage, it really bolsters you when all the VFX start coming together and looking so spectacular, and you go, 'Wow! The film's going to look amazing!' Scenes suddenly start looking like you'd originally pictured them. I loved that. And I loved working with all the mo-cap stuff — especially in post. If I wanted to change anything, I could look at differ- ent mocap takes and it was far easier to change stuff than if I'd used live actors." Coming from an indie background, were you initially a bit wary of all the CG elements? "I was, but I've become fully converted and convinced! If you do it right and with the right people, you can create these amazing CG characters that audi- ences are fully invested in emotionally, so it's a big deal." Talk about the importance of the sound and music. "I love that part of post because they elevate your film to this whole other level. And on this, we were editing for so long and looking at the same images that it was hard to see how it could improve. But we did some re-shoots and pick-up shots, and then started on the sound and added Mark Mothersbaugh's score, and it just improved dramatically. Along with getting all the VFX shots in, this is where it all comes together for me in post." Did it turn out the way you hoped? "It did. It feels like a film I'd make, and it's full of color and humor along with all the spectacle. There's a lot of [Thor co-cre- ator] Jack Kirby influence, a lot of that vivid comic book look, which I grew up with and love." The film was cut by Joel Negron and Zene Baker. Post was completed on the Disney lot in LA.