Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/915639
www.postmagazine.com 25 POST DECEMBER 2017 OUTLOOK O DIRECTORS thing if you're not certain about what you want to do when you get to post. You have to have a clear vision of the film you want to make and go for it, or you can easily get sidetracked and lost." OPPORTUNITIES: "Time's always been a big theme for me, and post is where I can really play around with it. Film is the only art form that really looks at time in detail, because film is time. When you edit, you're basically compressing time, speeding it up, freezing it — you can stop time in movies, which is amazing. No other art form can do that. And the other amazing aspect of film is that a cinema visit is also an expression of time. Unlike with any other art form, an audience says, 'I'm yours for the next two hours.' They give you that time, and in return you give them time that's telescoped, stretched, even stopped. It's extraordinary, really." THREATS: "Lack of time, money, feeling rushed. It's always the same threats in post. You don't want to feel in a hurry when you're editing and mixing, but a lot of post schedules seem to be getting shorter and shorter these days. And post is precisely when you need time to reflect and consider the best solutions to what- ever problems you may have." OUTLOOK: "After T2 I went back to doing TV, and shot the first episode of the drama series, Trust, for FX. It's all about the Getty oil heir, and I think TV is a great medium for stories like that, whereas Hollywood seems totally focused on these huge tent pole, superhero franchises now. It's definitely a golden age in TV right now." MARC WEBB The Amazing Spider- Man, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Only Living Boy In New York, Gifted, (500) Days of Summer With a name like Webb, the director was probably predestined to helm the two The Amazing Spider-Man block- busters, the fourth and fifth films in the multi-billion-dollar-grossing franchise. But the Indiana native started off as an editor, re-cutting music videos for record labels and doing documentaries and EPKs, and then directing many music videos for such top acts as Miley Cyrus, Green Day and Maroon 5, and short films, before making his feature film debut with the low-budget 2009 indie rom-com (500) Days of Summer. STRENGTHS: "There are so many. Music's such a powerful tool in post. It can be a crutch, but for me it's a sublime part of filmmaking and the most fun part of post. It's always huge for me, and is so deeply related to how I started off making movies, because of all the music video work I did. So music immediately helps me understand a scene and how to tell it the best, most effective way. You can completely change the tone of a scene, let alone the whole movie, with the right music. The editing is also huge for me as I started off as an editor, so it's a process that I'm very familiar with and understand the power of. So I feel very much at home in an edit bay, where there's not that terrible daily pressure of the shoot, the money and the crew and so on. So music and editing are the most impactful in an emotional way." WEAKNESSES: "It's always time and money, as I can spend a lot longer in post tweaking stuff and testing, and the post schedule can feel just too fast. I always wish I had more time to change a line here, revise a sequence or moment there." OPPORTUNITIES: "It's really your chance to perfect the story, which is always impossible, and the chance to try radically different things in the edit. Add voiceover, take it out. It's all about finding the most direct, efficient way to connect with an audience. But it's not an exact science. It's an intuitive process. And I edit the movie in my head as I shoot, so in post I love the opportunity you get to then rewrite, experiment with the order of scenes and change it all up." THREATS: "It's strange, you always have 10 weeks for a director's cut, whether it's a huge superhero film with thousands of complex VFX shots or a small, low-bud- get indie. It's just too broad a template for all the different kinds of movies out there now. I think directors — especially new ones — need to be cared for and protected and encouraged. Test screen- ings can help but also be a threat if a studio and financiers and producers start changing stuff before they should. Ideally, a director has enough self-reflec- tion to realize the mistakes they're mak- ing, and to revise them. But if they're put in a defensive posture, it's very hard to create in that atmosphere." OUTLOOK: "TV is in this big renaissance, especially for adult drama, and has really taken over from movies in that area. It's very progressive, daring and there are great directors, showrunners and writers doing TV projects now that would never have been done just 10, 15 years ago — just look at Game of Thrones, Stranger Gifted