Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/936570
26 Graham and Bradlee must set aside their differences and risk their careers and freedom to publish the now famous Pentagon Papers. Harmlessly titled the "History of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-66," the documents were originally prepared for U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1967, and in this film, played by actor Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek Into Darkness). It was Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), a military analyst at RAND Corporation-turned-whistleblower who began secretly photocopying all seven thousand pages of the papers sheet by sheet with his girlfriend Lynda Resnick at her advertising agency. The Pentagon Papers revealed that Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson repeatedly misled the public about U.S. operations in Vietnam—even as the government said it was pursuing peace, behind the scenes it was covertly expanding the war. The truth may not have been exposed if it wasn't for Ellsberg and The New York Times, and then The Washington Post stepping in to publish these documents. The production spanned only eleven weeks in New York, and even though it would be Kunin's fourth project of the year (Wonderstruck, You Were Never Really Here & The Upside), the schedule worked for the mixer, Boom Operator Michael Scott and Utility Jeanne Gilliland. "I don't know how much has been emphasized about how truncated the production and post were in the press, but it was very rapid. The shoot was the shortest for Steven since the '70s and he certainly hasn't had this quick of a post production," says Kunin. Pre-production was more relevant than ever as the director turned to longtime Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski to pace the visual details set in 1971 America. Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2s and 35mm film focused the look that played out in newsrooms, offices and dinner parties. "There was so much dialog in this script," Kunin continues. "Bridge of Spies was extremely talkie with scenes up to five people but The Post had up to fifteen actors in scenes, scripted with really great dialog that was super snappy. Scenes were crammed with words." To record the overwhelming amount of dialog, Kunin deployed multiple Sonosax mixers and an Aaton Cantar X-3 recorder. Spielberg also understood the importance of capturing good production sound and was a voice for it during the entire process. "He's always had an ear for sound, but he became more of an advocate because he really wanted the production sound not to be problematic," notes Kunin. An early obstacle was the newsroom of The Post. Production Designer Rick Carter scouted an empty office building in White Plains, NY, that was about to be turned into luxury condos. The production moved in and used its floors to slate the world filled with desks, mid-century typewriters, Rolodexes, period telephones and carbon copies of stories everywhere. The problem being, there were still tenants in the building so they couldn't fully control the air conditioning. As many sound mixers know, any noisy machine can bleed into an audio track. Based on Kunin's recommendation, production brought in a consultant who was able to divert the air conditioning from the shooting side of the floor to the staging area where video village stood. One sound theme in the narrative was plot points spoken through telephone calls. "The calls were all done live. The actors on both ends of the phone were being recorded Sound double booms a scene between Ben (Tom Hanks) and Kay (Meryl Streep)