Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/100015
DIRECTORS OUTLOOK BY I A IN B L AI R 22 Post���s ROLE Despite ��� or because of ��� the ongoing grim economic picture, 2012 was a pretty good year for Hollywood. Audiences, happy to forget the recession and their financial woes for a couple of hours, headed to the theatres in healthy numbers, especially to see anything light and escapist. Here, four top directors ��� Barry Sonnenfeld, Len Wiseman, Andrew Stanton and William Friedkin ��� tackle Post���s SWOT questions and air their views about the year ahead. BARRY SONNENFELD Director Men In Black franchise, Addams Family, Get Shorty, Wild Wild West Sonnefeld started in this industry as a cinematographer for the Coen brothers (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller���s Crossing) before turning to directing. STRENGTHS: ���It���s my favorite part of the whole filmmaking process, and the best part is it���s where you get to make the movie better again. You almost become a writer again in the editing room, and find out the stuff you thought you needed you don���t need. You find out that things you were worried about having to explain to the audience work fine without any explanation. ���I���m not a big believer in establishing shots or masters. I���ll shoot them but often feel they���re banal and just slow down the pace. I���m pretty different from a lot of directors. Usually my first cut is too fast and I actually have to go back and slow down the movie, while most directors��� first cuts are way too long. Mine���s always 15 minutes too short. Post is where you find the rhythm and look of the film. On Men in Black 3 we had over 1,200 visual effects shots, and it���s hard to convey the scale and scope of some of the bigger set pieces until you���re quite far along in post. And even though I know how they���ll look, I���m still amazed and impressed when all the shots come together!��� WEAKNESSES: ���For me there are hardly any weaknesses in post. Maybe the only drawback is in a time-travel movie like MIB3 where you start feeling you need to really guide the audience in case you lose them. So you start adding lines of dialogue to explain stuff, and then you run the movie and realize you don���t need it. Another pitfall in a comedy is not letting silent moments live silently. You have to resist the urge to keep fiddling with things.��� OPPORTUNITIES: ���So much has changed in post since I began as a DP, like DI. It���s overwhelmingly a good thing because you can go Post���������December���2012��� www.postmagazine.com in and darken skies, vignette corners, take down white shirts ��� and all selectively within a frame, which you can���t do if you���re doing a chemical inter-negative.��� THREATS: ���It���s easy to be lazy in shooting since you can now fix so much in post and the DI. For instance, I love the DSLRs I use for my private photography, but I find that I don���t spend the time framing a shot exactly right and so on. In the same way, I think digital editorial work has in some ways hurt comedy. When I began directing, I worked with editor DeDe Allen, who cut on an upright Moviola; it was such a pain to make a cut and find the trim and so on. But every cut was thought about so much, and comedies used to play much more in two-shots. ���Look at old comedies like Bringing Up Baby. You���ve got to have action and reaction in the same frame. Today, most comedy directors shoot with multiple cameras and ad-libbing, and because they can cut so much faster on Avid, comedies have many more cuts, and you don���t have to think about it that much because it���s so easy. In the same way, because you know you can clean up so much in the DI, it makes you a little sloppier and lazier in how you frame and shoot.��� Sonnenfeld helmed Men in Black 3, which featured 1,200 visual effects shots. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: ���The middle���s been squeezed out. It���s either $100-200 million budget movies or $5 million movies with nothing in between, which is sad since the middle used to have great movies, especially comedies. What makes me most sad now is the ugly comedy ��� meaning aesthetically ugly, the comedy shot with multiple