Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/100015
OUTLOOK DIRECTORS Friedkin���s latest: KIller Joe with Matthew McConaughey. eye. You have to see the film before you make it. At least I do. So I always know exactly what I���m going to shoot and how. But less than half the time do I know how it���s going to all be edited together until the editor and I get into the cutting room. So that���s the great opportunity about post, that you can then take the original vision and hopefully improve on it in post.��� THREATS: ���It���s always the same: time and money. I���ve been fortunate in that I���ve always made the time to use post as a creative process, but everyone wants it done faster and cheaper nowadays.��� OUTLOOK FOR 2013: ���Hollywood���s making a lot of money, but with fewer films. So many films today are just about superheroes, guys in capes flying around and cleaning up the streets ��� I just don���t see life that way. I know they���re very well made films and very popular, but they���re just not for me. It���s rare you���ll find something that will examine the darker corners of life, like I like to do. So you have these huge event films, and then the smaller independent films that are important in terms of awards and acclaim, not box office, like The Hurt Locker, which won the Oscar over Avatar, and The Artist. ���Those films don���t keep Hollywood alive. The ones that do are based on comic books and videogames, and that���s where it���s going. They���re all aimed at kids. Serious adults are watching cable TV now or satellite. There are so few new films I want to see today, frankly. I just don���t understand why more films aren���t shot here in California. The legislature just doesn���t seem to see how thousands of people lose work every time they move a production to a state that does give generous tax credits. So that���s very shortsighted. But Hollywood���s doing fine and the global market���s expanding, so in terms of sheer box office, the outlook���s fairly healthy.��� before directing his first feature, 1967���s Good Times with Sonny and Cher. STRENGTHS: ���For me, the whole shooting process is at best just acquiring all the raw material for post. That���s where you really make the film, and so much can be added by the use of sound and the addition of music. You don���t even need to use a lot to be effective. Background sounds that are more like effects ��� like the feel of a cold hand on the back of your neck ��� add so much to the magic spell of a film. How you combine images and color with all the sound ��� all that is the real strength of post. Obviously, if you don���t have the coverage and footage ��� the foundations ��� you���re not going to be able to build something great. But all that���s only effective in the way that you join all the images and then underline them with music and sound, to emphasize certain things, the same way you do with a lens.��� WEAKNESSES: ���Because it���s so easy Wiseman���s Total Recall remake. now to try infinite versions of a film, you have to be ruthless about what works and what doesn���t. For me, in post the film is talking to you in a symbolic way. It���s saying, ���I am this, not that.��� You try to cut two shots or scenes together, and it just doesn���t work. The film immediately tells you it doesn���t work. For The French Connection, I ended up cutting out nine scenes we���d shot, because they just didn���t work. They were like scaffolding on a building, which you have to get rid of when construction���s finished. I���d thought they were absolutely necessary to tell the story, but when I got in the cutting room, the film just rejected those scenes.��� OPPORTUNITIES: ���For me, when you���re shooting a film, you have to be able to envision the entire film in your mind���s 24 Post���������December���2012��� www.postmagazine.com LEN WISEMAN Writer/Producer/Director Total Recall, Live Free or Die Hard, Underworld franchise Wiseman began his career as a storyboard and conceptual artist, and as an art department assistant