Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/102700
director's chair The film was shot on Arri Alexa over a 54-day shoot. 20 reset, and capture the whole performance. "I think using the Alexa did save us time and money, ultimately. Our music budget was pretty steep so we had to save money somewhere. Having said all that, I'm probably the last person to ask about the ins and outs of cinematography, because even though I'm very interested in all that, I don't see colors all that well. I'll say 'blue' when it's purple and vice versa. I'm not color blind, but I don't actually see colors really well. So I'm not sure I see the same colors other people see." POST: Where did you do the post? How long was the process? CHASE: "We did it all at PostWorks in New York, and it was a pretty long post. We began editing in April 2011 after we stopped shooting, and cut for a couple of months.Then we went back to shoot some summer scenes in June, and began cutting again, and post went on until September this year, so it was longer than usual." POST: Do you like the post process? CHASE: "I really, really love it. Two things: I love editing and trying things out. I love changing the original intention of a scene, and I even love having to change it. The miracles that happen during that process can alter the whole movie. All the pre-production and shooting are quite stressful, and then you get in the edit bay, and post for me is where the real magic happens." POST: Tell us about working with editor Sidney Wolinksi, who cut The Sopranos from beginning to end, and whose credits include Rome and the pilot for Boardwalk Empire for which he won an Emmy. How does that relationship work? CHASE: "In addition to being a very meticulous and creative editor, he'll try anything. He won't throw the rule book at you if Post•January2013 Post0113_018,20-directors chairRAV3FINALREAD.indd 20 you suggest something really primitive visually. Then Michael Mann came weird. He'll never say, 'You can't along, and for me was the first person to do that.' He may think that, but focus more on the cinematic side of a story. he'll try it. He won't sabotage it That really impressed me, and then you had either. If it doesn't work, he'll keep David Lynch and Twin Peaks, and his great use working on it and come in early of music and sound, and all that changed the the next day to try and make it whole TV landscape for me." work. He's so dogged. He came POST: Did you do a DI? on the set a little bit, and then he CHASE: "At Deluxe. But I didn't get too put his first assembly together involved because of my color-seeing problems." while I was still shooting. Then we POST: Did the film turn out the way you sat down together with the Avid originally envisioned it while writing the script? and gradually made the film. We CHASE: "It changed a lot from the original actually worked together before idea, which I first had years ago…before The The Sopranos, on a pilot for CBS in Sopranos. But the film's last section, which 1986, Almost Grown, that was also takes place at 4am on Sunset Boulevard, music-themed." turned out exactly how I'd pictured it." POST: Who did the visual POST: Are you a fan of digital? effects work and how many visual CHASE: "I am now." effects shots are there? POST: Is film dead? CHASE: "There's a lot — hundreds! The CHASE: "Not yet." whole VFX world had changed so much in just the five years since the end of The Sopranos. I was shocked. But it's amazing and so great for a period piece like this where you're continually having to take modern stuff out of a frame or scene, or create period stuff digitally. PictureFrame did all the work, and whole last section of the film, which is set in LA at night, was created digitally. I was very involved with all the visual effects work and I enjoy all that side of post, too." POST: How important are sound and music to you? CHASE: "Well, as a kid who wanted to be a drummer, music has always been my first love, and the whole British Invasion of the '60s — The Beatles, Stones, The Who and so on — was like my window on the world for everything from politics and fashion to art and New York City's PostWorks provided post services. humor. It was during that era that pop music evolved into an art form and for the first time it hit me that POST: What's next? CHASE: "I don't have anything lined up. I rock music could be real art, and that maybe I could become an artist. So the use of music had this idea for about 20 years that I wanted and sound effects has always been of crucial to make, and suddenly there's another film importance to me. coming out with the same concept, which is "For a long time, I've always done a lot of very disheartening." my conceptual thinking while listening to POST: Would you consider directing another music — mainly rock and blues, so it starts TV series? right there. When I first got into TV, my whole CHASE: "Not a regular TV series. I'd do basis for anything was dialogue, because I was movies for TV or a miniseries, but I'd like to skilled at it, and TV back then was pretty focus on movies more now." www.postmagazine.com 12/20/12 11:30 AM