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OSCAR CONTENDERS www.postmagazine.com 8 POST NOVEMBER 2018 BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: MARY POPPINS RETURNS his December, Disney is bringing back an all-time favorite to the box office with the release of Mary Poppins Returns, staring Emily Blunt in the title role, along with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Colin Firth and Meryl Streep. Here, director Rob Marshall steps into the fire, taking on an Academy Award-winning film. By all counts, the visual effects for Mary Poppins Returns has to be good. The original 1964 film, Mary Poppins, won an Oscar in that category, so the stakes are high. "It's Disney handing you the crown jewels going, 'here, take these and don't screw it up,'" says the film's VFX supervisor Matt Johnson. "It's Mary Poppins. It's one of the most iconic films ever made and everyone's going to be looking at the visual effects, because they're really important and the first movie won an Oscar. And it's Mary Poppins and she does magic, and magic tends to be visual effects." The new VFX team, lead by Johnson, certainly had its work cut out — having to reimagine Cherry Tree Lane (where the Banks family lives), an equally as dynamic animated-mixed-with-live-action sequence, as well as new adventure sequences and magic filled with CG elements and practical tricks. According to Johnson, the new animated/live action sequence was created with many of the familiar, old-school cre- ativity of artists drawing with pen-to-paper. Johnson says anyone walking through as artists were working on the animated sequence would have believed they were back in the 1960s! For more on Mary Poppins Returns, see Post's December issue. — LINDA ROMANELLO he sound team on Universal Pictures' First Man went to great lengths to reproduce the sounds of the NASA's early days. The film is set in the late '60s, when Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were prepar- ing for man's first trip to the moon. Directed by Damien Chazelle, the feature makes use of sound elements that were recorded from actual pieces of equipment used by the space program during that era. "We made an effort, even prior to production, to go gather as many authentic artifacts and recordings that we could get our hands on," recalls mixer Frank Montano. The team went to far as to record sounds from inside an Apollo 10 helmet to give audiences a fell for what astronauts actually heard during their missions. "Damien was really excited about that concept," says Montano. "That was the main goal for me and the spirit of it all was to have [an astronaut] sit down and say, 'Yes, that's exactly how it was and sounds right.'" Jon Taylor collaborated with Montano on the mix, and adds that the dialogue was also treated to sound like the '60s transmissions. "That is Ryan Gosling's voice when he is on the moon," Taylor explains. "We laid down the original Neil Armstrong fuzz from the cleanest version we could get, and spent a couple of hours match- ing it with the clicks and the quality. The drop outs and some of the words that were gated, so you wouldn't hear the beginning…we did the exact same thing with Ryan Gosling's voice." For more on sound for First Man, turn to page 10. — MARC LOFTUS OSCAR CONTENDERS OSCAR CONTENDERS OSCAR CONTENDERS OSCAR CONTENDERS OSCAR CONTENDERS OSCAR CONTENDERS OSCAR CONTENDERS ctor Bradley Cooper made his directorial debut with A Star is Born — not playing it safe by any means by remaking a Hollywood classic and then casting singer/songwriter Lady Gaga in her first-ever staring role. For that alone, Cooper gets the Oscar! But wait, there's more! Cooper delivered on all fronts. Of particular note is the outstanding cinematography work from DP Matthew Libatique — who shot the concert foot- age from the stage, giving a unique performer's perspective, rather than that of the audience. "We had put a reel together of numerous films that had musical stage performances," says Libatique. "We noticed that every time there was a shot from the audience's perspective it deflated subjectivity and paused the momentum of learning about the character. Our main objective was to communicate Ally's ascent, so we opted to keep the camera on the stage." Cooper also brought in editor Jay Cassidy, who he's worked closely with previously on a number of David O. Russell titles, including Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle and Joy. "Bradley had a very strong desire to tell the story from these performs' point of view," says Cassidy. "Once you have that intention of Bradley's, you knew how he was going to shoot, then we would cut the concerts in a very specific way." For more on A Star is Born, see our cover story on page 12. — LINDA ROMANELLO BEST DIRECTOR: A STAR IS BORN A BEST SOUND MIXING: FIRST MAN T First Man A Star is Born Mary Poppins Returns A LOOK AT THE YEAR'S BIG PROSPECTS T