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BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY www.postmagazine.com 20 POST NOVEMBER 2018 This Twentieth Century Fox biopic about Queen from director Bryan Singer (who was fired from the film during production), Bohemian Rhapsody sets out to capture the musical magic and talent of Freddie and the boys, outlining the band's rise to fame, while delving into the personal struggles of its lead singer. The film, which stars Rami Malek as Mercury, Gwilym Lee as May, Ben Hardy as Taylor and Joseph Mazzello as Deacon, takes viewers through Queen's history, and culminates in a recre- ation of its iconic performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert at London's Wembley Arena, which many have called one of the best rock performances of all time. Here, DP Newton Thomas (Tom) Sigel, ASC, and editor John Ottman speak exclusively with Post about their contributions to the film. THE SHOOT Starting with the cult classic, The Usual Suspects with Bryan Singer, DP Tom Sigel went on to collab- orate with the director on nine more films, including the X-Men movies, Superman Returns and Valkyrie. What was director Bryan Singer trying to accomplish in terms of how the film was shot and how it would lend itself to telling this story? "The biggest takeaway I got from my initial conver- sations with him was that he didn't want to make the typical movie — rock star shoots to fame, has a downfall with alcohol and drugs, which is basi- cally what most musician movies and biopics are about. He wanted it to be less about the hedonistic aspects of Freddie's life and more about the music and it being the Freddie Mercury and Queen story. It used Freddie's evolution and transformation from an immigrant to a rock star as a vehicle to tell the story. It doesn't shy away from the harder parts of his story. It's not a white wash by any stretch, but it was clearly meant to be more of a celebra- tion of the music." Any particular techniques you used to shoot? "For each section of the film, I tried to develop a sort of recipe of elements that would lead to a certain emotional/psychological place. The begin- ning of the film is a little tease about Live Aid, but then we pick the story up in 1970 when Freddie has just emigrated with his family from Zanzibar and that first act of the film was done with the Alexa SXT and Cooke Speed Panchro lenses, and a LUT that we designed for that section that is a very golden, ethereal, romantic look at being a pop star. It's very idealistic and a wash with kind of the fantasy world and then as they become more popular and as we move through the '70s and get into the '80s, the look gets progressively less golden and more desaturated. It's a little hard- er, and a little less naïve. I transitioned also from using a hand-held camera, which was how most of the first act of the film was shot, and introduced cranes and dollies and Steadicams as we headed toward Live Aid. It's less grainy, it's a little cleaner. We also went from the SXT to the Alexa 65, with the [Hasselblad Prime] DNA and Prime 65-S lens- es, so it's quite a bit [of a] shift. To keep it from being too abrupt, there's sort of elements of the two recipes that overlap at the end of the first act and beginning of the second act. I think that helps smooth the transition. "We had a number of different formats where we shot, with Betacam, literally, period Betacam cam- eras for Top of the Pops, on tape, which was quite interesting. Then we shot the 'I Want to Break Free' video on film with the actual 35 BL — the last cam- era that ever filmed Freddie. By the time we were in the middle of the movie, we were full on Alexa 65 and DNA in all its glory." Can you discuss the recreation of the Live Aid performance at Wembley? A stage was built at Bovingdon Airfield in Hertfordshire? "Yes, we recreated the actual stage of Wembley and the backstage area. The stadium has since been torn down and rebuilt, so the actual stadium where the concert happened no longer exists, so the views out towards the crowd of the stadium had to be recreated from historical footage in the computer, and the crowd was various forms of replication from the 900 extras that we had. "The stage itself was a very meticulous, recreation of the actual stage down to the beer glasses and Pepsi glasses that you see on the grand piano that Freddie played. Aaron Haye was our production designer — he and the set design team did a phenomenal job of recreating the way the set looked." What were some of the biggest challenges in shooting this film? "The Live Aid set was a real challenge for me, from a dramatic storytelling point of view, because you have a movie that's leading toward this climactic event and yet the stage itself and the time of day it was photographed and the way it was lit, in 1985, is about as anticlimactic or undramatic as you can imagine. The organizers of the event certainly didn't want to spend the money on an ostentatious stage because this was all being done for charity, so it was all about raising money and not showing a lot of glitz and glam. So, the backdrops were just these big white cloths with the Live Aid Africa symbols on it. "The concert took place, during the day, and it was an open air stadium, so there was a lot of natu- ral daylight. I wanted to be faithful to the way it was lit, but I wanted to also give it some kind of dramat- ic arc, because it's such a cathartic moment in the movie, in Freddie's life and for Queen. Their popu- larity had been waning, and this performance, which had been considered one of the greatest of all time, catapulted them back into the mainstream." How closely did you work with editor/composer John Ottman? "You have no idea! I've done nine movies with John Ottman and he's every bit as brilliant an editor as he is a composer, and we worked very closely together. In production and even in post — he's a very close collaborator." What was the workflow on the film, from production to post? "I worked with Company 3. Because I was in London, I worked with Greg Fisher, who is a fan- tastic colorist I met way back when he was doing Hugo for Martin Scorsese. Greg and I spent quite a bit of time in preproduction setting LUTs for the show and he oversaw the dailies colorist at Company 3. We color corrected dailies that went to Avid and occasionally we would reprint and try to get them reingested in the Avid. I looked at The Wembley Arena stage was rebuilt for the Live Aid performance. Tom Sigel