Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1100392
www.postmagazine.com 19 POST MAR/APR 2019 DIRECTOR'S CHAIR schedule was also built partly around Dwayne's availability, so it was tricky. We were remotely location scouting in LA while in London, and most of the stuff we shot in London was indoors, so the weather didn't matter, but you expect great weather in LA all the time — but it was cold and foggy. And I'd wanted the feeling of landing in Florida feeling like arriving in Oz — all Technicolor and vibrant after the grays and blues of Norwich, England. The fight scenes were also very challenging to shoot as they take so much coverage, to make sure you can keep them dynamic, and to be able to switch seamlessly between the actors and the stunt people. So you have to shoot them almost guerilla-style, on the run, and hope for the best and that you're giving the editor enough to work with, as I knew we could never go back to the rings for any pick up shots or any- thing we'd missed." Where did you edit and then post? "We began at Pivotal Post in LA and then moved to Goldcrest in London, where we did all the sound mix and DI. All that was so important, as sound is such a key part of the sport, and then we spent a lot of time on the DI, getting the visual contrasts between Norwich and America just right. And we had a fair amount of VFX, all done by MFX in LA and Union in London. The big one was where Dwayne tells Paige she's going on TV the next night at WrestleMania 30, which took place in 2014, and we did the whole scene with green screen and VFX." Do you like the post process? "I love it. I'm foremost a writer, and it's a chance to do another big rewrite, as the writing is never over to me. And I love editing. I find it very nourishing and stimulating. It's mentally challenging and creative, and you have this feeling of forward movement and progress, which doesn't always happen on a shoot." Tell us about the relationship with editor Nancy Richardson and how it worked. "Because of various schedule problems she couldn't come on board till after the shoot, so we hired some assembly editors to do stuff as we shot. I use Avid and Final Cut to sort of previs, so I'd spent months putting together a 'greatest hits' wrestling reel, showing what I wanted so the stunt co-ordina- tors and so on could sort of match it. So there was at least some sense of the shape of what it should look like, because however much you storyboard and plan, on the day when you have so much time pressure to shoot, you have to just wing it. So all that really helped once she started, and we had a great rapport and she was up for trying any- thing, which I love." What were the big editing challenges? "I'd tried to cram as much coverage into the shoot as possible, to get as much story freedom as I could, and I knew that the audience needed to know certain things about wrestling in order to enjoy the film. Compared with a knock-out in boxing, a wrestling fight win isn't so clear-cut, and Dwayne helped me under- stand that it's more about winning over the audience. But that's far more difficult to convey in a film. So that was a big challenge, and after we had a first cut of about 140 minutes, we had to pare it back a lot to the story core. And the final fight was a big challenge, cutting back and forth between the fight and family at home, with footage on TV." Did it turn out the way you hoped? "It did. It's such an amazing story, and you don't have to be a wrestling fan. When I first got involved, I realized that I love Rocky but I don't like boxing, and I don't follow ballet but I love Billy Elliott, and there are tons of very appealing films about subjects you don't need to like in order to enjoy the movie. That realization changed everything." Merchant, Pugh and Johnson Post started at Pivotal Post in LA. The initial edit ran 140 minutes.