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DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 17 POST MAY/JUNE 2019 exact same rigorous process I do with a big, high-profile scripted movie." Does that process change the finished film a lot? "Sometimes. It changed this a little, more a case of reinforcing what we already had, which was very gratifying. What we found was that people really were moved by some of the challenges he faced, and they understood the complexity of some of the relationship drama. They weren't judgmental. They were fascinated, and they connected to it, and I was begin- ning to see right away that sophisticat- ed opera lovers really appreciated our approach, and that people who were more like me, who recognize that it takes genius to do what he did but who don't know that much about opera or Pavarotti, also found it surprisingly engrossing. So I hope people take a chance on this film and get to see just what an amazing tal- ent he had and how he brought so much joy to so many people." Do you like the post process? "I love it, especially the edit and pulling the movie together. It's my favorite part of making movies." It was edited by Paul Crowder, a musician who cut your first documentary, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week. How early was he involved and what did he bring to the mix? "Paul lives in LA and so does Nigel Sinclair, and they were involved from the start. As with the Beatles film, it really helps to have an editor who's very musical, and Paul, who's also a director, brings all that — his musicality, sense of rhythm and pace. Documentaries kind of start with these buckets, where you collect ideas, and the editor isn't necessarily trying to weave it all together yet. He's looking at themes, ideas, sequences, and at footage and quotes that might serve those aspects. And then I'd sit with Paul and his assistant, and you have this running conversation, and start and stop and go back, and think about other sequences and other interviews, and it be- comes this fascinating give-and-take that's really stimulating." The film constantly cuts back and forth in time between archival and interview footage. Talk about the editing challenges. "A lot of the archival footage was very poor quality and problematic, and then we'd have to agree, 'Are the ideas in it worth it?' And the recordings were bad, and we didn't want to fake that and use audio from records instead. And then we had a few clean-up VFX by Meme Motion to tighten up the grain." Obviously the sound and music are central characters. Talk about working on them, and the challenges involved. "Oscar-winner Chris Jenkins did all the sound mixing and he's quite brilliant. A lot of the sound quality in some of the home movies and footage of Pavarotti's performances wasn't always that good, but he was able to really work on it and bring out the best in all of it. We did it all at Abbey Road with Dolby Atmos, and we also re-recorded some of the arias, to make it as rich musically as possible." The DI must have been very important in terms of getting a uniform look, as some of the archival footage and home movies are pretty grainy. "We did it at Technicolor with colorist Maxine Gervais, and technology is a big friend to storytellers. Some of the footage may have been unusable, but we were able to salvage image quality and improve so much." What's your view of the Maestro today? "He truly was this larger-than-life person who approached everything and every- one with so much zeal and enthusiasm, this total joy, and it was so infectious. People were drawn to him, even when they were disappointed in him, and we were able to get old lovers to come on camera, and people he'd hurt were around his death bed, because there was something very honest about him...In fact, it was hard to get anyone talking about 'the warts and all' stuff. People acknowledged, 'Yes, there was turbu- lence and hurt,' but they weren't interest- ed in all that." Archival footage was cleaned up in post. Technicolor performed the DI. Director Ron Howard