Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1189824
www.postmagazine.com 40 POST NOV/DEC 2019 Oscar BUZZ I t was 1966 when car designer Carroll Shelby, working closely with his test driver Ken Miles, developed a revolutionary car, and put together a team of unconventional thinkers to take on Italian racing legend Enzo Ferrari at that year's 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. Telling the true story of one of the most legendary tales in the history of motorsports, Ford V Ferrari from Twentieth Century Fox and director James Mangold (Walk the Line and Logan), stars Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as Miles. Behind the scenes, Mangold put together his own team of thinkers (many of whom have collaborat- ed with the director before), including Academy Award-nominated DP Phedon Papamichael, ASC/ GSC (Nebraska, Walk the Line), production design- er François Audouy (Logan, The Wolverine), VFX supervisor Olivier Dumont (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, The Tree of Life) and film editors Michael McCusker, ACE (Logan, Academy Award nominee for Walk the Line), and Andrew Buckland (The Girl on the Train). Shot on location in Southern California, Georgia and Le Mans, France, over the summer and early fall of 2018, Papamichael captured Ford V Ferrari on Arri Alex LF cameras, while editors McCusker and Buckland cut it on Avid on the Fox lot in LA. Here, McCusker and Buckland speak exclusive- ly with Post about jumping on the fast track with Mangold to create the full-throttle drama. They discuss working closely with Mangold to help him realize the dual challenges of staging the film's thrilling racing sequences that would put audiences inside the cars while also spotlighting the turbulent friendship between Shelby and Miles, who both had strong and distinct personalities. What were some of the early discussions about what director James Mongold wanted in terms of the look and feel for this film? Michael McCusker: "That evolved over time. His first intention, particularly with the racing scenes, was to spend a lot of time on the track and allow the audi- ence to run the circuit, in a very subjective way. But in pretty short order, as we started to develop the assets in preproduction, It became clear that it was going to be a more frenetic kind of a construct. He started to develop the story more around, not only the drama in the car, but the drama that was happening in the pits, which we had been setting up throughout the rest of the movie. It's one of the reasons why the film almost plays like a four-act movie. What happens at Le Mans is its own small movie, because all of the set up, the intrigue, the ultra motives and politics — it all sort of plays out at Le Mans." What was your approach to cutting this film? McCusker: "Unlike a lot of the movies that James has made in recent years, this one is more of an ensemble piece. There are several characters that we're setting up at the beginning and that was the trick. Although the movie really coalesces around Carroll and Ken, there are a lot of other pretty stark- ly drawn characters that demand the time. The trick at the front end was just trying to find a balance. Giving everybody their time and understanding their story. As far as developing the story and devel- oping the script for Le Mans, and developing a story for Le Mans, a lot of that was stuff we were doing in preproduction. I was brought on very early, a couple of months early to help work with a previsualization team that developed Le Mans and as we were doing that it presented us with opportunities to sort of inject that sequence with other story points, so that we weren't just following cars around a track." Ford V Ferrari EDITORS MICHAEL MCCUSKER AND ANDREW BUCKLAND ON CUTTING THE HIGH-OCTANE DRAMA BY LINDA ROMANELLO The film presented two challenges, to capture the drama as well as stage the races.