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DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 12 POST MAR/APR 2020 riter/director Benh Zeitlin first ar- rived on the scene with his critical- ly-acclaimed and Oscar-nominated 2012 debut feature, the idiosyncratic, magical realist fable Beasts of the Southern Wild, which told the story of Hushpuppy, the independent six-year-old girl living in the semi-mythical, waterlogged Louisiana town of Bathtub. For his follow-up Wendy, a reimagining of the classic story of Peter Pan, Zeitlin again explores the joys and wonders of childhood through the eyes of a group of children from different worlds, fighting to maintain their grip on freedom and joy as the imminent catastrophe of growing older descends upon them. And to stay true to his vision, Zeitlin once again worked with non-actors, and also shot on location in the Caribbean. Behind the scenes, he collaborated with cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, his sister and production designer Eliza Zeitlin, editors Affonso Gonçalves and Scott Cummings, costume designer Stacy Jansen, post supervisor Keetin Mayakara, and co-wrote the score with composer Dan Romer. Here, in an exclusive Post interview, Zeitlin, whose credits include the short Glory At Sea, talks about making the film, the VFX challenges, and why he loves post. It's been eight long years since Beasts. Why did it take so long before you made your second feature? "The way we approach making films is extremely unpredictable, by design. And we made a lot of unconventional — and in some cases unprecedented decisions — about our approach and process. And that included intense attention to reality, both in the cast and the locations. Up until post, the film was really like an expedition, this incredibly challenging adventure, set- ting off into the unknown and letting that dictate how things went and how long they took. We had this amazing opportu- nity to do this after Beasts, and everyone signed up for it, including the studio. I don't think it had been done before, and I don't think it'll be done again, and making a film this way took eight years." What sort of film did you set out to make? "I wanted to make one that has the epic scale, the adventure of all the ones me and my sister grew up watching, like E.T., Willow and The Princess Bride, and also combine that larger-than-life storytell- ing and look with a gritty documentary approach, like the Les Blank and John Cassavetes films, and connect it to real life. Because Peter Pan's always been ex- tremely real to me, and has really haunt- ed me ever since I was a little kid. He's this character with ultimate freedom who doesn't obey anything, who's free from the tragedy of growing up, and I wanted to take that story but not make it about escapism and running away from the world to a place that doesn't exist. And I wanted locations where those themes and feeling could touch real life." How early on did you start integrating post and all the VFX? "There were so many elements to it that we really began a lot of post in pre- production, especially in creating 'The Mother' character, which took at least three-and-a-half years to design and build. The character was conceived as this giant, bioluminescent, amorphous creature — the first creature on Earth, the origin of life — and we decided to create a full-scale puppet that the actors could interact with, and then we also had a team of miniature-makers, led by Jason Hamer (Ghostbusters), and VFX special- ists led by Jasper Kidd, who created a miniature shoot in a tank, and we had to push the limits of underwater photog- raphy. And that challenge ran alongside writing and prepping the film, and the lullaby she sings to Peter was written very early on, along with some of the music, so that we could insert them into the film as we shot it." Did you do a lot of previs, especially considering you had so many VFX elements? "We did, especially with The Mother. The original idea was to shoot as much as we could with the full-scale puppet in the ocean, and write around what it was able to do and how it could interact with the kids, without prevising it. But then we re- alized we also had to use a miniature, de- signed around the full-scale puppet and built by Jason Hamer, and that shoot was far more specific and planned-out, and all those elements were prevised. On-set, there were so many chaotic variables to the way we were shooting, from the kids to the water, the volcano and all the environments, and none of those things could be predicted. We had to be so reactive on the day. So the whole design of the effects was to shoot it as if it was all predictable and then reverse-engineer all the VFX into the footage we were able to get." BENH ZEITLIN HELMS WENDY BY IAIN BLAIR W REIMAGINING THE CLASSIC STORY OF PETER PAN Zeitlin, on-location