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DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 13 POST MAY/JUNE 2021 changing with the different environments and landscapes. We shot digitally on the Arri Alexa LF and Alexa Mini LF. And one more subtle way we handled all that was with the lens choices — Panavision Primo 70s and T-Series Anamorphics — and positions and movement, along with working hard on all the color correction in post, to really communicate how the story was evolving." Tell us about post. Where did you do it? "All here in LA, and it was all done remotely at first, as it was impossible to get tested. But with so much material and the level of nuance we needed for the subject matter, it just didn't work doing it remotely. But when testing got better, we all set up in the post wing of our rented offices. I love post, and I love the fact that it's such a tricky, complex puzzle you have to solve, and that you keep discovering all these new things about the project as you go. We had a very long post on this, and we spent about three months just on the DI, but then this was like posting several movies all at once." Talk about the editing. You had two editors — your go-to editor Joi McMillion and Alex O'Flinn. How did you all work together, and what were the main editing challenges? "We all spent a lot of time talking about where the main characters were in their journey, and how to fit in all the inter- lude stuff, and we'd watch each other's work and bounce ideas around, and it was this very creative experience. The big challenge was dealing with the shifts in tone we needed from episode to episode, and also making sure we could step out of the main story and not lose the audience, so that took a lot of balancing. And we also had unscripted elements, so we all worked on figuring out the appropriate moments to bring in those images. The editing took months and months, and some of the episodes were quite delicate, and some changed quite a lot in editing. For instance, the Tennessee episodes were originally con- ceived as just one episode, but as we got into it, I realized there was a natural break, and it also allowed me to give more space to this character Jasper, who really grabbed me." Can you talk about the importance of music and sound to you, and working with Nick Britell, the composer? "It's hard for me to overstate their im- portance, and sound has always been important to me, ever since film school, where one of my professors told me that a movie is 50 percent image and 50 per- cent sound — and that's how I approach it. So as with Beal Street and Moonlight, the soundscape we created describes the mental states and consciousness of the main characters, and for this we used a lot of field sounds, like drills and cicadas, and various vocal elements. Then Nick, my regular composer, actually moved here to LA, as we tried working remotely, but it didn't click, and I knew I wanted every state Cora travels through to have its own tone and atmosphere, and the only way to get that right was to be in the same room. All the needle drops at the ends of episodes came about organically, and we did the mix at Universal with supervising sound editor Onnalee Blank and re-recording mixer Matt Waters, who did my other films." All period pieces need a lot of VFX. What was entailed working with VFX supervisor Dottie Starling (Ozark, Selma, 12 Years a Slave). (Laughs) "There were so many VFX on this, and the episode with the most was Episode 7, 'Fanny Briggs', with the big fire scene. Then Dottie extended the train tracks and tunnels, and did a lot of work on smoke and flames, and we had a ton of clean up and erasing anything modern in backgrounds. ILM, Dneg, Zoic, Crafty Apes, Refuge all did great work on it." What about the DI? Who was the colorist and how closely did you work with them and the director of photography? "It was with colorist Alex Bickel, who did Beale Street and Moonlight, and it was all done remotely in New York while the DP and I were here in LA, and it's truly amazing what you can do remotely now. James and I built a color suite in our editorial office here, and we spent a lot of time getting all the looks just right for each episode. And James and Alex built these custom LUTs at the start, and then we also worked hard on the grain, especially with all the VFX and treating the highlights. It wasn't about trying to mimic film so much as giving it emotion, and Alex was such a great ally for us. And the whole project turned out even better than I hoped it would." Arri digital cameras were used for the shoot. Joi McMillion and Alex O'Flinn edited the show. Alex Bickel handled the color grade.