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ments that we shot, but we did shoot some sand. The special effects guys did get some neat things with the sand and were able to sink guys. What would happen is, the sand would become sort of liquid. They were pumping in compressed air un- derneath, and it would come up as these bubbles, and that was all real. So that element was in a lot of the practical shots and we shot some extra elements to put in. We ended up doing a lot of CG work as well." Menzies says the studio's VFX tools are pretty much the industry standard. "We do all the animation and modeling with Maya," he explains. "Some ZBrush modeling. The sets, set extension stuff and the train — that was modeled all in Maya. We render in RenderMan, but we do use the umbrella lighting package Katana to do our lighting of actual shots, but the render is RenderMan. Nuke is our compositing package." The 'train' sequence he's referring to is the first challenge that brings the cast together. They are all riding what appears to be a New York City subway. The train, however, is diverted from its initial track and becomes electrified within the passenger cab- in, where arcs of electricity jump from handrail to door handle, making it impossible to escape. "A lot of that was Houdini effects," recalls Menzies. "There were some Nuke arcing tools that come with the package that we used in 2D as well. It was a mixture. And some painted stuff as well." Spin also extended the train platform and sub- way line to be four-times longer than the set in Cape Town, where it was shot. "They had one car built, so we had to basically [replicate] that four times, and that would be our station," Menzies explains. "We shot elements of people, to put in the background, on blue screen. [We shot] different angles of the station itself, so we could project onto simple geometry for the repetition of it. The cars themselves, we did fully 3D, so we could multiply those easily enough. All interior was shot on blue screen. We had a CG tunnel network that we rendered to be outside the train." "Kyle led an incredible team, and the effects looked so good that we wanted more," states Richman. "That's where the 'Tesla coil' came in. Kyle developed all of that after we had the interior arcs." In addition to the 'beach' and 'train' sequenc- es, Spin's work included creating a laser grid that the competitors had to overcome in the 'bank' sequence, acid rain effects for another challenge, fire and water effects for the 'child's bedroom' scene, and the interior of a plane for the film's conclusion. "We were fortunate to keep rolling on another Sony feature," states Macri, noting that the film's post took place during much of the pandemic. "SpinVFX are the best partners," adds Richman, noting that the final visuals ended up "becoming more than we anticipated." SUMMER MOVIES I N T H E H E I G H T S Director Jon M. Chu's screen adaptation of Lin- Manuel Miranda's Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, In the Heights, is a joyful tale that cen- ters on Dominican residents of New York City's Washington Heights neighborhood over three sweltering summer days. The Warner Bros. film features an ensemble cast, who sing and dance to hip-hop, Latin pop and salsa beats through interweaving plots about love, family and com- munity spirit. A thoroughly New York production, In the Heights was shot in Washington Heights and its environs. Editorial and post production was also centered in the city, with much of the work done by individual and company members of Post New York Alliance (https://www.postnewyork.org). Company 3, Powerhouse VFX, Parabolic, Alchemy Post Sound and The Dann + Bruce Company were among the many PNYA creative services provid- ers who contributed to the project. Post production sound for the film was partic- ularly challenging. Parabolic's Lewis Goldstein, who acted as supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer, notes that the film's songs are not cutaway musical interludes, but emerge organically from the narrative. "Lin wrote songs that are wonderful as musical pieces and vital to telling the story," he explains. "The lyrics are as important as the dialogue in delivering information that the audience needs to know." The soundtrack for the musical numbers are a combination of live recordings from the set and formal studio recordings. These had to be blend- ed in a manner imperceptible to the audience. "It was ultimately our job to weave in and out of these tracks in a way that felt seamless and retained the real-world emotion the film needed," Goldstein explains. "It was a huge undertaking. Our music editors, Jim Bruening and Jennifer Dunnington, had the incredible challenge of constantly updating material that we had to blend together." Several songs are large- scale ensemble pieces, where Goldstein needed to balance 30 or more vocalists. The vocals also had to be mixed with com- plex instrumental arrangements and environmental sound. "Songs take place in different neighborhoods at different times of day," Goldstein explains. "And, each song varies stylistically from the one before. One minute we're in an intimate scene with two characters, the next, we're in a club with hundreds of extras." The sense of realism in musi- cal scenes was aided by a liberal use of Foley sound. Alchemy Post Sound's Leslie Bloome says Foley effects helped to tie the performers to their environments and convey the feeling that scenes are unfolding in the moment. He points to an extravagant ensemble number set in a 1930s-era swimming pool that includes dozens of individual sound effects performed by the Foley team to match on-screen action. "The Foley gives the scene a visceral quality," Bloome says. "You hear the actors splashing in the water, jumping on benches and slamming lockers…all of it done to the rhythm of the music. We were given a lot of freedom to expand those moments and turn Foley into music." The Foley team was also charged with replicat- ing the footwork of dancers in routines ranging from salsa to break dancing. That required not only mimicking footwork, but matching shoe styles, dance surface and other factors. "The key was to match the flow of the scene," explains Bloome. The Dann + Bruce Company applied a simi- lar attention to detail to ADR and loop-group production. Voice casting directors Dann Fink and Bruce Winant conducted an extensive search to find actors whose backgrounds matched the demographic make-up of Washington Heights. "This film primarily focuses on the Dominican population in New York, a community that has often been overlooked," Fink recalls. "Our mis- sion was to represent that community authen- tically and with integrity by hiring voice talent who were New York-born and first-generation Dominicans." Fink and Winant recruited Dominican actors for the many recording sessions that were need- ed to create background environments. "What happened in the room was magic," Fink recalls. "The actors, some of whom were new to the process, were incredible. They were proud to represent their community, and we worked hard to make it perfect." www.postmagazine.com 28 POST JULY/AUG 2021 The film features several large-scale ensembles.