Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1436481
thing, and I would ask for the 4K files, and just do it at full resolution in After Effects, so it was basically done and we had it. And the work that I could do with the mock-up — a low-res HD — I could easily up-res or pass on my After Effects project to somebody else so that the work was done and just needed to be refined or cleaned up." Were you working in 4K or is that too big of a file for offline editorial? "No, no. We were working DNx115, which were created from the 4K masters. The framing and everything else always related back to that material, so it was all just effectively up-res'd, not a re-scan. We didn't have to start anything from scratch, ideally, because we were work- ing on something that was basically just a down-convert." Did you work in France at first, and then come back to the States for post? "It was all Europe. We shot in Angoulême, and then we did some of our editing in Paris, and then some in England. And then the rest of the post process — the digital intermediate, the mixing — all of that was done in England. And the VFX work was done there as well, primarily. Our sound edito- rial was in LA, but they came to England for the mix." Where were you set up? "Well, we had systems and such work- ing out of a facility in London in the later stages, but I was always with Wes, whether it was in an apartment in Paris or in England. We would just work together. I had a separate room with an Avid at the facility where we were working. I honestly don't remember the name of the facility. I know we rented our Avids through Company 3/Sixteen19, but I forget the rental space." What was the production and post timeline? I imagine the pandemic set things back? "I finished my work on the film around January 2020, because this was original- ly scheduled to be released last year, and be at Cannes in May of 2020, so it's quite a while ago now. I was basically on it for all of 2019. [They] started the shoot at the end of 2018." Do you have a favorite scene, or, is there a scene that was particularly challenging? "You know, it's interesting, the editorial process. It's such a range on the film. It's hard to think of one thing. It's kind of amazing for me, when I sit and think about all the different manipulations and post tweaks that we're doing to some of these shots that hold as many as 20 elements in them sometimes. You would never know looking at them, and they're not meant to [be] necessarily photorealistic, but they're not meant to show off their artifice either. You can look at the one shot of the waiter preparing the drinks for everybody early on in the movie. That's probably 70 cuts and re- speeds and morphs in it, and you would never know. That stuff is a lot of fun and takes a lot of finessing — finding the right timing for it all. "At the same time, the stuff with Timothée Chalamet and Lyna Khoudri and Frances (McDormand), and that story — the free-form editing is a lot of fun too, where I can just sit with Wes and we can find the sparks and the moments we like, and just cut it like you would cut normal, vibrant performances. Both of those are fun and creative to me, but they are entirely different approaches inside one movie." It sounds like you were working closely with Wed Anderson during the edit? "Well, it would depend on the sequences, but a lot of the sequences that had an animatic blueprint, where there wasn't so much experimenting with coverage… as much as just kind of piecing together from the roadmap, that stuff, we would spend less time sitting together on that. Either I would piece it together or I would have my associate (Stephen Perkins), who was another editor on the film working with me, and he or I would piece it to- gether. We could kind of double team the film, where I could be working on sections from one sequence and he could be working on sections for another. And we would be sending [Wes] cuts and kind of get through the adjustments a bit quicker. And then after that, usually we would sit together and look at things together, to fi- nesse it in-person, if there's an adjustment we wanted to make to dialogue readings or cut timing or whatever…I was always in close communication with Wes, all day, but not always in-person, depending on what was required of us." You've worked on several Wes Anderson films. Was this the most challenging? "Well, there were a lot of pieces to it, and a lot to oversee, and a lot of work — a lot of attention to detail and working with different components. The budgets on these films are meant [for it] to be done in a responsible, contained way. That means, myself and my crew, we carry kind of a different load in terms of getting things done. There wasn't a bespoke visual effects supervisor on the film. That's kind of a role that I filled in, along with the producer, Jeremy Dawson, who has worked as a VFX supervisor and producer before. We basically just kind of covered it. But, there were hundreds of www.postmagazine.com 14 POST NOV/DEC 2021 The feature was shot on film and scanned at 4K for post.