Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1451742
sets, except for a couple of huge ones, because you can't create that stuff i reality, so you shoot as much in-camera as possible. Then it's all about VFX and post." Where did you post? "We have our own Hollywood offices and systems, Centropolis, and we cut it all there, as we have seven or eight editing suites. It took the best part of a year — 10 months I think. And we used a lot of plac- es for all the sound, including 424, Deluxe Hollywood, Postworks and LA Studios." This was edited by Ryan Stevens Harris and Adam Wolfe, who cut Stonewall and White House Down for you. Tell us about that relationship and how it worked with two editors? "Neither of them was on the set, because of COVID, so they stayed back here in LA, and we talked a lot on the phone as they got the dailies. Ryan actual- ly worked a lot on the last film, so e bumped him up to co-editor, and they know each other and work well together. Ryan is very involved in all the sound ef- fects, and they'd just trade off on s enes and go over each other's work." What were the big editing challenges? "We had to figu e out all the back-and- forth between the Earth and the moon, as we had a little too much Earth stuff, so we had to cleverly cut that down so it still makes sense. When we did test screenings it quickly turned out that people liked the moon stuff much bet er. And we had to work quite a lot on a sequence called 'The White Room,' which is very complex, and we had to simplify it. We also had to do some re-shoots for a scene with the young Sonny character, where it jumps forward 12 years." This is obviously a VFX-driven piece, and the VFX play a big role. Talk about doing all that and working with the visual effects supervisor Peter Travers. "He's so creative and experienced, and he was my VFX supervisor on Midway. He's so good at just setting up and doing a composite or making a 3D element. I call him 'our science guy' as he's one to guide us back down to Earth again. The fir t step was dividing up all the VFX, and we had two companies do all the stuff that happens on Earth. There was a lot of water involved, plus all the meteors, and then the moon crashing down on Earth, and Scanline and Pixomondo did all that. Then, all the stuff happening in spa e was done by Framestore. And then the rest was created by Dneg. So those were our four big vendors. But then we had a lot of small composites and so on done by the other companies. For the Colorado scenes, we actually created a couple of miles of the Colorado land- scape by scanning real mountain ranges, and digitizing and replicating them, and skinning them with rocks on the set." You've told me in other interviews that you really enjoy working with VFX, from the concepts to cutting the shots in, and working with a relatively small team of maybe 15 people. How do you inspire people to do their best work? "For me, the key is sharing your excite- ment over every shot. And sometimes it can be a very simple shot." How cutting edge were all the VFX on this? "Very! And it's just amazing how fast they advance. It just gets better and bet- ter. There's more detail, more reality to it, and you can work for nine, ten months on some of the shots, but the results are fantastic. But it's a very long process and you have to be patient." What was the hardest VFX sequence to pull off? "I think the 'anomaly' sequence. It's a swarm, which can form and swallow objects, and there's a whole back story to it, that it was created by a team of AI experts and then it turned against them. So to get all that across was very diffi- cult, as the idea was to have the anomaly increase the moon's mass so it suddenly crashes into Earth. We even talked to scientists at JPL to make sure all the physics were correct and started the process by doing a physical simulation in Maya. Peter and his team then built a small version of our solar system in the software, and developed it from there." Talk a bit about the sound design and the Dolby Atmos mix. "We're right in the middle of it and I love Atmos. We do that fir t and then bring it down to all the other formats. I work very closely with my mixer Greg Russell, and he's been with me since Stargate on nearly every film. I think he s a genius, and the truth is, I hardly go to the mix at all. He's so good, and that way I can keep my ears fresh and go in for the final mi at Deluxe for the last ten days, and give all my notes then. But it's usually very small fi es by that stage." What about the DI. What was involved? "We did that at Efilm with y long-time colorist Walter Volpatto. I have my own style and he totally gets it, and again, I'm there just for the last two weeks of sessions, as I'm back and forth between that and the sound mix. So I rely a lot on Walter and Robby Baumgartner, my DP, and we all decide what the look should be, and this time I wanted it to all be ultra-realistic. It's fascinating, as every movie has its own special look, and the look finds itself in the DI. t the start, you might not have a clear vision of the look, but it always comes through in the end, and I was so happy with this look and the way it all turned out." www.postmagazine.com 13 POST JAN/FEB 2022 The team at Proof provided previs services. Editing took place at Centropolis in Hollywood. Red's Monstro camera was used for the shoot.