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www.postmagazine.com 4 POST JAN/FEB 2022 OSCARS THE POWER OF THE DOG LEADS OSCARS WITH 12 NOMINATIONS N etflix s The Power of the Dog is a feature about a charismatic rancher who inspires fear and awe in those around him. When Phil Burbank's brother brings home a new wife and her son, he torments them until he finds hi - self exposed to the possibility of love. Directed by Jane Campion, the fil stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit- McPhee. The Power of the Dog re- ceived 12 nominations for this year's Academy Awards, including those for Actor (Cumberbatch), Supporting Actor (Plemons), Supporting Actress (Kirsten Dunst), Cinematography (Ari Wegner), Directing (Campion) and Best Picture. Peter Sciberras (pictured, above), who is nominated in the Film Editing category, says he received an email from co-producer Libby Sharpe, then read the script and traveled to Sydney, where he had a lengthy meeting with director Jane Campion. "We got on well and chatted about the characters and the story," he recalls. "We especially talked about the tension that would need to be built and maintained throughout. I got the gig a day or two later. I later found out that David Michôd had told Jane about me and my work while David and I were cutting The King." The film as shot on Arri's Alexa LF in ArriRaw, and Sciberras cut the feature using Avid's Media Composer. "The shoot was based in New Zealand, but I was assembling back in Australia, so the dailies were transcoded to DNx36 MXF and uploaded each night using Aspera," he recalls. "Jane is a wonderful director to work with and is really open to trying ideas out and discovering things. We were really open to listening to the film and not orcing things too much. When collaboration is working really well, you can't trace back where ideas are coming from and solutions are coming very naturally. That was very much the case with Jane." Sciberras says one of the film s challenging scenes takes place when Peter walks through a crowd of workers who are jeering and insulting him. "Phil then calls him over and they have a very surprising conversation," Sciberras explains. "It's a long scene with a lot of ambiguity, and there were a lot of choices to make. One choice that stands out was to play the dialogue in the scene quite wide, and we wanted the audience to be watching on and questioning Phil's words. When we were tight in, close up, the feeling wasn't quite right. It was too seductive and we could feel that there wouldn't be enough space for the audience to sit back and really question what Phil was up to. There was also the matter of placing Rose in the scene, watching on, and how often to do that, which was quite tricky to achieve without sacrificing Phi and Peter's moment." Peter's walk was also a challenging sequence. "We had coverage of all the workers and multiple angles on Peter's walk," he explains. "The extras looked great and had been growing their beards for six months to get ready for the scene. It became obvious that playing the walk and return all in one shot was the most memorable and powerful way to tell the story. So much of our work in the edit was about finding the mo t elegant way to tell the story and that was achieved through reduction and economy. I think this scene is a great example of that."