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look very beautiful, and he shot with a mixture of anamorphic and spherical lenses on the Alexa Mini LF Super 35 mode, and I loved working with him." How tough was the shoot? "It was pretty tough. Look, I shot Harriet in the woods at night (laughs). But this was hard in a different way. You're shooting these huge musical numbers and guiding an actress who's in almost every scene, and it was very intense. Luckily Anthony McCarten writes such great scenes that a lot of it was very joyful for me, despite all the stresses. We shot mainly in Boston for the tax breaks, in a big, new, empty building, where we could build sets and also have our department offices all under one roof. We also shot a lot on-location, and Boston doubled for New Jersey, where Whitney grew up, and we used some big local theaters for the concerts. We also shot in LA at the Beverly Hills Hilton, where she died, and at a mansion we used as Whitney's home." Dealing with all the vocals, and recording the concerts and performances was obviously key? "Absolutely, and we recorded all Naomi's vocals live on-set. We also had the great John Warhurst as our sound designer and sound editor, along with the same great sound team that won the Oscars for Bohemian Rhapsody, and so in post we've very carefully blended her vocals with some of Whitney's and made sure it really looked like it was coming out of her mouth, and not being lip-synced. John actually showed me how it'd work when we began prep, and how you could start a song with Naomi's voice and go seam- lessly into Whitney's voice, and it was mind-blowing, and we used that process to great effect. For instance, when Naomi sings 'The Greatest Love of All,' which is one of the first songs she performs, the whole first verse is Naomi, and then it goes seamlessly into Whitney's voice, and that seamless transition is a tribute to John's amazing ability to edit sound." Where did you post? "We began in Boston in a tiny editing bay, and I did my director's cut there. That's my favorite time in the whole post process, as it's just me and the editor alone with the material, and it's so cre- ative. It was winter and we felt very co- cooned. After that, we moved back here to LA, and were based at Tribeca West for the rest of the editing and sound work. Of course, suddenly the post team has grown a lot, with the producers and various departments, and people weigh- ing in on the different cuts, and then all the VFX begin to come together, along with all the music and sound, and the whole post process just gets bigger, and it's exciting." Do you like the post process? "I love it. For me it's the most creative part, as you're basically rewriting the film. The script that Anthony wrote and the movie we're now posting have a relation- ship, but the rewriting process in post is about finding the core of the movie, the core of the story and its characters." Talk about editing with Daysha Broadway. "I'd never worked with her before, but she came highly recommended by my regular editor Terilyn A. Shropshire, and she's this up-and-coming talent who just won an Emmy, and we really hit it off. At the start we were tossing cuts back and forth a lot to the composer, and getting her involved. She's an amazing talent, and sometimes in a music movie like this the score isn't so important, but it really was crucial in this, especially for all the dramatic sequences." What were the big editing challenges? "We shot a lot of footage and all of us, in- cluding the producers, love all the materi- al, so we basically have an embarrassment of riches, and the big challenge is trying to fit it all into a theatrical release running time. We don't want to cut anything, but you have to keep the pace up, keep it engaging, especially with the wonderful musical performances. That's a big chal- lenge. Do you need the whole perfor- mance? Or is there a really smart way to edit them, and cut out of the song and go into montage? We're very attached to the music, but there's just not room for every song, every performance. That's been a hard puzzle to solve." Like all period pieces this has a lot of VFX. What was entailed? "We're still hard at work in post, and the picture hasn't been locked yet, so we're still waiting on some of them to be completely finished. We're getting close to the end, but it's still very much a work in progress. Our VFX supervisor is Paul Norris, who won the Oscar for Ex Machina and did Bohemian Rhapsody, and all the effects were done by Zero. The big thing was dealing with all the crowd and audience scenes at concerts, and working with Paul, I learned a lot, as they used this technique, volumetric capture, which I'd never done before, and that was amazing. We had these weekly VFX meetings and I get to watch the progress, and it's almost like get- ting Christmas presents, seeing shots and scenes gradually come alive as we add VFX for all the audience and crowd shots. And then there was a lot of clean up and some fixes." How involved are you in the DI and how important is it to you? "I'm pretty involved in it and getting the look right, but I leave all the initial passes to my DP and the colorist, and then I go in and give my notes and we gradually refine the look and all the colors." So far, has it turned out the way you first envisioned it? "It really has, and in some ways it's exceeded all my expectations. I'm very proud of what we accomplished." www.postmagazine.com 17 POST NOV/DEC 2022 Arri's Alexa Mini LF was used for the shoot. Daysha Broadway edited the feature.