Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1492604
How tough was the shoot, considering you had a lot of child actors and a lot of locations? "It was very tough, as we had only about 35 days, and you only get the kids for six hours a day, so my biggest challenge was the schedule and lack of time. Sometimes I'd shoot close ups of the adults without them, or use a body double for an over-the-shoulder shot. It was hard for everyone, but we did come in on schedule." Where did you post? "It was mainly all done at Harbor [Picture Company] in New York, in- cluding the sound and the DI. Post was very strange on this, partly because of COVID and partly because, sadly, my father died during the editing, so it was all very bitter-sweet. I actually edited the movie in my guest house here in LA while my editor Scott Morris and his team were all back in New York, along with the rest of the post team. So it was all remote, and I would log in every morning and FaceTime with Scott for ten or more hours a day, and we cut the film like that, and it was surprisingly effective. It's not the same as being in the same room, but I got [the] flu and then COVID during post, so we had to do it that way. "We cut for about 14 weeks, and we had a very fast picture edit, as we were asked to screen it in Cannes, which was a bit stressful, as we had some loops outstanding, we hadn't finished the music, and I wasn't happy with the temp dubs. So we screened the unfinished film in Cannes, and then I did go to New York, where I supervised all the scoring and mixing, and we finally finished all the post work." Do you like the post process? "I do, but not all of it. I actually don't like the editing process because I see all my mistakes. Editing to me is a lot about fixing what I did wrong, both on the set and on the screenplay level. I always have to figure out why a scene plays long or there's a problem with a story arc, and it's a con- stant reminder that I'm an inept person. "What I do like about post is that feel- ing you get when you finally hone in on the film you set out to make, and when threads and moments sometimes emerge that you didn't realize were there in the story. It's very weird, and narratives are very unforgiving. There are days you're on the set and you shoot a small, very short scene that doesn't seem very important, and ones where you shoot what you feel is the most important scene in the whole movie. Then you get to post and the edit, and 'the big important scene' gets cut out while the 'little unimportant scene' suddenly becomes crucial to the whole story. So the film always teaches you what it wants to be in the edit, and that's scary but also beautiful." Talk about the importance of sound and music to you. "That's the part of post I love the most, especially the mix. That's when I see the whole film come together, and when I can really drill down and focus on new ideas. "We had a great sound team at Harbor, headed by supervising sound editors and mixers Robert Hein and Josh Berger, and I think I drove them all mad, as I'm a cra- zy person with sound. I'll take my iPhone and constantly record stuff I like, like an AC unit that makes a strange chirping noise, and I'll suggest that. And I record- ed sound effects I remembered as best as I could from my childhood and tried to recreate all that." All period pieces need VFX. What was involved in this? "We had a huge number of VFX shots — over 250 — done by various compa- nies, including Brainstorm, The-Artery and Assembly. You'd be shocked at how much had to be touched, but then the '80s is a long time ago now, especially in technological terms. So we had to paint out a lot of stuff, like satellite dishes and even Teslas. "When the school kids visit the Guggenheim, we shot the exterior and I thought it'd be so simple, but I was so wrong. It'd been restored since then, and the color was wrong for the period, and we had to use VFX to change a lot of stuff, such as signs and so on, and it turned into a huge number of shots. And we were allowed to shoot on the subway, but naturally they wouldn't let us add any graffiti, although back then all the trains were covered in it, so we had to do all that with VFX. "Then for the rocket scene in the park with Paul and his grandfather, we used a real 1979 vintage rocket in most of the shots, and we wanted to do the launch practically, but the kit was too old and we used VFX for the launch." Tell us about the DI. What was involved? "The colorist was Damien van der Cruyssen, and we did it partly at Harbor in New York, where he's based, and some here in LA. We looked at a lot of the original references, and Darius was very involved for a couple of weeks, evens though he was shooting Bardo for (Alejandro González) Iñárritu. "It's interesting, as he comes from the whole film tradition, and DPs with that training and background tend to be very good at making fast on-set decisions. They don't leave a lot to the DI, but we had a fair amount of work to do, fixing errors and so on, as well as finessing the whole period look. I was unhappy with the grain overlay, as it didn't seem integral to the image, but Damien solved the problem and brought a truly authentic look to the film, and did a great job. So the film turned out the way I hoped it would, and was both different and better in some ways." www.postmagazine.com 15 POST JAN/FEB 2023 Arri's Alexa 65 was used for the shoot. Much of the post took place at Harbor.