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by our production designer Ryan. It was a great collaboration with all the depart- ment heads." The film looks like it was shot all on location? "It was, 100 percent. We didn't use a single set, not even for a bathroom or a closet. We shot entirely in Massachusetts, where it's set, for about 45 days. I'm pretty used to economical filmmaking and a fast pace, and when you work with a lower budget, it really forces you to always place the camera in exactly the right position to capture as much as you can, so you don't have to overdo the coverage. I don't think we ever went into overtime, and I like to keep my days at 10 hours or under." All the snowy scenes looked very real. "They were! We shot through January, February and March of 2022, so we didn't need the usual snow VFX. It's all real." Where did you do the post? "Half in Omaha and half in LA. Editing is quite portable these days, and I must keep an eye on my 100-year-old mother in Omaha, so that's why we did some post there." Tell us about the editing process with your go-to guy Kevin Tent, who was Oscar nominated for his work on The Descendants. "He's edited all of my films since '95, and it's a really great relationship. I made a deal with him, that we'd cut for a month in Omaha, then one in LA, and we moved back and forth like that until we needed to be in LA a lot more for the rest of post, and we were turning around the cuts a lot faster, and also working on the sound and music, and so on. He doesn't come on-location, although he was on the set for About Schmidt and Citizen Ruth. It's not like the old days, as I don't really need him on-set, so he stays in LA, and we talk a lot on the phone every day when I'm on-location. I don't watch an assembly — it's just too demoralizing and depressing. I haven't watched one in years. Why subject yourself to that? Nor do I watch dailies very much. When I get into the cutting room, I really want to come in with the fresh eyes of the editor as much as I can, not as a director in love with the material. So if I have some distance from it, I can work with Kevin a lot more eˆectively, and when we start cutting scenes, I'll acquaint myself with the dailies, and I'll look at how he cut a scene, and then we'll start working on it together." What were the big editing challenges? "There weren't really any. I shot it very precisely, and our job is always to make all the performances as strong as possible, down to the frame. The one thing that was very time consuming and challenging was selecting all the period music that we used in the score, and the songs that the characters hear in a bar or restaurant and so on, and making the best choices given what we could aˆord and clear." This is your first period film and they all need visual eŽects shots. What was involved? "Crafty Apes did all the VFX, and as you noted, there were tons of snow scenes, and we had to augment some of those. They also removed a lot of modern structures from exterior shots. I'm very involved in the whole process, and we had to send a lot of shots back for re- dos, as I didn't believe them." Talk about the importance of audio and music in your films, and is it true you've had the same sound team since the beginning? "It's hugely important — a crucial part of post — and yes, I have a really tight team of people I've worked with since Election, like my sound designer and sound supervisor Frank Gaeta. It's a big advantage to have the same crew, and I love all the mixing, and I'm there for every moment of it. I wanted this to be mono, like the old movies, but have it be mixed largely through the center speakers with a little bit left and right. So it's a little broader than an actual film of the period. In fact, to make sure we were getting as authentic a period soundtrack as possible, I even called Walter Murch, who did all the amazing sound design for Francis Ford Coppola's movies, including Apocalypse Now, and we recorded nearly all of it with boom mics, not the usual radio mics, lavs and wires everyone uses now, which all sound like radio shows to me, not movies. We did all the mixing at Signature Post in Santa Monica." Tell us about the DI and working colorist Joe Gawler. What was involved? "We did it at Harbor in New York, and I was there for every second — even more than Eigil, who had to go back to Denmark. We were short-changed on the DI budget. Eigil and I had our time together, but it was too short. We added grain and softened lines, and gave the titles a little jitter and that period look. Did the film turn out the way I hoped? Pretty much. The most important thing for me always is the story, the narrative, and the actors, and performances and music — all the elements the audience responds to, and I'm pretty happy with all of that." www.postmagazine.com 13 POST NOV/DEC 2023 The film was shot over 45 days in Massachusetts back in 2022.