Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1530454
we're very similar. He's Australian, but his family's from Malta, so that immi- grant background was interesting, and there was an understanding of George, as he had a small boy when we started, who was about four. So, there was the emotional attachment to the proj- ect. And of course, he is an amazing editor, and he has a want and need for truth as it were — a great quality. He was on-set, but I don't think he liked being on-set. Most editors hate being on-set. He'd rather get all the footage and get on with it. We cut most of it in Amsterdam, and then we went back to London to finish it." What were the main editing challenges on this? "Rather than challenges, I call it a sort of adventure. So, when there's difficulties that crop up, there's only solutions that can solve it, so it's fantastic in that way. And it is not about seeing everything with rose-tinted glasses. It is just the fact that we have the opportunity to make something completely different than had been made before about this period. We were showing people that had never been given a platform, like these wom- en at the munitions factory, and they're the emotional backbone of the country and physical backbone of the country — of the whole war effort. You know, they're supplying ammunition to the front. They're looking after the elderly parents. They're sending their kids off on trains to be evacuated. So therefore, anything which was sort of difficult in the edit couldn't be any way as difficult as that. We just got on with it. And Pete and I were doing something we love." What was the most difficult scene to cut and why? "Every one's a difficult scene to cut, and we cut so many things so many times. We cut the big flashback dance-hall scene with Rita and Marcus, George's father, where they first meet and dance, more than a few times just to get the rhythm right, and to get that sort of excitement and that kind of ferocity. That was difficult." What was your favorite scene to cut? "The same musical one, because every- one was dancing, and the Cafe de Paris scene, because it's so beautiful, with the flow of it. But what's interesting about those two musical scenes is they're very, very different. The flashback one is much more rough and earthy, while the Cafe de Paris one has this sort of elegant polish, because it's very hoity-toity. So those were the two, because to cut with music is always wonderful." There are quite a few VFX. Who did them? "This has more visual effects than I've ever worked with before. We had quite a few companies working on shots, and the majority of it was done by Raynault VFX and Cinesite in Montreal. Host VFX and ILM also did work, and all their artists were absolutely wonderful. When you're working with people on that level, where the sensibility is so strong and there's a certain kind of understanding of what you're trying to do, it does help, and therefore what's being produced is of a level which is very, very high. I mean, you can only be happy. I'd rather not work with lots of visual effects, but you have to because you can't create certain things otherwise. But when you work with the right people, it is more than a pleasure." What was the trickiest visual effect to get right? "I think the scene with George running out of the boat and the plane crashing into the building. It was pretty tricky get- ting that right. And the aftermath of the bombing. It was very important to get that right. We had to plan it very early on with Andrew Whitehurst, and all the sets and locations provided the frame- work for us to add in fire, smoke and water where possible. And those prac- tical effects worked with the digital set extensions and pyro elements that were required to add the necessary scope in post production. And of course, we had to digitally remove all the modern build- ings and create wide establishing shots of the burning city with visual effects." The film has great sound design and music. Tell us about creating that. "That's something I focus on a lot, the sound design and music. Hans Zimmer wrote a great score, and I worked closely with supervising sound editors/re-re- cording mixers Paul Cotterell and James Harrison for a couple of months, drilling into how sound can be visceral, how it can be sort of in your body, you know? Sometimes I lean more into the sound than images, because that's how I grew up, listening to the radio, and it's a situ- ation where I want it to be visceral, not visual. Visceral is way more powerful than seeing something, and it really affects the emotions in the right way. We did a lot of very detailed work and mixed in the new Warner Bros. De Lane Lea studio in London, which is a dream space." The film is visually really beautiful. Tell us about the DI. "We did it at Company 3 with my regular colorist, Tom Poole. It's the fourth time we've worked together, and he's the best. He's an artist. There's a sensibility, a cer- tain kind of understanding of what we're trying to do. He's also a Londoner, so he understood the temperatures and the colors of that time. When you're making a movie set in London 1940, what you're really talking about is delving into our past and the details. Getting it right is what I'm about." Where does this rate in terms of creative satisfaction for you? "At the top, because what I love about cinema is that one can bring people into a room and show them things they've never seen before." www.postmagazine.com 11 POST NOV/DEC 2024 Yorick Le Saux shot the feautre with Arri's Alexa. Tom Poole at Company 3 handled the color grade.