Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1544392
the shots you need, and you don't waste time or resources for extra coverage that you know you won't use in the edit. So, when you get to the editing room, it's just pure joy! "You can totally rewrite stuff in the edit, and by just making very small shifts, you can change a lot in post. You can change the pace, or you can change the takes with the actors and go for a little bit more comedy or tension. You can cut one joke, and it's immediately a different scene and a different feeling. And I'm always surprised that you can change the movie so much in post, again and again, with the same number of shots. You just change the order, and it's a new movie. You change the text, it's a new movie. You cut a little information and hide it from the audience, then you reveal it later, and it's a new movie. So, post's fun and exciting." After cutting your first two films yourself, how did it work in terms of collaborating with Luke Doolin and additional editor Kyle Walczak? Did they come on the set, or did you send them dailies? "No, they started editing dailies here in LA, and it worked well. For me, it was a new experience I had to get used to, be- cause I couldn't edit it myself, so I had to trust people. But again, it's just communi- cation. You spend a lot of time together, and you have a dialogue and finally you understand each other, and hear each other, and you go through this complex process of editing." What were the main editing challenges? "I think the main challenge was to land with the version of the movie that ev- eryone involved would be happy with. Because, as you know, the Hollywood studio system has a lot of people that have very strong opinions on what kind of movie you're making. And because this movie is so tricky and so challenging in terms of all the genres and different emotions and tones, you get one person loving one thing and another loving the opposite thing. And I'm very happy that we managed to please everyone in the end, but it was a long process and conversation to land everyone on the same ground." Did you do a lot of test screenings? "We did, and I think it's a tried-and-true part of the post process for New Line. They test a lot. But for me, it was the first test screenings I'd ever done, and it was so scary — especially as you screen a very raw version of the movie with no vi- sual effects and terrible sound. You have different voices, off-screen, edited to the dialogue, and it's just distracting and terrible, and I don't know how people get through it? It's so painful. Then people discuss your movie, and you feel just miserable. But then you get home, and you get all this data, and the good thing about it is that I'm a physicist, so I love data and I trust it. So, you get these ta- bles with responses, and you understand that when people who loved the movie or hated the movie point at the same scenes or problems, it means something doesn't work. And if you just take away your emotions and throw away your bro- ken heart and look at it with a cool head, you can fix it. "So, it was a very interesting and new process to me, learning how to deal with test screenings and how to process this data, and I think it improved our movie a lot. But at the same time, funnily enough, we didn't lose even a scene. We just trimmed it and moved elements around." Let's talk about the visual effects. "Crafty Apes did all of them, and they are magicians. And Marc Smith, our VFX supervisor, and Irene Armit, our VFX producer, did an amazing job, from a lot of clean-up work to creating a fully-CG supernatural character who's on-screen for 20 minutes at the end. And they had to match all the VFX work for this character with all the in-camera material we had shot on-set using a lot of puppet and dummy work and prosthetics. It was my first experience doing a full-CG creature, and we started with a dummy and used it as a color reference, but it didn't have any motion. And we recorded James Remar, who played the character, and captured his facial expression and voice, and then we animated on top of it. And the result was so incredible thanks to Marc, as he gave me great advice on how to shoot it practically, on-set, and then seamlessly blended it with VFX." How important is all the sound and music to you as a filmmaker? "Very important. I even write some notes in the script about specific sounds I want, and I love very bold work with the sound, where it's bright and stands out, and maybe a little bit cartoonish in a way. We did all the sound at Formosa, and I had an amazing sound designer, Jeff Pitts, and we discussed it all even before we started shooting. We went from heavy-metal sounds, for the brutal moments, to anime from the '90s, where you watched it on VHS, so the sound was flat and distorted. And we did the final mix in Dolby Atmos." What about the DI? "We did it at FotoKem, and the colorist, Alastor Arnold, my DP and me went for a very colorful and vivid look. And as it's basically one location in this building, it was very important to separate the levels. I wanted every floor to feel a little bit different, so we used different colors, textures and patterns for each one. And then we worked a lot on the look of the CG character, and helped craft it to bring this creature to life." Did it turn out the way you first envisioned it when you were writing it? "Things do change a bit in post, but it's pretty close." www.postmagazine.com 11 POST MAR/APR 2026 The feature was shot primarily on stages in South Africa.