Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546154
or, beauty and timing. Ben Kadie and Jeff Kalmus are my visual effects supervisors, and we're outsourcing wherever possible to whoever will do it for the money and the time constraints. (Companies include Acme AI & FX, Bot VFX, One of Us and Rotomaker). Then my composer Jacques Brautbar delivered a killer score for no money. It'll be my first movie without a live orchestra, but it sounds great. We'll be doing all the sound mixing at 424 Post and Todd-AO Glen Glenn." Tell us about the editing. My editor is Joshua Kirchmer, who had been an assistant on a bunch of my other movies, and this was the first time I've used him as my primary editor. Emma Hickox is my regular editor and we've made a lot of movies together. Josh was her assistant on several of them, and Emma suggested using him and he's been incredible. He and Michelle, his assistant, were working upstairs in our offices while we were shooting, so I could run upstairs and check on progress. We had a ton of dailies every day, because I would basically never call cut, so I didn't see a lot before the assembly, but I was able to make sure scenes were going to work." What were the biggest editing challenges? "Dealing with the comedy. People think that it's easy to edit jokes, but getting the timing just right takes a lot of work. And because of the nature of this kind of movie, you're not just always focused on the plot, and you're cutting to weird, disparate things happening all over the train. So, keeping track of all that was a big editing challenge, as we had to figure out where the train was in the country at any given moment, because in the course of the movie it goes from Los Angeles to Florida in an hour and a half. So, it's all green screen in the windows for the scenery and stuff, like the big storm sequence. "What was happening with the storm outside the windows was crazy, and took a lot of figuring out, but the movie fit together easily as I didn't have enough schedule to shoot a ton of extra stuff. We weren't cutting out big, huge things. We were just organizing, but the crazy geometry of all the visual effects stuff involved was mind numbing. We'd keep seeing some effect shots where some- thing felt off and Josh would go, 'It's because the train's going the wrong way in the green screen,' as they put the exteriors flying by in the wrong direction! And we're all trying to figure out, where is the front of the train? It got very con- fusing sometimes." Tell us about the visual effects and using so much green screen in nearly every shot. Was it a steep learning curve for you? "Yes, but I would always talk with my DP Luka about figuring out the lighting in the train and where we are in the country, and what's going on with the storm, and what time of day is it? So it was a lot of putting puzzle pieces together there, and the learning curve wasn't so much about post or the green-screen work as having to get it all done in very little time and still have something that looks and feels good. There was a huge amount of clean- up, and then we're dealing with all the 'beauty' challenges and making sure that the illusion with all the drag performers is really well maintained, because the pro- ducers, World of Wonder, who produce RuPaul's Drag Race, have their brand. So, making sure everybody is looking tip top and keeping this illusion seamless, and not seeing any of the visual effects or pros- thetics that is required is vital." Did you do any test screenings? "We did only one marketing screening on this one, so none of the usual tests. I just did a lot of friends and family screenings, with 30 to 60 people each time, to get some feedback." What about the DI at Company 3? "I did it with colorist Siggy Ferstl and obviously the DI is so crucial, especially with all the beauty shots, which are a really big thing in this. But it's not a wholesale focus on beauty fixes. I kept saying, 'I still need to see pores. I need to see skin texture and laugh lines.' You don't want to get rid of all that stuff, right? So, we were just touching up eyes, wig lines and little parts of people's faces. It's very specific and detailed work, and the closest this looks to anything I've made before is probably Hairspray, because it's very colorful and has a sort of an innate camp to it, and I'm very happy with the way it turned out." www.postmagazine.com 9 POST JULY/AUG 2026 Green screen was used to create window views. Joshua Kirchmer edited the feature. Company 3 handled the color grade.