Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/22819
most any movie I’ve worked on.” POST: With Seth Rogen, I imagine there was some ad-libbing? TRONICK: “Yes.You could see as they progressed the content of the dialogue would change. Usually by the time they got to the last printed takes you could see the direction they wanted to go. Seth is the real deal. He is very, very smart… genuinely funny. For a 28-year-old, he has an amazing understanding of the process. So when you see his name on the movie as the star, the writer and the producer, he has really earned those titles.” POST: Can you point to a scene in the film that was more challenging than the others? TRONICK: “There is a scene that takes place in an industrial park with the bad guy (Christoph Waltz).The way the scene was shot initially was problematic.There were a lot of cement trucks involved and getting guys from one point to another point, and telling one cement truck from another. “Inherently they are big lumbering vehi- cles, so the urgency for an action sequence was a little lacking.That scene was actually reshot about a year ago.We looked at what we had and figured out with Michael, Vic, Seth and Neal, and what would make the sequence effective. It was pretty much a re- working of that to where now it’s a combi- nation of original photography and reshoots. That was a major challenge.” POST: How do you like working with the Media Composer Nitris DX? Is it an old friend? TRONICK: “It is an old friend. I cut my first nonlinear film, Little Giants, with Light- works, and Eraser in ‘95/’96 was my first Avid show. I’ve never used anything else since. There is a familiarity. My crew has been with me a long time, and that’s very comforting. I sort of settle into the settings I am most comfortable with but I am always trying to stay open in terms of new fea- tures.With the expertise of my crew and the support team that Sony has in place here — an impressive group of guys — rarely do you have crashes or any disrup- tions.The media is all managed extremely well. For me it’s a pretty flawless system.” POST: (Question for Aaron Brock,Tronick’s first assistant.) Why did you opt to cut in DNxHD 36? AARON BROCK:“Through past projects we found that DNx 36 has the best blend of high-quality video without having file sizes that are too large — it makes the size of the project more manageable. I just did a show on DNx 115, which looked a little bit better in previews but it makes the file size so large you need a lot more storage space; I don’t think it’s exactly worth the benefit of the picture quality.” POST: What else can you share with us about the set-up? BROCK: “We started using these new Boland monitors with the Avid.They are giv- ing us a lot more real estate to work with. For his source and record monitor, he has these 42-inch LCDs, which are amazing quality and allow the filmmakers to sit on the couch behind Mike and have a better view of what is going on than when we used smaller 26-inch monitors.” TRONICK: “When we would play out the movie, because the media is centrally lo- cated, thanks to the Unity, if we went to a theater here on the Sony lot, there was an Avid there and we were able to call up a project and run it straight out of the system. That kind of convenience is a first for me.” POST: How many editors were on the film? TRONICK: “Aaron is a first assistant, but really a co-editor. Dylan Quirt is a first assis- tant.Then there is an additional editor, Evan Henke.Adam Weber is assistant editor, and John Cason is an apprentice, as is Joe Zappia for dailies.There are two post production as- sistants: Josh Lee and Adoma Ananeh-Firem- pong. Linda Drake is the VFX editor. And in addition to my picture crew and the visual ef- fects editor, now we have 3D editors.” POST: The film was shot in 2D? TRONICK: “Yes, and it’s is being con- verted to 3D as we speak.That decision was made well into the director’s cut, and it pushed back the release date.” POST: Are you supervising the 3D edit? TRONICK: “I have been concentrating on 2D, but we looked at our first answer print last Wednesday and now I have been moved over to the 3D world.” POST: What is that like? TRONICK: “Honestly, I would have pre- ferred to see 3D in sequence instead of in- dividual shots, but that was impossible until just recently.The three of us [Tronick, Brock and Quirt] worked on two 3D movies for Disney, which were shot in 3D, so we were familiar with the process and the look.The conversion is going 24/7, and it’s looking good. DP John Schwartzman is very happy with the color. Everyone wants to avoid The Clash of the Titans.We have a number of vendors who are turning out the material.” POST: So this is your first conversion? Do you have a preference in how you like to work? TRONICK: “I would prefer a movie be shot in 3D. Actually, there were some reshoots that were shot with the Red in 3D because the time wasn’t there to convert the new scenes to 3D. “Within the movie we have 35mm inter- cut with Red.What Company 3 did as far as adding a little bit of grain to the Red mater- ial, I think it’s pretty seamless.” POST: What about the audio post? TRONICK: “We had an extraordinarily talented group of sound and music editors and mixers, so that side has been really gratifying in terms of the level of creativity and expertise. It was all done here at the Novak theater by a combination of guys from Soundelux and dialogue editors from Sony.” www.postmagazine.com January 2011 • Post 19 At press time, Green Hornet was undergoing its 2D-to-3D stereo conversion.