Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/26533
director’s chair did that work? VERBINSKI:“We basically built this sort of hybrid pipeline that was both animation and visual effects. Obviously, they’re brilliant with effects shots.The big challenge was to get ILM to stop thinking about the shot and start thinking about the scene. Before,much realized, ‘We may not make the release date.’ Even the 2D work was really taxing the renderfarm, so at the end of the day, it was the right decision.” POST: The film is edited by Craig Wood, your longtime editor who did all three Pirates films with you.Tell us about the editing process. VERBINSKI: “We began on Final Cut Pro with an assistant edit- ing for the first 16 months, and then we switched to Avid when Craig took over.There’s good and bad in the process. On the one hand, you can order up a shot if you need it, so the editing is very much an extension of writing and very fluid. Even in the middle of the edit we might get a microphone out and record some dialogue, and it’s all very frontal lobe, not intu- itive. Everything’s conceived. “The negative side is, you have to fabricate anomaly.We’re always looking for something random that feels real or raw in a usual editing session, and when you see that footage you always recognize it, and cut it in. But that never hap- pened on this.You’re dealing with thousands of iterations to get to that one close-up reaction. So it’s very rare that you have an intuitive response to anything. “Also, we were always worried that things might just look cold and clinical and homogenized. So our mantra at ILM was, ‘Fabricate anomaly in a lens flare, a bit of a ILM’s main animation tool was Autodesk Maya. of my work up there had been a shot dis- cussion and how it played with live action around it, and now we had to always focus on the big picture.” POST:Was there any talk about doing it in 3D stereo? VERBINSKI: “Yeah, quite a lot, but then they decided to go 2D.Then we went back to the studio several times to make sure they didn’t want to go 3D, and they were like, ‘We’re sure!’ But after Alice in Wonder- land came out they began rethinking it, ex- cept by then, it was going to cost twice as much, and we were half-way through. So then they wanted to convert, and I said ‘Over my dead body!’ “And honestly, at the end of the day we don’t feel like there’s a dimension missing. There’s so much dust and volumetric partic- ulate matter in the shafts of light, and so on, it’s a really complex movie to do 3D.We did some early tests that were gorgeous, but we 14 Post • March 2011 camera bump, an awkward moment in the performance — and celebrate it and hold onto it.’ I wanted it to always feel like there’s this lizard chatting with a tortoise, and I’m there with a camera capturing it — that’s the look I was after. It takes a huge amount of attention to detail and really talented ani- mators to get there.” POST: Your VFX supervisor, John Knoll, did all three Pirates movies with you. How did you build on what you and ILM had developed for those films? VERBINSKI: “The key is always relation- ships. People talk about ILM like it’s the Coca-Cola Company, this huge corporation, but to me it’s John Knoll and Mark McCreery, our production designer, who also did Pirates with me, and Tim Alexander and the whole gang. And when I go there, it’s casting the right guys for the job, which is just as impor- tant as casting your actors. It’s building your team, and they’re all hand picked.” www.postmagazine.com POST: Has the post process progressed much since you did the first Pirates CG scenes? VERBINSKI: “Everything’s progressing, especially in terms of post. Looking ahead, I’d love to have more of an open format and the conventions of how we manage post done away with.As much as I enjoy sitting in a room alone with my editor for 10 weeks, I also can imagine a Star Trek Enterprise bridge version of the edit room, where you look over to Uhura and they’re your sound design person. “We seem to edit and then do sound, or finish things and then do visual effects, and I feel more and more that it should be far more fluid — I’ve got a new idea, let’s try it and loop a line of dialogue, do a quick character sketch, change what we’re not happy with, and maybe that will lead to a re-shoot or a pick-up or a new visual ef- fects shot, but we’re going to try stuff. So the sound designer informs how you’re going to cut things, and maybe the com- poser comes on earlier. Instead of tradi- tional post where it all stacks up at the end of the schedule, I’d love to open it up in the editing process, with everyone in there together.” POST: In a sense, it seems like one big post process? VERBINSKI: “You can definitely look at it like that. It’s also one long writing process. It’s really open-format, and I think this collision of gaming and live action and animation is changing the way films are made. Often, be- fore I have a screenplay for a movie, I’ll have story room, or locations photos and bits of character design, and pin it all up.The idea of narrative being informed by visuals and sto- ryboards and text is exciting, and there are a lot of thumbprints on the sculpture by the time you’re done with it.” POST: It seems as if Hollywood has gone 3D-crazy now.Any plans to make a 3D film? VERBINSKI: “I’d love to, but it’s a matter of finding the right project. I don’t want to do one just for the sake of doing 3D.” POST: Will you make another Pirates film in the future? VERBINSKI: “No, I’m done. I’d really enjoy watching one, but it takes a minimum of two years out of your life, and to be hon- est, when things don’t scare you anymore, it’s time to move on.You get too comfort- able, and that’s a dangerous place to be.” POST: So what’s next? VERBINSKI: “Maybe a horror film — some sort of story you’re not sure how to tell. I’ve got several projects I’m considering. I’m trying to decide.”