Post Magazine

October 2011

Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/44580

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 15 of 51

cover story Puss in Boots G LENDALE, CA — DreamWorks Ani- mation (www.dreamworksanima- tion.com) has taken one of the most By RANDI ALTMAN beloved characters from its Shrek franchise and chosen him to star in his own film. No… not you Donkey; it's the Antonio Banderas- voiced Puss in Boots. The upcoming film, directed by Chris Miller, who helmed Shrek 3, actually takes place before our amorous cat meets up with our favorite green ogre. Eric Dapkewicz, who tackled stereo 3D for Editor Eric Dapkewicz walks us through his process. the first time on Monsters vs. Aliens, edited the film on Avid Media Composer in DNx36. Is Puss in Boots a comedy? An action-adventure? Well, it's a bit of both, which actually drew Dapkewicz to the project. POST: You cut the film on Avid Media Com- poser. Is that your go-to tool or the best one for this film? ERIC DAPKEWICZ: "The system was the best for the project. DreamWorks studio uses Avid to cut all their films. There is an infrastruc- ture already set up for all the different shows to work with different departments and the Avid has been integrated into that interface, so it's easy for us to bring material in and export material out." POST: Did you use the stereo tools within the Media Composer? DAPKEWICZ: "We cut with V.4 on Puss in Boots. I know DreamWorks did roll out V.5, with stereo tools on some of the newer shows, but we started Puss in Boots about three years ago and it's hard to upgrade once you've started on a project." POST: So how did you address stereo in the editing process? DAPKEWICZ: "I cut Monsters vs. Alien, Eric Dapkewicz cut his stereo teeth on Monsters vs. Aliens. our first stereo film here at the studio. We created our own mock-up version of how to see things in 3D right off the Avid. We take one frame of a shot and put both the left and right eye into that shot. The top image would be the left eye and the bottom would be the right eye, and then when we bring them into the Avid we have different effects that we created that can put those shots together into one 3D image when we put the glasses on... or if we just wanted to cut mono — my eyes would basically bug out of my head if I cut everything in 3D. Most of the time we did work in mono and I could just focus on the left eye and bring that up on the screen and cut that way." 14 Post • October 2011 POST: Are there any scenes with things coming off the screen at the audience, or is it more subtle 3D? DAPKEWICZ: "There are a few moments when we have stuff coming off the screen, but more often than not it's about having the person feel immersed in the scene itself. With an animated film we have the ability to really work with the depth and get it to feel like you are actually in a shot several layers beyond the screen because we can manipulate what you see on the screen and change it." POST: Can you describe your workflow? DAPKEWICZ: "The animation process is pretty long. We start with the storyboard, and in the beginning there are only a few of us: the story team, the director, the producers, my choose the best shots for that scene. "Once we lock that down we send that off to the animators to start animating, and they'll take each shot and animate to the timing and dialogue I've given them. Even before it goes to the animators we have to record the actors so they can animate to their voices. Once it goes to animation we have basically dailies every day. The director and I sit in with the animators and we look at each of the shots as they are animating them. Sometimes we'll give notes for continuity, or director Chris Miller will give notes for the acting. Then the animation department will start feeding me back their shots and I'll start plugging them into the cut and see how it's working. It basically becomes a big puzzle piece." POST: So the scenes are out of order? team…the animators haven't even come on to the show yet. We build a version of the film with just storyboards and we do this several times. It's like an evolutionary process where we keep trying to put the film up in different versions to see what works, what doesn't work, how it plays as a film. "Once we have a section of the film — we call it a sequence — that everyone seems to like and thinks is strong, we'll put that into production. So it might be a three- minute scene in the film. We give it to our cinematographer, basically our head of lay- out, and they start creating animatics, or layout shots, based on the storyboards I cut together. It's like having a cinematographer right there mapping out all the different camera moves and even giving me coverage so I have different options to choose from. Then he'll give me that footage back and I'll cut it together with the director and we'll www.postmagazine.com DAPKEWICZ: "They can be. We may send the first 10 minutes of the movie into production and then we find the middle of the movie has a couple of sequences we like a lot and we'll send them into production. It's never totally linear as far as how we put stuff into production." POST: Had you ever worked with Chris Miller before? DAPKEWICZ: "No, this was my first time. Chris was the director on Shrek 3 and I was just finishing up Monsters vs. Aliens; I had an interview with him and we hit it off. I liked the direction and the approach he wanted to take with the film." POST: Was he open to seeing notes from you? DAPKEWICZ: "He was great, and very open to any notes or ideas that either I had or the animators or cinematographer. If it was something he felt would plus the film we would try it."

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Post Magazine - October 2011