Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/526086
www.postmagazine.com 19 POST JUNE 2015 What were the main technical challeng- es of pulling all this together? "We had a villain we couldn't see or touch. That's not just a challenge of imagination, it's an issue of scale. If you shoot a dinosaur on the wrong lens, es- pecially with a human in the foreground, it can feel deceptively small. We had to not just imagine what was happening, we had to shoot something that wasn't there. I'm a very instinctive filmmaker. I walk into a space, look around, and de- cide how to shoot it. I can't storyboard an environment I've never seen, so it becomes an exercise in wishful thinking after awhile. No matter what you plan, once you get into the environment, everything will change. Add to it the fact that our dinosaur can be anywhere from 16 to 25 feet tall depending on how she's standing, and it gets complicated very quickly." How tough was the prep and shoot, considering you started filming in Ha- waii on various islands and ended up in Louisiana swamps and New Orleans? "This film went very smoothly. We fin- ished ahead of schedule and under bud- get. We did not have reshoots. I know all of my films won't be this way. But for one reason or another, likely the talent and dedication of everyone involved, this one went well. Ask me again on the next one. I'll probably have a longer answer packed with nightmares!" How early did you have to integrate post and VFX into the shoot? "Editor Kevin Stitt and his team were in a highrise in Honolulu cutting from day one. I shot film and I don't shoot a lot of it, so our days were pretty efficient when it wasn't pouring rain, so Kevin was able to keep up with production. Two weeks after wrap, we had an assembly. Our first VFX turnover to ILM was the Indominus escape sequence. That was in July last year, using footage we shot in Hawaii in June. It was an early challenge, to essen- tially lock a sequence four weeks before wrap. But we did it." What about all the post work which was crucial on this film. Do you like the post process? "It's a very creative time, and I love it. There's nothing like the presentation, it's so satisfying. Filmmakers and chefs have a lot in common. There are three stages in each — prep, execution and presenta- tion. Post for me is like plating a dish. We have the ingredients, but if we don't put them together right, it will just be a big pile of food. We're a month out from re- lease now, I'm walking out of the kitchen ready to set this plate down in front of a very hungry table. In this case, it needs to taste like a deconstructed version of something they loved when they were kids. I can cook that." Where did you do the post? Give us some sense of the process: How long was it? Where did you cut? Where did you do the sound mixing? "We posted out of Tribeca West in Los Angeles. We showed the studio our first cut in late October, then honed it until February. Universal loved our cut and was very supportive the whole time. There weren't many notes because I think they saw how hard we were being on ourselves. The first time we watched it, I followed up the screening with a laundry list of things I wanted to do, elements that could be better. We just worked it and worked it until it felt right. The sound mix, which I just fin- ished, was done at Skywalker Ranch in Many of the film's stars didn't show up until the post production stage. DIRECTOR'S CHAIR