Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/5315
D I R E C T O R ' S C H A I R 12 Post • December 2009 www.postmagazine.com shot, they can send it across on the fiber line to replace the old version on the hard drive in the projection room. So then we can mix to the new shot, which is fantastic. "Basically, we built this very sophisticated post production pipeline where we've got editorial, sound, mixing stages and digital ef- fects, all linked together, all talking to each other. This means we can have a film with post production being done at all these dif- ferent places, and it's all being managed by the same overall pipeline." POST: How long was the process? JACKSON: "We shot the last bit of blue- screen in June of 2008 and we were plan- ning on delivering the movie to the studio at the end of last year, and they were going to release it in March this year, so we had about five months of post. But when we screened the film for Paramount and DreamWorks in November last year, they decided that they'd hold it until this Decem- ber instead, which was great for us, because our films have always been down to the wire in terms of post. We've always had to rush the post in the end and we worked on Lord of the Rings and Kong right up to the last minute, so with this, we suddenly had the gift of time. "With those extra eight months or so for post, what we did was stop work on it, put it on the shelf, came back to it in April of this year and sat down and watched it again. And being able to come back to it and see it with fresh eyes was fantastic, and that never ever happens in this business. So we then went back to the cutting room and did some more trimming, and after suspending Weta Digital for a few months they came back online and we all picked up where we'd left off. And we feel that the film benefited enormously from this break and extra time for post production, and we wished it had been the same on Lord of the Rings and King Kong." POST: The film is edited by Jabez Olssen. Tell us about the editing process. JACKSON: "He's been with us on Lord of the Rings and Kong as the first assistant, and this time around we moved him up, and he did a great job. We did all the editing at Wingnut Films, which is my company where I have offices and an editing suite all set up. What was different this time 'round is that the suite is set up with the new 103-inch Panasonic HD plasma screen, which is ab- solutely fantastic, and I'd recommend this set-up to anyone who's editing. We sit on the couch and Jabez is in the corner of the room with the Avid, and the quality of the image is just great. I was able to look right into the actors' faces and eyes and see every nuance of emotion that you wouldn't notice otherwise, and we found that we never had to go back and redo anything." POST: How many visual effects shots are there and how did it break down? JACKSON: "I honestly don't know the final count, but I think there's around 500, and Weta Digital did them all. We had teams of compositors, CG modelers, tex- ture ar tists, digital matte painters and so on, and some of the effects are ver y basic. The great thing about visual effects is that you can use them for some pretty crazy things now, like removing a blink. So if an actor blinks at a time when it feels distract- ing, we'll just take it out. "I've even used visual effects to combine different performances. If it's a two-shot and we have two actors on screen and I like the performance of one actor in take three, but I like the other actor better in take seven, then I'll give both takes to Weta and get them to split the screen and seamlessly combine the two performances into the same shot. I do end up using visual effects for a lot of things that they are not normally used for, and sometimes, because we shoot with multiple cameras, you use visual effects to paint out a camera. So if the B camera pokes its nose into the frame or the Steadicam appears in a corner, you can take them out so easily. So I use them a lot for cleaning up shots as much as creating them." POST: What was that the most difficult ef- fects shot to pull off? JACKSON: "We had quite a few, but there were a couple that were really tricky to do. Stanley Tucci plays the villain, and when he dies, he tumbles down a cliff, and I had simply filmed it by having him disappear off the edge of the cliff, and then we go over the edge and see him lying there at the bot- tom, obviously dead. But what happened is that ever yone who saw early screenings ended up hating this guy with a passion — far more than I'd expected. So we came up with the idea of doing a digital fix on it, and as he falls down the cliff, I threw in two or three shots in where he bounces against the cliff face on the way down and then breaks bones against trees as he falls and then cracks his head against a rock. And it had to be a digital solution as we couldn't get Stan- ley back for more filming. "The other really tricky digital effect was one where we just get a quick glimpse of heaven. Most of the movie's in the 'in be- tween,' which isn't heaven, but at one point we get a look at what's beyond there, and Weta Digital used a lot of CGI." POST: How important was the DI? JACKSON: "It's crucial, and we did it at Park. It's a very creative process, and for tu- nately Andrew Lesnie, our DP, is incredibly upstanding and not at all precious with the footage he's shot, and he tries to be as in- volved as he can be in the DI, even though he's often quite busy shooting other films. So we sit down with our colorist, Dave Hollingswor th [who uses the Quantel kit], and Andrew and Dave spent a lot of time working out the look of the film. In fact, for me, you create the look of the movie far more in the DI than you do on the set. "That's what I've found out, and that's the way Andrew and I like to work. We do a cer tain amount of creation of the look on set, with all the lighting and so on, but you can achieve a lot more in post, and you can achieve it in a more controlled manner as you now have the time to really look at the film as a cut film, and think of each scene and the tone of each scene. Do you want the scene to be warm or cool? And you don't want to be locked into some of those choices when you're still in the middle of shooting. You may edit the scene and se- quence in a different order than what you imagined, and in post you might combine two scenes that you never thought of com- bining when you were shooting. "So we always want to give ourselves maximum flexibility, as you're still creating the movie in post. That way, you can look at it and say, 'We should warm up this section and cool down this section,' and sometimes it's not the same thought you might have had while shooting it, so you're glad you did- n't put all kinds of gels on the lights or use various filters on the camera. That way, you can always change your mind in post, and that's why I love post so much." The cut: Editor Jabez Olssen used an Avid while stationed at Jackson's Wingnut Films.