Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/607566
DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 22 POST NOVEMBER 2015 it's definitely the most gratifying part." Where did you do the post? "We were based in LA after we wrapped, at Tribeca West, where we did the last three movies." The film was edited by Alan Edward Bell and Mark Yoshikawa. Were they on the set? How did that relationship work? "It's the first time I've ever worked with two editors, and it was mostly because we had to turn around the first Mockingjay film so fast. Then we had the chance for a while to have them both working on Part 2, and during the process Alan's assistant, Jennifer Vecchiarello, was promoted to an associate editor, so she actually cut some scenes as well. So the three of them were all with us on-set in Atlanta, and then when we moved to Europe for the end of the shoot, Alan came with us with an assistant. One big advantage to having three editors essentially was that they all knew each other. Because of the time constraints, I brought Alan, my editor, in to help find people to work with, and then we whit- tled it down to Mark. They knew and liked each other, so as we shot they just traded scenes and then each would show me various scenes, and as the footage built up, and reels came together. I'd typically sit in a room with Alan and work really diligently on whatever reel we were on, and I'd then sit with Mark and I might give notes to Mark. So we'd split it up that way, and it worked really well as they weren't compet- ing against each other. They were sharing material and we were able to leap-frog ahead and get a lot done simultaneously." Talk a bit about working with Charlie Gibson, your VFX supervisor. "I'd never worked with him before the Mockingjay films, though we'd met years ago when I was looking for someone for my first movie. Charlie did all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and is so talented and is very smart, and he has an amazing eye. I also find that with these VFX supervi- sors, some of their best work is in prep. So when you have the challenge of a specific sequence, like the lizard fights down in the sewers under the Capitol, and you start to work on it and figure out how to actually do it, to have someone there that has such a vast knowledge of VFX technologies and companies really helps you plan it all out well in advance. It helps you from the very start solve the puzzle in the best way — with the right vendor, the right artist, the right technical approach — and Charlie's really good at that." There are obviously a huge number of visual effects shots in the film. How many are there? "About 1,100, and we used a lot of ven- dors from all over the world, including D Neg in London, Weta in New Zealand, MPC in London and Vancouver, The Embassy, Lola, Cantina, plus others. I like dealing with VFX, and now I've done enough effects movies I'm pretty used to the psychological and emotional arc of the VFX process. Because you have all these ideas in your head, and you then try to figure out exactly how to do them, and you talk to everyone and then it's always much harder — and far more costly — than you expected. Ideally, you get the right people and you have a good plan and you shoot it, and then it never goes quite as planned, and the VFX companies never have exactly what they need in terms of bluescreen coverage and so on. It's never ideal. Then you cut the sequences, you turn them over, and with good companies you tend to get some pretty amazing images back. Then you're super-excited for a while. Then at the end, what happens is that you whittle down past all the things that are really cool and working, and you end up at the very end with all the trouble shots. And no matter what, it's interesting. You think you've done everything right, and you have great, talented people working on it, and you feel you planned it all out perfectly — but no matter what, there's inevitably always that tricky handful of VFX shots at the end that you just can't wrap your head around. What happened? What went wrong? Why are they harder? Why are they trickier? So it's interesting, but just really unfortunate that it always happens right at the end of post (laughs). But all in all, we have some really cool shots and the companies did great work for us." What was the most difficult VFX sequence/shot to do and why? "Definitely the whole sewer sequence, which is now [at press time] done and all the VFX are complete. It was tricky because it's a combination of creature animation and creation, which is always tough to make it look real and organic, Three editors contributed to the film's final cut, trading scenes, such as these with Banks and Lawrence (above), and Hutcherson (here).