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www.postmagazine.com 20 POST JANUARY 2016 O S C A R buzz Tom Hooper and The King's Speech swept the Oscars in 2011, with the film winning him Best Director, along with Best Picture and an Oscar for Colin Firth as Best Actor. Now Hooper is getting more Oscar buzz for his latest movie, The Danish Girl. Starring Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) in the title role, it tells another true-life story and deals with transgender issues that are suddenly very topical. Hooper, who says he began working on the low-budget "real labor of love" back in 2008, once again teamed with DP Danny Cohen, who shot The King's Speech, and with editor Melanie Oliver, who cut Les Miserables, The Damned United and several of his TV series. He calls Oliver "my greatest secret weapon, my great collaborator, and she functions almost like a co-director." Post was all done in London at Goldcrest, and the sound mix- ing at Halo. Visual effects were all done by Double Negative, "who I worked with on Les Miserables," he adds. The hit action-thriller Sicario, which re- teamed director Denis Villeneuve with DP Roger Deakins, was produced for an esti- mated $30 million. The majority of the film was shot in New Mexico over a 49-day pe- riod, and it may be the charm for both the director and the much-admired Deakins (nominated 12 times without a win), unless Emmanuel Lubezki, who's won two years running (for Gravity and Birdman) wins a third time for The Revenant. Deakins shot the vivid drug tale on Arri Alexa XTs and once again worked with colorist Mitch Paulson at Efilm on the DI. The film was graded in 2K with DPX files in Autodesk Lustre, and delivered in 4K. Joe Walker (nominated for 12 Years A Slave) could also see voter recognition for his intricate work on the thriller. According to director Lenny Abrahamson, creating the right envi- ronment for the two leads in the much- buzzed-about, claustrophobic drama Room was "crucial, both for the way the characters have to interact and for the very naturalistic style we chose." Working closely with production designer Ethan Tobman and hot cinematographer Danny Cohen, an Oscar nominee for The King's Speech, who also shot The Danish Girl, Abrahamson and his team decided to shoot the film in a 10x10 foot space and to give it "a feeling and look" that's far bigger than its real-world dimensions. Cohen decided to use two fluidly roam- ing cameras — the new-generation Red Epic Dragon 6Ks, one of the smallest professional digital cameras in existence. Abrahamson both edited the film with Nathan Nugent and posted Room at Screen Scene in Dublin. "I've posted nearly all my films there and they do big shows like Game of Thrones, so they're very experienced," he says. "We also did our sound post at Screen Scene and their other company Ardmore Sound, with sound designer Steve Fanagan and sound editor Niall Brady, and did all the grading and picture finishing at Outer Limits in Dublin, with this great color- ist Gary Curran, who's colored all my projects." He adds that all "the breath" effects "on the days when it's freezing cold" were also done in post at Screen Scene. "Because of all 'the breath' work needed on Game of Thrones, they de- veloped a special system and software to deal with it," he says. "I like post so much after the mania of the shoot and the deadlines you face every single day on the set. It's such a contrast, and you can take your time to make the film. I especially love the offline experience, sit- ting there with the editor and just slowly building the movie. Don't forget, it's also probably the cheapest part of the whole filmmaking process — just you and the editor in a small room. And it's where all the magic happens and you discover what you have." F. Gary Gray's acclaimed $200M hit Straight Outta Compton, a biopic that follows the birth of the incendi- ary gangsta rap group NWA, may be a dark horse in the races. With its do- cu-style approach and shot by DP Matty Libatique, the film used the new MoVI rig and was posted on the lot at Warners. The film was edited by Billy Fox, whose eclectic credits include Footloose, Hustle & Flow, Law & Order and Pee-wee's Playhouse, and the visual effects shots — "mainly there for the period look, says Gray — were done by Image Engine and Outback Post. The DI was done at Efilm. Nominated for two Oscars since his first film back in 1986 (She's Gotta Have It), Spike Lee is back and taking on guns and gangs in his new film Chi- Raq, an impassioned drama set against a backdrop of Chicago gang violence. "I wanted to make a big statement, because it's insane that more people are dying on the streets of Chicago than our soldiers in Iraq and other war zones," states Lee. "And it's not just Chicago — it's Baltimore, New York, LA, all over the US. I don't tell audiences what to think in my movies, but I've got to make an exception with this. I want people to think about guns in this country and all the killings. It's insanity." Also shot by the busy Libatique, the film was posted in Brooklyn at Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule Inside Out (shown) is competing with animated films such as Minions and Shaun the Sheep Movie.