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DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 21 POST MAY 2016 about post when he decided to do as much as possible at his house. So I did all the post in my office at home in LA. That way, I could just walk upstairs and work on the edit, and then walk back down and take a nap. We brought all the Avids and machines over, and it was a great way to work on the edit. I also believe in test screenings, so we did some of that as we went. I love editing. When I was in the Korean War, I worked at a radio station and I did a lot of editing and learned a lot about it, which really helped me so much later in movies. Some things in movies just don't work and people live with them, but I never do. So I'll always fix them in post with sound or whatever, and I always take a lot of time working on all the sound — ADR, wild lines and so on because you can fix anything that isn't quite working that way. In this film, there's a character who has abandon- ment issues, but the audience just didn't get it. Finally, a month after we'd finished the film, I got the actress back to just say the line 'I have abandonment issues' and suddenly the scene worked and the audience got it. I do a lot of that, and sometimes you make a better joke with wild lines. They used to call me 'Willy Wild Line' — that was my nickname." Do you like the post process? "I like post the best, by far. Pre-production is a million details and stressful, and then the shoot is nothing but 'Hurry up! The light's failing! It's gonna rain!' It's just crazy. But post is so relaxed and pleasant by comparison. You sit there with the editor and you finally have time to look at the material objectively and then make the movie. And there are so many ways you can go. This film was actually the best post I ever had, partly because this kid, Rob Malina, who started with me as an intern, became a full editor for the first time on this picture, after being a back- up editor on so many of my other films. He's so fast, and by the time I'd finished shooting, he already had his first assem- bly. I love all the intricacies of post, and it's amazing how much you can fix in post. I'm a big believer in — and most proud of — all my inserts, which many directors are not. That's because my inserts make the editing much better, the timing is better, and then there's all the second-unit stuff." You also worked with your long-time editor Bruce Green, who cut The Princess Diaries. How did that relationship work? "He was working on another movie when we started, so he joined us after he'd cut that, and then they worked together and traded off scenes." How important are sound and music to you? "They've always been a huge part of all my films, and I used to do most of my mixes at Disney, but this time we did it on the lot at Warner's, where I did my last two pictures. I had a great team, including supervising sound editor Terry Rodman and re-recording mixer Chris Aud. And it's interesting that with Julia, we didn't have to do one ADR line. Nothing at all! We joke around a lot on set. I'll tell her, 'You paused so long there I was able to write a TV pilot.' If she swallows a line or fluffs one, she'll say 'I can do it better' and we'll just re-do it right there. There was just one mistake in the sound – we missed a door slam for the fridge in one scene, and I didn't notice till it was too late. So I owe the audience a door slam." How's post changed since you began back in the '60s? "So much it's barely recognizable. I used to cut on Moviolas and you'd spend hours digging in the film clip bins to find that one shot or frame of film, and now with the Avid you just push a button, and you have it. Same with all the digital sound mixing today. It's all so fast now, which I think is a huge improvement. I em- brace all the new toys and technology, although you'd think I'd be one of those old directors who still insists on shooting film, because they always say women look better on film than on digital. But digital has come a long way, and it's going to keep getting better. And I'm not one of those film purists, and I wasn't walking around at four years old with a camera trying to make a movie. I was playing with a basketball and my mother was yelling at me, and my boyhood dream was to play for the Yankees. I had no dreams about making movies. But then I got into it, and found I loved it — and especially post and the way you can fix so much and manipu- late your material in post." What's next? "I've been very busy, doing some acting on the new CBS reboot of The Odd Couple, playing Oscar's father. And I have plans to make a softball movie, and there are a couple of love stories I'm working on." Do you ever think of retiring? "No, never. I'm not slowing down yet. It's too much fun, plus I get to work with beautiful women all the time." Mother's Day was shot digitally and cut on an Avid. The mix took place at Warner Bros.