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MISS PEREGRINE www.postmagazine.com 20 POST SEPTEMBER 2016 wonderful locations. All the hot spots — Florida, Belgium, the Blackpool [England]." Which part of the filmmaking process do you enjoy most? "Strangely, the most satisfying is the actu- al production, because it's the good part of filmmaking — where you feel like part of a weird family. Also, you're just fight- ing the elements and each other. You're not fighting the studio or the marketing or the business side of it. It's more about getting in there and doing it. It's probably the more difficult part, but for me, it's the more enjoyable part. "Some people like pre, some peo- ple like post. I've had projects that I've worked on for a long time that didn't happen so I'm always a bit wary of the preproduction process because of having a couple of projects not go through. You get traumatized for life. But it is fun to create images and look at it and plan that kind of stuff. There are great things about that. Post is also good because by the time you're done shooting, you're about ready to be checked into the hospital, but instead, you go to the editing room. They all have their good aspects." What about VFX? I would imagine there are quite a few in this film? "Yes and no. It's not like your average su- perhero film. Obviously, we have comput- er-animated effects, a little stop-motion, animation, some live, but one of the rea- sons I enjoyed doing this film was because it's more human, a more grounded kind of story. So, it didn't feel like one, giant special effects project. There are effects, but not as many as you might think." How many VFX shots? "Ca-ching! It's going up on a daily basis (laughs)." What is your overall feeling about visual effects? "Well, I'm bad at technology — in fact, if you ask anybody, I think I have some kind of electrical energy because anytime I walk into a room, somebody's computer crashes. When people use effects in an artful way, in a way that helps the story, it's amazing. It's gotten to a place where those lines are blurred very well. It's like anything, it can be used for good or evil." Your VFX super was Frazer Churchill. Who was the lead VFX house on the film? "Double Negative. We moved it around a bit. I mean, it's one of those kinds of films where you need one house to take the brunt of [the work]. This is such a piece meal sort of thing — a little bit of Double Negative and a few other studios. [Frazer] is great. First time I worked with him. First of all, it has to be somebody I feel like I can talk to and connect with, which I did. And he knows that I rely on [the VFX supervisor] to pick the right people given what the specifics are. It's a bit like casting. They're like a director in their own way, about casting the right people for the right job." What was the most difficult sequence? "We're still working on them. It's not like a superhero movie, where you have cer- tain kinds of effects that are meant to do a certain kind of thing. This is much more human and down to earth, even though there are some big effects, some of our biggest effects are — they're not saving the world, but going from one place to another. We use effects in a dif- ferent way and that interested me. It's a more human story. It was important that the effects felt as grounded as possible — whether we were doing live effects or computer effects, stop-motion anima- tion, to just try to make it all blend. I wanted them to have the same kind of simplicity I felt the book had." Is the film turning out the way you hoped it would? "Again, I will say, the baby is yet to come out of the womb. I don't know…" "It's not like your average superhero film," says Burton of the feature's visual effects.