Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/74632
shooting because I feel I'm being my most creative, and I love to make and build things and fix those problems and set up a shot. For me, post is a lot of giving notes to people who then go and do what you're asking, and then you sit and look at it. It's a lot of tedious finish work that takes so many stages. So it's not my favorite part, but I do enjoy the edit." POST: The film was edited by Christian Wagner, whose credits include Mission Impos- sible 2 and Battle Los Angeles. Tell us about that relationship and how it worked? WISEMAN: "It's the first time I'd worked will look like, so it's very cutta- ble. That was such a helpful process for me." POST: There are obviously a huge number of visual effects shots in the film. How many are there, who did them, and what was your approach to dealing with them? Colorworks' Steve Bowen used Baselight 8 for the DI. with him, and he's a very creative, hard- working guy. He's the sole editor, and usually you have two, three, even four editors on a movie of this scale, so that tells you a lot. We cut on Avid." POST: Where did you do the post? WISEMAN: "I did my director's cut at my offices in Santa Monica, and then we moved to the Sony lot and expanded the crew. They have a great team there, and it's great to have the mix next door, and the color timing at Colorworks, and I can do all the 2K effects reviews with the Skype sessions in the screen- ing rooms. That's been a great process for me, since on Die Hard this sort of system wasn't even set up yet. "So I can work with Dneg in London, look at the 2K file, and then draw on a tablet on the 2K image in full res — and it's so great to be able to draw in realtime. Post was also really helpful in a way that I'd never used it before, in terms of previs. I'd used previs before this, but I really didn't use it as much of a cutting guide since it wasn't developed far enough. "On this I worked closely with The Third Floor for previs, and it was like this very high- end, videogame-quality previs that brings you very close to what all the visual effects WISEMAN: "For as much as I tried to do in-camera, we're at 1,800 shots... a huge amount. Double Negative did over 90 percent, with a few other companies — Prime Focus VFX, The Senate VFX — doing the overflow. My approach was always this: the thing your eye focuses on the most, I wanted to make sure was practical. So for the hover-car chase, I wanted the cars to be real, and the world around them could be visual effects. "It's like when you see a dinosaur in a Wet, whose credits movie running at you. You want to make sure the face and eyes and teeth all look as real as possible, since no one's studying his feet. It's the same thing with big action scenes that also involve lots of CG. I'm just not a big fan of greenscreen. I know all these VFX houses probably don't completely understand me because here I am doing a movie with 1,800 effects shots, but I'd cringe when I walked on set and saw greenscreen." POST: Your VFX supervisor was Adrian De include The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Hellboy 11. How did that rela- tionship work? WISEMAN: (Laughs) "With [Dneg] in Lon- don, it means I get up really early and starting my day with two hours of effects reviews over Skype. I also took a lot of trips over to London when we began designing, and it's gone very smoothly. They're a very creative company." POST: Can you talk about the importance of music and sound to you as a filmmaker? WISEMAN: "It's huge, over 50 percent of the experience in my mind and crucial in terms of mood and tone. I get very involved in set design and costumes, and it's just as important. I wanted a score that didn't sound too traditional or too 'action-y,' and composer Harry Gregson-Williams just nailed it. It feels big and epic but it's also dark and moody. Paul Massey, who did Rango and the new Spider- Man film, is doing the mix here on the lot." POST: How about the DI? WISEMAN: "The DI is so vital now, and we did that at Colorworks [with colorist Steve Bowen using Baselight 8]. I really love the DI. That's where I start to feel more like an artist again, and it's more immediate. I do so much design and Photoshop on my own, so the DI is natural to me. [DP] Paul Camer- on did an amazing job. This is the most visually beautiful-looking film I've made. "The Underworld films have their own look, and Die Hard was a bit more traditional, and on this Paul captured a mood without it going monochrome or too depressing. It's very rich, and even with the Avid resolution people have been watching it and commenting on the great lighting right away, before it even went to the DI. So I'm really happy with the way it looks." POST: What's next? WISEMAN: "I have a sci-fi project I wrote and I hope to get going on that next. I've always liked to do my own stuff. People think Underworld was based on a comic book, but I co-wrote and put it together, and I want to keep doing my own projects." www.postmagazine.com Post • July 2012 11 Double Negative did 90 percent of the final 1,800 VFX shots. Prime Focus and The Senate helped with overflow. The Third Floor provided previs.