Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/763341
www.postmagazine.com 24 POST DECEMBER 2016 PASSENGERS We used a lot of LEDs — either RGB, daylight, tungsten or hybrid. And it was really very challeng- ing and interesting during the prep to design that, along with the art department, and figure out all of the practicals. We ended up using miles and miles of LED lighting. "It was also really interesting to design with visual effects because there were things that weren't physical. For example, there's a scene where char- acters look out this big window as a space ship is going right past the giant sun. I needed to create a directive lighting of the sun, lighting them and lighting the set, to match a visual effect that didn't exist yet. So, I had to go to visual effects and ask them to create this image of the sun way back in pre-production when I would normally do it in post production and then I used huge video walls, like the ones that are used in concerts behind rock stars. I hung these huge LED screens outside this huge window and there were other sets where I did the same thing. Then, we fed the image of the sun and that's what's lighting the scene, actually. So, it blends seamlessly with the visual effects. It moves in the same rhythm, has the same color, the same flicker, all of that. There's another moment in the film where there's this sort of nuclear reactor that's having issues, malfunctioning, and again, it's a big window that looks into a nuclear reactor. It's a fiery thing that's happening and same thing, we use these huge LED panels, video panels, and fed the image that was relatively close to what visual effects would end up doing and that's what led the actors. We did that several times, actually. That was an important way of making the visual effects seem as if they were really on the set." Where there any major technical advancements here? "I would say more so here than in any movie I've done before. We used the LED lighting technolo- gy — we were the first ones to use them on that big a scale because we had some very big sets. "Something else that's always a challenge in a sci- ence fiction movie is how to light the actors' faces when they're wearing a space suite. Especially in our film, where the characters were not close to a sun or anything. They were in the middle of deep space — there's no real light source except for the space suit itself and we have a few space walks. I tried to do something that would light the face of the actors but would really feel like something that was designed to light in front of them, and also, I wanted it to glow as opposed to a harsh light. So, again, we used LED lights that were inside the helmets. They were placed all around the face plates so it actually created a soft, light on the actors. In this movie, the lighting of the two actors' faces was really important. Their faces become the landscapes of the movie besides the space ship. While it's really a big story, it's also very intimate. So the lighting of their helmets was a very big deal. "Also, it's my understanding that we were the first film that was completely done with the Alexa 65. Also, I'm sure we were the first one to use the Panavision Primo 70 lenses, which are designed for bigger formats. I really like the results of that combination." Thoughts on how the film turned out? "I'm pretty excited about it — I really like the result of all this process. It's such a long process from your first thoughts and imagination to the results and I'm pretty happy with the way it came out and I think it's an attractive movie. It's different from other science fiction movies in a sense that most of them are in the future and are apocalyptic or the space ships are mining ships going on an expe- dition. They are usually technical ships and aren't meant to be comfortable or pretty. But this one is like a cruise liner; it's designed for passengers. It didn't make sense to make a gritty, hard movie in terms of the look. It had to look comfort- able for the people and yet, look dramatic. It was interesting to follow the arc of what the characters were feeling and I use the notion of this intelligent space ship to be able to change the mood with the lighting. "It's been a really great experience for me working on this genre and with these collaborators — with Eric Nordby, [the production visual effects supervisor]. That was a crucial relationship. We worked in pre-production and during production and we did an extensive previs of the space walk, visual effects intensive scenes and a zero-gravity scene which was extremely complicated and com- plex in every single way. This was the closest I've worked with visual effects on a movie. "With [editor] Maryann [Brandon], she has a big presence in the sense that she is also very meticu- lous about the film and she has even gone to some of our color grading sessions and has had some very accurate and constructive notes. Maryann has been great and every time she's been right. I really enjoyed collaborating with her." POST — MARYANN BRANDON How early were you involved in the film? "When I was doing Star Wars, I was so tired after working on that film for a year and a half. I told my assistant, 'I'm not doing anything next, unless a film comes up with a really good script and it had a director like, I don't know, Morten Tyldum, who did Headhunters and The Imitation Game, and it had a really interesting cast … I mean, I'm not joking! I didn't even know Passengers existed. And I get this call from Sony, 'we have this film and we need an editor right away. It's Morten Tyldum and it's Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, do you want to do it?' And I was like, "Oh my God, yeah …" Watch out what we put out there in the universe (laughs). That's an entirely true story. It was like two or three weeks before the Academy Award nomina- tions came out and I really did not think we'd be up for an Academy Award. And then when they announced my name, I was like, "Oh my God, I just took this job." It was crazy! (laughs). "I joined about halfway through the shoot and then just had a mountain of work to get through. The footage was so good and it was so beautifully shot. It was interesting. You know, when I read the script I loved it so much. I already had this vision of what I wanted to do with it. But it's incredible, the studio said to me, 'It's only a couple of characters and it's not that hard a film,' and I looked at them and said, 'No, this is a really hard film.' This is a much harder film…I don't think the studio realized how big this film was." How would you describe the style of edit? "Obviously, it's a big visual effects film and I don't think anyone realized how big or intricate the visual effects were going to turn out to be. But because I have a lot of experience with visual effects, I'm incredibly picky, so I think I brought to it that ap- proach of, 'No, this isn't good enough,' and 'This isn't good enough…' When I approach a film, I think that anything is possible to do, visually. I think I tried very hard to bring a sense of humor to the film because Chris Pratt is that kind of actor. He gives you so many things. When I first started, I thought, Chris Pratt is known as this comic guy, and he was amaz- ing. His performance…there was this dark side to him I never saw before and it was fascinating. It kind of gets you. And so, I really tried hard to approach the editing like, I knew on the surface I could just tell this story, but I wanted to tell this story as a moral tale and get underneath how people react. It's really important to me to convey humanity in all of this." Brandon cut Passengers on an Avid.