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DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 13 POST MARCH 2017 Do you like the post process? "I love post, as it's the big last rewrite and where you edit and make the actual film. You can work on a script, but it's not a film, and you find that all those pages in the script that were needed to get financ- ing and help people understand what it is, are totally unnecessary in the edit when you get that one look between two actors that says it all. You start ripping out those pages, and you lose dialogue because you immediately understand what film is about. It's a visual medium. I love shoot- ing, but post is the most creative part of the whole process. Of course, you need the right material on film to cut, but post is really the key part of filmmaking." Where did you post? "We edited it and did all the post in New York, and it was great. I had a place in the Village and I could walk every day to the editing rooms." You edited the film with Mark Warner, who was Oscar nominated for Driving Miss Daisy, and who's cut four other films with you, including Dolores Claiborne and The Devil's Advocate. How did that work? "He wasn't on the set. I don't need one with me while I shoot. I've known him a long time, as his father, Frank, was probably the greatest sound editor ever. He did Raging Bull and Taxi Driver for Scorsese, Close Encounters for Spielberg, which won him the Oscar, and he was an incredible artist, and Mark grew up surrounded by all that. Mark and I had a great collaboration, and then he moved to Australia, so I lost him. But he came back, and we did Parker and then this one. He's my right-hand man, and like all great editors has a gift for cutting stuff together that gives you another fresh perspective on the raw material, and we work together every single day on the edit. He'll put scenes together, I'll give him notes, and we work through it bit by bit, and I love it." Can you talk about the importance of music and sound in the film? There's a great jazz score by Terence Blanchard. "We mixed all the sound at Warners' new place on the Upper Westside, and I had a great team that included Michael Barry and Eric Hirsch, our re-recording mixers, and Benjamin Cheah and Gregg Swiatlowski, our supervising sound edi- tors, and Patrick Cicero, our sound effects editor. Having a great sound team is so crucial in post, all the sound loopers and designers and music cutters. And one of the most enjoyable bits of post for me is the scoring, because when you add all that, it gives the film its personality, and its emotion. That was another key ele- ment here, almost like another character. Jackie is a child of the '60s, who grew up with Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor and George Carlin, and worked in all the jazz clubs, and the '60s was the great era of bebop jazz, which he loves — and which I love, too. So there's that scene where he's alone in his apartment in his under- wear, ironing clothes, and listening to Art Blakey. That's who Jackie is, and Terence's score and the music we used tells you more about that side of his character than any dialogue could do. And Terence played with Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, so he really understood all of that, and the result is a really authentic score — and he also put together this great band that included Ravi Coltrane, John Coltrane's son, on tenor sax, who sounds just like his father, and pianist Kenny Barron who played with Dizzy Gillespie. So all that really gives you the context to this character, as bebop jazz is New York to the core." Tell us about the VFX. "They were all done by P2P in New York and Charles Quinn was the VFX super- visor. When the film starts, Jackie is figuratively in Siberia. His career's cold, he's cold. That was my vision, so there's a lot of rain and snow right from the start. I didn't want any exteriors that weren't like that, but of course, when you want snow and rain, the weather never co-operates, so we had to add snow and rain in several scenes, plus we did some matte shots and the usual clean up. And then there was the viral video sequence, and we used Chris Lohr who cuts real viral videos, and he did a great job." What about the DI? "We did it at the Post Factory with Adam Inglis, and I'm very involved. You always owe it to your DP to have them come in and take the first shot at it, but often DPs are already off on another job and unavailable. On this, [DP] Oliver Stapleton came in and did his thing for a whole week, and then I'd go in and, keeping true to his vision, I did the follow up work. But I think the director should know about the look of the film as much as the DP." You've been directing movies for nearly 40 years. How's the business changed? "On the plus side, technology's im- proved a lot, especially in post, and you have far more options available. But then financing has become harder and harder, especially for adult dramas, which is what I do. Piracy has really robbed the middle-budget film, and I'm not interested in making these huge comic book films. And even awards and critical acclaim don't always help. Ray was Oscar nominated for Best Movie, it won Best Actor and sound mixing, and a ton of other awards, and yet I couldn't even get financing on my next film. It's always tough." Hackford (right) collaborated closely with De Niro. (left) The Comedian was shot on-location in New York and on Long Island. Mark Warner cut the film in New York.