Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/837213
www.postmagazine.com 13 POST JUNE 2017 DIRECTOR'S CHAIR all the state rooms in Buckingham Palace. We did a lot of art direction and dressing, and combined a lot of different locations to get what we needed. [DP] Adriano Goldman gave it all a very rich look, and then basically you have to patch it all together in post." The huge budget must have helped? "Absolutely, but this story needs that huge scale to tell it properly, and that's exactly why we went to Netflix. They got behind it and totally committed. I could easily have spent 40 hours just on the first episode, because there's so much groundwork to lay and so much going on story-wise. Then Episode 2 is largely rooted in Africa, and Elizabeth and Phillip are touring the Commonwealth and are on safari in Kenya when King George dies. But it's very hard shooting in Kenya now, so we went to South Africa instead, and then we were also shooting in Scotland, so we were moving around a lot, and that gets very costly very quickly." Posting all this must have been quite challenging? "It was, but I really love the post process after all the stress of the shoot. This was a huge production, so it's a bit like moving this big unwieldy army around, and by contrast, post is much quieter and more relaxed, and you get to piece it all togeth- er, which I love." Where did you do all the post? "All in London, at Molinare, which is right in the middle of Soho. Funnily enough, they did all the post for Downton Abbey, and they're very experienced. We did all the editing there, too, and we had a team of editors working on the series. I worked closely with Kristina Hetherington and Pia Di Ciaula, who were a great team, and the DI grader was Asa Shoul." What were the main editing challenges? "I think what's so brilliant about Peter [Morgan] is that he creates these huge costume dramas, but he never lets the costumes overtake the real drama going on underneath. It's always about the clash between characters and institutions and events around them. That's where the dra- ma is. So in editing you have to balance all that, and decide exactly what story you're telling. We'd edit to a certain point and then stop and see what we had, and if we had to go back at all and shoot an additional scene. We had a lot of material to sort through, so the editing took quite a while, even with a team of editors." As a huge period production, visual effects must have played a big role? "Very big, and we had a small army of CG artists and compositors working on it at One of Us VFX, who're based in Soho, which was very convenient as we could just pop over anytime. Their visual effects supervisor, Ben Turner, was on the set with us the whole time, making sure ev- erything ran smoothly. For instance, when we were in Africa, we shot all the safari scenes without animals for safety, and then shot the animals separately, and then all that was composited together in post. And then we had a lot of clean-up work and big signature shots, exteriors and all the stuff you have to add and subtract for a period piece like this." What about all the sound and music. How important were they? "They're both crucial elements and we were very blessed to get both Rupert Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer — and it was Hans' first time working on a TV series like this and he composed the opening titles theme. A lot of the big scenes were created with the music, which we recorded in Vienna, and we did all the mixing in London with sound mix- ers Stuart Hilliker and Martin Jensen." Do you see it as a golden era for TV right now? "I do, and I'm delighted with the way this show's going. I'm doing Season 2 now and then in about six months we'll be start- ing on Season 3. The great thing about long-form drama on TV is that you can do these in-depth shows that work in a very novelistic way, and that allow you to really explore character arcs and themes that you just can't do the same way in a two- hour movie. There will always be cinema, and people will always want to see films on the big screen in a big, dark theater, I think. But a show like this on Netflix cer- tainly gives you the freedom to deal with a complex story set over many years that you can't easily deal with in other ways." The Crown has already won a ton of awards, including the Golden Globe for Best TV Drama, AFI's TV Program of the Year, BAFTAs and SAGs. Now it's getting big Emmy buzz. How important are awards? "Personally, I gave up on awards a long time ago, but I think for Netflix they're very important and give a lot of credibility. They recognize a new way of producing drama, and I'm a big fan of streaming and all the new platforms." What's next? "I'll keep making films and doing theater and TV, but right now I'm just focused on this and the next season. It's pretty all-consuming." The Crown is posted at Molinare's studio in London.