Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/87274
really easy. The dog was a dream, quiet as a mouse all the time, and the rabbits were a joy. I want to get one now." POST: Where did you do the post? How long was the process? McDONAGH: "Most of the money was UK-based, so after the shoot ended in January we went back to London where all the post was done in various places around Soho. We began editing a week after the shoot, and just finished in early September, so it's been quite long — about eight months." POST: Do you like the post process? McDONAGH: "I really enjoy it, especially the editing and looking through every single take and making notes and then crafting and sculpting a scene. It's so interesting about post — scenes I felt could never be cut out when I wrote them or shot them soon proved to be totally redundant in the edit, and I was happy to lose them. I find editing very relaxing, and you have time to explore all the material as you piece it together." POST: When you're working on the edit and post, does Martin the writer ever disagree with Martin the director? McDONAGH: "No. You find that you can be really brutal about the writing at that stage. I find it very hard to cut stuff at the script stage. There are scenes on the page that, even when we didn't really have the budget for them, I just couldn't dream of cutting. But even though they're good scenes, if they don't work or slow down the pacing, it's amazing how easy it is to just get rid of them. "The film is about one hour and 40 min- utes now, and we had a two-hour-ten-minute version that told the exact same story with some really great funny scenes that were just too long and draggy for the piece. So all that stuff will end up on the DVD. You learn a lot from being brutal about cutting, and I wonder if that will feed back into my next script — to be spare and more succinct. But I'm always trying to do that." POST: Tell us about working with editor Lisa Gunning. How does that relationship work? McDONAGH: "She wasn't on set much but she was in LA for the shoot, and she'd cut on an Avid while we shot. So if I felt we were short of any shots for a scene, I'd ask her to cut that more quickly, to make sure we had coverage. That happened a few times, and she was great to work with." POST: Who did the visual effects work and how many visual effects shots are there? McDONAGH: "Method in Soho did all the VFX. We had about 100 shots total, and a couple of really gory moments were the big- gest challenge. I try to do as much as possible in camera, but when the guy gets shot at the start of the film, it was all CGI. It takes a while to get something that's not too gory or car- toon-like, but that still has an impact." POST: How important are sound and music to you? McDONAGH: "Very important, and I love doing the sound mix and finding the right songs. I really care about the music, and we recorded all of that in London; Carter Burwell came over to do it. I really like to be a bit idiosyncratic about the songs, and I mix some modern stuff with some iconic stuff from the '60s that's not too well-known, maybe. "As for sound effects, I'm not quite so involved, but we did use them very specifically in some scenes to really enhance the tension. There's the scene with Woody and a wheel- chair, where we used a squeaky one to ratchet up what was happening behind the back of a character." POST: Did you do a DI? McDONAGH: "Yes, and it was great, espe- cially for all the flashback sequences. I wanted to give them a slightly different feel from the rest of the film, and Ben and I discussed all that quite early on. We wanted to give LA a very vibrant, clear look, and have the flash- backs be more muted. We also enhanced a lot of the reds — not just the blood, but any reds in the shot. So the DI is such a great tool for crafting a shot like that, and I find it very relaxing as well." POST: Did the film turn out the way you originally envisioned it while writing the script? McDONAGH: "Yes, it's pretty close. I had this vision of a big, cinematic piece with wide landscapes, especially in all the desert scenes, and I'm happy with the look we got. It looks like a big American movie (laughs)." POST: Are you a digital fan? McDONAGH: "To be honest, not really. I just don't trust it, and until it's properly cheaper and as good as film, I can't see any reason to shoot digitally." POST: So, you don't think film is dead? McDONAGH: "Not at all." POST: Would you consider directing some- one else's script on a project? McDONAGH: "No, never. The reason is, it takes so much time to make a film — two years of your life, and you only have so many stories to tell and opinions about the world, so I feel I'll always need to express my own. I have a big backlog of my own scripts I want to do, so it wouldn't make sense for me." POST: Any interest in doing a 3D project? McDONAGH: "None whatsoever." POST: What's the state of indie filmmaking? McDONAGH: "It seems to be pretty healthy. There's a lot of great indie films com- ing out I want to see, so that's a good sign." POST: Is Hollywood healthy or sick? McDONAGH: "It seems to be fine in terms of the big event movies. It's a tricky balancing act, I think. You have to balance the money aspect with a voice that's strong enough to make a personal movie." POST: What's next? McDONAGH: "I've written a script that's based in America and all ready to go. It's a darker piece, like Bruges, with a strong female lead. But it'll probably be a while before we start." www.postmagazine.com Post • October 2012 13 Editor Lisa Gunning cut the film on an Avid system.