Hemingway & Gellhorn

Director Philip Kaufman has a talent for telling a good story against the backdrop of history. The Right Stuff (covering the start of the United States’ race into space) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague) made their marks, but now the latest, Hemingway & Gellhorn continues that streak.

Originally intended as a theatrical film, but ultimately completed as a made-for-HBO feature, Hemingway & Gellhorn chronicles the short and tempestuous relationship between Ernest Hemingway (Clive Owen) and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman). The two met in 1936 in Key West, traveled to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War and were married in 1940. They lived in Havana and after four years of a difficult relationship were divorced in 1945. During her 60-year career as a journalist, Gellhorn was recognized as being one of the best war correspondents of the last century. She covered nearly every conflict up until and including the U. S. invasion of Panama in 1989.

The film also paired another team – that of Kaufman and film editor Walter Murch – both of whom had last teamed up for The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I recently spoke with Walter Murch upon his return from the screening of Hemingway & Gellhorn at the Cannes Film Festival. Murch commented on the similarities of these projects, “I’ve always been attracted to the intersection of history and drama. I hadn’t worked with Phil since the 1980s, so I enjoyed tackling another film together, but I was also really interested in the subject matter. When we started, I really didn’t know that much about Martha Gellhorn. I had heard the name, but that was about it. Like most folks, I knew the legend and myth of Hemingway, but not really many of the details of him as a person.”

This has been Murch’s first project destined for TV, rather than theaters. He continued, “Although it’s an HBO film, we never treated it as anything other than a feature film, except that our total schedule, including shooting, was about six months long, instead of ten or more months. In fact, seeing the film in Cannes with an audience of 2,500 was very rewarding. It was the first time we had actually screened in front of a theatrical audience that large. During post, we had a few ‘friends and family’ screenings, but never anything with a formal preview audience. That’s, of course, standard procedure with the film studios. I’m not sure what HBO’s plans are for Hemingway & Gellhorn beyond the HBO channels. Often some of their films make it into theatrical distribution in countries where HBO doesn’t have a cable TV presence.”

Hemingway & Gellhorn was produced entirely in the San Francisco Bay area, even though it was a period film and none of the story takes place there. All visual effects were done by Tippett Studio, supervised by Christopher Morley, which included placing the actors into scenes using real archival footage. Murch explained, “We had done something similar in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The technology has greatly improved since then, and we were able to do things that would have been impossible in 1986. The archival film footage quality was vastly different from the ARRI ALEXA footage used for principal photography. The screenplay was conceived as alternating between grainless color and grainy monochrome scenes to juxtapose the intimate events in the lives of Hemingway and Gellhorn with their presence on the world stage at historical events. So it was always intended for effect, rather than trying to convince the audience that there was a completely continuous reality. As we got into editing, Phil started to play with color, using different tinting for the various locations. One place might be more yellow and another cool or green and so on. We were trying to be true to the reality of these people, but the film also has to be dramatic. Plus, Phil likes to have fun with the characters. There must be balance, so you have to find the right proportion for these elements.”

The task of finding the archival footage fell to Rob Bonz, who started a year before shooting. Murch explained, “An advantage you have today that we didn’t have in the ‘80s is YouTube. A lot of these clips exist on-line, so it’s easier to research what options you might have. Of course, then you have to find the highest quality version of what you’ve seen on-line. In the case of the events in Hemingway & Gellhorn, these took place all over the world, so Rob and his researchers were calling all kinds of sources, including film labs in Cuba, Spain and Russia that might still have some of these original nitrate materials.”

This was Walter Murch’s first experience working on a film recorded using an ARRI ALEXA. The production recorded 3K ARRIRAW files using the Codex recorder and then it was the editorial team’s responsibility to convert these files for various destinations, including ProResLT (1280 x 720) for the edit, H.264 for HBO review and DPX sequences for DI. Murch was quite happy with the ALEXA’s image. He said, “Since these were 3K frames we were able to really take advantage of the size for repositioning. I got so used to doing that with digital images, starting with Youth Without Youth, that it’s now just second nature. The ALEXA has great dynamic range and the image held up well to subtle zooms and frame divisions. Most repositionings and enlargements were on the order of 125% to 145%, but there’s one blow-up at 350% of normal.”

In addition to Bonz, the editorial team included Murch’s son Walter (first assistant editor) and David Cerf (apprentice). Walter Murch is a big proponent of using FileMaker Pro for his film editor’s code book and explained some of the changes on this film. “Dave really handled most of the FileMaker jiu-jitsu. It works well with XML, so we were able go back and forth between FileMaker Pro and Final Cut Pro 7 using XML. This time our script supervisor, Virginia McCarthy, was using ScriptE, which also does a handshake with FileMaker, so that her notes could be instantly integrated into our database. Then we could use this information to drive an action in Final Cut Pro – for instance, the assembly of dailies reels. FileMaker would organize the information about yesterday’s shooting, and then an XML out of that data would trigger an assembly in Final Cut, inserting graphics and text as needed in between shots. In the other direction, we would create visibility-disabled slugs on a dedicated video track, tagged with scene information about the clips in the video tracks below. Outputting XML from Final Cut would create an instantaneous continuity list with time markers in FileMaker.”

The way Walter Murch organizes his work is a good fit for Final Cut Pro 7, which he used on Hemingway & Gellhorn and continues to use on a current documentary project. In fact, at a Boston FCP user gathering, Murch showed one of the most elaborate screen grabs of an FCP timeline that you can imagine. He takes full advantage of the track structure to incorporate temporary sound effects and music cues, as well as updated final music and effects.

Another trick he mentioned to me was something he referred to as a QuickTime skin. Murch continued, “I edit with the complete movie on the timeline, not in reels, so I always have the full cut in front of me. I started using this simple QuickTime skin technique with Tetro. First, I export the timeline as a self-contained QuickTime file and then re-import the visual. This is placed on the upper-most video track, effectively hiding everything below. As such, it’s like a ‘skin’ that wraps the clips below it, so the computer doesn’t ‘see’ them when you scroll back and forth. The visual information is now all at one location on a hard drive, so the system isn’t bogged down with unrendered files and other clutter. When you make changes, then you ‘razor-blade’ through the QuickTime and pull back the skin, revealing the ‘internal organs’ (the clips that you want to revise) below – thus making the changes like a surgeon. Working this way also gives a quick visual overview of where you’ve made changes. You can instantly see where the skin has been ‘broken’ and how extensive the changes were. It’s the visual equivalent of a change list. After a couple of weeks of cutting, on average, I make a new QuickTime and start the process over.”

Walter Murch is currently working on a feature documentary about the Large Hadron Collider. Murch, in his many presentations and discussions on editing, considers the art part plumbing (knowing the workflow), part performance (instinctively feeling the rhythm and knowing, in a musical sense, when to cut) and part writing (building and then modifying the story through different combinations of picture and sound). Editing a documentary is certainly a great example of the editor as writer. His starting point is 300 hours of material following three theorists and three experimentalists over a four-year period, including the catastrophic failure of the accelerator nine days after it was turned on for the first time. Murch, who has always held a love and fascination for the sciences, is once again at that intersection of history and drama.

Click here to watch the trailer.

(And here’s a nice additional article from the New York Times.)

Originally written for Digital Video magazine (NewBay Media, LLC).

©2012 Oliver Peters

The Bourne Legacy

Fans of the Jason Bourne stories are being treated to an expansion of the franchise with the release of The Bourne Legacy. Unlike other franchise restarts, this film moves off in a different direction, exploring the greater Bourne world through the introduction of agent Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner (The Avengers, Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Hurt Locker) and assisted by Dr. Marta Shearing, played by Rachel Weisz (The Lovely Bones, The Brothers Bloom, The Constant Gardener).

Fortunately for the fans of the series, the film was entrusted to Tony Gilroy (Duplicity, Michael Clayton) as writer-director. Gilroy had written the screenplays for the original Bourne trilogy of films. All three Gilroy brothers were involved in making The Bourne Legacy, so to some, this might seem like a family project. Dan Gilroy (Real Steel, The Fall, Freejack) co-wrote the screenplay and John Gilroy (Warrior, Salt, Duplicity, Michael Clayton) was the film editor.

A family affair

I recently spoke with John Gilroy, as the film was getting its last post production touches prior to release. Asked about how the sibling bond affected the editor-director relationship, Gilroy responded, “Our father was a writer-director, but he moved us out of Los Angeles to upstate New York when we were small children. I believe his hope was that none of us would actually end up in the business. I think he was a bit surprised that we all gravitated, in one way or another, to his line of work. Tony has worked with both Danny and me individually before, but this is the first time we’ve all worked together. I think it was a special experience for all of us.”

“As an editor, I work in much the same way with Tony as I do with other directors. I try to understand the vision of the film they’re trying to make, in big ways and small. I think editors in general are probably pretty good listeners. If we can truly understand a director’s vision on a deep level and embrace it, then we have a real compass that can navigate us through the editorial process. I’ve certainly known Tony longer than any other director I’ve ever worked with or ever will, so there is undoubtedly a short hand to that sort of understanding, but essentially the process is the same.”

Keeping it fresh

The Bourne trilogy picked up several awards and nominations – including a few Oscars – and set a very specific visual style. In fact, these films set the stage for a more believable secret agent – a tone that’s been picked up by others, notably the reboot of the James Bond franchise, starting with the first Daniel Craig version, Casino Royale. With The Bourne Legacy Tony and Dan Gilroy wanted a fresh approach. John Gilroy continued, “Tony and Danny thought of a way to expand the franchise by focusing on another central character. Aaron Cross is a government agent, but he’s also a completely different character with a completely different set of problems. By accessing the timeline of the previous Bourne stories, this film dovetails nicely to reveal a bigger world. The series has always been grounded in reality and that’s embraced in the new film, as well. The previous films, however, had a very kinetic visual approach that grew over the three – becoming faster by the third film. Tony didn’t want to just mimic that previous visual style. Bourne Legacy is an action picture and it’s certainly kinetic, but visually, it has its own signature.”

A fast production schedule

The Bourne Legacy involved a tight production and post schedule, with 89 shoot days. Production took place mainly on location and at the Kauffman-Astoria soundstages in New York City, with additional location production in Washington, D.C., Canada and the Philippines, among others. Robert Elswit (Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Salt, There Will Be Blood) was the director of photographer and shot mainly on Super35mm film. Some digital cameras were also in the mix for the visual effects shots. The production wrapped in late February and was in the final phase of post (mix and finishing VFX shots) by the end of June.

John Gilroy discussed the schedule with me. “This was a long shooting schedule and a short post schedule, so that puts some extra pressure on the editorial process. Our director’s cut needed to be farther along than what’s normally expected. Fortunately, the script was a great blueprint, but as always, you make amendments as you go along. Often, events or actions on the page don’t need to absolutely be on the screen, and they fall away in the process of editing. Writer-directors, such as Tony, tend to be very good in the cutting room, because editing, on some level is like writing, or perhaps re-writing. The finished film is a bit over two hours long. This is a little longer than the other Bourne films, but we’re introducing new characters and setting the table for a larger story, so that’s to be expected. My first cut was only about 15 to 20 minutes longer at the start. Probably the biggest challenge for me was that the film’s most complicated action sequences were shot in the Philippines at the end of the schedule, instead of at the beginning or the middle.  There were all sorts of visual effects that had to be met, so I had to hone some very complex sequences very quickly.”

From the Moviola to the digital age

John Gilroy has seen a number of technology shifts during his career. He explained, “Editors around my age were the last people to begin their careers cutting on Moviolas in the 90s.  The first non-linear, computer-based system I used was Lightworks when I worked on Bill Madison.  A few years later I jumped over to Avid [Media Composer]. Although I’ve thought about trying out other software – like Final Cut, in between films – there was never a real need. I’m happy that Avid has been able to keep improving itself over the years with various small innovations. We used several Media Composer systems connected to Unity shared storage.  The initial editorial team, run by his first assistant editor Jim Harrison, started with four people, but has more than doubled as the film nears its completion. There are hundreds of visual effects shots in this film, all designed to create realism – vehicle effects, guns, explosions and more. [Adobe] After Effects has become an important component of our editorial process these days. We use it a lot to temp certain kinds of visual effects. All of my assistants  know After Effects. Of course, on a movie like this, there is an entire visual effects department who we work closely with.  Hal Couzens and Mike Ellis are our visual effects supervisors and most of  the final, full-quality visual effects were primarily done by Double Negative in London, as well as a number of additional vendors.”

Sound and sound editing are also important to Gilroy. “I probably address the sonic aspects of the films I work on a little more than other picture editors might. How a scene sounds and how it’s sonically designed is important to me, not just for presentation purposes, but many times it actually helps me better understand a scene or sequence. It’s a bigger part of the movie experience than many people realize. On Bourne Legacy we are also working with a fantastic sound team headed by Per Halberg, who has sound supervised all the other Bourne films. He and his team are truly top notch and it’s been a pleasure working with them.”

I asked Gilroy how the preview audiences had received the film. He replied, “We’ve had a couple of preview screenings and they were very helpful and reaffirming. This was the big risk – to take a franchise built around one character and then center around a completely new character, under the same banner. Fortunately, the audiences we screened for totally embraced Jeremy Renner and this new concept. It was quite a relief. There were no plans for a stereo 3D version. People want a good film, first and foremost. 3D does not guarantee success and not all films are right for 3D. Tony felt strongly that Bourne Legacy was better served in 2D. Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3 is doing the DI and he was brought in early to the process. We were able to color-time much of our picture at Company 3, even during our preview period, which is not normally the case. The benefit, of course, is that the picture looks so much better, so much earlier.”

With a tightly crafted script as a template, The Bourne Legacy wasn’t the type of film that needed to be re-structured in the cutting room. Gilroy wrapped up our conversation with his approach to the film. “As an editor you first solve the little nuisances in a scene. Then you step back and solve issues at the scene level and then finally the whole film. My biggest responsibility was to get everything out of Rachel’s and Jeremy’s performances. They were really fantastic and shined in this film. I just had to make sure I didn’t leave anything on the table!”

(Here’s another good interview with John Gilroy at Studio Daily.)

Originally written for Digital Video magazine (NewBay Media, LLC).

©2012 Oliver Peters

Film Budgeting Basics

New filmmakers tackling their first indie feature will obviously ask, “What is this film going cost to produce?” The answer to this – like many of these questions – is, “It depends.” The cost of making a film is directly related to the resources needed and the time required for each resource. That often has little to do with the time involved in actually filming the scenes.

A friend of mine, after directing his first feature, was fond of saying, “The total time of saying the words ‘roll, action, cut, print’ was probably less than an hour; but, it took me two years prior to that to have the privilege.” Cost is almost never related to return. I’ve often told budding filmmakers to consider long and hard what they are doing. They could instead take the same amount of money and throw themselves the biggest party of their life. After all the effort of making the film, you might actually have more to show for it from the party. Film returns tend to follow other media success percentages, where typically 15% are successful and 85% fail (or at least don’t make a financial return). Understanding how to maximum the value on the screen is integral to budgeting a feature film.

I often work in the realm of indie features, which includes dramatic productions and documentaries. Each of these two categories tends to break into cost tiers like these:

Dramatic films

$0 – $50,000

$200,000

$500,000

$1,000,000-$2,000,000

Over $2,000,000

Documentaries

$0 – $30,000

$50,000

$300,000-$1,500,000

Over $1,500,000

Money is always tight within these ranges. Once you get over $2,000,000, you tend to have a bit more breathing room and the ability to tackle issues by adding more resources to the equation. Production is related to time and that varies greatly between scripted films and documentaries, where the story is often evolving over time and out of the director’s control. Here is a typical rule-of-thumb timeline for the production of each.

Dramatic films – timeline

1 year to secure rights and funding

2 months of casting, scouting, preparation

1 month readying actual production logistics

2-5 weeks of production (stage and location)

8-20 weeks of picture editorial

8-20 weeks sound editorial and scoring (usually starts after picture is “locked”)

1-2 weeks of picture finish/conform/grade

1-2 weeks of audio mix (re-recording mix)

1 week to finalize all deliverables

Documentaries – timeline

The timeframe up to the start of editorial differs with every project and is an unknown.

8-60 weeks of picture editorial

8-20 weeks sound editorial and scoring (usually starts after picture is “locked”)

1-2 weeks of picture finish/conform/grade

1-2 weeks of audio mix (re-recording mix)

1 week to finalize all deliverables

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Clearly any of these categories can take longer, but in the indie/low-budget field, indecision and letting things drag out will destroy the viability of the project. You don’t have the luxury of studio film timeframes. This is where a savvy line producer, unit manager and production manager (often the same person on small films) can make or break the budget. Here are some cost variables to consider.

Cost variables that need to be evaluated and balanced

Union versus non-union.

More days of shooting versus fewer, but longer days, with overtime pay.

The size of the cast and the experience level of the actors.

Allotting adequate (non-filmed) rehearsal time.

The number of script pages (a shorter script means a less costly production).

Accurate timing of scene descriptions to determine how much production time is required for each scene.

The number of locations and location changes/distances.

Period drama versus a contemporary story.

Stage and sets versus shooting at real locations.

The number of make-up and wardrobe changes.

A production location with local crews and facilities versus bringing in resources from the outside.

Film versus digital photography.

The number of cameras.

The amount of gear (dollies, cranes, etc.).

Cost-saving tips

Investigate opportunities to partner with regional film schools.

Using a director of photography who is his own camera operator and who can supply his own cameras and lenses.

Using a location mixer with his own gear.

Using an editor with his own gear.

Eliminate the needs for an elaborate “video village” and possibly reduce the need for a DIT (if you have savvy camera assistants).

Negotiate lower equipment rental costs based on fewer days per week.

Negotiate local resources for food, lodging, travel and craft services.

Explore alternatives to stages, such as empty warehouses.

Explore unsigned local musical artists for songs, scores, etc.

Hold one or more days of production in reserve (to fix “gaps” discovered during editing), in order to shoot inserts, B-roll, transitional shots, the opening title, etc.

Errors that will drive up cost

The film is too short or too long (ideal is a first cut that’s about 10% longer than target, so it can be trimmed back).

Unforeseen or poorly executed visual effects.

Judgment calls made on location to “save” time/effort on a rushed day.

Allowing the actors too much freedom to ad lib and improvise, as well as play with props.

Indecision in the edit.

Changing the edit after the cut is “locked”.

Using stock images or popular music without making provisions in advance for clearance and budgeting.

Cost-saving items that AREN’T

Failing to shoot a complete master shot as part of the coverage on complex scenes.

Using two or more camera throughout the entire production.

Letting actors ad lib in lieu of adequate rehearsal.

Not hiring a script supervisor/continuity person.

Using blue/green-screen effects for driving shots.

Relying on low-light cameras instead of proper lighting.

Extensive use of the “video village” on set.

Limiting the amount of footage sent to the editors (send them everything, not only “circle takes”).

Short-changing the importance of the role of the data wrangler.

Not allowing adequate time or resources for proper data management.

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For reference, I put together two sample budgets a year ago, as part of a presentation at Digital Video Expo in Pasadena. It’s available for download here in Numbers, Excel and PDF versions. Feel free to manipulate the spreadsheets for your own production to see how they stack up. I break down a film/DI and a digital photography budget. As you can see, going with 35mm film adds about $175K more to the budget, largely due to stock, processing and DI costs. In a major studio feature, the difference in formats is inconsequential, but not in the million dollar indie range. I have not included a “film-out”, which will add $75-$200K.

The budget I developed, with the help of a number of experienced unit managers, represents a fairly typical, non-union, indie film. It includes most of the cost for crew, cast, production and post, but does not include such items as the cost of the script, props, sets, production office rentals, hotels, insurance, creative fees and others. As a rule-of-thumb, I’ve factored gear and stage rentals as 3-day weeks. This means you get seven days of use, but are only charged for three. In the past year, I’ve heard rates as low as 1.5-day weeks, but I don’t think you can plan on that being the norm. A 3-day or 4-day week is customary.

Many states offer film production incentives, designed to entice producers to shoot a project in that state. Often local investment money and economic incentives will attract producers to a particular locale. That’s great if the state has good local crew and production resources, but if not, then you’ll have to bring in more from the outside. This adds cost for travel and lodging, some of which an enterprising producer can negotiate for trade in the form of a credit on the film. There’s no guarantee of that, though, and as it’s such a variable, this is a cost item that must be evaluated with each individual production.

Remember that post production work has to occur in some physical place. Audio post is typically done in a studio owned or rented by the audio engineer. That’s not the case for editors. If you hire a freelance film editor, you will also need to factor in the cost of the editing system, as well as a rental office in which to house the operation. Some editors can supply that as a package deal and others don’t.

Naturally, a savvy line producer can find ways to bring this budget even lower. I work a lot with the Valencia College Film Technology Program in Orlando. Over the years they have partnered with many producers to complete Hollywood-grade features. I’m not talking student films, but rather name directors and actors working alongside students and working pros to put out films destined for theatrical distribution. The films produced there often place a level of production value on the screen that’s as much as twice the actual out-of-pocket cost of production and post. All thanks to the resources and services the program has to offer.

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Most new producers have a good handle on the production phase, but post is a total black hole. As a consequence, post often gets short-changed in the budgeting process. Unfortunately, some producers try to figure out their post production costs at the point when everything is in the can, but almost all of the money has been spent. That’s in spite of the fact that post generally takes much more time than the period allotted to location and stage photography. In order to properly understand the post side of things, here are the workflows for four finishing scenarios.

Film – traditional post

Shoot on location with film – 1,000ft. of 35mm = about 10 minutes of unedited footage.

Process the negative at the lab and do a “best light” transfer to videotape or a hard drive.

The assistant editor loads and logs footage and syncs double-system audio.

The editor cuts a first cut, then the director’s cut and then the final version.

The sound team edits dialogue, ADR and sound effects (also temp music at times).

The composer writes and records the score (often in a parallel track to the above).

Sound is mixed in a re-recording session.

The editorial team generates a cut list for the negative cutter.

The negative cutter conforms the negative (physical splices).

All visual effects are added as optical effects.

Lab color timing is performed and answer prints are generated for review.

Film deliverables are generated.

Film – DI (digital intermediate) post

Shoot on location with film – 1,000ft. of 35mm = about 10 minutes of unedited footage.

Process the negative at the lab and do a “best light” transfer to videotape or a hard drive.

The assistant editor loads and logs footage and syncs double-system audio.

The editor cuts a first cut, then the director’s cut and then the final version.

The sound team edits dialogue, ADR and sound effects (also temp music at times).

The composer writes and records the score (often in a parallel track to the above).

Sound is mixed in a re-recording session.

The editorial team generates edit lists for the finishing house.

Selected shots are retransferred (or scanned), conformed and graded.

Visual effects are inserted during the conform/grade.

Digital and/or film deliverables are generated.

Digital production – camera raw photography

Shoot on location with a digital camera that records in a raw file format to a card or hard drive.

The footage is converted into a viewable form for the editors.

The assistant editor loads and logs footage and syncs double-system audio.

The editor cuts a first cut, then the director’s cut and then the final version.

The sound team edits dialogue, ADR and sound effects (also temp music at times).

The composer writes and records the score (often in a parallel track to the above).

Sound is mixed in a re-recording session.

The editorial team generates edit lists for the finishing house.

Camera raw files are conformed and color graded in a process similar to a DI.

Visual effects are inserted during the conform/grade.

Digital and/or film deliverables are generated.

Digital production – tape or file-based (not raw) photography

Shoot on location with a digital camera and recorded to tape or as files to a card or hard drive.

The assistant editor loads and logs footage and syncs double-system audio.

The editor cuts a first cut, then the director’s cut and then the final version.

The sound team edits dialogue, ADR and sound effects (also temp music at times).

The composer writes and records the score (often in a parallel track to the above).

Sound is mixed in a re-recording session.

The editorial team generates edit lists for the finishing house.

Camera files are conformed and color graded.

Visual effects are inserted during the conform/grade.

In some cases, the editing format and the system is of a level to be considered final quality and the same editor can do both the creative edit and finishing.

Digital and/or film deliverables are generated.

As these workflows show, a lot goes into post beyond simply editing and mixing the film. These elements take time and determine the level of polish you present to your audience. The sample budgets I’ve compiled aren’t intended to cause sticker shock. It’s clear that getting the tally to $1 Million doesn’t take very much and that’s a pretty realistic range for a small film. Granted, I’ve worked on films done for $150,000 that looked like a lot more, but it takes a lot of work to get there. And often leaning hard on the good graces of the crew and resources you use.

For comparison, here’s an example at The Smoking Gun that’s purported to be the working budget for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village under the working title of The Woods. It doesn’t really matter whether it is or it isn’t the actual budget. The numbers are in line with this type of studio film, which makes it a good exercise in seeing how one can spend $70 Million on a film.

Whether you play in the studio or the independent film arena, it’s important to understand how to translate the vision of the script in a way that correlates to time and money. Once that becomes second nature, you are on your way to becoming a producer that puts the most production value on the screen for the audiences to appreciate.

©2012 Oliver Peters

Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson is a director known for his ability to bring interesting and quirky stories and characters to the screen. His latest film, Moonrise Kingdom, takes place on an island in New England some time in the 1960s. Two pre-teens meet, fall in love and run away together. This brings the adults together in an effort to find them, but also sparks a fantastical adventure for the two lead characters, Suzy (Kara Hayward) and Sam (Jared Gilman).

Andrew Weisblum has edited the past few Wes Anderson films (Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Darjeeling Limited), but also films for Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler, Black Swan). In fact, his work on Black Swan earned an Oscar nomination last year for Film Editing. We recently spoke about Moonrise Kingdom and I asked how he was able to juggle such completely different film styles. Weisblum responded, “These are very different genres, but both directors are very specific with a complete vision. I’m there to help achieve that vision and it doesn’t really matter if it’s drama or comedy. Those are all good challenges.”

The Super 16mm aesthetic

An interesting similarity in these diverse films is the use of Super 16mm film. Weisblum explained, “From an organizational and technical standpoint, it’s all just files for me. Technicolor in New York handled the processing and transfers, which came to me as [Avid] DNxHD36 files on hard drives. That’s become interesting with the new digital cameras. I recently was on another project, which was shot with the [ARRI] ALEXA. I didn’t realize that it hadn’t been shot on film, until I noticed there were no keycodes and asked my assistant.”

“For Moonrise Kingdom, the aesthetic of Super 16mm fit well for the era of the ‘60s. It also allowed Wes to keep the crew small. Our two lead actors had never acted in a film, so Wes wanted to make sure they didn’t feel pressured. A lot of the locations were out in the woods and Wes was able to let them explore, feel comfortable and discover the process together. The film choice also allowed the DP [Robert Yeoman] to get some interesting angles. For instance, they used an [Aaton] A-Minima for some shots in difficult terrain. The movie also includes a number of scenes using miniatures, which were shot on 35mm film, so I was working with a mixture of film formats.”

Andrew Weisblum and assistant editor Daniel Triller worked on the film both on location in Rhode Island and during post production in New York. They cut with Avid Media Composer on Mac Pros connected to Avid shared storage, with some additional cutting on a laptop. Weisblum discussed the workflow, “The film was shot in approximately forty days on location in Rhode Island. I was cutting there at a house. Typically we would get the transfer the next day, Daniel would sync the audio and we’d watch dailies. I would screen and cut with Wes on the weekends. The production wrapped in June and we relocated to New York and cut for another eight to ten weeks. The editing went relatively quickly, but there were a lot of visual effects, so that took a bit of time until all these were completed and cut into the film.”

Weisblum continued, “The script was very concise and clear, but Wes also did something new on this film, which was to storyboard a lot of key scenes. That started for him on Mr. Fox, which was animated. Of course, it’s part of that process, but for Moonrise Kingdom, it helped him to plan out framing and timing, especially since some of the scenes were set to music. This allowed him to be very economical in filming these scenes, but also gave us a tight roadmap to follow, so the edit came together quickly and stayed close to the original script.”

Tackling sound through collaboration

How an editor handles temporary sound design and music in building the rough cut is an important ingredient of the film editing process. The Moonrise Kingdom team tackled this in a way different from other projects. Weisblum explained, “On many films, the picture editor will drop in temp sound effects that are close, but not always the perfect sound. The director and others then hear the film over and over again as scenes are previewed and screened with these effects. It often feels ‘wrong’ when they finally hear the fleshed out effects in the mix that were placed by the sound editors. To prevent this type of ‘temp love’ I sent sequences early on to [supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer] Craig Henighan. We were cutting on Media Composer and he uses Pro Tools, so bouncing material back-and-forth was easy. He could incorporate sound effects and ambiances into those scenes. We could integrate these effects into the edit, which meant we were always using the best possible options.”

“We also worked with two composers. Mark Mothersbaugh worked on the percussion pieces for the scout camp scenes. I would place his demos based on Wes’ ideas and then Peter Jarvis would flesh these out with more orchestration and performed the final versions. Alexandre Desplat wrote the romantic theme, which wound its way through the score. There’s also a lot of Benjamin Britten and Hank Williams music throughout the film.”

Visual effects help spell out the story

Although Anderson’s films don’t seem like they would be special effects movies, Moonrise Kingdom includes about 250 visual effects shots. According to Weisblum, “Dan Schrecker and Look Effects in New York handled all these shots. There are some fantastical elements in the film, but many of these effects are simply used to fill in story ‘tidbits’ and missing plot exposition. For example, by adding a seaplane to the background of one shot, it allowed us to convey the point, without requiring a specific set of shots to build an extra little scene. These elements help the audience to understand the story in an economical fashion. Visual effects like these are a constant part of editing now. It’s no longer a specialized item. Quick shot fixes, invisible split-screens and similar effects are just another set of editorial tools.” Tim Stipan was the DI colorist at Technicolor. According to Weisblum, “Wes is not a big proponent of power windows and aggressive secondary corrections, so it’s a straightforward grading job. The exception in Moonrise Kingdom is that specific scenes needed a different look to play into the fantasy, which is a departure for him.”

Wes Anderson has total creative control on his films, which is in keeping with their nature as independent features. Weisblum talked about their working style, “Wes is very ‘hands-on’ in the cut. He’s not big on improvisation, but is interested in the original rhythms and behaviors of the actors. When something unusual happens with a character, he’s willing to embrace it and deviate from the script in editing, when the scene is played better than the way it was written. Wes likes the actors to do a lot of series of their dialogue lines within the takes. With the kids, he also did a lot of wild lines. I use [Avid] ScriptSync all the time and it is very helpful with indexing those performances.”

Our conversation turned to the current flux in editing technology. Weisblum offered, “I started assisting and cutting on film, but I saw that I needed to get proficient with technology. First it was Lightworks and then Avid. Once I became successful as an editor, I was primarily working on Avid systems. I want to be creative and Avid lets me do everything I need it to do. I want to spend all of my energy on the creative process and not worry about learning which new buttons to push on another piece of software that I might not use. The job of an assistant is to clear the path for the editor, so that all the editor has to do is concentrate on getting the best cut of the film. I looked forward to that day as an assistant and now that I’m there, I fully embrace that concept.”

Originally written for DV magazine (NewBay Media, LLC)

©2012 Oliver Peters

The Descendants

Alexander Payne is a director who makes human stories with a blend of comedy and drama that we can all relate to. Movies like Sideways and About Schmidt are about discovery of self and audiences relate to the humor of awkward situations that echo familiar events in our own lives.

The Descendants continues this trend with Matt King (George Clooney), a Hawaiian lawyer and disengaged father who struggles with the realization that he will have to remove his wife from life support. She is in a coma as the result of a terrible boating accident. Payne has interwoven an additional storyline dealing with King’s extended family and their plans to sell a huge piece of unspoiled land to a large developer.  The King family are descendants, distant relatives of native Hawaiians and non-native immigrants who settled the islands generations ago.  The film’s title stems from this part of the story.

The Descendants was shot in about fifty days on location in Hawaii with the cutting being done in Hollywood (during principal photography) and later in Santa Monica (during post production). The production was on 35mm film, with Fotokem handling dailies and a digital intermediate finish at Modern VideoFilm. Alexander Payne is one of the few directors who has the right of final cut on his films and Kevin Tent (The Golden Compass, Sideways, About Schmidt, Blow) has been the editor on all of Payne’s films. Since the dailies that the production crew would view had to travel back to Hawaii and Hawaii is three hours behind Los Angeles, editorial got to see dailies before production. Payne would give Tent a daily call to get the rundown on how everything looked and sounded.

Tent described the post production schedule, “We’d sometimes get only a half day’s worth of dailies and other times a day-and-a-half. This would depend on the crew’s cut-off time to get the negative on a plane and then to the lab. I would assemble scenes and send them back to Alexander to watch over the weekends. When he got back to Los Angeles in June, we started working away. We had our first cut for the studio in late September. The first official audience preview was in late October and we finished the film by late February 2011.”

An Amtrak cut

Kevin Tent and first assistant editor Mindy Elliott cut on Avid Media Composers (version 4.0.5) connected to Unity shared storage. Dailies were delivered by Fotokem on HDCAM-SR tape for Fox Searchlight, as well as Avid DNxHD36 media on FireWire drives to be ingested into the Unity system. The FireWire drives came in handy later, because Clooney invited Payne and Tent to go to his villa in Italy for a couple of weeks. The two were able to continue cutting using a laptop and the FireWire drives both in Italy and subsequently on a cross-country train ride from New York back to Los Angeles.

“We’re laying claim to being the first film cut on an Amtrak train,” Tent joked. “Alexander had this great idea to take the train across the US on the return home. It was an old-style Hollywood romantic notion, where a writer would board the train in New York and when they arrived in Los Angeles, the movie script was done. Our two families had booked rooms in sleeper cars, which were large enough to spread out the laptop and the drives. This let me get some editing in during the two days on the train, but it’s awfully hard to concentrate on editing when you are going through some of the most gorgeous countryside in the US!”

Striking the right tone

Tent discussed some of his thoughts behind the editing of the film. “We tried to keep up the pace throughout the whole movie, but it’s the type of film in which you can’t shift the tone too quickly or you’ll lose the audience. Our feeling was that if you rushed it, the audience wouldn’t have time to absorb and feel the emotion. The balance between the drama and the humor was probably our biggest challenge. We’ve had similar challenges on Alexander’s other films, but The Descendants was a whole new level of trickiness. We had to be respectful of the characters and what they were experiencing. It’s about raw human emotion and about death – something most audience members can relate to in one way or another. So we scaled back and trimmed some of the humor, being very careful of anything, which might feel insensitive to our characters.  Hopefully we struck a good balance and the humor feels like it could happen in real life.”

King’s wife is only seen outside of the coma and hospital bed in one shot at the beginning of the film. I asked Tent whether changes were made in the edit to shorten the scene. Tent responded, “No, it was never part of a longer or larger scene.  Just that shot of Patricia Hastie [Elizabeth King] on the boat. Its purpose was to catch just a glimpse of a person’s life. Life is so fragile. She’s alive and vivacious one moment and the next… Patty did a pretty amazing job. Many people thought we used a mannequin in the later scenes, but it’s all Patty. She lost all that weight and never broke her character even when other actors were yelling at her.”

“The voice-over at the beginning was always scripted and we recorded much more than we used. In early screenings, our audiences were having a little trouble getting insight into George’s character, Matt. Alexander wrote a couple of new lines, which substantially changed the beginning of the film and the audiences’ understanding of Matt and his wife. The lines we added were, ‘Wake up Elizabeth… Wake up… I’m ready to be a husband and a father… I’m ready to talk.’ These simple lines were enormously effective. Our audiences now immediately understood the back-story, their troubled marriage, his disengaged parenting and probably most important, his desperation. It was interesting that such a simple change in a couple of lines could have such a big impact.”

“Initially there were more scenes in the hospital in which the Matt King character told us about being a lawyer and the land deal – all in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie.  We cut them out and wound up waiting until after Matt and Scottie visit her little friend to apologize. The first time the audience hears anything about the land deal is from the mother of the little girl out on the front porch. We let her make the introduction and then we followed with a montage of dissolves of him working, looking at photos and the voice-over.  This was a very organic way to firmly set up the new story line.”

The Descendents offers a real sense of Hawaiian authenticity. Instead of a film score produced by a single composer, Payne opted for a series of songs and tracks recorded by Hawaiian musicians. Dondi Bastone (music supervisor) and Richard Ford (music editor) combed through tons of local Hawaiian tracks to come up with the right feel. Many of the scenes play well with little or no music at all – just simple slack key guitar tracks to augment or accent a scene or transition between scenes.

Avid script-based editing

Kevin Tent has been cutting on Avid Media Composer systems since his transition from film editing. Tent said, “When cutting on film, you really had to think about the ramifications of the changes you were going to make. Cutting on film was a lot like playing chess. You’d have to have the whole board in mind before you’d make your move. But, I’d never go back. I love the Avid. It’s a brilliant piece of machinery. This is the first time I’ve used ScriptSync. It was fantastic and Alexander loved it, too. We’re constantly reviewing for performance and looking at our back-up takes.  ScriptSync made this process so much easier.”

Mindy Elliott explained how ScriptSync was used on the film. “Each scene had a folder within the Avid project. Inside were the dailies bin and a script for just that scene.  Preliminary scripting of the dailies was the main task of our apprentice editor, Mikki Levi. We didn’t really use the automatic features. Almost everything was done manually, which was determined by Alexander’s directing style.  There are many ‘resets’ and ‘line repeats’ within a take, so we devised ways of marking that in the script. We also manually entered and scripted the voice-over, live musical performance and a lot of non-verbal action.”

Effects and the DI

Elliott also described their process for the DI finish and the handful of visual effects in the film. “We did a temp mix and color-correction pass (the picture was assembled off of tape using EDLs) for our two HD tape preview screenings. Our production assistant, Brian Bautista is a visual effects whiz. Using his After Effects and Photoshop skills, Brian did the preliminary work on the Hawaii maps (used when Matt and Scottie travel to The Big Island to pick up Alexandra – and when the whole clan goes to Kaui), green screen shots (plane and car windows when Matt and Scottie travel to The Big Island) and a time warp to extend the tail of a shot (when Matt disappears behind a hedge after spotting his wife’s lover). We inserted QuickTime versions of the temp effects for preview screenings and provided the templates for the finished work done by Nate Carlson (credit sequences and maps), Custom Film Effects (green screen shots, Banyan tree CGI) and Modern VideoFilm (split screen comps, time warp). Delivery for the DI at Modern VideoFilm was very much like delivering to a negative cutter, including a reference QuickTime for each reel, plus Pull Lists and Optical Pull Lists. We received ‘confidence’ check reels of the DI back from Modern that we loaded into the Avid to gang against our locked cut to make sure it all matched.”

Asked for some parting editing wisdom, Kevin Tent offered this humorous anecdote about his Amtrak experience. “My big take-away was that you can edit on the train and you can drink on the train, but you can’t drink and edit on the train. Nope… not so easy. I learned that one night after dinner and a bottle of wine in the dining car. We decided to go back to work afterwards. Trying to click on a tiny laptop with the combination of wine and the constant movement of the train – it was just too damn hard [laugh].”

Written for DV Magazine (NewBay Media, LLC)

©2012 Oliver Peters