The Hobbit

Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was one of the most anticipated films of 2012. It broke new technological boundaries and presented many creative challenges to its editor. After working as a television editor, Jabez Olssen started his own odyssey with Jackson in 2000 as an assistant editor and operator on The Lord of the Rings trilogy. After assisting again on King Kong, he next cut Jackson’s Lovely Bones as the first feature film on which he was the sole editor. The director tapped Olssen again for The Hobbit trilogy, where unlike the Rings trilogy, he will be the sole editor on all three films.

Much like the Rings films, all production for the three Hobbit films was shoot in a single eighteen month stretch. Jackson employed as many as 60 RED Digital Cinema EPIC cameras rigged for stereoscopic acquisition at 48fps – double the standard rate of traditional feature photography. Olssen was editing the first film in parallel with the principal photography phase. He had a very tight schedule that only allowed about five months after the production wrapped to lock the cut and get the film ready for release.

To get The Hobbit out on such an aggressive schedule, Olssen leaned hard on a post production infrastructure built around Avid’s technology, including 13 Media Composers (10 with Nitris DX hardware) and an ISIS 7000 with 128TB of storage. Peter Jackson’s production facilities are located in Wellington, New Zealand, where active fibre channel connections tie Stone Street Studio, Weta Digital, Park Road Post Production and the cutting rooms to the Avid ISIS storage. The three films combined, total 2200 hours (1100 x two eyes) of footage, which is the equivalent of 24 million feet of film. In addition, an Apace active backup solution with 72TB of storage was also installed, which could immediately switch over if ISIS failed.

The editorial team – headed up by first assistant editor Dan Best – consisted of eight assistant editors, including three visual effects editors. According to Olssen, “We mimicked a similar pipeline to a film project. Think of the RED camera .r3d media files as a digital negative. Peter’s facility, Park Road Post Production, functioned as the digital lab. They took the RED media from the set and generated one-light, color-corrected dailies for the editors. 24fps 2D DNxHD36 files were created by dropping every second frame from the files of one ‘eye’ of a stereo recording. For example, we used 24fps timecode with the difference between the 48fps frames being a period instead of a colon. Frame A would be 11.22.21.13 and frame B would be 11:22:21:13. This was a very natural solution for editing and a lot like working with single-field media files on interlaced television projects. The DNxHD files were then delivered to the assistant editors, who synced, subclipped and organized clips into the Avid projects. Since we were all on ISIS shared storage, once they were done, I could access the bins and the footage was ready to edit, even if I were on set. For me, working with RED files was no different than a standard film production.”

Olssen continued, “A big change for the team since the Rings movies is that the Avid systems have become more portable. Plus the fibre channel connection to ISIS allows us to run much longer distances. This enabled me to have a mobile cart on the set with a portable Media Composer system connected to the ISIS storage in the main editing building. In addition, we also had a camper van outfitted as a more comfortable mobile editing room with its own Media Composer; we called it the EMC – ‘Editorial Mobile Command’. So, I could cut on set while Peter was shooting, using the cart and, as needed, use the EMC for some quick screening of edits during a break in production. I was also on location around New Zealand for three months and during that time I cut on a laptop with mirrored media on external drives.”

The main editing room was set up with a full-blown Nitris DX system connected to a 103” plasma screen for Jackson. The original plan was to cut in 2D and then periodically consolidate scenes to conform a stereo version for screening in the Media Composer suite. Instead they took a different approach. Olssen explained, “We didn’t have enough storage to have all three films’ worth of footage loaded as stereo media, but Peter was comfortable cutting the film in 2D. This was equally important, since more theaters displayed this version of the film. Every few weeks, Park Road Post Production would conform a 48fps stereo version so we could screen the cut. They used an SGO Mistika system for the DI, because it could handle the frame rate and had very good stereo adjustment tools. Although you often have to tweak the cuts after you see the film in a stereo screening, I found we had to do far less of that than I’d expected. We were cognizant of stereo-related concerns during editing. It also helped that we could judge a cut straight from the Avid on the 103” plasma, instead of relying on a small TV screen.”

The editorial team was working with what amounted to 24fps high-definition proxy files for stereo 48fps RED .r3d camera masters. Edit decision lists were shared with Weta Digital and Park Road Post Production for visual effects, conform and digital intermediate color correction/finishing at a 2K resolution. Based on these EDLs, each unit would retrieve the specific footage needed from the camera masters, which had been archived onto LTO data tape.

The Hobbit trilogy is a heavy visual effects production, which had Olssen tapping into the Media Composer toolkit. Olssen said, “We started with a lot of low resolution, pre-visualization animations as placeholders for the effects shots. As the real effects started coming in, we would replace the pre-vis footage with the correct effects shots. With the Gollum scenes we were lucky enough to have Andy Serkis in the actual live action footage from set, so they were easy to visualize how the scene would look. But other CG characters, like Azog, were captured separately on a Performance Capture stage. That meant we had to layer separately-shot material into a single shot. We were cutting vertically in the timeline, as well as horizontally. In the early stages, many of the scenes were a patchwork of live action and pre-vis, so I used PIP effects to overlay elements to determine the scene timing. Naturally, I had to do a lot of temp green-screen composites. The dwarves are full-size actors and for many of the scenes, we had to scale them down and reposition them in the shot so we could see how the shots were coming together.”

As with most feature film editors, Jabez Olssen likes to fill out his cut with temporary sound effects and music, so that in-progress screenings feel like a complete film. He continued, “We were lucky to use some of Howard Shore’s music from the Rings films for character themes that tie The Hobbit back into The Lord of the Rings. He wrote some nice ‘Hobbity’ music for those. We couldn’t use too much of it, though, because it was so familiar to us! The sound department at Park Road Post Production uses Avid Pro Tools systems. They also have a Media Composer connected to the same ISIS storage, which enabled the sound editors to screen the cut there. From it, they generated QuickTime files for picture reference and audio files so the sound editors could work locally on their own Pro Tools workstations.”

Audiences are looking forward to the next two films in the series, which means the adventure continues for Jabez Olssen. On such a long term production many editors would be reluctant to update software, but not this time. Olssen concluded, “I actually like to upgrade, because I look forward to the new features. Although, I usually wait a few weeks until everyone knows it’s safe. We ended up on version 6.0 at the end of the first film and are on 6.5 now. Other nonlinear editing software packages are more designed for one-man bands, but Media Composer is really the only software that works for a huge visual effects film. You can’t underestimate how valuable it is to have all of the assistant editors be able to open the same projects and bins. The stability and reliability is the best. It means that we can deliver challenging films like The Hobbit trilogy on a tight post production schedule and know the system won’t let us down.”

Originally written for Avid Technology, Inc.

©2013 Oliver Peters

Cloud Atlas

Every once in a while a film comes along that requires a bit of reflection to get the full meaning. Often you need several screenings to find all the clues and story details that you might have missed the first time. Cloud Atlas is such a film. It’s based on the multi-threaded, best-selling novel by David Mitchell and becomes the latest theatrical release by writer/directors Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix trilogy). The Wachowskis are joined by co-writer/co-director Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run) for a unique three-director production endeavor.

Cloud Atlas was originally thought to be un-adaptable as a film, but thanks to a script that earned the blessing of Mitchell, the three were able to make that a reality. The film is broken into six eras and locations (1849, 1936, 1973, 2012, 2144 and 2346). It features an ensemble cast whose members each play a variety of different characters within different parts of the story. The locations range from the South Pacific to the United States and Europe to a futuristic version of Seoul and finally a post-apocalyptic Hawaii. Instead of telling this as a series of sequential short stories, the different time frames are continually intercut. The audience is following six narrative episodes at once, yet taken together, the flow and story arc really become a single story. It’s as if the film proceeds by weaving in and out of six parallel universes.

Connections

In broad strokes, Cloud Atlas is about freedom, love, karma and the connective fabric of the universe. Each person has elements of good and evil and talents that they use, which come out in different ways. The actors portray different characters throughout the film who may be heroes in one era, but villains in another. The yearning for freedom or love by a character that starts in one part might manifest itself in another character at a different time and place. Cloud Atlas is partially a reincarnation story. It plays on the sense of déjà vu, except that in this story, the experience that the character thinks has happened (like meeting someone) actually happens in a future life.

The scene structure of Cloud Atlas is crafted so that what would otherwise be single scenes in a standard drama are actually split among several different eras. Action that starts in 1849, for example, might be continued in a smash cut to 1936. Although the audience didn’t see the complete linear progression of what transpired in either, the result is that there’s both a carry-over and a residual effect, making it easy to mentally fill in the blanks for each. To help the audience connect the dots, there are several plot points and clues tying one era to another – sometimes in very obvious ways and at other times only as a reference or shot in a montage.

The task to pull this all together fell to veteran German film editor Alexander Berner (Resident Evil, The Baader Meinhoff Complex, The Debt, The Three Musketeers). Berner is a partner in the Munich-based editorial facility Digital Editors, which he helped start twenty years ago as the first all-digital facility in Germany. He had cut Tom Tywker’s film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, but had never worked with Andy and Lana Wachowski before. They hit it off well and Berner was tapped to cut Cloud Atlas.

The film was shot in sixty days at various European locations with the three directors splitting up into two production units. The Wachowskis covered the 1849 ocean voyage, the 2144 rebellion in Neo Seoul and the events “after the fall” in the 24^th century. Tykwer captured the stories of composer Frobisher (1936), journalist Ray (1973) and London publisher Cavendish (2012). For Berner, this meant double the amount of footage compared to a “normal” film, but without any more time to deliver a first cut. With the help of assistant editor Claus Wehlisch, Berner was able to keep up with camera and deliver his first assembly – complete with temp sound effects and score – two days after the shooting wrapped.

Crafting the mosaic

Alexander Berner explained the experience to me, “Andy and Lana had never worked with me before, so they didn’t really know what to expect. I think they may have had some initial concerns, since they hadn’t really seen anything cut up to that point. I had only sent a couple of assembled action scenes to them while they were filming. During the entire first assembly, it was all left up to Claus, a fabulous editorial team and me. We took a Christmas break and then started to do the fine cut in January.  I like to present a first assembly that’s a very watchable movie. I had assumed we’d sit down and review the whole film and then start making changes. When Andy, Lana and Tom saw the first reel they were all relieved at how good it looked and played, so we decided to dive right in at that point.”

The first assembly ran nearly three-and-a-half hours and it only took Berner about ten weeks to lock the picture at its final 172 minute length. Berner continued, “The first cut really followed the script, but the final film is a lot different in actual structure. The script is faithful to the book, but only about fifty percent is the same, as we had to cut out portions and extra characters that would have simply made this film too long. That was all with David Mitchell’s collaboration. I view the script as the ‘color palette’ and the edit is where you ‘mix the paint’. The footage from production came in a very scrambled fashion, so the only way to build the first cut was to follow the script. Once the three directors came in, then we had a chance to re-arrange scene elements or change line readings made necessary by the restructuring. Our main focus was to make sure we maintained the right emotional bow within a scene, even though we might start the action in one era and carry it forward into another. It was important to be able to tell these six stories as one big movie with one big emotional thought.”

According to Berner, every scene that was shot for the film is in the final cut, although sometimes the essence of it only survived as a shot within a montage or as a single, short scene. Just enough for the audience to follow the story or see a connection. I asked Berner his take on working with three directors. He responded, “At first I thought ‘What is this going to be like?’ Maybe each director would concentrate on only their scenes. In fact, it was a collaboration with everyone contributing and really a very harmonious and productive experience. We’d usually watch a scene and if it was OK or only needed a few minutes of tweaking, then we’d proceed to ‘mangle’ it into the bigger picture.”

The musical thread

One unusual aspect to Cloud Atlas is that co-director Tom Tykwer was also co-composer with Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek. A key element is The Cloud Atlas Sextet, the life’s work of the 1936 composer in the Frobisher narrative. This melody becomes a re-occurring piece throughout the film that helps bind eras together. For example, it’s part of the 1936 storyline, but then re-appears on a vinyl LP found by journalist Luisa Rey in a 1973 San Francisco record shop. The music itself becomes the score under these scenes, which binds the emotion together. You linger on the memory of the era you just left, while continuing into the next.

Some editors like to cut to temp scores, but that’s not Berner’s style. He explained, “I don’t like to cut a scene to music. Often this forces a pace that becomes gimmicky. I like to cut based on my internal sense of rhythm and then, with the right music, it all magically works. I try to avoid temp music, because it often doesn’t work well. If I know who the composer will be ahead of time, I’ll often lay in music from his previous scores to get a good feel for how the film will work. With Cloud Atlas, Tom gave us versions of many of the tracks ahead of time. This enabled me to cut in music that was far more representative of the final score than is usually possible.”

Editorial balance

Watching the film for myself with an editor’s eye, it felt that the six narratives were reasonably balanced in their screen time. Berner told me there was no conscious effort to do that though. He continued, “It’s great that it felt balanced to you, but we were just trying to follow the emotion. If you actually measured the time, they aren’t equal. I do use Walter Murch’s trick of posting scene cards on the wall, which helped us greatly. Andy, Lana and Tom liked to re-arrange these to get an idea of the flow and it also helped to see which scenes had been deleted. At the end of the day, we’d always update the positions of the cards on the wall to reflect the current cut at that point.”

Alexander Berner cut the film on a Unity-connected Avid Media Composer system. He initially started on version 6.0 software, but ended up reverting to 5.5, because of reliability issues with Unity. Berner said, “I’ve been cutting on Avids for about twenty years and I generally love the software. In this case, version 6 dropped some color correction features that I needed, so I when back to the previous version. In narrative post, you don’t need a lot of fancy features, so the earlier software version was just fine. I’ve tried ScriptSync a few times, but never really ended up using it. In fact, I drive my assistants crazy setting up for it and then in the end, it just doesn’t fit my style.”

Thirteen visual effects companies tackled the 1,000-plus shots. Although this wasn’t overtly an effects-driven feature, the make-up prosthetics ended up getting a lot of digital love. Frank Griebe and John Toll were the two directors of photography for Cloud Atlas. It was shot on film and ARRI in Munich handled the lab work and the DI finishing, providing a seamless integration of these disparate elements.

Cloud Atlas represented a very unique challenge for Alexander Berner. “Every film has the usual challenges – working with a new director or cutting the film down to time. In this case, I’m probably the very first editor who’s ever worked with three directors on the same film. What’s truly unique, though, is that this film has several different genres and each has to be represented at its best. There’s action, comedy, a love story, intelligent dialogue, period drama and a thriller. Each one has to work as well in this film as if it were a single-genre film. As an editor, that was quite fun and maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I realize though, that young people really respond to this approach, so maybe we’ll see a lot more of this style of film in the coming years.” Alexander Berner’s next film is another collaboration with Andy and Lana Wachowski – Jupiter Ascending – currently in pre-production.

(Additional coverage by Post magazine may be found here.)

Originally written for Digital Video magazine / Creative Planet Networks

©2012 Oliver Peters

Looper

One of the fun films of this year is Looper, a sci-fi/time travel adventure by director Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom). In the story, the character of Joe – a mob killer – is played by both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis. One as the present day version of Joe and the other as his future self. An ambitious film like this typically requires the work of numerous visual effects companies. The task of setting up the futuristic environments fell to a relatively new northern California effects shop, Atomic Fiction.

Co-founders Kevin Baillie and Ryan Tudhope started their careers as talented, enthusiastic teenagers who, through persistence, landed slots on the Star Wars, Episode I pre-visualization effects team working at Skywalker Ranch. This led to a decade of work as compositors and effects supervisors on a host of blockbusters (Hellboy, Sin City, Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers) thanks to a long stint at The Orphanage and ImageMovers Digital. With the demise of those companies, Tudhope and Baillie decided to combine their talents and start a new visual effects company model that could take advantage of the latest in software and post-production concepts, like working in the cloud.

Setting the tone

I spoke with Ryan Tudhope about the work Atomic Fiction did for Looper, as well as some of his thoughts on this new business model. Tudhope explained how they landed the job, “We’ve been a fan of Rian Johnson’s films and love the gritty reality of his stories. So we were all over Looper as soon as it was announced. We also knew that Looper’s visual effects supervisor, Karen Goulekas, was a meticulous and seasoned supervisor and would be looking to pull together the best team possible. Atomic Fiction’s art director Brian Flora and I explained how we were combining our incredibly talented team with a new, lower cost business model. Karen saw an opportunity to utilize us, initially for concept design and later on approximately 80 shots. All of this encompassed the film’s digital environments, which include futuristic city aerials, building design and modifications, set extensions and so on. Everything from wide establishing shots down to street-level views of buildings and scenery.”

The crew at Atomic Fiction took many of their cues from Bladerunner. Tudhope continued, “We wanted Looper to have a classic feel and looked to Bladerunner for inspiration, with its industrial tone and signature style, the lens flares and so on. But we also wanted to find our own way, so the two cities in Looper are more grounded in reality. They are more run down. We used common elements to tie our shots together such as graffiti and shelters for squatters, tents, etc. We designed objects and technology – like generators and antennas – that would be attached onto existing building as you know them today. The story takes place in two future cities – Kansas City and Shanghai, which is shown as the more prosperous of the two. Shanghai had to be newer, shinier and far more futuristic-looking. San Francisco doubled as Shanghai in one particular shot, so we had to transform aerials of the bay into this future version of Shanghai.”

To achieve their vision, Atomic Fiction relied heavily on using elements from the film’s 35mm anamorphic plates whenever possible. Tudhope explained, “We are big believers in having something real in the shot. You get so much good stuff from the plate photography that you don’t have to create from scratch, as you would if it were all CG. For example, the water and building textures and overall atmospherics. Sometimes we were able to use existing buildings and simply modify them. You get inspired by objects that are actually in the shot, which can be used as you transform it. In one of the bay aerials, there was a real barge on the water that we were able to enhance. In Bladerunner, the effects team made extensive use of miniatures and relied on fewer shots to tell the story. I often feel that modern effects films tend to overdo it, while the classics let the audience breathe for a moment. I believe Looper will have some of that classic feel.”

“One of the coolest, but also challenging aspects of Looper, was the film format. The film was shot on anamorphic 35mm. Match moves were a real problem for us, because of extremely complex lens distortion patterns, heavy grain and extensive warping on the edge of the frame during focus pulls. On the other hand, we had a great time matching the anamorphic lens flares that were already in the footage. It was great reference.” In total, Atomic Fiction took five weeks to develop the original concept art and design and then about four months to deliver finished effects.

Tools of the trade

Like any visual effects house, Atomic Fiction taps into a wide range of 2D and 3D software to get the job done. Tudhope described their operation, “We rely heavily on off-the-shelf software, but we tie it together with custom tools and functionality. For asset builds, animation and most lighting, [Autodesk] Maya is the tool of choice, but we tend to use [Autodesk] 3DS MAX for matte painting projections and CG environments. All of the matte painting is done in [Adobe] Photoshop and the final composites are done with [The Foundry’s] Nuke. All three companies have been great partners for us and dedicate substantial resources to the professional market.”

“The combination of 3D and 2D can be very efficient, because you can take 3D building models and reuse them from different angles without the need to draw them again from scratch. We typically put together digital environment teams, pairing 2D and 3D artists based on their strengths and what’s needed for any given shot. Sometimes you have to go back and forth between 2D and 3D. The key is being able to look at a shot and know why something isn’t working and then make the necessary adjustments. That’s harder to learn than figuring out how to bend the tools to meet the task. In general, the industry’s 2D/3D pipeline could still use some improvement. For instance, matte painters using Photoshop can easily put a lot of nuance into a shot through hundreds of layers and composite modes to get haze and glows and other details just right. That’s something that combines well inside Photoshop, but gets subtly altered when you try to pass those layers out to other tools.”

A new business model

Baillie and Tudhope realized great talent would be an important ingredient to launching Atomic Fiction, but they also felt their industry was due for innovation. They wanted to leverage new technologies to allow their company to be nimble, yet produce the high quality visual effects their team was known for.

Tudhope discussed their thoughts behind establishing the new company. “From our experience at other shops, we feel that the right number in any one location is around 40 or 50 employees. We have about 40 now and that number seems to be a sweet spot for efficiency, crew morale and maintaining a sense of team and company culture. We designed the facility with the cloud in mind. When you plan to build local hardware resources like a render farm, you end up buying for peak capacity, which means many times the system is underutilized. Instead, with the help of our partners at ZYNC, we jumped head first into Amazon’s EC2 cloud services. By moving rendering to the cloud, instead of owning the hardware locally, you start to treat it like a utility, such as electricity. You only pay for what you use. This means that rendering can literally be scaled from as little as the Macs on the artists’ desks to as many cores as you need. You have a lower total operating cost, and don’t have to pass unused equipment expenses on to the next client.”

“We render both 2D and 3D in the cloud, using V-Ray for 3D renders and Nuke for comps. ZYNC provides the software to manage the process from end-to-end. In order to make it work efficiently, we have an extremely fast internet connection. We literally push terabytes of data back and forth. Fortunately, it only takes a few minutes to get our shots into the cloud at first. After that, many of the revisions to a shot only require sending the changed data, which makes subsequent updates and renders just as fast as a local render farm.”

Security is always a concern when you talk about cloud-based services for the studios. Atomic Fiction has taken that issue head-on. Tudhope explained, “When we pitch a studio, we are often prepared with all sorts of data as to why the process is secure. In most cases, they are actually quite eager to exploit the cost savings and quality improvements, via more and faster artist iterations that cloud rendering provides. The reality is that many effects shops – especially smaller ones – don’t even have dedicated firewalls between them and the Internet. We take security very seriously, with high-end firewalls, a well-engineered internal network architecture, and heavy encryption of data going into and out of the cloud. Despite these intense security precautions, we are careful to only process small slices of a shot – not edited scenes with audio – with the cloud. Those micro-level components pose a much smaller security risk for our clients. We believe that the most important security measure of all is the professionalism of your staff and imparting to them how important the issue of security is.”

Looper opens across the country in September. Check it out to see how Atomic Fiction has used the cloud and off-the-shelf tools to transform the reality of today into the cities of tomorrow.

More from FxGuide, Wired and Movieline.

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