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SHOOT STORY DOWNSIZING
should fall out of focus. Sometimes what is mathematically correct looked too soft in the background. We gave ourselves options so we could dial in the degree of defocus in the background. We did a bunch of testing also to show Alexander what it ’ s going to look like.” Having made those decisions during production, Papamichael says, “a lot of the tweaking came in post. That ’ s something else that became tiresome because it took a long time. You ’ re living with the edit for a long time without those elements... We wanted it to be subtle but also you have to sell that concept and it has to look photorealistic, it ’ s not like you ’ re doing spaceships or planets where you have a lot of liberty. All these backgrounds we were doing were based on photo plates, so it ’ s very critical that the contrast and the lighting... everything falls into place.”
reviews, and we were on version 100 with certain shots because we were struggling with certain things. I said to Alexander, ‘ you don ’ t need to know anything, but if it doesn ’ t look right to you just say. ’ It ’ s very hard to identify where the problem is unless you ’ re very trained to do that, but sometimes... the contrast is off a little bit or the tonality of certain things are off.” Downsizing was released on December 22, while Papamichael is looking forward to his fifth collaboration with director James Mangold. Girl with a Gun is based on the life of Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, who was kidnapped by a radical group in the 1970s but later became infamous for her part in bank robberies intended to support her former captors. In the meantime, Papamichael speaks fondly of the variety afforded by Downsizing . “It ’ s a journey through these various worlds, some of them very realistic and some of them completely fictitious. It ’ s very unusual. Alexander says, ‘ next time I want to do a very small movie. ’ ”
WE WERE ON VERSION 100 WITH CERTAIN SHOTS BECAUSE WE WERE STRUGGLING
on both Payne ’ s Nebraska and The Monuments Men , directed by George Clooney. Given a scheduled release date, colour work on Downsizing had to begin before all of the film ’ s visual effects were complete. “We had about three weeks. VFX shots were coming in, my grading was interrupted by having to do VFX
GRADING STRUGGLES Downsizing was graded at
Technicolor ’ s Los Angeles facility by colourist Skip Kimball, with whom Papamichael had previously worked
IMAGES Stills from Downsizing.
DEFINITION FEBRUARY 2018
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