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SHOOT STORY ISLE OF DOGS
to the DI and realising you don ’ t have the range you thought... if you ’ re shooting a set that ’ s been split in two so you ’ re shooting one way on one set and one way on another, you don ’ t want the two halves of that set looking different. People know what they ’ re getting.” “The day starts with rushes,” Oliver says. “We ’ ve got an immediate view of what we ’ ve done. We sit in the viewing theatre and watch the day ’ s work projected. Heads of department sit there and there is a normal rushes viewing process.” On any given morning, anywhere between ten and 30 of the production ’ s 50 working sets may need to be reset to shoot different scenes, a process involving sets, lighting, and motion control. “I can ’ t physically light 50 sets,” Oliver admits, “so I will typically take a dozen to 15 sets, usually the best stuff, of course.”
breakaway sections to allow them to be shot effectively. “It entirely takes over your life,” Oliver says simply. “All you really have is your weekends, so if you work a Saturday it ’ s wretched. You can work Saturdays if it ’ s a short job, but [not] if you ’ re on a job that consumes your life for two years. I don ’ t take holiday, I don ’ t leave the floor unless it ’ s a bank holiday or Christmas. I try to eat sensibly, take enough exercise, get enough sleep. Even a single night of bad sleep can completely screw you up.” At the time of writing, Oliver was in Berlin for the premiere of Isle of Dogs and, perhaps unsurprisingly, had no plans to dive immediately back into further stop-motion work. “What I really want to do now... is to have a break and wallpaper my house. I ’ ll be going back into commercials and kicking back for a bit.”
“I have two or three other guys who light for me and I have to make sure that what they ’ re doing fits in with the movie.” Oliver describes lighting cameraman James Lewis as a key collaborator: “He can handle the same size workload, he ’ s great. And then other people who are good, we give them delicate careful stuff to do and they can run six to eight units.” Beyond direct involvement, Oliver will also spend time liaising with gaffer Toby Farrar and his team as well as the art department, who must create sets with appropriate
ABOVE Isle Of Dogs , a marathon of filmmaking.
I DON’T TAKE HOLIDAY, I DON’T LEAVE THE SET UNLESS IT’S A BANK HOLIDAY OR CHRISTMAS
DEFINITION APRIL 2018
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