Cinema Editor
Dunkirk is the eagerly-anticipated passion project of auteur
Christopher Nolan that tells the true story of the daring plan to rescue
400,000 Allied troops who were surrounded by Nazi soldiers in Northern France
during World War II. Starring Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh
and Tom Hardy, the Warner Bros. release is produced by Nolan’s Syncopy. On the
face of it this would seem the most conventional of the director’s projects to
date, but it is told using a complex structure that mixes the time-scales of
different participants. Dunkirk was a week-long experience for the soldiers
stuck on the beach, a 24-hour event for those traveling to rescue them over the
water and a mere one-hour flight from the south of England for British fighter
pilots.
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“Each solider or civilian involved in this historic event might have a different version of the story, but they all share a will to survive and to simply find a way back home,” says Lee Smith, ACE, one of Nolan’s core team and familiar with juggling parallel narratives and juxtaposed timelines in work including The Prestige and Interstellar.
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Neither is the film exposition heavy. “This is a very different kind of war movie. It’s more of a suspense film in that it is predominantly a story of survival.” Although Dunkirk is deeply ingrained in British consciousness – the narrative is another instance of plucky Britannia snatching victory from the clutches of foreign invaders – it is less well known in North America and other parts of the world. It has featured on screen before but largely as a backdrop to drama including Mrs. Miniver (1942) and Atonement (2007).
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“Each solider or civilian involved in this historic event might have a different version of the story, but they all share a will to survive and to simply find a way back home,” says Lee Smith, ACE, one of Nolan’s core team and familiar with juggling parallel narratives and juxtaposed timelines in work including The Prestige and Interstellar.
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Neither is the film exposition heavy. “This is a very different kind of war movie. It’s more of a suspense film in that it is predominantly a story of survival.” Although Dunkirk is deeply ingrained in British consciousness – the narrative is another instance of plucky Britannia snatching victory from the clutches of foreign invaders – it is less well known in North America and other parts of the world. It has featured on screen before but largely as a backdrop to drama including Mrs. Miniver (1942) and Atonement (2007).
The fact that Smith was born in London helped him understand
the culture of the characters but he was able to approach the story at some
distance since his family had emigrated to Australia when he was very young.
“Chris spoke about this project to me while I was working on Spectre,” says
Smith. “When we started talking about it in earnest the film was already
greenlit by Warner Bros. I knew of the events in 1940 but I didn’t know them in
great detail and once I read the script (by Christopher Nolan) I realized this
was one of the more remarkable and stirring stories of the war.” He adds,
“Christopher was looking for a lot of emotion to come across in the story. The
emotion comes from scenes of civilians performing extraordinary acts of courage
in coming to the aid of the armed forces, without delay and without really
stopping to contemplate the danger to them. “In a way, the story transcends any
particular country or flag since we can all empathize and feel patriotic toward
the sense of fellow countryfolk coming to our rescue.
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You can’t help but be captivated by the sheer scale of the evacuation.” Smith traveled with the unit for the entirety of the shoot, which began in May 2016 and lasted for four months, including at an aerodrome in the U.K., in Holland and on location at Dunkirk beach itself. “This was quite surreal, looking at all the actors, extras and war machines recreating what would have happened 76 years ago,” he says.
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Nolan is renowned for favoring film origination and with Dunkirk he pushed this even further. Having shot sequences of his previous films including Interstellar on Imax 70mm, this time the entire film was shot on 65mm negative. Seventy percent of the film was shot on Imax which is 65mm 15 perf (1.43:1). The rest was shot on 65mm 5 perf (2.2:1) on Panavision cameras. (The negative is 65mm. The print is 70mm.) “The Imax cameras give you more real estate which equates to the highest resolution for a film shoot,” says Smith. “Since the 5-perf cameras are quieter than the Imax cameras we used those to shoot the dialogue scenes.”
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It might stand to reason, much like shooting stereo 3D, that the pacing of a film needs to alter to accommodate greater visual immersion. Not so, according to Smith. “I’ve always been of the opinion, right back to The Dark Knight, that the cutting rhythm didn’t need to change just because you’ve introduced Imax,” he says. “We’ve done a lot of testing with the format to see what happens if you slow down or speed up cuts but I believe you don’t need to make any significant change. On Dunkirk we weren’t shooting for rapid cutting or fast action but to let the action unfold within the shot. You just go with the pacing required to tell that particular story.”
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Traveling with editorial during principal photography was a 70mm projector on which Smith and Nolan could view dailies in 70mm 5 perf. “This was glorious,” says Smith. “Most people don’t even get to watch dailies any more let alone have them projected.” Arguably the most challenging sequences for Smith and the crew were the aerial dogfights between Spitfires and the German Messerschmitts. “For all the planning you are at the mercy of the weather and what you can get on that day,” says Smith. “You have to cut as you shoot to make sure you have everything you need to tell the story. Since Dunkirk is being narrated visually rather than by heavy dialogue or voiceover, the aerial sequences had to push the narrative forward in an exciting and coherent way.”
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Having worked with Nolan on multiple projects, Smith says the pair have developed a shorthand when it comes to suggestions for coverage and assembly. Nonetheless, he says, the relationship “is supremely demanding because Nolan’s films are complicated in terms of structure even when they don’t look as if they are.” He adds, “The art is to bring the audience along with you every step of the way, so that it unfolds before you. In this case, there is no hiding from the overall outcome but as in any survival story the suspense lies in following which character will make it home and which will not.”
`
You can’t help but be captivated by the sheer scale of the evacuation.” Smith traveled with the unit for the entirety of the shoot, which began in May 2016 and lasted for four months, including at an aerodrome in the U.K., in Holland and on location at Dunkirk beach itself. “This was quite surreal, looking at all the actors, extras and war machines recreating what would have happened 76 years ago,” he says.
`
Nolan is renowned for favoring film origination and with Dunkirk he pushed this even further. Having shot sequences of his previous films including Interstellar on Imax 70mm, this time the entire film was shot on 65mm negative. Seventy percent of the film was shot on Imax which is 65mm 15 perf (1.43:1). The rest was shot on 65mm 5 perf (2.2:1) on Panavision cameras. (The negative is 65mm. The print is 70mm.) “The Imax cameras give you more real estate which equates to the highest resolution for a film shoot,” says Smith. “Since the 5-perf cameras are quieter than the Imax cameras we used those to shoot the dialogue scenes.”
`
It might stand to reason, much like shooting stereo 3D, that the pacing of a film needs to alter to accommodate greater visual immersion. Not so, according to Smith. “I’ve always been of the opinion, right back to The Dark Knight, that the cutting rhythm didn’t need to change just because you’ve introduced Imax,” he says. “We’ve done a lot of testing with the format to see what happens if you slow down or speed up cuts but I believe you don’t need to make any significant change. On Dunkirk we weren’t shooting for rapid cutting or fast action but to let the action unfold within the shot. You just go with the pacing required to tell that particular story.”
`
Traveling with editorial during principal photography was a 70mm projector on which Smith and Nolan could view dailies in 70mm 5 perf. “This was glorious,” says Smith. “Most people don’t even get to watch dailies any more let alone have them projected.” Arguably the most challenging sequences for Smith and the crew were the aerial dogfights between Spitfires and the German Messerschmitts. “For all the planning you are at the mercy of the weather and what you can get on that day,” says Smith. “You have to cut as you shoot to make sure you have everything you need to tell the story. Since Dunkirk is being narrated visually rather than by heavy dialogue or voiceover, the aerial sequences had to push the narrative forward in an exciting and coherent way.”
`
Having worked with Nolan on multiple projects, Smith says the pair have developed a shorthand when it comes to suggestions for coverage and assembly. Nonetheless, he says, the relationship “is supremely demanding because Nolan’s films are complicated in terms of structure even when they don’t look as if they are.” He adds, “The art is to bring the audience along with you every step of the way, so that it unfolds before you. In this case, there is no hiding from the overall outcome but as in any survival story the suspense lies in following which character will make it home and which will not.”
Dunkirk’s Large-Format Workflow
Associate editor John Lee was Smith’s right-hand man in
organizing and prepping dailies from the labs. On location in France and the
Netherlands, he and Smith prepped two Avids while back in L.A.; the team’s Avid
assistants worked with an identical setup. Also in L.A., a complete film
cutting room was set up for both 70mm and 35mm. For the U.K. shoot, they set up
an Avid in a trailer on the airfield where the production was based for the
aerial shoot. Each day the rushes were sent back to FotoKem in L.A. for
processing.
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“We would strike a 70mm print from our 65mm 5-perf dailies then telecine our 70mm print and sync it in the Avid,” explains Lee. “The print would then be sent back to location with sync sound on a CD for playback on a Fostex DV40, which was attached to a 70mm projector that we sourced from Paris.” The production built screening rooms in France, the Netherlands and in a couple of locations in England. “Our 65mm 15-perf dailies (Imax) also went back to FotoKem for processing. The neg then traveled to Imax in Playa Vista where they shot a 35mm flat-reduction print. Our editorial department would log and prep the reduction print and send it back to location where we screened it on a 35mm Arri LocPro, which we’d set-up in a trailer.
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Because we mainly shot Imax, we could move this trailer easily to different locations to watch the reduction print.” After screening the reduction print we sent it back to Los Angeles for telecine and syncing. “With high-speed internet in our cutting rooms I sent the sound dailies to L.A. and they sent me the Avid bins and telecine media every day,” Lee says. “In post, the aim was to end up with a complete 70mm 5-perf version of the feature. To do this we had to turn each Imax shot (1.43:1) into a 5-perf shot (2.2:1). We did most of these optically at FotoKem. Our VFX department had to supply all Imax VFX shots in both formats.” Double Negative was the sole VFX house. Unlike most films that finish with a DI, the production cut two versions of the film: 5 perf and 15 perf. At press time, an additional anamorphic 35mm version of the film was scheduled to be produced optically.
`
“We would strike a 70mm print from our 65mm 5-perf dailies then telecine our 70mm print and sync it in the Avid,” explains Lee. “The print would then be sent back to location with sync sound on a CD for playback on a Fostex DV40, which was attached to a 70mm projector that we sourced from Paris.” The production built screening rooms in France, the Netherlands and in a couple of locations in England. “Our 65mm 15-perf dailies (Imax) also went back to FotoKem for processing. The neg then traveled to Imax in Playa Vista where they shot a 35mm flat-reduction print. Our editorial department would log and prep the reduction print and send it back to location where we screened it on a 35mm Arri LocPro, which we’d set-up in a trailer.
`
Because we mainly shot Imax, we could move this trailer easily to different locations to watch the reduction print.” After screening the reduction print we sent it back to Los Angeles for telecine and syncing. “With high-speed internet in our cutting rooms I sent the sound dailies to L.A. and they sent me the Avid bins and telecine media every day,” Lee says. “In post, the aim was to end up with a complete 70mm 5-perf version of the feature. To do this we had to turn each Imax shot (1.43:1) into a 5-perf shot (2.2:1). We did most of these optically at FotoKem. Our VFX department had to supply all Imax VFX shots in both formats.” Double Negative was the sole VFX house. Unlike most films that finish with a DI, the production cut two versions of the film: 5 perf and 15 perf. At press time, an additional anamorphic 35mm version of the film was scheduled to be produced optically.
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