Filmmaker Mark Anthony Green had a front row seat to fame for more than a decade as the style columnist for GQ, where he interviewed some of the biggest personalities in music, entertainment and fashion. The writer/director then channeled that experience into the script for his new film Opus, a wild horror-thriller fever dream starring John Malkovich and Ayo Edebiri, who stars in the hit TV show
The Bear. The story starts when Ariel (Edebiri), a young magazine writer, is invited to the remote compound of legendary pop star Moretti (Malkovich), who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago, but who’s now suddenly reappeared to launch his new album. Surrounded by the star’s cult of sycophants and intoxicated journalists, she soon finds herself in the middle of his twisted and murderous plan.
Here, in an exclusive interview with Post, Green talks about making the film and his love of post.
What sort of film did you set out to make?
“I try not to get too confined and preoccupied with genre as, just as with real life, there's humor in every traumatic event, there's heartbreak in every love story, and I just wanted to make something that felt challenging and fun, and hopefully thought-provoking.”
This was your first feature film as a director. How did you prepare for this?
“I didn't go to film school but I made a short, Trapeze, U.S.A., eight years ago, which was really great learning experience for me. And I've read every director's biography, and I've watched every documentary about filmmaking, and I listen to podcasts, and that’s how I approached it. I just felt I needed to be the leading expert on this movie. And so I just immersed myself in the film and all of its aspects, and I worked on it every day for six years.”
Tell us about prepping the film with your DP Tommy Maddox, as there's quite a few distinct palettes.
“I knew that we were only going to have a short amount of time to actually shoot this film, and in the end we only shot for 19 days, and so I knew that the more in sync me and Tommy were, the more fluid our days would be. And so for months before the shoot, he and I would sit down over a meal, and we would talk about shots and about intention and other films, so that by the time we got to actually shooting it, we just had such a good rapport and shorthand that it really made a world of difference. We did a lot of location scouting in New Mexico, where we shot, and I had the best, most talented crew in New Mexico. We shot with the Sony Venice 2 and the shoot went great even though it was freezing. We even had a snow day. I didn't even know that it got that cold in New Mexico, let alone that you’d have to deal with two feet of snow.”
How early on did you integrate all the post elements and visual effects?
“Pretty early on and we had Aaron Estrada, a VFX supervisor from our VFX company Crafty Apes, who was on-set on some of the days, so we could discuss the best ways to shoot it and decide what was actually possible with our budget versus what's in my brain. I thought Crafty did a really great job with Opus. They were really thoughtful and did a lot of the gore, and the enhancements and things like that. And they communicate well, which is half of that job, and then they execute really well.”
What was the biggest surprise of being a first-time director in terms of being on the set?
“I was surprised at how much control you have in dictating the rhythm of the day and people's moods. The director dictates so much of that, which is surprising on such a big production where you're spending millions of dollars and there are hundreds of people. I've worked in many companies and the boss's mood never influences the entire company like that. But on a film set, it really does.”
Where did you post the film?
“At Fancy Film Post in Santa Monica, and I really like the post process. I like any day where I get to work on the movie, and I had a great editor, Ernie Gilbert, and assistant editor, Riley Adamson. My approach to post was like, ‘Did the film get better today?’ If the answer was ‘yes,’ then it was a great day. If the answer was ‘no,’ it was the worst day ever. And most days it got better, you know, but you have those moments where you're trying stuff, and it’s not working, and in post you get a lot more cooks in the kitchen, because you show it to friends, and then you test it, screen it and keep working on it, and all that makes the movie better, but it takes a lot of time and work.”
How did it work with your editor? Was he on the set at all?
“He was on set for the first day of shooting, and then we just sent dailies back and forth, and he would check them in. We would talk every couple of days, or he'd send me a note. Then, after the shoot, we sat down together and edited it from January to October, so it was quite a long time.”
What were the main editing challenges?
“I think I'm quite long-winded when it comes to the writing, so it was just a lot of condensing, which was hard because of the way that I write. I like to build up thoughts on previous statements, so I found that kind of challenging, just condensing and cutting down dialogue. When you're moving that fast in a 19-day shoot, there's a lot of little things you just do not notice in the moment, so trying to edit around those and find performances was a challenge. I think one thing that the film does successfully, that is maybe the thing I'm the most proud of, is that it's a thriller and there's gory stuff, but it's also super-humorous. So I think the hardest part of the edit was trying to find the balance between all those elements. And I love the balance that we struck in the end, but that took a lot of trial and error. You have got to try a bunch of different versions of it and all that just takes time. I'm really grateful that I was given the time we needed in post.”
You got the Grammy-winning artist and producer Nile Rodgers, who’s worked with everyone from Bowie to Madonna, to write Moretti’s songs with his regular collaborator, The-Dream. Talk a bit about the importance of sound design and music to you.
“It’s so important and a huge part of the film. Nile and The-Dream wrote three beautiful pop songs for Moretti, and then we also had composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans do the score, and they’re genius weirdos who did this asymmetrical, not rhythmic, sometimes off kilter score, which heightens the feeling of the film. Then Trevor Gates and Casey Genton, our two supervising sound editors and mixers, created an amazing soundscape. I think both of them are also geniuses, and I'm so lucky that they would work on a film with our budget and be so collaborative and just idea generative. They really made the theatrical experience feel so much more elevated to me and did a great job with the juxtaposition between the pop music that Moretti sings, and then the score and the sound design of the film, and making you feel uneasy and uncomfortable, and then terrified. We did all the sound work and the mix at Formosa in Hollywood, and I was there every day. Those guys couldn't get rid of me.”
What was involved in the visual effects work by Crafty Apes?
“I’d never worked with visual effects before, but those guys are so talented, and they have such a great grasp and understanding of craft and technique, and what's possible, that I knew I was in really good hands. We ended up doing quite a lot of VFX for all the gory scenes, like the beheading, and when there's a character that goes through a pretty gnarly transition. We did half of that practically, and then did the other half in post, and they did a really great job of enhancing all that, and her tongue, and they also did a lot of set enhancements. You try to solve every problem and do everything you can while in production, but you quickly learn after the fact just how much you can do with VFX in post, and you're like, ‘Oh, I didn't need to stress so much about this thing because we can fix it in post.’”
Did you do many test screenings during post?
“We did a couple of official test screenings, but I was constantly showing it to friends and that was very helpful. The biggest learning curve for me was
finding out what works, what doesn't work, and you just constantly screen it and make changes. And that's my approach to post — I want as many people as possible to see it, and as many times as they're willing to see it and to talk about it, as you're trying to figure it out.”
Tell us about the DI and what was entailed in terms of working on the different looks and palettes in the film.
“We did it at Picture Shop with the DP’s longtime colorist Mitch Paulson, and he and Tommy worked on various LUTs in prep to get the different looks. I wanted the first act to feel like it's Ariel’s POV. We've all had a job that’s not fulfilling, and so it's a bit more washed out and drab. And then we get to Moretti's world, and it's colorful and a bit surreal, and a totally different palette. One thing we really talked about a lot was Ayo’s skin tone. Maddox is such a master of light and tone, and so I really wanted to focus on that in the DI and to make her look like the most beautiful version of herself, and for her skin to really pop. I also wanted to work with as many native American actors as possible, since I was in New Mexico and we were shooting on their land. There's a very specific richness to the complexion, so we wanted to honor that. Then there were other things that we did in the DI, like make brown grass green and help with continuity, and we even added some grain. There were tons of little decisions and tweaks, and Mitch was great and patient.”
Did it turn out the way you envisioned it?
“It did. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I kept saying, and people would kind of look at me weird when I said it: ‘If the thing in my head is exactly what we shoot, then I'm going to be disappointed, because I fully expect there to be surprises and things that expand and elevate my wildest dream.’ And so many people showed up and lent their genius to this film. And how I have a psychotic need to get back on-set as soon as possible.”
So what is next?
“I'm making a film about a man who's haunted by ducks.”