Director Series: Trent Johnson

Interviewed by Jack Egan
The digital intermediate projects I’ve done are Taking Lives, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, The Barbarian Invasions, Thirteen and Wicker Park. And I’ve just been finishing up on Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. New DIs on the calendar are SpongeBob SquarePants and Mr. 3000.
The directors of photography I’ve worked with are Dean Cundey, Steven Poster, Elliot Davis, Guy Dufaux and Amir Mokri. The collaboration with the cinematographers usually works this way. As we watch their film and they talk about it, I learn what they want to achieve. Then it becomes a balancing act to remain true to their vision as we deal with the technical issues: matching in the odd shot that seems out of context or creating the look that sells the drama.
We program using DLP projectors so that we see the images big, through custom look-up-tables that mimic film print response. The color is very close to what comes back on film. I can’t imagine working without good calibration and chasing the subtleties as we do.
The ability to create continuity throughout the film is one of the big advantages of DI. We can immediately create looks, changing or discarding until it’s right, before committing to negative. Three-perf, S-16, S-35 to anamorphic all look much better than traditional lab blow-ups.
The main disadvantage lies in the ability to continually change up to the last minute. We still have to make the release prints!