Sony Pictures Post Production
Services and Colorworks engage in close collaboration with Antoine Fuqua to
ready new thriller for theaters.

CULVER CITY,
Calif.— Post production work for The Equalizer the new thriller from Director Antoine Fuqua and
Columbia Pictures, was completed on the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City,
California.

Sony Pictures
Post Production Services provided editorial facilities and technology to Editor
John Refoua and his picture editing team. It also provided sound editorial and
sound mixing services through teams led by Supervising Sound Editor Mandell
Winter, Sound Designer David Esparza, and Re-Recording Mixers Daniel J. Leahy
and Steve Pederson.

Editorial
conforming and color grading was completed at Colorworks, Sony Pictures’
digital intermediate facility. Colorist Doug Delaney applied the final grade in
one of the facility’s 4K DI theaters.

The campus-like
environment of the Sony Pictures lot made it convenient for the various post
production departments to collaborate with each other and with Fuqua and his
production team. The Sony Pictures Production Backbone, a high-speed media
storage and networking environment, simplified the sharing of production
elements.

“The lot is a
wonderful environment for filmmakers because all of the post production
departments are located within a few steps of each other,” observes Randy Lake,
Executive Vice President and General Manager, Digital Production Services at
Sony Pictures Digital Productions. “The picture editors, sound editors and
finishing artists are in daily contact and can share ideas and
works-in-progress. It’s great for creative collaboration.”

Winter and
Esparza, reprising their roles from Fuqua’s previous film Olympus Has Fallen, recreated many of the sound environments of
Boston, where the film is set, including its iconic mass transit system. They
also created more abstract treatments to represent the internal thought
processes of the Robert McCall, the film’s hero played by Denzell Washington. “Denzell’s
McCall has a unique character trait,” Esparza explains. “He is a very
analytical person whose perception of time slows down.”

Leahy and
Pederson, who previously mixed Fuqua’s films Training Day and Tears of the
Sun, mixed soundtrack for The
Equalizer in Sony Pictures Post Production’s historic Cary Grant Theatre. It
was the first Columbia Pictures release to be mixed in Dolby 7.1 surround
sound. “That was great,” says Leahy. “It allowed us to be more specific in the
surrounds and give the soundtrack an added dimension.”

“When we got to
the Cary Grant, from the console to the screen, we felt very comfortable,” adds
Pederson. “It’s a big room.”

Editorial
finishing and color grading proceeded at Colorworks in tandem with final sound
work. Delaney worked alongside Fuqua and Cinematographer Mauro Fiore to refine
the film’s final look. He also worked with a variety of off-lot visual effects
vendors to grade and integrate visual effects scenes and elements.

Delaney was
especially pleased with the look of the film’s climactic scene, set late at
night in a closed home improvement store. “Everything happens at the edge of
darkness,” he says. “The challenge was to ensure that the audience can see what
is happening, without it feeling lit. It was a delicate balance.”

The sound and picture teams benefitted not only from being
in close proximity to each other, but also from sharing a common
infrastructure. Sound and picture files, along with associated metadata, were
all stored on Production Backbone and accessible, virtually instantaneously, to
anyone involved in the project.

“The engineering really took care of Antoine and our team,”
Winter says. “The whole support structure here at Sony was fantastic.”

About Sony
Pictures Entertainment

Sony
Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., a
subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE’s global operations encompass
motion picture production, acquisition and distribution; television production,
acquisition and distribution; television networks; digital content creation and
distribution; operation of studio facilities; and development of new
entertainment products, services and technologies. For additional information,
go to http://www.sonypictures.com.