Christy is a new film starring Sydney Sweeney as ground-breaking female boxer Christy Martin. Based on a true story, the project was directed by Australian filmmaker David Michôd (
Animal Kingdom, The Rover, War Machine) and was shot over 35 days in North Carolina, even though the film is set in a number of locations, including West Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Here, Michôd discusses his work on the project, including his creative partnerships with director of photography Germaine McMicking, editor Matt Villa and VFX supervisor Jason Hawkins. He also shares insight into the film’s challenges and the scenes that stand out to him as a filmmaker.
You’ve worked with DP Germaine McMicking in the past. How did you collaborate on the vision for this film?
“I have an idea of what a general flavor I want is. It's such close, collaborative relationship - one that can’t go wrong. Germain, he lights beautifully, he moves fast. I think he's one of the best hand-held operators in the world. He's just a delightful, fun human to hang out with. When you form a relationship with someone like that, you just want to keep going back to it. Then you just dive in. You start looking at movies…I always feel like I come back to sort of the same thing, which is wanting it to be classic and composed, but not devoid of energy when it needs energy. And this one did.”
Do you recall what camera he used?
“It was an (Arri) Alexa 65.”
You shot in a large format?
“Why not? And Germain would say as much as well. We didn't necessarily set out to do this, but shooting a lot of the handheld stuff in the ring during the fights, it was actually an advantage to have a heavy camera. It helped.”
Do you have time to watch dailies or an early assembly with your editor Matt Villa?
“No, not really. I developed a strange relationship to dailies on my first movie. I just realized I'm allergic to them. I don't really look at dailies when I'm shooting.”
Is it just too much when you're focusing on production?
“It's that. I just don't see the value. I mean, sometimes I'll scrub through just to go, ‘Okay, this is what it's looking and feeling like.’ But I just (don’t) want to spend any time worrying about what I did yesterday, instead of thinking about what have to do tomorrow. Assemblies are strange things. They have to get put together in a rush. These days, when you're shooting digital, there's just so much footage coming in. They have to slap this stuff together really quickly. Unless there's a particularly complicated sequence, where I need to know how it's gonna piece together, I'd almost rather just save all of that. For me, the shoot is like, I've gone to the supermarket with a shopping list, which is the script, and I've got a minute and a half to just race up and down the aisles, throwing stuff in there. And then you get it all home into the edit room, and then you start cooking.”
Where did the edit take place and how long was the process?
“This one was a reasonably quick edit for me. (Matt) was in Sydney the whole time. I like to take my post back home and cut it at home. I've got a great team of people that I love working with. Rob Mackenzie, my sound designer, and Jay Hawkins, (my) visual effects supervisor. It’s like it's life in the circus. I go away. The supermarket’s always in some weird part of the world, (and) the kitchen is back home in Sydney.”
What were the visual effects needs of this film?
“A lot of crowd work, which is tricky because I've seen it done badly in movies. You want it to sit there and feel organic, and so that was a challenge and a challenge for Jay to do it on a budget, I think he would have liked ten times the amount of money to do this, but he's just really good at just thinking efficiently, figuring out the efficient ways of doing things.”
Were there a lot of shots?
“Oh yeah, it was quite a few shots, and it shrunk. We also came to realize that, if I'd had $100 million to make this movie, I probably would have filled every single one of those arena shots, or even the smaller arena shots with crowds. And then you…realize when you start getting in and start trying to get it down, you don't need crowds in every shot, and sometimes often you actually don't want them because it pulls you away from what's happening in the center of the ring.”
Is there a scene or sequence that you feel is really strong because of the production challenges you faced?
“Two of those big set-piece fights in the movie - the Deirdre Gogarty one and the Laila Ali one. They're really interesting for me because I didn't go into this movie thinking I had a boxing film in me. But there was something about Christie's story that was just so extraordinary that I was like, ‘I've got to do this.’ But then the next question I ask myself is, ‘Okay, how are you going to do the boxing?’ I studied real fights and other fight films with Germain, and have long conversations with Wally Garcia, the fight choreographer, and start to build a methodology. ‘This is what I want the fights to feel like. These are the things I quite like from other movies.’ But it's a whole world of what I don't want. What not to do, that I've learned from other movies. I hope I've shot what I need. I had that experience on The King, shooting massive medieval battle scenes. I never thought I had a medieval battle movie in me, but I went and made one. And I remember driving away from that location going, ‘I hope I've shot what I need.’ I look at the fights in this film. I'm proud of them. They were really challenging, but they don't feel like every other fight scene you see in movies. I feel good about them.”
What's next for you? Are you writing or directing? Do you have anything planned for the year ahead?
“No, no, I don't. I'm familiar with my rhythms now. I'll probably lie around for a couple of months and then I'll start to panic and start thinking I need to make a decision. And then I'll make a decision I don't believe in, and then I'll have to extricate myself from that. And then somewhere down the track, the next Christy Martin will present itself to me.”