The new Focus Features film Song Sung Blue is a based on a true story about two down-on-their-luck musicians (Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson), who partner to form a Neil Diamond tribute band, helping them each realize their dreams as performers. Jackman plays Mike Sardina, a small-time musician, who's also a recovering alcoholic and Vietnam veteran, while Hudson portrays Claire Stengl, a Patsy Cline impersonator with Mike's same passion for the stage.
The project was written and directed by Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow,
Black Snake Moan), who called on frequent collaborators Amy Vincent, ASC, and Billy Fox, ACE, to complete the project. Here, Brewer shares details on the shoot and post, as well as the collaborative relationship he has with both his director of photography and his editor.
Director Craig Brewer
You’ve worked Amy Vincent in the past. And I see you shot with as many as three Sony Venice cameras. What was the thought behind the cameras and the look?
“Well, you know, Amy and I've made three movies before we re-teamed on this one, so there was a lot of trust there. A lot of love and trust and commitment to the project. We really talk a great deal about color, about grain quality, about how we have a certain way that we shoot, where there's always a little bit of glowing magic in the background, but we really try to get very real faces, without necessarily thinking of them as glamor shots. I mean, we don't want anybody looking unattractive, but there is a certain reality that I really embrace and what I find beautiful. I like to see faces that look like they've seen a life. Usually there's always kind of an element of long lens light orbs that are nearby that we’ve always loved since our work on Hustle & Flow.”
Do you have a camera or lens in mind, or do you defer to her for that expertise?
“I really do defer to Amy on that, which I prefer. I have tried over the last couple of years to let go a little bit more and talk about what inspires me, talk about some of the looks, but you know, sometimes Amy will just come in with pictures and I'll tell her what I respond to. Sometimes that's art. We were very inspired by this painting - Wyeth's painting called ‘Christina's World.’ There's a shot in the movie of Claire kind of walking towards a doorway that we always said was going be our ‘Christina's World’ moment.
“On this particular movie, she really got involved early on. Every day I was looking at the image, and it was it was gorgeous because she did a lot of work on the front end in terms of the LUT and so forth.”
Did you have final music for use during the shoot, or temporary tracks?
“No. I mean we really do get in there pretty early to get very solid pre-records. Myself and (composer) Scott Bomar. We recorded all the instrumentals in Memphis, TN. I'm there every day of it. It wasn't something that I could just phone in from a distance - much to my location manager’s and assistant director's dismay. Like, ‘We are about to do the the music, and I'm going to be gone for like three or four days while we record it.’ I really want a lot of the work done on the front end. We don't do anything kind of half-assed, with the idea that we just need to kind of like get vocals on the set and then later come in and have better orchestrations. We didn't do any of that. When it comes to all those music numbers that you saw in the movie, we not only recorded the instrumentals, but we also brought in Kate and Hugh, and we got some good tracks for them in case we wanted to go [with] more of a studio control place. Some of the some of the songs we did live, right there on-set.”
You’ve worked with editor Billy Fox in the past, with much success. Are you looking at dailies? And, is he working very closely to the production, or does editing begin after the shoot wraps?
“Every day he's looking at the dailies coming in. And only recently have I finally kind of admitted…that I don't really look at dailies. Billy will even cut together sequences and sometimes send them to me, and I finally had to admit to him that I haven't been looking at them. The reason being is that I just kind of like to stay in this place of making the movie without necessarily feeling like I need to go to a different place in my head and in the process. I really trust Billy, and I especially trust our process when we get together. I always will call him with a little bit of trepidation in my voice, saying, ‘Is there anything that I'm messing up? Is there anything you can tell me?’ And he'll say, ‘No, it's beautiful. If you want to see it, it's right there.’ And I'm like, ‘I think that I'm just going to trust that it's working.’”
Where is he working during the edit?
“It depends. And it up until the time that our edit is officially starting, he's sometimes been in his own home, where I've edited numerous movies with him. But we actually, for the first time ever, did all of our post in New York in Manhattan and we loved it. We really hated leaving, so much so that I got an apartment and I was like, ‘Billy, no matter what movie we do, let's just do the post in New York.’ They've got a great incentive package and I loved the team that we worked with. It was wonderful.”
Did you rent out space?
“No, we did it at Company 3. (It was) a fantastic situation.”
Company 3’s Tom Poole was your colorist on it. Can you talk about how much the color may or may not have been amplified as opposed to what you captured in-camera?
“The thing about Tom is that he worked with Amy beforehand as well. That's what I was saying. A lot of the heavy lifting we did at the beginning and then you know, just really dialing in not only the color, but also [what] we were going to do [in terms of] grain quality, because we were shooting digital. But the way that Amy shoots, it's just so rich, so right at the top, it was just gorgeous.”
Tell us about how a scene comes together?
“I think that a perfect example would be this sequence called ‘Crunchy Granola Suite,’ which is them playing in the garage for the first time. There's like a lot of instinctual cutting on the beat moments. Something as simple as, I'll say, ‘Right here, halfway through the chorus, I want to cut to the scene outside. I filmed it so it could fit within the chorus, but I want this moment, where the plane goes over these two girls, to happen right at the particular crescendo of this note. So then when we cut out of it, we're right in back into the verse.’ And that that's the kind of thing that Billy and I - he's worked on all my features - that's the great second hand that we've created. He can almost tell what where I'm going with those particular rhythms.”
How about trimming it down to the final edit? Did you have to cut material?
“It's a matter of just me and Billy keeping an open mind that sometimes something that I thought needed to be there doesn't necessarily have to go, and allowing those moments to happen without feeling challenged. I think we had a three-hour editor's cut. We didn't have credits and it was like a three-hour cut. But the reason being is that we hadn't had our process yet. Sometimes he would do a music sequence and only later I would say, ‘Okay, but within this music sequence, these two scenes that you have after the music sequence, I'm seeing those being part of the music sequence.’ So there's a lot of those kind of moments that that aren't necessarily in the script, but as I was shooting them, I knew that's how it was going to go.”
You let some of the music sequences really play out.
“Yeah. That's really the Purple Rain in me. And I really speak respectfully about [that] movie. It's not like it's some sort of kitsch thing. I look at those sequences of ‘Let's Go Crazy,’ the first eight minutes of
Purple Rain, and I just think it's beautifully constructed. You not only get ‘Let's Go Crazy’ - this song on the radio gets an extended play, but at the same time, there's a lot of storytelling that's happening. I think that's just what happened to certain movies in the ‘80s that were inspired by MTV.
“And so that's what Billy and I try to do. There was this day I'll never forget where I said, ‘All right, let's time the reels.’ And he goes, ‘Oh my god, we're at we're at two hours and ten minutes, I can't believe it!’ And I was like, ‘Well, I knew it!’ And we went out and had a drink. It was a great moment.”
What were the visual effects needs and what did Crafty Apes and East Side Effects bring to the project?
“Well, I can't give you an exact number on the shots, but…I was surprised that we had a pretty hefty effects situation in our movie. You’ve got to remember that not only are we removing a limb, because of the situation with the character of Claire losing her leg, but when you're doing things like that, there's a lot of construction on things - even just a woman missing a leg, crawling across the floor…We also had planes that were flying over and you sometimes have to create those assets. You can't just shoot any plane going over. When I was looking at the effects list, little things that I just hadn't thought of, because I was just so into it. Exit signs like that didn't look like that in 1995. The street lights need to be removed because they look a little bit too modern. Those kind of cosmetic elements.”
What was the timeframe for production and post?
“About mid-December (2024). We took some Christmas time off and then we started January 2nd, editing away. I think I did my test screening around March or April. We finally had to screen, and then finished it up.”
You had it completed well before the planned December release.
“We did. And we had a really incredible first cut screening of the movie that really taught us a lot. To be honest with you, it taught us that we scored a 95, and that the audience was really behind the movie. I was so surprised that the audience was just so dialed in. They really were.”
What's next for you? Do you have plans for the year ahead?
“I'm working on a on a Snoop Dogg movie right now. I really want to do his life story in his earlier years. Still sticking with music. Still sticking with people hustling to get what they want, and I'm really excited about it.”