By Iain Blair
Director Justin Lin has been behind the wheel of four of the Fast & Furious films since his first outing — driving 2006’s Tokyo Drift — and has become the go-to car-chase filmmaker of his generation. Now he’s back for the fifth time with the latest episode of the blockbuster franchise, F9: The Fast Saga, which once again stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, in another testosterone-fueled adventure.
Director Justin Lin and Vin Diesel
The setup? Diesel’s Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid when his past comes back to haunt him. His crew joins together to stop an evil plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom’s forsaken brother, Jakob (John Cena). Gentlemen, start your engines.
Also coming back to the franchise is an accomplished behind-the-scenes team, including cinematographer Stephen F. Windon, ASC, ACS; editors Dylan Highsmith, Kelly Matsumoto and Greg D’Auria; and second unit director and stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos, who has worked on every Fast film since 2011’s Fast Five. Also joining the team is VFX supervisor Peter Chiang who worked with Lin on the blockbuster Star Trek: Beyond.
I spoke with Lin, who co-wrote and produced F9, about making the global phenom, dealing with all the VFX and his love of post.
What were the main challenges of pulling all this together?
The big one is that we always set out to put every dollar on screen with these films, so we have multiple units shooting simultaneously in different locations around the world — everywhere from London, where we started in 2019, to Edinburgh for the big chase scenes. While I was doing that, my second unit director and stunt coordinator, Spiro Razatos — who I’ve worked with for a long time on these films — was off in Thailand, which doubled for Central America, doing all the jungle chase scenes and the bridge-jumping sequences. Then we also shot in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia, and we ended up back in East LA. Through that whole process we we’re also pushing the envelope in terms of the technology and what’s possible for all the action sequences and set pieces.
We had a huge amount of VFX shots and so much post work that we had to start on it all very early. Another big challenge is that our post budget was only a half or third of what other big-budget movies have, and as the franchise has grown that’s put a lot of demands on our post schedule. That’s why we had three editors. But I also feel that if we have too much time in post, we could lose that momentum, so it’s finding that sweet spot in between not enough and too much time.
When you say you started the VFX and post “very early,” how early is early?
Post is crucial with these films, so you’re working on all of it long before production starts. My visual effects supervisor, Peter Chiang, also came on board very early so we could strategize on how to bring it all to life. I need him to be in the conversation and to make sure as we’re building it from practical that he has whatever help he needs. We actually began doing a lot of previz work a whole year before we even began shooting, since you have to design and build all the shots and plan it all out. The editors were on early too cutting previz stuff, and the previz team was on board all the way through postviz as well. We did a lot of previz and postviz.
Where did you do the post?
I have a whole post facility just a few minutes from my house in South Pasadena, and it’s great as it cuts out so much driving back and forth as I just have everyone come to me now, which is far more efficient. So we do all the editing and all the VFX there in this huge compound. Then for the last leg we moved to the Universal lot where we continued with all the VFX work, all the sound work and mixing, and then all the color timing. I love post and I love editing, which is your final rewrite.
The DI must have been vital. Did you start that early too?
We did. I’m very involved in the whole DI process, and I brought on our colorist, Andre Rivas, and Company 3, pretty early — DI often plays a big part in how we integrate the VFX shots, and they’re all being delivered as we color and develop the look. It’s not the traditional “last piece of post” for me. It’s an ongoing part of the whole post process.
The film had three editors on this who you have worked with for years. Can you talk about that process?
Dylan is with me the whole time — he’s on the set, on the lot and we’re cutting as we’re going. I like to cut even after we’ve wrapped shooting for the day, and it was great working in the UK as they do 10-hour days. That gave me time to go off and cut for a couple of hours each night. I like to have a fine cut by the time we finally wrap. Kelly and Greg were in LA at the home base; they know that everything we’ve discussed and designed, in essence, has to be done before we even start shooting, so that when we start the process everyone is on the same page.
There’s a huge number of visual effects shots in the film. What was your approach to dealing with them?
VFX only really work if they’re designed correctly, so that’s why I bring all the editors on so early. They’re there while I’m designing them with Peter Chiang, the VFX team, our DP, production designer and so on. That’s crucial, and my approach is they all need a point of reference, so every shot originates practically. Even for the most ridiculous, physics-defying scene, I want to make sure we do it practically so that by the time we go to post, I won’t be sitting there debating what’s real. I want to have a point of reference, and that becomes part of the process so that we use our practical footage to enhance —
or at the very least, use it as context in our talks. In the end we had well over 2,000 VFX shots which is a huge amount, and we had a ton of vendors including DNeg, ILM, Stereo D and Factory VFX. [Character and LIDAR scanning was by Clear Angle Studios and Cyber, and LIDAR scanning was by Gentle Giant Studios. Visualization services were by Proof].
How was it about working with visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang, who you’ve worked with before?
He was on set with me all the time, but sometimes he’d go off to 2nd unit because a lot of the process is that we have to do all the work before we start shooting. So he’d be there for the bigger sequences they were doing and oversee all the VFX components to make sure it was all going to plan. It helps that we’ve worked together before as we have this shorthand now.
Justin Lin directing John Cena
What was the most difficult VFX sequence to do and why?
It’ll probably surprise people, but for me the hardest ones were where we’d shoot something and then end up having to rear-project it. Those are tough for me as they have a practical nature but then it’s all about skinning it and putting another layer on it. Sometimes the lighting isn’t matching the way it was captured and we tried very hard to use all the practical footage. Those things are very tedious, as so much went into getting it practically, and then it can be hard to match. I think it’s more emotionally challenging than logistically.
Last time we spoke, you told me “This is it for me, F6 is the last one I’ll direct.” What changed your mind, and what sort of film did you set out to make this time?
(Laughs) I honestly never expected to come back, as I felt we’d explored everything we could in the four films I did. And I made a commitment to Vin when I first joined that we wouldn’t just remake the same film over and over again, and I think all the five I’ve done are very different types of films. They evolve and the characters age, and when the idea of exploring family more hit me, it was something new we hadn’t done, so I was excited about going back into the past and solidifying our mythology. But I never felt any pressure to top myself, and I feel it’s rhythmically a very different film to the others.
I hear you’re also coming back to direct parts 1 and 2 of Fast & Furious 10, the final installment in the Fast saga?
Yes, and we started the conversation about it almost a decade ago, and now here we are. We plan to start shooting it next year and I’m very excited.
Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.
