Spring 2019
AT WORK WITH
By Becca Nadler
For UPM Dana Robin, the seemingly picayune details often matter the most. "Never think you're asking a stupid question," he says. "I always want to be the guy in the room that asks the dumb questions because those are the things that fall through the cracks and could cause an issue—financial, creative, safety."
On a big-budget superhero film like Venom, which involved a major chase sequence filmed on location in San Francisco, Robin left no stone unturned. "Deciding you want to flip four cars on a commercial street in a major city involves all sorts of planning and permissions, a thousand details," he explains. "We have to understand what the limitations are in terms of the neighborhood, what the police are going to allow us to do, are there any weight load issues [with the street], what businesses are we affecting, are we able to close the street. And we did that on every location."
"You really can't and never should do it by the seat of your pants," says Robin. "It's all really challenging and time-consuming, and you've really got to stay focused."