Terrence Malick has been working on Voyage of Time for over forty years, shooting the first footage of his universe-spanning doc in the nineteen-seventies. Even by Malick’s notoriously exacting process, this seems unusually long. Then again, it’s somehow fitting that a documentary detailing the birth and death of the universe would take up a better part of the filmmaker’s life. Producers Sarah Green and Nick Gonda have produced each of Malick’s films since The New World and have watched Voyage of Time develop over the course of the past fourteen years. Joined by veteran documentary producer Sophokles Tasioulis, the trio will release two different cuts of the documentary – a ninety-minute version, which will play in local theaters, and a 45-minute exclusive IMAX cut.

In the following interview with producers Sarah Green, Nick Gonda and Sophokles Tasioulis, they discuss Voyage of Time’s long development process, the decision to release two different versions, and how the science influenced the final cut. For the full interview, read below.

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Image via TIFF

When did Terrence Malick first approach you about doing Voyage of Time. He's been working on this for what forty years, correct?

Sarah Green: Yeah -- he's been working on this in his head and shooting bits and pieces of it since the 70s. He and I met maybe fourteen or so years ago and it was one of the first things we discussed. Then we started working on The New World and Nick Gonda came on board and he told Nick the story. The way Terry works is he has these ideas and he works them in his head and he keeps telling you the story and you hear it evolve. Then you start to understand the scope of what you’re dealing with.

How does the concept change from ten years ago to now?

Nick Gonda: A lot of what was considered to be theoretical, say the multiverse or the idea that we are one of many universes, are now considered even more conventional wisdom. A lot of the theories Terry was fascinated by early on, have only become more substantiated by hard science.

Is the development process on a documentary different than a narrative film?

Sarah Green: It's completely different because on a feature you have a script and you have a story to tell and you fit it into six or eight weeks or whatever you got. On this: you have the universe – so you do certain things in chunks like the natural history bits. We said -- we've got this month and we're going to shoot in South Africa. And we’ve got these four weeks where we'll be in Chile. But then things would just happen. There would be an underwater volcano in Hawaii and our cameraman would just run and shoot it.

Did you have a Google alert for volcanoes?

Sarah Green: (laughing) We did. We had Google alerts for all sorts of natural disasters just in case. We took advantage of everything we possibly could.

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Image via TFF

Do you know ahead of time what you're going to shoot in these various locales?

Nick Gonda: In the case of the natural phenomena – like the volcano - that was a result of the cinematographer Paul Atkins who happens to have a lot of experience capturing volcanic activity. So while we didn't know what shots we were going to get, we knew we were in good hands to get the best shots possible. Then, of course, the Iceland shoot is more focused on geological settings, which could be more premeditated based on scouting. Other shoots were within that spectrum. Sometimes we knew exactly and other times it was just being there to witness something spectacular that you wouldn't be able to predict.

Is there a treatment for the movie that you're following?

Sarah Green: Yes very much so and that treatment didn't really change. Bits and pieces would if a new theory emerged or something was proven that was only theoretical. But overall the story he gave to us stayed quite intact from beginning to end.

How long was the treatment?

Sarah Green: I think it was about fifteen pages.

Nick Gonda: Beyond the treatment, there were closets full of research materials. So it really became a bachelor's degree for all of us.

What books did you read? 

Nick Gonda: The classics on the history of the universe -- Bill Bryson's obviously a great one for everyone to get their toes wet. Beyond that, not just books but research and papers written by advisors we've worked with. It was really creating a culture -- our cutting room became an academic environment where people were excited to share something they learned. Ideas were always being exchanged.

Sarah: I became addicted to the Tuesday New York Times Science Times. I read it faithfully every week. 

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Image via TIFF

Were there things that you learned from this research?

Sarah Green: There are things I've learned and learned and learned again because I can't quite get them in my head. Like how a black hole operates. I have to keep learning that and I probably will until I die.

Sophokles Tasioulis: Well for me -- my background was as an aerospace engineer [student] -- so it was fascinating because I studied but I never actually worked in that field. So working suddenly with NASA and space agencies was fascinating because it brought me back to my roots in a very different way.

Do you notice a difference producing a documentary by Terrence Malick versus the other docs you’ve made [Planet Earth & Deep Blue]?

Sophokles Tasioulis: Oh yeah - I'd never worked with Terry before so that was a new experience for me. Usually I'm in the cutting room sitting next to the director, which Terry will not do. I've spent a week in Austin having dinners and lunches with Terry but never seeing the cutting room from the inside. He wouldn't let me in there. So it's an educational process in the sense that when you want something from Terry, you better prepare. You don't just tell him, ‘I don't like that shot there’ because he has a reason why he put it there. If you want him to change that shot you better have your reason and the whole background of why it shouldn't be there, otherwise he'll take you apart. So that was a big lesson to learn with him.

What is the balance between being artistically creative on a film like this but still remaining scientifically accurate?

Sarah Green: I don't think they were ever at odds because the science was so interesting. There's nothing more interesting than reality and truth and what you see. It’s a matter of portraying that in a way that will bring us along on the emotional journey. But again we made sure that the scientists signed off on every shot.

Sophokles Tasioulis: One of the biggest jobs for the three of us is to take the creative vision of a filmmaker and make it live in the marketplace. Our job was to keep Terry happy, protect his vision but at the same time also do something that will cater to the interests of our partner IMAX. That was a challenge for us to satisfy both sides of the equation.

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Image via IMAX/Broad Green

Does that lead to making two different films?

Sophokles Tasioulis: No. There was a point where we decided to have two versions, which was quite liberating for Terry because then you don't have to put all the facts and figures and numbers into the ninety-minute version, which is more of the poetic journey.

Then what dictated that decision - to make two separate films?

Sarah Green: It was really early on. It was during the Tree of Life post production process and we started meeting with IMAX and National Geographic and we started to understand this world and this market and we realized there was a real opportunity here to do something that spoke to students, to educators, to people who love going to that big IMAX experience and then to people who wanted to spend more time with it in a traditional movie theater. It was exciting to realize we could do this very easily and it made tremendous sense. Terry could think in both directions at once. Everything we shot was for either or both. We shot in parallel and then towards the end they made their own way. 

Sophokles Tasioulis: What IMAX does is they make movies that stay in the cinema for many years. The way the market is nowadays it's maybe four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks max and then they're out of the big screen. With IMAX, it stays in cinemas for years and years. So that was something for Terrence Malick… to have his film seen on the big screen, that's the best that could happen.

I know Terrence takes a long time editing, what was the editing process like on this film?

Sarah Green: It was stop and start. The material was there as the time was available. Toward the end, the timing was right to fully put Terry's attention on it and then it was the only thing he worked on. But over the years some new footage would come from the Natural History photographers and then Terry would look at it and work a little bit. It was very off and on.

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Image via IMAX

Did the cut change over all those years?

Sophokles Tasioulis: Yeah -- where it changed a lot was in the IMAX version because IMAX is a very different medium, not just in terms of aspect ratio but from an aesthetic side. It's slower than your average conventional film because the screen dictates that you allow the audience time to [look] around. I had this experience before on Earth where I took TV directors and made them work on the big screen. Here you take a movie director and make him work on an even bigger screen. You go through the same process. You first see your first rough cut on IMAX and it's like ‘Wow - this is too fast’. People get dizzy so it becomes slower and slower. Less is always more on IMAX.

Do you test the movie at all internally?

Nick Gonda: There is a process Terry enjoys where trusted people are able to share objective opinions and he's able to factor that in along with the editors during various stages of the cut. On this film, scientists were screening the cut constantly too so they would look at the sequences and the context of sequences. We were constantly making sure the science was tested.

Did the cut change based on that scientific input?

Nick Gonda: Oh yeah -- a lot.

How so?

Nick Gonda: In terms of obvious areas where if a scientist… Dr. Andrew Knoll, who's a professor of Natural History at Harvard, he was one of our primary scientists not only looking at individual parts but at the film as a whole. He would be able to comment on  -- ‘Oh this would actually be more accurate if it was shown ahead of this scene.’ So there was always a process of showing the film to the scientists, getting their feedback and that would inform Terry's decision in terms of placement or shot composition or anything in between.

Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey opens in IMAX today.

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