Were the deadlines for this project typical for film production, or was the schedule "ambitious"?
Every film is different as well as every budget, but we began shooting in August of 2004 and we were initially supposed to wrap in February, which was very ambitious for their April 23rd opening. Once they pushed the opening to September 30th, we had a lot more breathing room that everyone needed to finish the show to the level we did.

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What were the challenges of the motion picture, and how did those differ from the challenges of the series?
One of the biggest challenges is detail, which is obvious, but one of the additional challenges was that there was a lot more time for Joss to make changes which differed from the TV show. On that, mainly because of the schedule, we were pretty much free to do what we wanted and thought looked cool; if Joss liked it, it was done. On this project he had much more opportunity to get his exact vision across because he had time for multiple revisions on ideas and shots to achieve that.

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How did your team meet those challenges?
We previsualized every shot from beginning to end. For example, I directed several versions of the main battle sequence, and successively showed each of these to Joss during filming. With each, we addressed his notes and produced the next version, until, for the final version, he had time to come in and lay his hands on it to get his exact look.

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What shot or effect gave you (or the team) the most sense of satisfaction in achieving?
The best looking sequence is the travel through Reaver space. The lighting was good, the effects were good, it was moody and spooky, and it looked real. It was one of the more straightforward pieces in the film, but most achieved the realism we wanted. Several single shots come to mind as favorites, including the Serenity taking off in the rain and the way we got the water to sheath off of the body, and the first shot of the Serenity as we see her entering the atmosphere. LightWave was used for all of these shots. Specifically radiosity rendering was used for the base fill lighting, particles dynamics were used in the rain sections along with the engine ignition, along with HyperVoxels and volumetric lights.