Alternate cuts

It was a bit longer, this scene. - We had an additional hole. Exactly, an additional hole. You can see something strange on the hole, because... You can see something strange, because he's grabbed by the feet by the alien through a hole which doesn't exist here. He had to walk for an additional 10m or something to get there. It was too long. That was one of the remarks we had from the first test screening. They made, if I remember, something like 100 remarks. I remember, sometimes we were defiant, but we were pretty upset. And sometimes we said "They're right." And sometimes we said "They're right." We were very upset at first, but looking at the questions which were asked, we realized that, each time, it was somewhere where... we thought it could go like that. In the time we had for doing it, we thought it was OK. As we could have more time, that was... Most of the notes, we found an answer. We never really followed the propositions we had, but we found the creative answer to the question asked. I think that was what the studio was waiting for us to do. But it was a good lesson for me and for us. Since that time, for each film I'm cutting I'm organizing previews, which is not in the French tradition. For Amélie we did some test screenings. In fact, I copy the answer from Hollywood, but the big difference is: I have the final cut, I can choose. The difference is on the use you do from the answers. Exactly. But we don't have to complain. - I love this idea. This is a simple shot that was hard. That head was long and heavy, and trying to keep it smooth and even and not drag across Michael's face, and make it all the way up to that opening in the chest. You always said that this cut, the final cut, was your cut. We did it with the production notes and... If the studio would ask me to make a director's cut, I would say "That's mine." Yeah, that would be a problem, because we're very happy with what we have.

48:31 · jump to transcript →

Taylor Hackford

And Mary Ann, who's innocent, just like she was in the beginning... ...she's right alongside. What I wanted to do at the end of this film, and that's why at this point... ...you see Neal Jones morph into Al Pacino... ...you realize you can't beat the devil every time. You might win one battle, but he's back there the next morning. I would not leave this film with you having a happy ending. I did that with Officer and a Gentleman. I want to basically say: Every single day of your life you can't get smug... ...and you have to confront morality. I think we all do. And that's why this is a moral tale. I'm not deeply religious and I don't think of this as a religious film... ...but I do think that it is a film of somebody who still feels... ...a certain idealism, and a realization that we have responsibilities in our life. And I think that all the people that worked on the film worked on it... ...in a fairly righteous way. You know, Andrew Neiderman wrote a novel at the beginning. Four writers contributed to the screenplay. And I want to mention the people I haven't mentioned. There's Mark Warner... ...who is my collaborator, my editor, fabulous collaborator through... ...this process. You can feel the pace of this film. Everybody put themselves into something here. I also want to give credit to Per Hallberg, who was the sound designer. All the way through this I think there are subtle effects in addition to the score... ...that really give you the feeling that there is something else going on. There are a lot of artists that worked on this film, and when you go through... ...the process of collaboration, you have a vision as a film maker... ...and you want to get that vision on the screen. But you can't do it alone. I know it's trite to say this, but you utilize... ...and when someone has a great idea, you grab it. I encourage that, and I worked with a wonderful group of collaborators... ...on this film, and I'm very proud of it. After having gone and talked for two hours here, almost nonstop... ...this must be a lot of dribble. I apologize if, in fact, it's gone on... ...ad nauseam, but, again, we had an opportunity to make a film. I appreciate Warner Bros. was very tough to work for. We had a lot of disagreements, but they did allow me to make a film... ...and, they did, ultimately, give me final cut of the film... ...so that I was able to make the film I wanted. No excuses. I'm very proud of it. I hope you enjoyed it. Subtitles conformed by SOFTITLER

2:17:38 · jump to transcript →

Yushio Mahoto. Look. There used to be so many more of these photos, but we cut two of the scenes with all the photos in them. They were so brilliant, some of them, these sort of slightly obscene Christmas puns. That was meant to be the Four Tops. - That was the Four Tops. Can I patch you through? She wants to ask you a favor. That's brilliant. Thanks and be nice. I'm always nice. - You know what I mean, Marky, be friendly. I'm always... - Mark? This plot with Andrew and Keira and Chiwe is in some ways the kind of model for what the film was meant to be. I always said that I wanted it to have, you know, 10 good beginnings, 10 good middles and 10 good ends. And in fact, they've really only got three scenes. They've got the wedding, which is the beginning, and then they've got the scene where she goes around to his house and looks at the video, which is the middle, and they've got the scene with the cards, which is the end, and that was sort of the idea, that you'd fillet out all the unnecessary Stuff in films. And this is the one remaining little extra scenelet. I think it could go. Hugh, you appear to have misunderstood what we're doing here, Hugh, you appear to have misunderstood what we're doing here, which is that the film's finished and that's why we're commenting on it. Well, you say that. It's not out yet. Do you think this will be one example where the director's cut is actually shorter? We should have Hugh's cut. I always think that the director's cut in films actually should be called the director's half-cut, which is one day when he's drunk, he says, "That was a very good scene. "I wish to see that back in again." Now, this next shot was suggested by Mickey Coulter. He said that I'd wasted what was actually on offer. ...doing dark deeds. And I think he was right. - What do you mean? That high shot. - I think we know what you mean. I'd only done a little shot of Heike's face. - Can we see that again? And he said that's... - He wanted to lower the camera. Move the gib around. He wanted it up above the head. I was just going to have it all just done on a reaction shot. Here we go. - Beautiful. I so love this tune. I like the performance as well, although I think Colin's cardie is controversial. It's his own, isn't it?

35:29 · jump to transcript →

Again, that was stuff that you told us to scream at each other. We thought that it was going to be before the beginning of the scene. This is trying to get us into the mood, and then you used it in the final cut. You never know. You sneaky little thing. You know, Brian Cates, master editor, he used every ounce of common sweat in the editing of this film. So the screams that we used to give you guys energy...

42:33 · jump to transcript →

Probably the best visuals in the movie are now. Yeah. The final trip through London... from the air. Because, you know, the special effects crew removed every sign of life. And, you know, it's amazing how special effects now, this is kind of an apocalyptic vision with this place burned. This is one of the big shots in the movie. Originally, it was the end of the movie. But two days before the date of the final cut, Juan Carlos and I, we decide to... to turn this into something else. And we took the Eurostar with Bernie Bellew, producer of the film. And... with minimum crew and the TV camera, we decide to add a cue, no? A coda. The famous coda that we are about to see now. It was shot with Enrique, Bernie and I, and 12 extras. At 5am in Paris. And we shot with a small camera, an HD camera, to... to deliver, you know, this kind of new step in the story. And it was very funny, because we... we shot the movie, we shot that moment as a kind of point of view of the infected, so we ran behind infected and we discover the big image, one of the big images in the story, which is the final image, which means the infection... is out of control and takes over another... another city... which its Paris.

1:31:20 · jump to transcript →

James Mangold

One of the wonderful qualities for making this film for me was that I had final cut on this film and that it was a unique experience and that it was Completely independent of any studio. We made it including the studio that distributes at Lionsgate They came on right before we started shooting the film but this film was put together with completely independent financing separate from any studio at all and

56:00 · jump to transcript →

Yeah. Stevie Coogan. Little Stevie Coogan. Little Stevie Coogan. Yeah, fucking pussy. That's what he is. I still think he's a pussy. That really is your makeup person there. Yeah, this is all the real crew. I mean, we didn't go out and hire a fake crew to play the crew. We just literally filmed our own crew. We got Jimmy Rich over there holding the boom. Yeah, now Jimmy Rich's scene is included in the director's cut. I'm glad to hear that. Because he had a very funny scene where he's the boom guy and Coogan gets upset with him. There's our boy now. There's little Cody.

10:21 · jump to transcript →

Matthew Vaughn

And I then cut before we wipe through this pillow and we're going to, there's a scene between Kick-Ass and his dad and his dad gives him the taser. But it was just, again, it was style over content. We didn't need it. When we do the director's cut, or it won't be the director's cut, this is the director's cut, when we do the extended try and make more money cut, I'll put those scenes in.

34:02 · jump to transcript →

you know, autonomy, you know, you get to do whatever you want, and collaboration, and a studio that, you know, rules by fiat, and these kinds of things, you know, and Jason, you had told me early on, you said, you know, it's very, I let people have Final Cut, but it's rare that, you know, a note that I argued passionately for wasn't accepted by the director because

1:13:20 · jump to transcript →

That's a digital tongue, too, by the way. Yeah, the tongue's digital in that shot, because it couldn't get it to move. I just want to say that I'm very proud of this in-credit sequence. We had no time to do an in-credit sequence, because we wanted to work with the best set again, and we wanted them to write a song. I was actually editing all this stuff together while we were on the sound stage, remember? Yeah. The mix stage. And all these credits are actually just final cut credits, and then we would record them

1:30:16 · jump to transcript →

Pensive. Quite a nice moment to have her there, sort of reflecting on the journey. Another key challenge of the film was just trying to get all of Amy's tracks in. You know, there's a lot of songs that people love which didn't make the final cut. And Valerie, we finish with Valerie, which is in many ways one of my more famous songs, which she obviously didn't write. It was a cover that she did with Mark Ronson, a Zutons song.

1:59:28 · jump to transcript →