Directing actors

How helpful is second unit? You know, because you lose some control over second unit, but you need them to finish. Yeah, and we had 52 days, but they had 35, which as a ratio to first unit, it's a pretty big second unit. So, you know, I mean, a lot of... And again, first unit, kind of the rule is we have to deal with the talent, we have to deal with the actors. Anything with dialogue falls on us first, and anything with stunts and anything with creatures...

1:23:59 · jump to transcript →

We did a DI grade, which film can't quite cope with, but HD can, the way of the future. Clark and Evan, who are Marty and Todd, they were in the first ever read-through. Before I go out to the public with a script, when I say the public, Hollywood, I like to do one read-through with the actors. So I actually flew to LA and I said to the casting director, just get me some,

2:48 · jump to transcript →

Joss Whedon

One of the other great things about a movie like this and the opportunities they gave me with the actors, the locations, the scenarios, and the moods, and everything else, was that you feel like you're making 13 different movies. And I'm very much... Apart from actually having ADHD, which I do, I'm very much a fan of things that change it up. And this was one of the instances, because they are both so beautiful and charming, where we all sort of went, "When can we just make this movie?" I actually said to them, to Mark and Scarlett, "You guys should do The Thin Man." And they both asked me what The Thin Man was, which makes me feel that, uh, the Earth is doomed. But their energy there is so great, and to be able to lean into it visually and just go ahead and Say, "Let's pretend we're in the '40s," is a delight. And leads to, um, the after party that's coming up, which is a more well-known bit. And it's interesting because this stuff, particularly with them, is very sort of studied. Again, because I was going into a slightly older visual template, the camerawork is somewhat less frenetic. Then we got into shooting this next scene, and it was also very elegant, and the camera moves, it went from here to there, and it was bombing. And nobody was enjoying it, the actors didn't feel funny, their lines didn't sound funny, it just didn't work. And to the point where they're all standing there, and I've got all of them for one of the few times... More times in this movie than the first one, but I've got every major actor I've ever admired standing in front of me, and I'm just drawing a blank. And I finally turned to Jamie Christopher, our awesome AD, and said, "Can you help me? Can you make it stop?" And he just turned around and said, "Thank you, everybody, that's a good day. See you all at 8:00."

25:59 · jump to transcript →

And that was one of your wide shots there. As Henry walks over to reveal the room, you get... Yes, and that was discovered as a matter of necessity in just getting the coverage and following the blocking, all of which we discovered with the actors, how everybody was composed in the scene. The wide master presented itself rather than us adhering to it. And it occurred much more organically. And as a result, we never shot the whole scene in a wide master, which is what you tend to do. And then you only use...

19:52 · jump to transcript →