The long take

Tom Hooper

effectively each take becomes its own unique event. Because if an actor's varying tempos significantly, you can't necessarily cut one take with another take. And so what you, in a way, give up in order to have the freedom, or the actor to have that freedom, is the right or ability to always intercut all the takes you do. So I began to realize from early on that filming Les Misérables would be about making this commitment to...

12:55 · jump to transcript →

Tom Hooper

to filming each song in one take. I mean, interestingly in this, we shot some other coverage, you know, from the side and some wides, but through the editing process, we felt that the emotional power of the soliloquy was best served by this concentrated meditation on Hugh's extraordinary performance. Because, you know, when you come wide to show the world he's in, it's not really giving you an insight.

13:24 · jump to transcript →

Tom Hooper

I didn't say to Anne, you know, we're going to do this in one take. It's one shot, it's one camera, it's a big close-up, off you go. The big close-up came sort of democratically out of the process of editing. What I admire in what Anne's doing is the total lack of emotional self-indulgence. I mean, it is an extraordinary performance. I think she went to a very dark place this day. She opened some kind of box and looked inside and at the end of the day closed that box and...

29:50 · jump to transcript →

we actually made a switch while we point the camera upwards. Yeah, we did this a lot. I mean, there's a lot of this in this film, like even when it's supposed to be like one continuous shot like that, we put a lot of edits in there. There's about like this whole section from running into the room up until now, there's probably around about like four edits, I think, in total in that sequence. Four to five different cuts. Yeah, because like certain things will go right sometimes and, you know, all it takes really is for like one performer to kind of like mess up a little bit.

1:02:18 · jump to transcript →

Thank God he braved it for us. And that moment where they find him in the water, I just told him, like, give me one take, and I promise that will be it. And he was a trooper, and he did it, and we got it in one take, which was... You made him do it again. Let's be real. No, I didn't have to make it. He did it twice. No, you didn't have to do it. I got him up to the dock, and then I got a cut, and then he didn't have to be in the water anymore. I seem to remember him doing it twice. Rob's a liar. Yeah, you're a liar.

1:23:00 · jump to transcript →

If one cue screwed up, we'd have to do the whole take again. A lot of these shots are just one take. Yeah. And the hard part, too, is that this is like what you're seeing now is an elf doll that we gutted out. I don't know if you guys remember Elf, the TV show. But I always thought our family dog looked like Elf. And we just so happened to have an Elf doll. And I got my friend Sherry to hollow it out and turn it into a puppet.

1:23:54 · jump to transcript →

I think a lot of all these shots of-- Just of India. lt makes me think of Turner. Like old Pre-Raphaelites, and so on. She looks so beautiful. So perfect. Also very fun with Charles Dance that... When we talked to Len... ...and said we would love to have Charles for this... ...e was our first choice... ...and we were very happy that he could do tt. And Len was like, "Oh, great! I wanted him for the other films as well." Because he's always thought of him as a perfect Underworld... ...actor. - Yeah. I think he's perfect. Now we don't have Bill Nighy anymore... ...because he's dead. - Yeah. We chopped his head off rather thoroughly. And even so, he kept coming back. - Yeah. But he can't come back anymore, I think. No. - No. Not at this time frame. - Never say never. So that's Kate's mother in the background there, which is.... I love the shot of this tic she gets in her face. That's me screaming, "Twitch, twitch! Twitch!" - It was great. It gets cut off a little bit by the wipe... ...but it was such a great detail. And then Selene... ...has an emotional moment. - Is crying. Yeah. And here we had.... There was.... Now we have this, but before, I think, until the very end... ...It was flashbacks more of him. Right. - Their history, kissing and so on. Originally, it wasn't supposed to be that underwater sequence. lt was supposed to be him in all his glory and beauty. But it actually works really well... ...because you've seen that piece before... ...and it works better as a memory. - I think so too. This was a wonderful time in the filming... ...because all of a sudden... ...we went from the cold exteriors of Vancouver... ...where it would rain every day. It continued to rain, but at least we were inside a studio. We were there in this set for... - A while. Yeah, two or three weeks. And I remember Mans said to me, and Bjorn, they said: "This is our favorite point in the movie." I think it was. Yeah. - When I think back to it. Every day you'd go to work, and you'd be in this pretty set. We were doing interesting things. It's actually where most of the performance... ...the acting, took place. - Yeah. Here, we have an actual dramatic scene. Yeah, but also, it felt like we actually controlled the 3D beast here. The camera lived on the crane the whole time. Yeah. It didn't control us. We knew it. We understood it. I can give courses. And we weren't standing around at night in the rain. Right. - Exactly. There's that physical comfort part of it. We had a subway train to contend with a little bit. Every fourth minute or something. The elevated train that went by every 15 minutes. But I mean, I just want to say a couple words about Kate. She's so great here and she's so focused. It's crazy. You talk very little to her. I think good direction is more about being than talking. And with her, knowing the role so well... ... you kind of say, "So this is kind of what we need for the scene." She knows exactly, and then it just happens. This is a beautiful shot. I love that shot. If you want to make a small, small change, it's... You can direct her like a surgeon... ...ecause you can do so small changes. And it's exactly what you're looking for. I'm happy actually that that scene stayed in the movie. Because it's not.... - Me too. Me too. Almost came out, but you're right, it is... This scene almost came out too, but I'm glad-- This was a oner that... Everybody thought this scene would go. I liked it. I really fought for it. I really loved it. - It's so creepy too. Yeah, but I think it's important, because this is about the little girl... ... realizing her new identity. And this is a teenage, you know, coming of age, and so on. This is the creepy stepfather. - This is an incredibly creepy scene. It's a beautifully staged shot. You've gotta have a few of those in the movie, right? He wants to kill her, and here he is being nice and.... He wants to absolutely wipe her off the face of the earth. Yeah. He despises her. I think one of the most common words I used, or we used... ...Was "contempt" and "despise" to actors. Those are two great words for actors. - Yeah. And she nails it. She nails it. - Oh, those eyes. It's funny, because she has to do a lot of acting in this film with her face... ...where she doesn't have a lot of lines to really chew on... ...but she really is able to do a tremendous amount... ... Just with facial expression.

34:30 · jump to transcript →

We got so much mileage out of that set too. Yeah. - It just looks like it goes on forever. And most of all, it looks really real. Yeah. The texture-- The scenic painting and the texturing is first-rate. Claude, the production designer, said that he took great pride in detail. He said, "That's my middle name." And also in the wood too. The way they sandblasted the wood... ... to make it look ancient, it's just great. Yeah, I remember I talked to Gary, who was the art director. When they presented to Claude... ...Claude just... Like I said, they were working so hard with the detail... ...and Claude had been doing some other stuff, came back... ...and walked around, and then took Gary's head and kissed it. On the forehead. And he said, "Thank you. It's gorgeous." - Sounds like Claude, yeah. And here we are. - This is a fantastic scene. Yeah. There's a shot coming up that is just... ...beautiful, that Brad Martin, the second-unit director, shot. It's just... This oner. This is one of the things we.... This one. This one here. It's fantastic. There was no way we would have staged this shot as we did... -.../f it wasn't a 3D movie. - Yeah. Yeah. We wanted much more, actually, than we... That's all one shot. - Yeah. All with CG. It's... - That was a blend of CG and suits. Here, it's just CG. In the end of that scene, it was suits as well. Yeah, everything mixed. Like every trick we had In one shot. Here's suits and CG mixed. - That's a suit. Suit, suit. Background guy's CG. - Background guys are CG. That's a real one. Yeah. - If they're moving, they're CG. I remember at a certain point too... I remember at a certain point, for budget reasons, we had to cut... ...a lot of the CG shots of this sequence. You look at the sequence now and you can't imagine.... Well, Clint did give us more money. No. But I remember once we got the rule... James just said, "We can only have--" - There she goes. "We can only have 36 Uber shots in the movie." It's more. - Oh, yeah. There are 275 creature shots in this movie. Is that right? - The other thing is... ... for the audience, we keep using this word Uber because... It's not in the movie. - It's not referred to in the movie... ...but this larger than... This five-times-the-size Lycan. We sort of... - Nine foot tall. We... - We called it the Uber-Lycan. The inner circle called it the Uber-Lycan. He's not 9 foot tall. - Twelve feet tall. Fifteen feet tall or something. Theo, extremely... - Nine hundred pounds. Did all the stunts himself. The Necklace. - Yes, the Necklace. We give all these kind of moves aname. That was the Necklace. You threw that in, the head getting blown off. Had to happen. - Yeah. It's an Underworld movie. I love that when she bites him. - What? Where'd that come from? This one's great too. - Yeah. It's great. Oh, I remember... - The blood spray. We had to fight for that ax in the head, which I don't understand... ...because it's kind of given, I think. Always... - Was that a gibe? That was a gibe. No. And always put people in water. - Oh, this too. Yeah. Because they like it. - Yeah. Actors really like being cold and wet. No. It was freezing cold. Theo was extremely cool. Yeah. Not cold. Cool. - I really hate Theo, actually. I sincerely hate him for being gorgeous... ...and he played me the first two days, and I thought: "Oh, is he slow, this guy?" And he was so much smarter than me. And he was pulling my leg and just, you know, he was.... He's a perfect human being and so kind. So, you know.... I hear he's single. - Yeah. I hope he can't draw. He actually had a very nice... He has a very nice girlfriend. Even the sun has spots, I guess. Anyway, he's just one of those perfect human beings... ... that walk around there which makes you feel not perfect. Yeah. - The weaponry here... ... you saw that little glint there, or what do you call it? The: On her gun. I mean, the weaponry Is real important... ... for the Underworld movies. One of the things that we also love. I don't know how many hours or days we actually talked about what kind of... ...guns shall she have and when and where. It's an enormous amount of research. This was inspired, by the way, to shoot... To have the Uber-Lycan appear... ...and to do his first shots where you didn't see him... ...and then have a second reveal. We actually-- This... That came up because of the set. We didn't plan that. Then we saw the set, and I think... . James, it was your idea that we should have... This is the Uber-Lycan. And this is what we talked about. We really wanted to hurt Selene. We really wanted to, yeah. Although she hurt him, didn't she? Yeah. - That'll teach him. That's a setup for later on. You know, look, the fact of the matter is, when we shot this, we had... ...Kate or her stunt double in the foreground doing all the stunts. That's Kate there. - The Uber-Lycan... ...was placed in afterwards and.... - Yeah. Just brilliant. Just brilliant. - Yeah. Remember the giant to-scale Styrofoam gray Uber head? Which we all laughed at on the set. - No, I remember... Kate doesn't like shooting these kinds of things. She's like-- Because she feels like... You know, she does it perfectly, but it's, you know.... It's not her favorite thing to do. - No. It's hard. Because you look at the Styrofoam thing... ...and it's hard. - Yep. But she does it perfectly. - Yep. There's our dam. The Suede pose. - Yeah. This is beautiful in 3D. Yeah. He looks like Brett Anderson in Suede. Beautiful death. Death position. Yeah. Yeah. He died with style. - Like a dying dandy. One of my favorite Swedish paintings, The Dying Dandy. Yes. Wow, you really snuck that one in, didn't you?

43:18 · jump to transcript →

I go in, take three. That hurts. First time I grab the pole, broken. I know it. And all of this is being shot simultaneously. All these cameras are rolling at the same time. And it's all done in one take. I have to get past camera. Yes, exactly. I've got to get past camera. And I went to see you, and you were laying on a couch with your foot up and a bag of ice on it. And you said, did we get the shot? And I said, yeah, yeah, we got it. You said, good, because we're not coming back. It's broken.

1:34:35 · jump to transcript →

And also, keep in mind, in that eight minutes, you have to play the scene three different ways. Because remember, we said it's like play one where you're just being totally straight, play one where you're completely lying, and play one where you're kind of in the middle. And it gave us color to play with, and we used all the middle. It's so well acted. This is a really, what we used is one take. And it's really a testament to how great you are in this scene. I mean, everybody in the scene is phenomenal. See you soon.

1:49:16 · jump to transcript →

Matthew Vaughn

...the mat that we wouldn't put down and knock himself out. So he's probably... I don't know. As I said, it probably looks good. They were all in pain afterwards. I mean, he had one take, so you can imagine how relaxed we were... ...blowing up the one set. We did it all for real. I wasn't into CG, the glass game. Everything was real. And the weird-sounding bazooka, we made that up. I think sometimes if you've got something like a weak spot in a movie... ...or could be perceived as a weak spot, you should...

1:43:49 · jump to transcript →

the hardest thing was to watch you going through the underwater training. That was brutal. It was really brutal. Because there was long take after take. Oh, God, yeah. I remember we came up with the idea of the underwater thing when we were doing Edge of Tomorrow underwater. Well, here's what happened. Here's what happened. Jim Bissell showed a picture of the Taurus as, like, just an idea of something to do a sequence in and hung it on this board, and you saw it and said, great, we're doing an underwater sequence.

59:24 · jump to transcript →