Practical effects

There's going to be no sound. We're probably going to replace a lot of this. Just go up and have fun. They were in an osprey doing it for real. They were in an osprey. They got in an osprey with Eric Jenderson and were shooting their dialogue in the osprey. And we knew we would be picking up a lot of the stuff with the graphics back on stage. So all the pressure was off. They could just go up and have fun. This sequence represents what has to be...

32:16 · jump to transcript →

Haley gave us a whole cornucopia of different emotional. Yeah, versions where, and there's versions where Tom is charming and there's versions where, and what was nice. This was all done in camera, the magic tricks all in camera, just in case you're wondering. And we had to do it so many times to get it just right. I think that was like take 17 that you did. Yes, and you can feel Tom getting a little frustrated with the magic trick. What I love here is I remember when you pitched me the idea that you're not gonna see any of the pink pocketing.

37:04 · jump to transcript →

rather than just being in control. Oh, this is amazing. You absolutely shot this for real. And this was all for real. This was all for real. Although a lot of the people in the background there, anybody in the background there, they weren't there. Yeah. Look, this is real. That was, again, this was a lot of fun. It was amazing that you got that timed out. Oh, it's a real challenge getting all of these elements to line up and doing it in a very limited time and, again, doing it during COVID.

47:48 · jump to transcript →

Tim Burton

or anything, or soul psych. I mean, we did everything that we could. We have a little bit of digital effects sometimes, but one thing that both Michael and I talked about, and I said to enter the studio, I go, I'm just, you can do anything with anything, CG. You can do anything, but we don't want to do anything. We just want to do it. Even if it doesn't look real, the practical effects were important. So we did it with everything. We really did. Except for the sandworms, which was stop motion.

14:08 · jump to transcript →

Tim Burton

It just, like I said earlier, it just felt right, and for me, and then for him. But the things about, like, always doing practical effects, keeping it like we did, shooting it in the spirit, shooting it quickly, shooting it, you know, keeping that energy going, that was all very important. So those are the kind of things we talked about. We sacrificed a goat. Our first night of marriage...

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Tim Burton

weird spirit of we didn't really know what we were making but it was fun and you know everybody contributed and so it was it was unlike a lot of movies where it just had a very kind of experimental spontaneous feel to it and so you know then you kind of go on in hollywood and films get bigger and and they don't really you don't really get that sort of opportunity to feel that way so that was a reason too to kind of come back and treat it in the spirit of the first one you know all practical effects makeup sets

40:34 · jump to transcript →

you know, gets what they want out of it, right? The audience gets what they're looking for, which are these, you know, visceral, long, everything exposed, practical effect moments. And at the same time, not give them so much that you're giving away the magic trick. You know, and there's a nice blessing here with Art the Clown's sort of comedy relief and sort of the lightheartedness juxtaposing the gruesome details. And that's something that I think

59:39 · jump to transcript →

We sculpted, we digitally printed the molds, and then we did traditional casting from all the digital work. I would say about 35% of the effects that we did for this film, we did digitally. And again, I just explained what I meant by that, but they are practical effects. But because we did them digitally, it really gave me the ability

1:25:39 · jump to transcript →

this sounds like one of these movie anecdotes but it really did it that that that mortar went off like an hour before yeah they were like blow drying it yeah yeah yeah taylor really sent it on that wall but that was also in that the whole film exists in that wall in a way because once we knew it was there we had to put it in because that those were our rules and without knowing it was there we couldn't put it in

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The Iraqi guys did pretty well, too. Oh, yeah, they were awesome. They were so good. Everybody, everybody. It sounds cute because, you know, in effect, what we're doing is sort of part of publicity for the film in some respects, and the job of publicity is for everyone to say everyone was great and everyone did a good job, but they really did. The atmosphere on this set...

36:08 · jump to transcript →

Nia DaCosta

Yeah, developing this with the prosthetics was super fun. But the first time I saw... The first person they showed me was LA, who plays Jane Ji. And Gareth and Carson, who are the amazing production designer and costume designers, they also were super inside of, like, those sorts of looks, like anything that was full-body like that in terms of prosthetics, they were really inside of that process creatively. And they called me in to see LA in her skinned look, and LA was, like, had tears in her eyes and she was performing, basically. And I was like, "Oh, my God." It was so disturbing. I was like, "This is very distressing," and I'm looking at it and I know it's not real, but it just felt so real. And that's just like a testament to the amazing work that the prosthetics team, John Nolan and his team, do on this film. That's real. Well, not... Obviously, it's not his skin, but that's, like, prosthetics. That's all in-camera. With a little bit of help from VFX to clean up anything.

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Nia DaCosta

And so we shot that and this at the same time, 'cause we wanted to... The building is actually burning, and so we would only be able to do so much shooting with it burning in the background. So we just... And this is the last night of our shoot. SO we... Yeah, we just had to keep going. And that's a really great VFX fire at the top there. That's all real fire in there. Again, it's like a good mix, like, I think, I'm not against VFX at all. I love VFX. But I think having a good mix of practical effects and visual effects is the way that you keep everyone invested in the story and engaged and not have their eye picking up all the stuff that's fake. And I thought the special effects and the VFX departments worked so well in this film.

51:12 · jump to transcript →

And that was written by Derek Kolstad, who wrote this movie. He also wrote the John Wick series of films. I mean, this all sprang out of his imagination. He's got a hell of an interesting head, and he loves action films, and he loves myths, and he loves creating them. And he's just the best guy ever. You enjoyed working with Derek, right, Ilya? I loved working with Derek. The first time that Derek was in the back of your office... Yeah. ...and first thing he says after we shake hands, "Ilya, welcome. Best idea wins." And I was quite blown away by that. Not "quite." I was blown away because... It's one thing if I would have said it. It's rare for someone who's accomplished, who's working with someone who is kind of new and just come in and say, "Let's sit. "You know, it doesn't matter whose idea, best idea." And that was something that this entire process, for the next, you know, a year-and-a-half, two years, we lived by that mantra. And we finished with that mantra, which is also very unusual. We really did, all the way through editing. Yeah.

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Edward Berger

The stuff on the lens is post. I like just sort of putting that mud on the lens. But everything else is real, really shot for real. This is mostly real. Some background is like diving fog because obviously the battlefield is a bit too, you know, like the shots are too big to...

1:10:25 · jump to transcript →

one of my movies that has stayed. This was shot in a parking lot with a boat on tires and we're just rocking it and the ocean was in back of him and it's, you know, all practical effects. Very successful, I think.

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