Topics / Editing & post

Practical effects

91 commentaries in the archive discuss this, with 218 total mentions and 51 sampled passages on this page.

By decade

1940s

1
1950s

2
1970s

6
1980s

19
1990s

17
2000s

27
2010s

12
2020s

7

Across the archive

ranked by mentions · click any passage for the moment in the transcript

technical · 1h 22m 3 mentions

Underworld Awakening (2012)

Gary Lucchesi, Richard Wright, James McQuaide
director · 1h 34m 3 mentions

Dark Skies (2013)

Scott Stewart, Jason Blum, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Peter Gvozdas
director · 2h 1m 3 mentions

Amy (2015)
director · 1h 43m 2 mentions

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
1. And as I said, of course, the Godfather. But Owen Roisman has said that when he went to that set, he didn't have to light it. They would turn the lights on and they had these fluorescent lights and they really did little or no lighting. They would use like a white bounce card occasionally, but the fluorescents were probably, you know, brighter than normal fluorescent lights, but he didn't have to light this. And, you know, one of the things about this movie is
  
  25:04 · jump to transcript →
2. and steering them. But again, most of what's here was in the book, although Doris Roberts from Everybody Loves Raymond, who plays the mayor's wife, Jessie. And Remington Steele. Yeah. And she is sort of a construct for this scene. But again, Stone not missing opportunities for real humor. And again,
  
  41:38 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 37m 2 mentions

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Paul Davis
1. Paul Davis
  
  And he kind of put it into a crouching position and built a fake back and shoulders. And they had an additional mold of the head. And that was just a little thing that was rod puppeted from underneath. But that transformation sequence, for me, that and Rob Bottin's work on the thing are still completely untouched in terms of practical effects.
  
  1:01:29 · jump to transcript →
2. Paul Davis
  
  But yeah, that's an American Wolf in London and you know, here we are 38 years later and it still holds up. And you know, I don't think that we'll ever have a movie with practical effects quite like this. It's still the benchmark when people talk about
  
  1:34:42 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 49m 2 mentions

Blue Thunder (1983)

John Badham, Frank Morriss, Hoyt Yeatman
1. Frank Morriss
  
  Is that right? Warren was so terrific in this scene. Oh, yeah. Warren had a wonderful, dry humour. With the other actor, Jack Murdock, I wanted somebody who sounded like... ...he could piss Jack Daniel's. Like he had had so much... ...go through his system with that gravelly, gravelly voice. Now, at the time that we did this picture... ...computer technology really did not exist. So that almost all the day footage... ...that we see here in the helicopter, was shot up in the sky. And our guys are actually up in the sky... ...as we fly along with them. And we're looking not at a computerised background here... ...but shooting from the little control tower that we had built on top of... ...what's known as the Piper Tech facility in Downtown Los Angeles. And it's where the city of Los Angeles keeps all of its vehicles... ...and including its helicopter that's on-- Helicopters, that is on the top pad.
  
  2:42 · jump to transcript →
2. Hoyt Yeatman
  
  Were you up there much? I got to go up there lots and lots. I really love flying in a helicopter. It's quite exciting... ...and Gavin was actually teaching me how to fly, a little bit. Roy Scheider really did learn how to fly it. I'll show you some shots where he was actually flying the helicopter... ...and not just being a passenger pretending to fly the helicopter.
  
  1:17:58 · jump to transcript →
cast · 1h 36m 2 mentions

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Jason Hillhouse
1. Judd Nelson
  
  See, this is where it was cool where we had John. He was definitely a collaborative director and sought to get the best out of us all, and was looking for behavior, you know. So, I think, the wisdom of he and Dede Allen and their choices in making this all work, 'cause we had so much footage, it was great to see. All these years later, we take it for granted, what we see the final cut to be. But the truth is that, like we were talking about, Dede would come to the set and she would closely work with John. And also, he gave us the freedom to play and just have fun. And certain things, like the stuff you're seeing with Judd spinning around. I'm sticking a pen in my mouth, stupid stuff. We had no idea whether it would arrive in the film or be a part of it. I didn't. We were just having fun. But once we knew what the space was, we had the parameters. Rehearsal was key. - Yeah, it was like shooting a play. That's how I recollect and look back at it. We shot this play for 35 days and we were... Mostly in sequence. - Yeah. Yeah, we were fortunate to be extracted from Hollywood, and all of a sudden in this suburban gym of Illinois, not far from where John had grown up. So, it was a fortunate thing that we felt like we were shooting a play, 'cause we also had a week of rehearsal, which was... No, we had more than a week. - Was it more? We had more than a week. In fact, we weren't done with our rehearsal time when Hughes went, "We're ready. Let's go." All the work we've done keeping our faces in the industry since and maintaining our careers, it's still... To this day, I don't think I've ever had that since. So, it was a real... A real rehearsal. - Yeah, it was a real luxury. It was also a lot of fun, 'cause it really bonded us and gave us a chance to get a sense of where we were all at, and also made the work better, yeah. And we built real history, as opposed to that you believe you've made up a history. We actually had real experiences. Even if it's something as simple as dinner four nights in a row, you at least have some real past and things will reveal themselves to you further along in the work. And Hughes really wanted it to sound authentic. So, he never limited us. If you came up with something, you never felt like, "Oh, wow, "we took it beyond the text." Big deal. And he was always looking for it to get to that point, anyway. The freedom that he gave us, the idea that he would trust us like that, which is the point of the film. Just because they are 17 years old doesn't mean they are 17 years dumb. There's a weird thing, though, about rehearsals and stuff like that, where you think... You even said, "I've never done that before or since." It always seems to work out when actors and stuff get those chances. You hear those stories over and over. But, for the most part, people, they just don't do it. Yeah, in terms of genre, too, this is something that broke a mold, in a way, 'cause it was, in the industry talk, a talking heads film. It's really about a bunch of people sitting around, talking. So again, the play analogy comes into play. We really felt like... I remember rehearsing, and we were in these positions. I remember walking into that space, and John going, "Okay, you sit over here." We would rehearse these scenes. So, by the time we shot them, we all had a good sense of each other. We were a solid group, and we also knew where we were going with it. Now it looks like a luxury, but to this day, I've often looked back and thought about that, that it was great intelligence in just doing that, putting us in together. We sat in a room... - I thought they were all gonna be like that. I really did. I look back on that and that is a high-water mark in terms of the importance of having everyone being on the same page. Right. If you get rehearsal time and if you shoot in sequence, it's not like you are trusting the other actor to know that in the scene before this they actually threatened to kill me. So, it's a little bit heavier. You don't have to do that because before we shot this scene, we shot the scene where he threatened to kill me, so we know that. It's a great collaboration. You don't realize it till you're blessed enough to work in the business. When you're on the set, you see that there's... You know, sometimes the best idea will come from the script supervisor, or sometimes it's the guy at the crafts service table. It's a great collaboration, even though it's a director's medium. I think that sense of support was instilled in us with John, 'cause he gave us these roles and we all knew what we were doing, but he always was collaborative that way. I think that was his intelligence, too, that he allowed his scripts to transcend even the beauty that they had, because he hired people that he believed in. But there's a great collaboration, always. When you're talking about rehearsal, you're talking about the five of you guys. Were Paul and Kapelos kept away a little bit, to let you guys have your thing, a little "us vs. them" a little bit for that? Well, that was happening right away. Also, 'cause Paul wanted to hang with us, so that was perfect, 'cause it gave us the power to say, "No." So, we could. But you guys rehearsed those scenes, right, with you and Paul? But he wouldn't necessarily be sitting there on a day when... Just the five of us. - ...it was the five of us in that rehearsal, if we were gonna get to that stuff. We wouldn't do necessarily whole read-through of it. We would be taking it from the first scene and rehearsing it till it made some sense to us, and John knew, basically, how he wanted to see it and how he wanted to shoot it. It's a business, at the end of the day, like anything else, so there's always such a sense of the clock and rushing, so, as Judd said, a high water mark in our careers to start with this great project, and we had these great roles and a well-developed script. But he was smart enough to sit us all down and get our input and let us work through it. So, once we got on our feet with this and we were shooting the scenes, we had a closeness and a vibe already flowing between us. But it's funny you said that, 'cause I thought the same, too. I thought it would be like this after, and usually the director is the most stressed-out, doesn't know what the next shot is. It's like the world changed after this. But part of it was the good fortune we had to be in Chicago and do this. It was at the beginning of his career, after Sixteen Candles did pretty well, even though it was a small film. I think I remember him telling us that his intent was to do this first. I think the studio was gonna make this film first and they flipped them. So, we were fortunate to be away from everything and... Flipped it and Sixteen Candles, you mean? Yeah, exactly, in terms of the making of the films. So then we did this project second, and then we were, again, just in Chicago, and that sort of remote quality helps it, too. It's a lot of the fun of it. 'Cause then you came back here to do Weird Science, right? Yeah, that was fun. There is something about that, pulling it out of Hollywood. That's clichéd, "Hollywood's bad and you can't get anything done." But there is something to be said about that. Well, the story takes place there, and that's where he lives. Why not put it there? It's easier, it makes the most sense, and for the actors, it's one less thing you have to imagine, and hope everyone else is imagining the same thing. In fact, it is the same room where we're gonna go every day. It's a school. - Right. I remember, I went to some local schools, too, in that area at the time. It was fun just to get a sense of what... 'Cause I hadn't had that kind of upbringing. I grew up in New York City at a liberal arts high school. It was a different experience. It was a boys' reformatory, wasn't it? I was away a lot and... Very religious, wasn't it? - That's part of the fun, actually, just to get out of the mix, to be somewhere else. As an actor, the gift is getting the job, and then the sense of exploration is enhanced, I think, by being somewhere on location. It's fun. Makes it part of joining the circus, I guess. So, what, you guys went to an actual school, went in, mixed with the kids, did that whole... Yeah. Yeah. - I did some of that, yeah. Yeah, Hughes arranged it for us to go. I know that Ally, Emilio and I went to this high school, and the principal knew, but most of the teachers didn't, and it worked out perfectly. It was a school that had two halls, one called Jock Hall and one called Freak Hall. And I was like, "Are you kidding me? That's perfect." I just waved to Emilio, "See you at the end of the day," and then went over to the other side. It's great 'cause I was over 18, so I met some guys and I could buy them beer. I was like, "Yeah, I got an ID that'll work. Come on, let's go get some beer." Just treating it so poorly, it was perfect. You didn't get put in detention at that school, did you? No, but I did get sent to the principal's office, the one guy who knew that it was okay for me to be there, so it was perfect. I hadn't found my classroom yet, out of Freak Hall, and I didn't have a classroom, so I was always going to be found out there. Bender, that's school property there, and it doesn't belong to us. It's something not to be toyed with. That's very funny. Fix it. You should really fix that. - Am I a genius? No, you're an asshole. - What a funny guy. Fix the door, Bender. Everyone, just... I've been here before. I know what I'm doing. No. Fix the door! - Shut up! God damn it!
  
  8:42 · jump to transcript →
2. Judd Nelson
  
  That school really did look like a prison, didn't it? Look at that. Yeah, it did. - Here comes Ron Dean. Chicago's own. - Looking at her like, "She's going to blow your ride?" "Who's the chickie?" - Yeah I like how he looked at her ass out the window there. "That's a class act from Chicago." - "That's my boy." Yeah. "From a Chicago guy."
  
  1:33:09 · jump to transcript →
multi · 2h 34m 2 mentions

Aliens (1986)

James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, Stan Winston, Robert Skotak + 8
1. Pat McClung
  
  Even though I liked the symmetry of the fact that she had had a daughter and lost her - that's Sigourney's mother, so there's an interesting inversion here. She's looking at the face of her mother but playing it as her daughter. As an actor, it allowed her to work the connection. All my movies are love stories. This one is about parental love, protectiveness and a sense of duty, and the ultimate sacrifice that a person would make, given that sense of duty. That was a nice touch. That was Sigourney's idea. This was one of the seminal scenes in the movie and was one of the ones that had to be deleted and omitted from the theatrical version because of length. We didn't have multiplexes, and there were only so many showings a day that you could have of a film, and we had to get it no more than two hours ten minutes in order to get the maximum number of screenings per day. Peter Lamont came up with a simple and austere look for our future sets. I watched this film recently and I was amazed at how little we see of the conventional future world, as opposed to the spacecraft interiors. She's actually on Gateway Station here. She hasn't returned all the way to earth. She never sets foot on earth in the whole series of films, which is interesting. This is as close as she gets until the end of the fourth movie, where she's re-entering the atmosphere. But this is earth for all intents and purposes. This is everyday life circa a couple of hundred years from now. And Peter came up with a very spartan look. It's not overworked at all, which I think was quite clever. We wanted to do it minimalist. We didn't have her walking around corridors. We didn't create a world because we weren't interested. We were interested in the through-line of her story and her character's dilemma and problems, the fact that she's not believed, that she understands there's this great threat. The same applied to the costumes. We didn't wanna suggest a wildly separated future from our present one. This might be one of the first science fiction movies where men still wear coats and ties. The thinking was people will still wear coats and ties. They may not look exactly the same. We turned up the collar on the jackets. It's no big deal but it's a subtle change. We wanted to have a place to go. We wanted the space environment once they get to the colony planet to be exotic and so we didn't wanna overwork earth. We also wanted to understand who these people were, and a Suit Is a suit. These characters are suits and we wanted to reinforce that. If everybody's in Star Wars type costumes, it's harder to relate to them as characters. I was thinking more of a writer than a designer when I was making my picks of what things should look like from amongst the suggestions made by the costume designer. Denny, did they shoot at 25 frames per second for all the video playback stuff? Do you remember? They did. The 24-frame issue was messy. It can be done, but it's such a big procedure. Shooting 25 frames per second on the camera puts the video in sync with the film camera very easily. There's a slight speed differential but it's almost impossible to perceive. In Britain they have a different television system, a 25-frame-per-second system. 625 resolution instead of 525. Later in the film there's some video footage that was used, appearing on video monitors. But the PAL system is better than NTSC, which is our system here in the United States. It almost looked like a slightly too fuzzy version of film, sort of in between. It's not as good as it should be for film, but it wasn't obvious it was video. Jim realized and made the video images noisier or break up more often so it was more obvious. The tag of this scene is gonna be a throw to this big sequence that takes place on the colony which is before the aliens attack. That's cut out of the release version, so coming up Is the biggest single change from the release version of the film. It's an entire reel. I'll never forget Gale Hurd, who was my wife and producer at the time, trying to shorten the film by 20 minutes. I just could not see how it was possible to do a cut here, a cut there, a few seconds, a bit of a scene, the tag of a scene maybe. She said "I've been thinking about this for days." I said "Go ahead." She said "Reel three." Which starts here. "You can take out reel three." I immediately rejected that as completely absurd. Then I thought about it. Reel three ends with Newt's scream when her father has the facehugger on his face. It works flawlessly. It's a brilliant cut and I have to credit Gale with that. I had poured a lot of energy into the design of these scenes and the alien derelict ship. The problem for me was that I couldn't imagine this film without the cognitive tether to the first film of the alien derelict, but it turns out that it works perfectly. A little dialogue bridge and it works fine. I like this tractor a lot, this tractor with this articulated leg design. This is one of my favorite effects. You see the big tractor driving by and in the background you see these people struggling to put a tarp over that tractor. That was done in perspective. There were full-size people back there, and a miniature in the foreground with distance between. It put everything in camera all at one time without any opticals or anything beyond that. The trick was that the actors had to act at double their normal speed of acting, because the camera was running at 48 frames per second. We had a Ritter fan on them to really kick those tarps around in excess of what it would be in real time, but because we were overcranking, that motion would then look normal. The multi-wheeled vehicle at the beginning is a fifth-scale miniature, radio-controlled, that Jim designed. On the airplane coming over from Los Angeles to London he just doodled it. Ron Cobb, I believe, fleshed it out.
  
  10:08 · jump to transcript →
2. Bill Paxton
  
  James Horner came up with this music sting here and I always thought it was totally over the top. When I saw the whole film put together with the score, I thought "No, that's what we need." I thought "How can you sting somebody opening their eyes?" But it works. Oh! Mm-hm. She shouldn't have had the bangers and mash. Kill it. Fry it. Come on. What are you doing, Hicks? Bad-ass nasty shot. That's a nasty shot of that thing. That's a good shot of it there getting fried. Gosh. Here they come. I think our chestburster looks a little cooler than the one in the first film. Stan Winston's guys really did a good job on it. John Rosengrant and Shane Mahan. Look who's back. Another one of our problems to solve for this movie was creating the whole army of warrior aliens and being legitimate to the original movie but having to improve on it for movement and for the look of being able to study them. In the original A/ien they were rubber suits and very difficult for the actor to move around in. And yet he was very tall and very skinny. And Jim wanted to do a lot of very interesting moves with the warrior aliens, so we came up with a technique to create the suit that really involved a lot of spandex and pieces on it. And then we designed the set pieces for the aliens to fit into the walls, like the one that is behind him there, so that the camouflage would work. An enormous amount of wirework for all of these stunt alien performers, which required that the alien costumes be extremely user-friendly. This was inspired by the scene in the first film where Dallas is in the air vents and they see the signal moving and get a little freaked, and Veronica Cartwright says "Get outta there" and he makes the wrong move and gets killed. That's one of the most suspenseful scenes in the first film. I took that idea that they're getting these readings that are getting them spooked and then they make some bad moves. Form follows function. This is a perfect example of it. You start with what it is you wanna achieve, and once you have that, you can design it, so the actions and the performance is consistent with what you want in the finished film. Believe it or not, very few people work that way. They just wanna come up with something that's cool, and then you spend hours and hours trying to get it to work for the ultimate film. I happen to agree with Gale. My background is as an actor. I really come from a place where the creatures and the characters are wonderful to look at, but it's always about their performance. We have to figure out how they're gonna be able to act, and create a good performance, or it's a waste. And so that's really always at the top of the priority list when we're creating any creature - what is it gonna do and how is it gonna do it? What he does is create a character, and that's why I think his work is So unique. When you look at a film, you can always tell who's done the creatures, if they actually have a character. Because he creates a character that can act and perform. The whole film builds to this moment, where the power transfers from the authoritarian structure to the individual who takes action. Ripley's not supposed to do anything. She's just there as an observer. We're coming up to a sequence where Sigourney takes control of the APC and this sequence is comprised of live-action shots, but as it comes down this hallway and is banging into pipes and walls and sparking, that's all done in miniature. In some cases, the cameraman - cos the set was mounted at an angle - was on a cart, a wheeled cart, and was rolling backwards as the radio-controlled APC was coming at camera. There was a point when he was just put into free fall, rolling backwards downhill, photographing what was in front of him as he went backwards. Here we go. - This is the shot. This is also miniatures. There was a shot with the full-size when the brakes didn't work, and took out the camera, and luckily it was a remote-operated camera. It was the shot where we were actually crushing an alien warrior, when it broke through. This is the shot, actually, when it took the camera out. Then there's another shot where it takes down an alien.
  
  1:12:00 · jump to transcript →
director · 2h 10m 2 mentions

Broadcast News (1987)

James L. Brooks, Richard Marks
1. Oh, man, why does a guy like that have to lose? And the audiences felt the same way. They really did. They did. I think they went this far. I think many in the audience overcame their anti-Semitism. It's one of the killer facts of life, I think, that the kind of intimacy they have as friends...
  
  57:37 · jump to transcript →
2. I did relate to it, I really did. It was unusual for you to cut to yourself when you teared up, and that might not have been my choice. You know, maybe that's the beginning, the beginning of what could have led to love, I guess, you know, when you begin to challenge your own thoughts because somebody else represents the alternative. Okay. Okay.
  
  1:12:20 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 45m 2 mentions

Masters Of The Universe (1987)

Gary Goddard
1. Gary Goddard
  
  This was one of the largest sets built in Hollywood in probably the 10 years or so before that. This throne room set is the real deal. It was so large, we actually used two sound stages. And that hall right there that he's walking by, it connects two sound stages. That's actually outside. That runway you're seeing there is a real runway. Now, of course, we've matted in the upper shots on top. That's a matte painting. But the actual runway and the throne room and the scale of that is all for real.
  
  3:05 · jump to transcript →
2. Gary Goddard
  
  and to meet the budget and schedule and get it out for summer, but we did do that. I like this shot also, this shot where you have Skeletor overpowering on an epic scale, dominating the screen, and you introduce your hero here against him as he turns in camera. It was very deliberate, pitting him, hero, who is watching the devastation of his world, Eternia, and the overpowering presence of Skeletor.
  
  5:16 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 40m 2 mentions

Say Anything (1989)

Cameron Crowe, John Cusack, Ione Skye
1. It really did. Just personally, it's one of those things you always keep way down deep inside. I remember finally being in a situation with the girl that I really, really, really wanted to be with. What about this scene, though? I know. I'm going to wrap this up quickly so I can talk about this scene. But I shivered, and she felt protective of me, and I was so embarrassed about it. I was embarrassed for a very long time that I was just so unused to being in this position with something that's unattainable that I shook.
  
  53:38 · jump to transcript →
2. Just a little side. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 13 years. I always thought you connected to this stuff. I did. I obviously did. You really did. In a pretty primal kind of way. Yeah, I really think I really did. But I know what you mean. Like, if this had happened with my dad, I don't know. Yeah, just think. I don't know if I would have been able to cut him off. But her ideals and her standards are such because. Well, it's not a, you know, it's.
  
  1:21:24 · jump to transcript →
director · 2h 19m 2 mentions

Goodfellas (1990)
1. In the scene when you see Karen on top of Henry, I remember it being very difficult to shoot, especially since when you learn filmmaking with Morty Scorsese. I really did that to the camera, not so much to Ray. Michael Bellhouse, who was our director of photography,
  
  1:13:20 · jump to transcript →
2. When I watched the movie this morning, and I just fell in love with him all over again. I really did. I have to say, I think he's extremely gorgeous, sexy, exciting man. And I'm sure that the real Henry Hill for the real Karen Hill was all of those things. And I think we got that right. Every day when we walked into Hair and Makeup, we were Karen and Henry.
  
  1:40:09 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 56m 2 mentions

RoboCop 2 (1990)

Paul M. Sammon
1. Paul M. Sammon
  
  And he's not playing the violin. He's mimicking it, but he is for real. And this whole thing, this silliness with having this fundraiser for the city of Detroit, I get it, but the lines are open. But as far as I'm concerned, except for the violinists, this is a bit of dead air. Okay, and now we are in the hideout, excuse me, with the remaining people.
  
  1:13:18 · jump to transcript →
2. Paul M. Sammon
  
  And we finally found a piece I cannot remember where. By the way, the music on RoboCop 2, people have asked, why did not Basil Polidorus do the music for RoboCop 2 when he did such a great score for Robo 1? The answer is quite simple. Because the film came together so quickly, Kirshner really did not have a lot of choices as to the crew members. John Davison was the one who was primarily responsible for putting a lot of the package together.
  
  1:34:43 · jump to transcript →
director · 2h 17m 2 mentions

Forrest Gump (1994)
1. And this actually resonated quite a bit for me because it really did feel like, even though we were on the East Coast, it felt like a very similar situation. You know, when I came up from L.A. to San Francisco and marched to Golden Gate Park,
  
  1:06:08 · jump to transcript →
2. that I'd be your first mate. Well, here I am. I am a man of my word. Now, in those days, you did that the old-fashioned way. For real. I like to compare this whole debate, I guess, or question about digital effects to the microphone. You know, nobody says...
  
  1:32:55 · jump to transcript →
director · 2h 49m 2 mentions

Braveheart (1995)
1. Wallace really did have an idea that he could unite people. He was a kind of a revolutionary who was way ahead of his time. How is the time to declare a king? And you're prepared to recognize our legitimate succession? You're the ones who won't support the rightful queen. Those were lies when you first wrote them. That's true.
  
  1:34:12 · jump to transcript →
2. and how to react, and the stunt guys work with them to minimize injury and so that people wouldn't get all excited about it and flustered and start whacking one another for real, because that can happen if they're not experienced. And we told them that whole thing about, what does a camera see? And if you close one of your eyes, it sort of takes the three-dimension aspect out of what you can see. You can see things, but you can't see depth as well. So there's no depth perception.
  
  1:51:48 · jump to transcript →
scholar · 1h 45m 2 mentions

Congo (1995)

Kelly Goodner, Jim Hemphill
1. rate his contribution to this I mean as you say all of these because I mean I think all of these changes are part of like why he's a great screenwriter like he really did you know Michael Crichton was really good at like the cliffhangers you know read like a movie anyway but I think the the changes improved it yeah especially for a movie I wanted to really quick before we move on
  
  41:18 · jump to transcript →
2. we want to talk about. He had worked with Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy on three of the Steven Spielberg movies they were involved with, E.T., The Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun. He basically, his interest in cinematography started when he was a young man. He worked in camera stores and film labs as a teenager.
  
  1:14:04 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 34m 2 mentions

Heaven (2002)

Tom Tykwer
1. Tom Tykwer
  
  And so the decision to stay inside the building for that explosion was more or less very logical and consequent. That's just for those people who wonder whether we changed that shot because of September 11th or whether we discussed the whole issue. We never really did because we also never felt that this film was a film that in any way discusses
  
  11:36 · jump to transcript →
2. Tom Tykwer
  
  Of course, you know that the actress will say, are you sure? And you might have some discussions about it because, of course, cutting off your hair, you can't really fake it. If you want to show it, you have to do it for real. And luckily enough, Kate is not an actress that even discusses these kind of things. She knew when she had read the script that we had to do it and we had to do it for real.
  
  1:12:17 · jump to transcript →
director · 2h 10m 2 mentions

Love Actually (2003)

Richard Curtis, Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy, Thomas Sangster
1. Richard Curtis
  
  I think you've changed the cut since I saw this. 'Cause it all used to play in the wide shot. No, it does jerk around. - Did it always? This is one of those things that makes me think you actors are very good. No, it's just the way that you actually have to do it. You've got... We were 40 people around you in a room, and guys with microphones and everything like that, and then suddenly, you've actually got to do something for real. Bill, can you cry? -/ can if you give me... A day? - A day in the corner thinking bad thoughts. Thomas? - Me? Can you cry to order? Cry now. I'm not sure. - Stop. For God's sake. Here, there's a hanky. But she does it so... She's completely brilliant. It's not just that she cries, it's the way she cries. Yeah, but she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown as a human being. That's true. You can't bear it, can you? There we go. That stuff. Well, there we go.
  
  1:29:40 · jump to transcript →
2. Richard Curtis
  
  Well, Bill... It was a weird day, this, wasn't it, Bill? We were in some strange flat in Maida Vale or something like that. This wasn't a set, this really did feel like where a manager would end up. It was a very witty set, like a shrine.
  
  1:40:23 · jump to transcript →
director · 2h 7m 2 mentions

Underworld (2003)

Len Wiseman, Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman
1. Len Wiseman
  
  lt was so-- It was the most fun I think I've ever had... ...making a movie. Everybody was so great. But it's not a film set I would be dying to be naked on. No. - For so many reasons. What do you mean by that? - It was freezing. But I don't know. I would have felt really funny about it. What film would you feel comfortable about being naked on? You know, more comfortable. There was something giddy about the whole thing. You felt like people would have just laughed at your ass or something. All right. - You know? Sophia was... - Horrified. Quite horrified. - She was? Yeah. - Did she have--? Was covered--? Yeah, it was covered, and... - That's good. Which makes it difficult. - This was so hard for me. This was hard. This was difficult. He was showing me some outtakes, the number of times... ... you and I were cracking up. You can't make me kiss him in the second one, or I won't get through. Every kiss, there's about 12 takes of you guys laughing. I had so much fun with you, I must say. I really did. We had fun. - I had so much fun. I would have more fun if I wasn't looking at my watch. It's got to be tough. But we did laugh a lot. We were laughing. We were laughing. There's something, when you had the gun... ...and you would do that Charlie's Angels stunt. My God, I still laugh about that. That's me trying not to laugh right there. Well, in the outtakes, that's what you're... Yeah. - We had it tough here, a tough time. You kept getting "silver round" and "single round"-- Now, what did I say? What'd he say? - What'd he say?
  
  1:05:04 · jump to transcript →
2. Len Wiseman
  
  God, this day.... Again, it was.... You guys were just cracking up the whole day. We had to actually look full in the face and kiss each other. This kiss is actually taken out of the original. Oh, yeah, that's right. And you put It back in. Michael does not look happy about that. It's quite a long kiss there. - Yeah. What's going on? - Don't you remember, you and I? Remember, we were just like, "Why is he leaving us here?" Why am I leaving you? I was behind the camera going, "Excuse me." Most directors will shout "Cut" when they're done. I was yelling "Cut" and doing the clap. - You were not. You just had the drool coming out of one side of your mouth. A lot of wandering about that was cut. Again, this isn't a director's cut, this is an extended cut. And a lot of the stuff, you can see why it was taken out. It was just like things like this. lt wasn't necessary at the end of the day. Essentially, a director's cut, the difference... An extended cut is basically a longer movie that the director says: "This has got nothing to do with me." Yes. I mean, there's stuff in here that I wanted to see back in... . like Scott's back-story and Singe's original reveal. But a lot of the stuff, I was glad to see it go. That's my favourite shot of a werewolf... ...that low-angle roar. I thought he looked the most like a real animal. Good old Bill. I mean, he really did so much of that stuff himself. Oh, yeah. That's like, when he stabs with the sword here... ...this look that he's got with the baring the fangs. No, when he was doing all the fighting... ... he'd never even done a stage fight in his life. And he was in that water for hours at the end. Oh, yeah. And he's, you know, going up against, you know, Scott. Scott and the stunt guys, and.... No, he hung in there. We just beat the shit out of him too. It was really.... He was just exhausted and was... Freezing in that water too. - Yeah, it was. But he never, you know, put his hands up and said: "It's just, you Know, it's too much." Everybody was pretty good like that. - Oh, they were all-- They were great.
  
  1:50:35 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 31m 2 mentions

EuroTrip (2004)
1. This, by the way, we did not build, we did not dress. I mean, we put some clothes in. There's a little bit we did, but when we showed up, we showed up in winter to scout this location and the trees were all barren and there was dirt and stuff everywhere. Basically looked exactly like this and we said, "This is absolutely perfect." I do think Allan added some of the garbage and some of the cool graffiti. - Yeah, garbage, trees and stuff. But what's funny is our location people didn't quite understand what we were going for, and at one point they cleaned the whole place up. It was like, "No, no, no." They told us, "It's clean." We said, "No, put it back." So they had to spend the money to put all the dirt back. Also, the trees were growing leaves and we had to kill the trees. We basically paid some sort of fee to the government to kill the trees. The dog with the hand we should throw in there. Yeah, that's a highfalutin allusion to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. For those of you who have seen Yojimbo and this movie, all six of you. And there was also another shot that showed the desolation of Eastern Europe. As they're walking, they see the dog. They see the guy bathing. - Horrified. And there was a girl, a little girl who they smile at and wave to who then basically cops a squat and starts peeing, which is in the end credits of the movie, as sort of a little joke, and basically people were just sort of... I don't know. It's one of these things where in the movie... You love it or you hate it. - Yeah. We love it. And apparently more powerful people than us hated it. We wanted it to be in the body of the movie, especially in this unrated cut, and it is not. And I guess we'll just leave it there. I guess we should mention, also, Tibor who you just saw. - Yeah, Rade Sherbedgia. All of our casting in this movie is based on the works of Guy Ritchie, so having cast Vinnie and then needing someone to play Tibor... By the way, that money, $1.83, we actually didn't have... We forgot. - ...61.83 in American money on the day. We had to scrounge up... It ended up being $1.46. I think I had a quarter in my backpack. Just what people had. We didn't have the money. We'd been in Prague for so long. - This, I think, was our second day. Yeah. - No, this was our first day. We shot the train station in the morning. - This was day one. Or at least bits and pieces of it. - And this... This was actually the first thing we ever, ever shot, which we've now added back. - Yeah. Originally, when they're on the side of the road and Michelle is trying to get the cars to stop, Scott mentions that you can't... No one's pulling over 'cause she's showing her bra. - He says, "This is Europe. They have orange juice ads with lesbians and dildos. You gotta give them something they haven't seen before." Then later in Eastern Europe... You see the orange juice ad with lesbians and dildos. And in the theatrical version, we actually cut the orange juice ad completely because it just felt like the joke of the opulent hotel was better if it was just shorter. So we got to this stuff quicker. The guy who just ran out, the waiter, is like... Dustin Hoffman. - ...Jim Carrey. Miroslav Taborsky. - He's like the Jim Carrey of Prague, and he's really funny. I'm not sure he ever... He never trusted us. No. We had to explain. He didn't want to slap with the backhand and we had to explain that in America... - We had to lie to him... "In America, it's called a bitch slap, the most degrading thing you can do." - We made up this crazy excuse to get him to do what we wanted to do. He just didn't trust us. Nothing you can do about that. That was something we wanted designed, which was the keyboard in the radioactive box played with gloves. Didn't quite work. - No, I'm not sure anyone cares. But we know it's there. This was a factory... It's a high-voltage testing facility. It's a real, working, high-voltage testing facility. And they have it in the movie XXX, but we shot it very differently. And David really went all out here. I mean, especially those sort of finger lights that you see, he put into the background of every shot and Allan gave a lot of neon. And this is some of the best-looking stuff in the entire film. Michelle does look beautiful. - Michelle looks incredible. Of course, the only problem is this place has a horrible, cavernous echo, and there are things in here we just had to sort of loop. We had no choice. The stuff in that bottle, by the way, is SO toxic... Poisonous chemical. ...that when they were dancing with the bottles later and two bottles met and broke, they literally had to clear the floor, scrub it down, decontaminate before we could go again. Anyway, our actors are hovering over the fumes right now. It's fine. Again, look at the lights in the back of all this. That big piece of equipment, that's really there. Michelle's close-up here... That is such a gorgeous shot. - That's incredible. That stupid VIP sign behind him was awful. That was there for all day and we never saw it until too late. Well, you can't, you know... You look at a tiny monitor on the set and you can't see everything that the camera picks up. And then you get in the editing room, you go, "Oh, my God, you can see all that stuff." But also, I don't know if it was us being first-time directors or what. On any given day, there are two or three things you're really obsessing on because you feel that those are the most important things, and you solve those only to realize later that there was one minor thing, like that stupid VIP sign, and there's one of those in every scene where you just go, "What was I thinking?" - Sometimes you're obsessing on something that ultimately turns out to be insanely unimportant, and the massively important thing is sitting right in front of you and you screw it up. - In that scene, we were obsessing on a line when they were flirting. That we ended up just cutting. Yeah, he said he was the black sheep of the family and then she was trying to be witty and she was sort of saying, "That's okay. I have an uncle who 'blank. And we must have done take after take after take. "You think you're the black sheep of the family. My aunt's a female bodybuilder." Just take after take after take of stuff, nothing that was ever used, and it makes the VIP sign all the more, sort of, laughing at us. By the way, the Green Fairy is played by Steve Hytner... So great. - ...who played Bania on Seinfe/d. We worked with him also. - A real good friend too. He really did us a huge favor. - Yeah. He was going to a wedding in Italy, I think, and he stopped into Prague on his way to... Here's a little added extra. Yeah, this was just a little something we cooked up. Jacob was really funny doing this. In the theatrical version, we cut it. There's no time for this in the theatrical version, but we felt we'd subject you to it. And he just... He got it, you know, that he was... Again, we're into the production at this point, and his Cooper had become a character. - He was dialed in. Exactly. And here we go. - On the day this happened, Travis comes up to me and says, "I have a cold." I say, "You're not going to tell Michelle you have a cold because your tongue is going to be down her throat." Also on that day, Michelle's mother, sister, and sister's boyfriend... Decided to show up. - ...came to visit. And it was just like, "Oh, God." But ultimately, they went for it. They went for it, and it's all about the tongue. Yeah.
  
  58:03 · jump to transcript →
2. That's a little clip from the Summer at Sea. Trying to look at any other cast people and things we should be mentioning. I guess... - The prop guys, by the way. Just Lukas and Michal. Good guys. Really good guys. Lots of the stuff that you're seeing here you can see in their entirety in the... Including probably a little more of that. We were one of the few movies that have ever gone in and used a lot of key Czech people as heads of big departments. Usually... We did have some guys shadowing guys that we brought in, but we really did try and use a lot of Czech crew. And I think we were rewarded for it. - They were awesome. I think it was a really good set. People seemed to go out of their way to tell us that. Anyway, so that's the movie. It was, hopefully, as fun for you guys to watch and hear about as it was for us to make it. Very odd for us to watch it. - Yeah. Hopefully, it was less odd for you. It was Maurice Chevalier, not Charles Aznavour. Oh, God. Jesus. James Venable. Yes. Our composer. And, by the way, there'll be... If you're watching the unrated DVD, there's another commentary you can enjoy, and also secretly buried on the DVD elsewhere is us doing three separate commentaries where we talk about each other. But James Venable is the composer. He's done stuff for Kevin Smith. I worked with him on the Clerks animated show, and he kicked ass. There was just-- Creepy Italian Guy's theme, a couple of the other pieces were... I love the music. He was a real pleasure. It's like the end of the Oscars. I know, I know. It's like, "Who did we forget?" Everybody was great. Everyone was great, except the guy who did coke and tried to steal that we had to fire. - But he was still good. And here's our favorite thing. That's why we made the movie. A little reward for those of you who sit in your seats. Good night, everybody. - Goodbye. Bye.
  
  1:29:52 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 55m 2 mentions

Lord of War (2005)
1. a more natural look. Some of these shots that you see, like this one, are done in camera, where the people in the plane are in the same shot. And others like these are composited together.
  
  1:10:55 · jump to transcript →
2. The arms dealer I rented the plane from probably wouldn't be too happy if I took it apart for real. Once again, it was done by Jan Blundell from Lest in France. Ironically, this plane crashed a month later in Uganda, carrying what was described as a suspicious cargo, and all the crew were killed. Not the same crew who flew the plane
  
  1:17:22 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 36m 2 mentions

Aliens vs Predator Requiem (2007)
1. Matt's voice was used for a majority of the shots, and he just used to do the Predator mimicking kind of as a joke, and then we were like, wait a minute, God, you're really good. Maybe we should actually try you out for real, and we sent him over to where the guys were recording all the voices, and he auditioned for it and actually ended up getting the role. It was definitely the best. Great party trick, huh? Hey, I'm the Predator. I'm going to do the Predator. Yeah, definitely...
  
  22:19 · jump to transcript →
2. This is our much more intense version of Jesse getting pinned to the wall. We actually redid this in visual effects with her splitting in half and her guts dripping out. But yeah, that was her stunt double for her, and that was real-time, in-camera, actually hit the wall. I thought she snapped her neck when we did that first stunt. We probably did it four takes. I could not believe how hard that stunt woman was great.
  
  1:21:55 · jump to transcript →
director · 2h 10m 2 mentions

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation (2015)
1. in his second day on the movie. Yeah, exactly. And he was thrilled. And he opened the door, walked out, and he said, what do you need me to do now? And I said, you can go home. We'll see you in a couple weeks. Look at her doing this. Boom. It's great. That was, again, one of the first things that she did on the movie. Yes. One of her first days. That was her first fight thing she did. And really did a fantastic job. And she and Sean are just great together. They had a really great energy.
  
  49:43 · jump to transcript →
2. So the mask gag. Here comes the, we knew we had to do a mask gag. And what was really important to us, we were looking at, I said, it's been done this way, it's been done that way. I said, I want to do it in camera. I want to do it so there's absolutely no visual effects involved. And so what we ended up doing when we stood on the set is we designed a shot here in the mirror. Okay, those aren't my hands. That's not Tom Cruise on the left. That's Tom, and there's not really a mirror there.
  
  56:58 · jump to transcript →
director · 1h 38m 2 mentions

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)

Jake Szymanski
1. Jake Szymanski
  
  I'm Jake Szymanski. I had the pleasure of directing this film. And I think I may have just ruined my mic, hold on. Is this... Did I ruin it? - Hey, hi. Is the mic okay? - Yeah, the mic's great. Just don't touch it like that. Okay, /'m sorry. - Yeah, that's okay. I was worried I might have turned it off accidentally. No, no, no, you're fine. Do you need water or coffee or anything like that? No, I'm so good. I've got water right here. - Do you... Okay. - What's your name again? I'm Margie. - Margie, thank you so much. Of course. All right. - Appreciate it. Let me know if you need anything. Okay. Will do. Thank you. Okay, oh, and please don't press any of those buttons. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm sorry about that. Okay, that's okay. - Okay. Um... As you can hear, we are here on the Fox lot in the ADR room. This is where the magic of DVD commentary happens. So, into the movie. Mike and Dave. They need wedding dates. Here we go. Well, this is a fun little scene. We actually... The whole beginning of the movie takes place in New York City. But we shot all of this in Hawai. Fun fact. Downtown Honolulu. We doubled for New York. Which, I literally didn't think could be done. But, um, there were four angles. There are four angles and two locations that you can shoot in Honolulu and it looks like New York. Um, there's Zac, there's those beautiful, blue eyes just shining through. Um, this is a fun little scene. We got Marc Maron to come out to the island and shoot with us, kind of our intro to the boys here. Adam Devine, Zac Efron, playing Mike and Dave Stangle. And we almost cut this scene. We almost lost this. At some point there was a worry if we needed it, but I think it's really a fun way to set up that these guys, right what Marc says right there, they're funny, they're weird. We give them a win early on. We let them know they think they're awesome. And before their family kind of puts them in their place. Was it the hat? - I just found this over there. And here we go. At the opening credits. This was a fun journey, finding the song for this. We ended up finding this great song that we kind of remixed a little bit and redid some of the lyrics even before this opening montage here. This montage was great. Doing our Fourth of July, a family wedding and a 50th anniversary party here, shooting this. We shot all this, uh... The anniversary party and the outside wedding are the same location, actually. We shot all this down in Hawaii. Got all of our stunt guys in. A little secret about Zac Efron, very good at the trampoline. He did not need a stuntman or wires. He got on that trampoline and started doing flips immediately for camera. And Adam Devine was like, uh, "You need to strap me up "and swing me around with some wires here. "I can't do this." Um... Very uncomfortable, I remember, also, the straps on that trampoline. Um, we shot this right across from the hotel we were shooting at. This is, uh, the fireworks stuff there. Our wonderful crew here. Let's just talk about, uh, the Chernin company real quick. You see our producers here. Produced by Chernin, Peter Chernin. Jenno Topping, David Ready. Our excellent team of producers, who were with us on the whole movie. It was fantastic. Here's downtown Honolulu. We're trying to hide the palm trees. You put some stickers up on light poles, looks like New York. If you wear two, they break. It's an urban legend... - No, it's not. And here we go. Let's meet the family. Putting this together, it... First of all this is actually based on a true story, which is fun. The Stangle brothers are real and they really did get told they had to bring dates to a family wedding. God, look at this, look at this family we got here. Just the best cast we could have asked for. We got Mom and Dad here. We got Stephen Root and Steph Faracy. Stephen Root, man. How lucky are we to get these guys as Mom and Dad here. Stephen Root was, uh... We were already down in Hawaii and we were about to shoot and we still hadn't cast Dad. And we talked with a bunch of great people. And, um, I had to do a little Skype session to meet Stephen Root who I had never met. And, uh, we were just like, "You know what? If you can ever cast someone "who you think is, one day, gonna win an Oscar, cast that guy." And we were lucky enough that Stephen Root said yes to doing it. Here we go. Um, hey, Jake... - Mmm-hmm. I just want to interject here. Um... - Oh, yeah? Be careful of the heavy breathing. - Oh, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just want to make sure. I mean, it's not an issue yet, but... I was gonna Say, is it coming through or... Not really. - Okay. But I can sense that it might. - Okay. So just be careful. - Okay. No, fair... Yeah, okay. No worries. - You're doing great. Should we... So did we cut or how does this... No, we're not cutting, no, no, no. 'Cause we're still... - Oh, okay. Keep going. I can't cut. - Should we go... Oh, so this is a one... Continuous, got it. - This is a one, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I'll watch the, uh... Watch the breathing. Um... Where are we here? Oh, well, we're doing our little reveal. Kind of the big idea here of our grandiose opening montage where the guys are kings of the world. We see the reality of those situations. Oh, this poor guy. Our grandpa. When we were shooting this, we were dancing... And I kept thinking that he was acting out the death scene too early. And I kept yelling from behind the camera, "No, no, no, don't stop yet. "You're still having fun, you're still having fun. "You're not dying yet." But he wasn't acting. He was, for real, getting too tired and almost having a heart attack. And I was yelling at this poor man. "No, no, no! Smile, smile! Be happy! Dance, dance!" And everyone was like, "Jake, this is real. He's actually having trouble." And I felt so horrible about that. But he made it. You know what? He made it and I can't wait for him to see the film. You can each talk to one girl. Um, uh-oh, guys. Here's the idea for the movie. Two dates. Um... By the way, we also have not talked about... Look at these two handsome gentlemen who you believe are brothers somehow. Are you insane? - Oh, you're kidding. I love these guys together. Adam and Zac had a really, really fun time. Um, I mean, when we went to Hawaii to film this, we filmed in Hawaii, and they were just... We were trapped on that island together. So even when we shot all day together we just had each other to hang out with at night. And, um, I think Zac and Adam got really, really close. Which helped the chemistry and the brother relationship stuff. Everyone got along really, really well. It was a lot of fun. By the way, let's talk about the wonderful Sugar Lyn Beard playing our sister Jeanie here. And also the equally excellent Sam Richardson playing Eric here. Um, God, she's so great in this. Sugar... First of all, her name's Sugar. And we shouldn't overlook that. That's an important factor when you're casting someone. Look for the most interesting name to be written somewhere. Um, she was one of the last people we saw in auditions. And, um, we weren't sure who we were gonna cast yet for the sister. And we didn't feel like we quite had it yet. And then she, literally, was maybe the last person that came in. And she came in to the casting office and just nailed it. Just... We were all laughing so hard. She completely became the sister. I think we did the audition with the Ecstasy scene and the horses scene. And, uh, she was just so, so funny. She walked out of that room and we immediately went, "Wow, well, that's Jeanie right there." Same thing happened with Sam for Eric, by the way. He was just so, so funny in that role. That's the kind of guy Mike is. So, think on that... This is one of my favorite Zac jokes of the whole movie here. "Think on that, Dad." Having us laugh. You can see Dave's little... Dave's at his little art station there in the apartment. And that's a little thing that comes back Iater that, uh, isn't... We're not really showing you very clearly there. And then here we have the ladies. Tatiana and Alice. Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick. These two, who are actually very good friends in real life and had taken random trips together to islands and to beaches in Mexico, it was really fun to put these two together. And, uh... And have that kind of built-in chemistry going in here. He's already paid. God damn it! But a lot of green screen taxi shoot that we did. You should kick us out! - You should kick us out of this cab. Little bit of a hustle on the cab driver here. Three more blocks up on the right... and then kick us out! The Apple Pay bit I really, really liked. We came up with that on set. I think that was a pitch from Andrew Cohen, one of our writers. Andrew Cohen and Brendan O'Brien... I got a good idea. ...gave us a wonderful script to start with here. The writers of Neighbors, Neighbors 2 and upcoming, The House. Um, very lucky and happy to meet and work with those guys on this. Really funny stuff. And, uh, they would also just send in new jokes every day. That's kind of the way we did things, is we had the script and then me and the writers and other on-set writers would just bring a bunch of new jokes every day to pitch and to try. And so we would always play around a little bit on-set. Jake Johnson. Your little buddy is shit-faced. Jake Johnson, who we said, "Why don't you just come to Hawaii for a couple days? "And to do that you have to be in a scene in the movie." And he said, "That sounds pretty good, man. "That's... All right, yeah. I could do Hawaii." Um, and that's literally how we got him out here. We said, "I know Jake a little bit." I said, "Hey, if I could bring you out to Hawaii for a week "would you shoot for one night?" Boom. Done. Because it's my right. Playing Ronnie the boss here. Look at these, look at these, just New York rat women here that they're playing. The hair, that's a wig we have on Anna, which was really fun. Hey, Jake. - Yeah? Um, I just want to say if you don't have anything to Say... Mmm-hmm. - ...then you don't have to say anything. You... - Does it sound like I'm... Oh, just calling this "rat women" is a little... Oh, I wasn't... Okay. - Just... I didn't think I was stretching... - Yeah, no, it's fine. -/ just want to... I just want... - Are we still recording? You're doing great. What's that? - Are we recording right now? Yeah, yeah, all this is... Yeah. - Okay. Yeah, that's what we're doing. All right. I just... - Right? Yeah, I just didn't... Okay, yeah, I just... Yeah, I'm just... It's very clearly your first time and it's... It is. - /'m just trying to help you out. Okay. No, I appreciate... I definitely want... - Okay. If you have any tips or... - Great. I just feel like I'm not doing the comments here... Okay. Okay, sure. So I should get back to this. - Of course. Yeah, yeah. Just keep breathing, and move through it. Okay, I think... Okay. - Okay. I didn't... 1... Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. - Thank you. Okay. Um, we're in the apartment. I'm tired of living like this. I don't know if I have anything to say about this. We've got a great little package we're selling here, man. A week in a tropical paradise... with two fun-loving, yet surprisingly well-read bros? I'm just gonna talk. Um... We got the boys here. So the ladies in the apartment, first of all. These were both sets that were built in real locations, downtown Honolulu. Um... We found spaces for the boys' apartment, girls' apartment right around the corner from each other. And then we built these kind of walls up against the real windows and built out our little apartments here. We met this couch on Craigslist. This was actually the scene, this scene right here, was one of the earliest scenes that we had worked with and that we shot for the chemistry read. We did a little chemistry read early on before we ever got into production with Adam Devine and Zac Efron. I think Zac was shooting a movie in Atlanta. We all flew out there and did a chemistry read and this was one of the scenes we did to see the brothers together. And, uh, obviously it was great. And we loved seeing Adam and Zac together. And, uh, so this is one that had kind of... We actually shot this... One of the last things we shot in the movie. Um, but they had had it in their mind for six, seven months by that point. I love the... We got these girls together, really, really fun. This was a last-second shoot we did just to get a little sense of the ad going viral and going around the world. And we got all these great performers, all these great actresses to just come in and do little cameos for that little thing here. You guys want to go to a wedding? Got a little classic date montage here. All the dates here we cast out of Hawai. This was all local casting and we found some great, great people. Those twins are actual professional gymnasts in training. And they're twin gymnasts who are very good. And luckily they were also great at acting. We got them in there. We found all these... Met all these great people. This is my buddy Bob Turton. Um, who, uh... We go way back. And, actually, we did not... Again, we did local Hawaii casting and I said, "Man, I got this bit I really want you to do. "But we're casting locally." And he just hopped on a plane and came on out. And said, "Let's do it." And Bob is one of the funniest, funniest guys. Uh, I went to college with him back in the day. And we've done some videos and shorts together. And I was so glad he could come out and be Lauralie, as I believed, what we named his persona of this guy who's in such a bad period of time in his life. He decides to try to pretend he's a girl to get this date from these boys. What did you say? - Nothing. Sounded like you said... None of this... Do you wanna fuck? None of this was scripted. None of the entire date sequence was scripted. I think the script just said they go on a bunch of dates. So we really had a lot of fun playing with this entire sequence with everyone who came in. I think, in real life the Stangle brothers ended up on... What was it, Ricki Lake? I know they ended up on, uh, the Today show. And maybe also Ricki Lake. And we got... The ad went viral. We wanted to make it a little more current. We got Wendy Williams. We got her to come out to Hawaii. We actually filmed... Even her set, we faked in Hawai. So we really did everything out there. Got to thank the Hawaii Film Board. Getting to shoot out there. It was fun. ...fo go with us to Hawaii for our sister's wedding. And I just want to reiterate... we're footing the bill for this because we're gentlemen. Free trip to Hawaii? I'm awake! Come on. Craigslist. - What's up? That's where you go to buy old patio furniture. Is there any, um... Excuse me. Is there any... ls there any water? - What's that? Is there water in here? -/s there water? - Yeah, there's... Yeah, we have water. - Is there any... Can I get a water? ls there any way to get a water? - OA, sure. /'Il... I asked you at the beginning. You didn't... You said... I know. I didn't realize. I'm sorry. I'm just... Now I'm thinking about whether I'm talking too much, based on what you said earlier, and I'm getting nervous. I think it's just drying my throat out a little bit. Okay, yeah. No, that's fine. I'll go get you water. I don't need you to get it if you can't... /'m the one working here. So... Okay. I... You can tell me where it is, I can get it. No, you have to... You're the director. And you have to do the commentary. Um, okay, I'll be right back. All right. Sorry about that. - It's fine. Thank you. You need to get over that, once and for all. Oh, man, I feel really bad asking for that water now. Oh, there is a water here. Hold on. There's a water on the floor here next to my desk. Okay, here's your... I actually found one. There was a water... There was a water down here by the desk. -/ found... - Yeah. I think I brought this... - Did you not look around you when you... We gonna go to Hawaii! Um, sorry, I just found... I think I brought it in at the... When I first walked in earlier and I forgot. Right. Okay, well, here's another one. We don't look like nice girls. Thank you. Yeah, I guess I haven't showered in a while. Oh, man. Thank you very much. I really do appreciate it. Yeah, of course. - Okay. We're gonna look respectable as fuck. Like nice girls. "Like nice girls. Like nice girls." This was actually, um... It's like that Jesus rag! "Jesus rag," one of my favorite bits. Nice girls was actually, um, an early studio note. I remember the studio coming in and saying like, "We feel like we just need to say, like, 'Let's push the nice girls angle.' "We should have the boys get told they need to bring nice girls. "And the girls need to look like nice girls." And it really worked. We ended up taking that and hitting that. And it's one of those great notes that really helps simplify and clarify a thing and everyone gets exactly what we're doing. So that's why you hear "nice girls" a couple of times. That was actually one of the earlier studio notes that I thought was a great note. That worked out a Iot. Ultimatum. - Well, we gotta figure something out... The old tomato joke is a joke that early on I was told, "You know, you can cut this joke. You don't need that joke." And I said, "No. This joke is what the movie's about." Not really what it's about. But the vibe of the movie. I fell way too in love with the old tomato joke. And I think our first cut of this movie, the editor assembly of this, was about five hours long. Because we had done so many alts and so much improv. And they just put everything in. And, I think, when I showed my producers one of the three-and-a-half-hour cuts that I was like, "You know, this isn't a real cut. "This is just kind of everything we're working with." They were like, "I mean, you can lose so much. "You can lose this. You can lose that. You can lose the old tomato joke." And I was like, "No, no, no, not... All those other things, sure, "but the old tomato joke we keep." So you can imagine that joke in a three-hour thing that's way too long. And, uh, well, it ended up in the movie. As I predicted. Anna had a really fun, uh... We had a lot of fun with this. There's a lot of stuff on the DVD, deleted scenes and bit runs about other lies she does here. This is a really fun reveal. See these girls in these nice dresses here. And coming up, we've got one of our first big stunts of the movie. This was always really fun. We had a great, great stunt coordinator, Gary Hymes, who did all of our stunts on this movie. He did the stunts for Terminator and Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park. And he was great. So any time we had something like this, with getting hit by a car... That's a big stunt, but it's always really fun watching the audience watch this. And this is like one of those moments early on where I think it clicks in like, "We're doing this kind of movie. We're doing, like, a giant car hit. "And she's perfectly okay." It just sucks you right in. This was really fun to shoot. This is, again, downtown Honolulu. Outside of the one bar we could fake as New York. And if you look very closely, I shouldn't even say it, people will hate that I say this, the effects guys, there's a split second shot when Tatiana hits the car from inside the car looking out the windshield at her body. And in that shot, it only lasts a couple frames, and it's a blur, but there is a palm tree. That is the one palm tree that's in our New York footage. Um, but obviously it's so fast no one sees it. Are you okay? I am now. I saved her life! - She's okay! She's okay? - I saved her life! Thank you! I think, I'm pretty sure a lot of this, the just yelling, "I saved her life," and a lot of the yells, that was... Adam can go very hot. And Adam just added a lot of that in and it was so perfect. It's really fun to just tell Adam like, "Hey, go nuts on this one. Get excited." And he will. He can just go at 100% all day long. And it is the most fun thing to watch. So hard! This is always a really fun scene for me. This is like, when we did the editing, it was kind of always like, "Let's get to here faster. How do we get to here faster?" 'Cause it's really just seeing our four leads all together for the first time. And see it play out. See the con of the girls play out. See the boys falling right into it. So this was always kind of like, especially in editing we realized, "This is where it starts to feel so fun. "Let's just get here as fast as we can. "Let's get through all that other stuff." Got two waters now. It's actually quite nice. We can hear all of that. - Hmm? You drinking. Oh, I'm sorry. SO sip quieter? "How's the hedging coming? You been hedging? You hedged much?" Yeah, we're picking that up. - Picking that up still. Corporate greed, bailouts. Should I, should I cover... Does this help? On the floor of the NASDAQ and the U.N. Um... If I cover the microphone with my hand, does this help? That makes it worse. - Okay. Sorry. Um, just try not to drink anything. "But what I do have..." Just my mouth gets a little dry, so... It's not important. Uh, anyway. Um... "Skills that make me a nightmare..." Zac nailing the Liam Neeson impression in this. You may notice Zac Efron throws out a couple great accents in this movie. He's got the Australian at the bar at the top. He's got Liam Neeson here. He's about to have all of this different liquor bottle drawings which all have a different accent. And he added a lot of that in in a great way. He does a little research for each one. And he nails each one of those accents. That's a little post joke we put in. Little post image. Little ADR joke from Zac right there. A lot of dick jokes in this movie. Not gonna say I'm proud of it. Not gonna say I'm ashamed of it. Just gonna say there's a lot of dick jokes in this movie. And it is what it is. Done. Some of them are kind of smart. Maybe a couple smart dick jokes, maybe not. Maybe I just tell myself that to make myself fee! better. I don't know. What's the hardest thing about being a teacher? I don't know. Oh, um... The hardest thing... I think this was the whole... We did a whole run here with Adam and Aubrey that was just kind of, none of that, was not in the script, either. We're just like, "Let's check in with these two." And we Set up two cameras. We did a lot of cross-shooting on this movie. And we just let people go through 10 different ideas. And try a bunch of jokes. God, Anna's so, so funny here. Matt Clark, our wonderful DP on this, who... I know! I said, "I got to warn you, I want to cross-shoot a lot of this movie." And cross-shooting's where you have two cameras pointing opposite directions, so you can capture both people talking to each other at once. And some DPs won't do it 'cause some DPs, they just want to perfect the light facing one direction, 'cause it's the lighting that, really, you have to tweak. And you start worrying about compromises if you cross-shoot. But Matthew Clark took that challenge and ran with it. And we cross-shot so much on this movie. Um, probably even more than I needed to, I had him do. And he just did a great job with it. I love the look of it, that it doesn't look too Photoshop, airbrushed, perfectly shiny and bright on everything. I like that it kind of feels a little real world-y. I think Matt did a great job on that. ... like we're talking it over... like we're not sure if we wanna go or not. Oh, like... So fun to see Anna do these big jokes. I feel like... This was the fun part for me. I feel like I've never got to see Anna Kendrick do this kind of stuff before in a movie, ina hard R movie. Yes! And, God, I just think she really nailed it and knocked it out of the park. I think, Aubrey, who's so great, and you kind of expect that she can do it. And I think it was a little more like, I think, for the audience it's a little more of seeing her in a new kind of movie. Which I think is really, really fun. Here we are, shooting at the wonderful Turtle Bay Resorts. Um, on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. We turned into our little fake resort. A funny story about this hotel, this is the exact hotel that they shot Forgetting Sarah Marshall at. And that movie takes place almost, the whole thing in that hotel as well. So, first of all, we did a lot, me and my DP, we did a lot of like, "Let's make sure things look different. "We're not copying the same locations and shots of Forgetting Sarah Marshall." The other funny thing is, in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I'm pretty sure they call the resort Turtle Bay. Say, "Welcome to Turtle Bay." And it was an advertisement for Turtle Bay in a way. Turtle Bay was like, "Yeah, we'll give you a better rate on the room if you mention our name." So, when we started scouting and decided to shoot the movie in Hawaii, we were like, "We can do it at Turtle Bay. "We'll get a little discount on the locations." And the management for Turtle Bay read our rated R script and they were like, "Absolutely you cannot say this takes place at Turtle Bay. "Please, please don't show any of our Turtle Bay signage. "We don't want any of our guests to think our masseuses would do this at Turtle Bay. "We don't want to think we condone..." And we were like, "Oh, my God, can we shoot it?" They were like, "Yeah, please shoot here. You just have no discount." And, no, I mean, they were a lot of help. But we had to cover every sign that said "Turtle Bay" and make our own. And make our own logos and hotel names. And I always thought that was pretty great. And, you know, there's some stuff in Sarah Marshall, I think that's rated R. I mean, there's a penis flopping around in that movie. Hey, Jake. - Yeah. I just want to say you're doing great. Okay. Just calm down. - Okay. You've said "penis" and "dick..." - And, again, I'm just... About 10 or 15 times... - Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the Iast, like, five minutes, so. I don't think... I think it was just, kind of, the once. Oh, no. It was many, many times. Okay. And just, Margie, I'm sorry, but... And, again, is there any way to go back now to where you cut in and rerecord from there on out? Um, oh, you know, that's a great idea. Why don't I just forget that this is my job and that I know what's going on. And why don't you come in here and you take care of all of that. No, obviously I'm not... I just presumed that if you... Can only I hear you? 'Cause I'm... We're recording right now, right? Yeah, we're recording. But, you know, what you do when you presume, you make a... I think that's the wrong word for that phrase. So anyway, I just want to let you know that you're doing great. And this is really good stuff. Just remember to breathe and relax, and just enjoy it. Okay. I just want to do the commentary. Just kind of run it through and... Sure. - I just feel like I've heard a lot of... I've listened to a lot of commentaries. Have you? - Yeah. I think... Yeah, what do you mean, have I? That surprises me. Why does that surprise you? I mean, it's just, you know, you're doing great. ...With Alice. Well, I just don't think I've ever heard the sound engineers coming in during a DVD commentary. So I'll say that, as well. Well, you know, normally we don't. But if it's someone who's just kind of aimless, we'll try to help out a little bit. Um... So, my commentary has been aimless? It's been... No, it's great. It's so exciting. I mean, I don't even see how... Even if it was aimless, I don't see how telling someone that helps them. 'Cause now all I'm doing is thinking about if this commentary's aimless or not. Okay, so we're in a new scene, so if you want to... I am a teacher, yeah. Uh... The key to teaching children is repetition. Uh, okay. Uh... The meet and greet. Uh... I think I missed talking about the whisper scene. Another good dick joke in there. And, uh, this meet and greet, very colorful, very poppy. This, uh... sorry, I'm just really in my head now about this aimless thing. And I feel like it makes me sound more aimless. No, no, no. You're doing great. That was just constructive criticism, you know. Aimless rambling is what you're doing. And that's constructive, honestly. It doesn't. I'm trying to find the constructive part of that criticism. Um, the part where I said, "Aimless rambling is..." Right. So, okay. Like, build off that. You know, I'm good. I'll take, I'll do... I'm okay if it's aimless. -/'m good from here on out. - Are you sure? Yeah, I'll just be good from here on out, okay? All right. I'll just keep him on a leash. And there's no way we can Start over or go back? Unfortunately there is no way. This is set in stone. Okay, Sure, sure, sure. Uh, all right. So, listen. This was our first day of filming. And, uh, filming this meet and greet here. And, uh, there was a lot of very specific things that happened in this scene. And, uh, uh... God, this is so fucking aimless now. Jesus. Talk about the lady in yellow. If this is bad news, I'm gonna eat your ass. Sorry. - Okay. The bridesmaid, Becky. That was our horrible bridesmaid, Becky, played by the wonderful Mary Holland. Um, yeah, I should talk about everyone in the scene. Mary was great as a bridesmaid. Mary actually... I know Mary from the UCB world out in Los Angeles. And I think I had her come out and audition for, like, five different roles in the movie. I think it was kind of like, "I don't know how, where you're gonna be in this movie. "I just know I want you in the movie." And, um, we were lucky enough to get her. This whole scene, this whole sequence, by the way, of the meet and greet was our first day filming. And if there's any tip I can give to a first-time filmmaker, it is this. This was one of the biggest mistakes I made on the movie. Don't have your first day of shooting on your first studio movie be a giant meet and greet scene with 100 extras and seven main characters all in the same scene. And all of the actors on their first day. And everyone feeling each other out. And also, outdoors in Hawaii, where the weather changes every five minutes. lt was sunny. It was cloudy. The wind's going crazy all day. It was a real trial by fire at the top of this shoot. We spent our first two or three days out in this location with so many people. So, if you're out there making something and you want any tips, ask for the schedule, first day, first day you're shooting, to be indoors, two guys eating pizza. That's really the best you can hope for. Just two people sitting at a table talking back and forth. Maybe one person. If you have any scenes with just one of your actors in there, get going that way. Everyone's getting to know each other. You're feeling each other out. You're figuring out how to work with the crew. The actors are warming up to the characters. You don't need 100... You don't need to figure out where to put 100 people and how to get seven of your leads in there. That's crazy. You can do that week two. You can do that week two on a movie. That was the one crazy thing. But I will say, after we did that day one and two, we were kind of ready for anything for the rest of the shoot. Where are you going? Hi! So you know what? I guess, do it. I guess, do do it. I guess, do shoot with as many people as you can. 'Cause it kind of all felt downhill from here. Um... I'm fine. Yeah! Let's just forget about the past... God, yeah, we were out here for a couple days. This is, again, at the wonderful Turtle Bay, which I highly recommend to go out and stay there with you, your loved ones, your family. Um... I mean, we're drinking 'em like they're shots... but I don't think... But the wind, I mean, I hate to even bring it up, but if you just watch these scenes and watch people's hair or the backgrounds, you will see that the wind was just going crazy. So many takes where just the wind went in front of people's faces that we're trying to cut around here. So many shots, some shots are in the sun, some shots are cloudy, that we've spent days in our color correction, trying to even out. It was great. This is the wonderful Alice Wetterlund who plays cousin Terry here. You may recognize Alice from Girl Code and Silicon Valley. I swear I was watching Season 1 of Silicon Valley right when we were casting this, and saw Alice. And then she came in and read for us for this. And, oh, my God, she's so funny. Her and Adam in the scene, we have... There was just a ton of footage on the floor of these guys playing back and forth here. And she really became cousin Terry a little bit. Anytime the camera was on, she would end up being a very method actress, which I really liked. She really scarily became this crazy, rich asshole of cousin Terry. Very aggressive here. I like this little offensive sex song here. By the way, the real Mike and Dave Stangle right here. This is their cameo. They came in, they came down to visit the set. We wanted to try to work them in. And got one of the better jokes in the movie there. The old chlamydia joke comes out of those guys. And why do you think you're such a hotshot? Um, the real Mike and Dave came to set and you think maybe the antics that these guys are known for in their book or the story of this movie is a little overdone. They, pretty sure, showed up drunk to the set. They had already been drinking that whole morning. And then after we shot a couple takes, I was like, "Hey, you guys, if you could try to stand here more "and look this way more... "Try this." And they were like, "Hey, yeah, sorry if we're screwing this up. "We are just gone right now. "We've been drinking a lot of the wine, too, "In these cups that are being passed around." And that's not real wine. Like, the trays that the waitresses have in the background of that scene are filled with either rancid wine or just dark liquids to look like wine. And the Stangle brothers immediately got on set and started grabbing everything that they thought was a real alcoholic drink and downing it. So, they're the real deal. That is a true story. From the meet and greet. Well, from before that. One second. Um, Tatiana and Alice here kind of letting loose, letting their guard down a little bit after a long day of pretending to be nice girls. And then poor Mike just still trying to push it way too hard here. ...do whatever you wanna do. Being a little bit inappropriate. 'Cause that's what we were doing before. They've got Cockbusters. We had a fun run there of different porn names for Anna to try while we were shooting that scene. Which was very fun. She says the craziest stuff in her sleep. It looks like his dick is gonna pop. It's So veiny and hard. This is also... My student. I'm doing a Skype class session... This is one of the scenes, I think we have an extended version of this scene on the DVD. There's a lot of... He walks, if you notice, Adam walks up to the door with a bucket of ice and we used to have a lot of dialogue about that ice that is no longer in the movie. It's fun when you're shooting, and especially for me, I think, first studio feature, ... you are getting an A plus. I just wanted to make sure I got all the possibilities. Try a bunch of different lines. Try a bunch of jokes. And then you get into that edit room, and you are just lifting as much as you Can away as possible. Just trying to make it go like, find the joke, find the one that works best. Boom, move on. Boom, move on. Keep the story moving. This actually, this whole sequence of the girls here is from a cut scene in the movie. It's from the bocce ball sequence, which they even used in our trailer a little bit. And it's a great sequence that's on the DVD. And this is actually from them walking up to the bocce game. And that sequence is cut. But we still had to somehow capture the vibe that these girls were in their own element. And being themselves a little more and deciding to have fun. And so we ended up using that shot of them walking up the beach and stealing drinks by themselves before they join the group to kind of get that idea across a little bit. But it's part of this whole other sequence that's now just a DVD special feature. Much like this commentary. Jake, this is the DVD. "Welcome..." What? "...to Jurassic Park." Um, you just keep saying "on the DVD." This is a DVD special feature. But you could just say "on here." - Right. On here. Well, yeah, but it's not on here, the commentary track, it's... Do you currently know what this is for? Why do you need to tell me that, though? Why are you even telling me that? l'm sorry, Margie. - You're fine. I just want to make sure you know what's going on. I mean, does it really matter if I say "on the DVD" or "on here"? If people are watching it, the worst that happens is it's a little redundant to say "the DVD." Okay, if you don't care about maintaining any reality or like... What are you talking about, "maintaining reality"? Why are we having this discussion right now? Look, you know what? You're right. I'm just, I'm... What am I talking about? I've just done a million of these and... No, that's not... I know you've done this a lot. That's not what I'm trying to say. Okay. Look. I forgive you. Okay? I forgive you. This is great. I'm having a lot of fun. You're doing so well. This is where the dinos ran in the prairie! Really? Yeah. I'm a T-Rex. I'm coming to get you! Okay, thank you. Are you crying? - No. I'm not crying. What? Just, thank you. Wasn't this where Jurassic Park was filmed? This scene right here? Yeah, this is actually where they shot Jurassic... Yeah, how did you know that? Yeah, this is where they shot Jurassic Park. Yeah, I can tell. This was the real location where... And I think they shot some of Jurassic World here, too. And by the way, so fun to get to go shoot where they shot Jurassic Park. That's like a little kid dream, to go shoot in that location for the joke of ATV-ing where they shot Jurassic Park. This is also, this ranch, by the way, Kualoa, is where they not only shot Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, it's where they shot... They have signs up all over for movie tours. It's where they shot Godzilla. It's where they shot 50 First Dates, part of it. The most excited I was by a sign was there's an area that's apparently where they shot part of the movie You, Me and Dupree. So, we join a pretty special lineage of movies, all the way from Jurassic Park to You, Me and Dupree that have shot in this beautiful location, when shooting in Hawai. I still think we should go around. She just got some serious air, bro! Um, this sequence was a blast to shoot. And, again, the stunts and stunt drivers that we brought in on this were great. And we had to find the smallest, the best smallest ATV stunt riders in the country. Yeah, baby! To match, to body-double match the girls who are the ones who are obviously good at this and doing the tricks. So, that is a male ATV stunt driver. And one of the smallest male stunt drivers we could find to double for Aubrey Plaza. And same goes with Anna Kendrick. Um... And I think there was, we initially had a female ATV stunt rider coming in and I feel like something happened with her schedule. She had a show to do, she had an X-Games-type event to go do. And then, so she dropped out, and so we had to find, um, small men. Small men with... Your turn, Mike! Don't be a pussy! ... with, uh, adrenaline junkies, basically. I'm not gonna do it. Um... Mike, it'll turn me on... I think the only disappointing part of this scene was for Zac. He just wanted to ride that ATV so bad. Zac is a guy who already knows how to ride ATVs. And was so into being on that ATV. Like, every time I said, "Cut," he'd be off zipping around, driving around, going up the mountains on ATVs. And, literally, it's like Aubrey and Anna get to drive this ATV, and look like they're jumping it and have little shots like this. Where they're all actually on it and driving it. Adam and then Aubrey did this. And poor Zac is the only guy, because Dave is the character with enough common sense to not do this jump, that couldn't go zipping around on this while we filmed. And that was, I think, the only, only bummer of shooting this scene, was for him. Oh, boy. Oh, no, God! God, this sequence was originally... A lot of people comment on how long this jump is, how long he's in the air, how long I stretch this sequence out for. And I just want you to know, originally, it was another 25 seconds longer, that Adam was just screaming, floating down on her. We originally had it so long. But this is actually one of the scenes that changed the least from our rough cut of the movie that was three hours long to the final version. That ATV sequence was kind of always in that form. Our little transition here inside, off the blackness, onto Mary's wonderful, horrified face. Your face is making me think it's gonna be bad. This is one of those scenes that where if I'm really analyzing the movie, it doesn't make sense if you think about it. But you're having so much fun after that surprising ATV hit and watching her face and seeing everyone make jokes, that no one thinks about it. But if I actually looked critically at it, I'm going, "So she got hit in the face. She should be dead." Right? She's not dead. She should be dead. And then we cut to the next room and she's just standing up in the middle of a room with an ice bag on her face. She's not sitting down. And I was looking at her. And everyone's standing staring at her to wait to see what the face looks like. I have little rationalities I can tell myself to get around this and how it can work. "Maybe it swelled up. "The bruising got worse under the ice bag." Blah, blah, blah. But if you really think about it, it probably wouldn't go like this. That's what they call suspension of disbelief, guys. Welcome to movie making 107. Enough dancing! You and you... outside, now! God, this was So fun. Just telling, letting Stephen Root get mad at these guys. Calm down. Do you understand they've deformed our little girl... We were really worried this joke wouldn't work. She looks like Seal, for Christ's sake! "Looks like Seal." And we were kind of like, "Is that too dated? Do kids today..." And it kills. Everyone always loved that joke. I always thought... I had like three alts for that joke. I always thought we'd change it. Never had to. This was great, coming up with this on the day. Which actually is based on my own life. If I'm ever too tired and run into one of those doors, I can never figure out how to close them. And I asked Stephen Root if he could try trying to close it with the door that won't go all the way 'cause the other one's open. And, God, he's so funny. He's so great at just boiling over at these guys. There was another door, though. He can just close the other door. What? Well, he didn't see the other door. He just closed the one. But he was trying to close one but it was the other door that was open. Yeah, Margie, that's the joke. That he kept trying to close the door but there was another one to close. But he kept trying to close the other one. Did he not see the other door? I can't, I can't get into this with you right now, Margie. Okay. Everyone gets the joke. And this is not, I don't think this is... I mean, you said you've been doing this for a while. But I cannot believe that you think this is the right time to get into this. When there's a room, and there's usually one door, but sometimes there are two. And if there's two, I don't know why you wouldn't be aware of that. Well, to each his own, I guess. Agree to disagree. - Um... It's all fucked now. It's all fucked. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So, yeah, you agree to disagree. Great. Okay, well, yeah, I agree to disagree. Sounded like you wanted to say no. Sounded like you wanted to say you don't agree to disagree. I don't want to make this any harder than it already is. Do all the booths in the building have the mic inside your room like that? The mic to... - No, it's just this one. Yeah, sure. That's what I thought. Perfect. Um, let's get back to the old movie here. Thanks again for letting me join your spa day, ladies. I'm getting a little feedback in my mic here. Um... This is a fun little run here. Spa day. This is, so Alice now is trying to... Feels really bad about ruining the bride's day here, since she was a bride herself. And understands how big of a deal that would be. She's really trying to make it up to Jeanie. But poor Alice. She just, her heart's in the right place, the right intentions but she's gonna go a little crazy here. I didn't actually end up having one, So... Why? Every bride needs a bachelorette party. I'm sorry... By the way, Anna did great with that run, that giant run about dressing up like a prostitute. I'm pretty sure I threw that on her. She had never seen that written down. lt was maybe the third or fourth take where we tried something new. And I said, "Hey, try this really long run about your..." And just instantly, the next take, had it memorized. Had it better than I told it to her with perfect timing, perfect jokes. She just nailed it. She's awesome. Anna Kendrick might be the most professional person I've ever worked with. Little facts about working with her that you might want to know. She is always, always has her lines ready. Always on set ready to go. When you're filming a movie, you kind of have your actors, they take a break, they sit down between takes. You have, what's called, a second team of stand-ins to come in and adjust the lighting on... And then, when you Say, "Second team out, first team in," that's when your actors come back to set to start filming. Anna was always, you'd Say, "Second team out, first team..." Anna would be there. Waiting for everyone, Anna was always the first person back on set. Another fun thing about Anna, she's a woman of the world. She's a very knowledgeable person. She was always reading when she was in between takes, off set. Which is great. She's always got a book of new subject that she's into. And there was about three weeks on this movie where she was reading a book on the rise of Nazism in 1930s and '40s, Germany. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. How did you know that? It's one of my favorite books. Physically, no penetration. Why? /'m a history buff. All right. All right. Well, I hope so. Anyway, that's what Anna was reading as well on set. But the funny image would be, every now and then between takes, you'd look over at her sitting in her chair and she was just... You just saw her eyes popping over this giant book with a swastika on it. And we were like, "Anna, you got to... Let's put a different cover on that thing. "It just does not look right, that you're reading that book." Poor, sweet little Anna Kendrick with a giant swastika in front of her face. Oh, my God. How have I not Started talking about Kumail yet? When we had to cast this scene for the masseuse, whose name is Keanu, I don't think that's in the movie anymore, but in the script his name is Keanu, I wanted Kumail to do this and he... I think we went out to him and we asked him to do this scene. Said, "Would you come in and do a cameo and be this crazy masseuse?" And immediately he said yes. We got the word, he said, yes, he's in. And then he read the scene. And three hours later it was, "He needs to talk to the director before he'll agree to do this." And we actually... That was our problem with this scene is how do we explain that the scene of two naked people rubbing butts on each other for a happy ending massage, that this will be funny and not crazy and weird and something you'll regret doing. So, I think Kumail was actually in Greece with his wife on a vacation. Like, the first vacation they had had in a couple years. And he took a break from it to Skype-call me. I was in Hawaii, prepping. And he was just like, "Listen, man, I just got to know. "What are we gonna be showing here? And what kind of scene?" Like, "I'd love to do it, but are you gonna screw me on this?" Basically, he was saying, "Are you gonna screw me on this?" And I showed him some storyboards I had made up for this scene that had some of the crazy positions they were in. And I just sent him a picture of one or two of those. Said, "This is what I'm thinking." And he instantly was like, "Oh, I get it. It's a full comedy scene. "It's full weird-position comedy scene. I'm in." And then, also, three weeks later he shows up buff as hell. I did not know he was packing muscles like that. And he said he was worried about doing the nude scene. So he started hitting the weights even more. I mean, we're alone. How's Mike? Um, this scene we shot in an actual sauna. We did almost no set work on this entire movie. Everything was real, which is great for the production value of the background of Hawaii. But, God, this was a tight, this was maybe an 8'x6' sauna that we just actually shot in. So it was real tight to get in here and try to get these shots. And obviously, this scene, even from the early stage of the script, this was kind of the question of like, "And, uh, are we keeping the sauna scene in the movie? "What do you think of the sauna scene?" That was always the biggest question about this movie, is that, "Do you think this is the kind of movie "that keeps the sauna scene or loses it?" And I always thought you kept it. Originally in the script, cousin Terry was a man. It was a man. And we came upon the idea, someone had suggested during the prep of this movie, of, "What if you make it a woman?" And it's kind of a woman who's really forward and kind of almost a predator-ish, just a bisexual. It's not that she's straight, it's not that she's gay. It's just that she is down for anything, is her vibe. And so we decided to... We changed the role maybe a week or two out from production. Changed that role to a woman. Which I think adds a fun layer that you haven't really seen before in a movie. I love these little cut-ins here on Mike's face here and the sound she's making. Mike, I'm coming. - No! Oh, my God! I think that was, we were on set. And besides Adam screaming, we just said, "What's the worst thing that could happen "If you've already walked in and see your sister in the middle of a happy ending? "What's the worst possible thing that the sister could say to you?" And the answer was, just looking you dead in the eyes and saying, "Mike, I'm coming." And that's where that came from on the day, I believe. Terry! Poor Mike, just falling apart here. Shut the fuck up, Mike. Ugh. From one to the next. Cannot handle it. I'm gonna kick your ass. Adam Devine at 100% again, wonderfully. Poor, poor Mike. Mike's... This is where, I think, actually, you go from Mike being like an overly sex-crazed, like, "Who is this guy," to like, "I actually start to feel a little bad for him here." Here and in the next scene in the lobby with Tatiana. Um... God, so funny. And here we go. Back to Kumail again. Kumail is great. Kumail and Sugar were great together here. Just playful. And it was so fun having Kumail in to shoot because we would do the scene and then he would just come over to me and Say, "Hey, what other jokes do you want to try? "What should we... Should we try this, should we try that?" And he was so fun and great about just, "Let's keep thinking. "What else could be fun here? "What other jokes should we try?" And we would just sit on the side of the set for five, 10 minutes before each setup and just come up with more stuff for them to play with. And this is a perfect example of Kumail. You could develop cancer. Going off on his own, "Develop cancer." It's great. Um... Wait, you did that? These two. It's so funny. And that was another thing in the script is that we had to try to balance, and it's interesting. You'll see in the deleted scenes, there's a lot of scenes that got cut. But it was making this a true four-hander and balancing Alice and Tatiana and Mike and Dave throughout this movie, and having four leads is like... We shot a lot of stuff to make sure we could put it together in different ways. 'Cause when you're trying to balance that many people, I just wanted to make sure we didn't get back to the edit room and go like, "Oh, we wish we had this." Or, "We need this moment." And in truth, we had so much. We had too much stuff that we couldn't fit it all. The movie would have been two-and-a-half hours long. And I kind of think you don't want it to go that long if you're doing a comedy. You want to get people in the theater. Make them laugh. Make the story work. Feel for the characters a little bit. Send them on their way. But I think there's a lot of deleted scenes and extra jokes and bits on this that we put on the disc here. God, this, the banyan trees, by the way, so pretty to shoot in. And this is one of those scenes, these emotional connection scenes that I remember shooting and going, "You know what? We'll probably cut this way down in post "because we've got so much crazy, funny stuff going on. "We'll probably want to get back fo it." And the opposite is true. We got into the edit room, and you put this together and it's like, "Yeah." What a great reminder to check back in with the characters and where they are and what they want out of things. And we just were like, "What else do we have? What other lines did we try? "Let's put everything in this scene." Um, and it's so nice to take a break for a second with these two. And just re-establish the stakes and where we are. And I think it helps. I think those scenes with Anna and Zac in the movie help drive the whole movie and help reset for the comedy in the next scenes after that. And that was... Yeah, that was fun to see working as we put it together. Yeah, I'm totally overreacting. God, this is another, one of the ones from the first time I read the script. Tatiana's little run here about what she did and what it's like. lt was one of those things in the script where it was like, "Yeah, we got to do this in the movie. I haven't seen this scene before." It's just like Tinder. We did, we probably tried about 50 different things that we made poor Aubrey do and describe here before we got it down to three things for the movie. ...contracting them. Are you deliberately trying to hurt me? Is that what you're doing? What? No! I was just trying to get RiRi tickets... to make my best friend feel better, okay? We're on vacay. By the way, Adam Devine. Have we talked about him yet? What a great dude. We were lucky on this movie. Literally, everyone we... I'm so happy with our cast. Not only our main cast, our main four, but our secondary cast. I mean, just literally couldn't have asked for a better group of people. Not only with how funny and talented they are, but just great dudes. I didn't really know Adam very much before this movie. We had met a couple times about various things that we never really worked together. And then, I mean, when we first met about this movie, he was like, "I feel like I am Mike. "Like I know how to do this role more than any other role I've read." And I think he was right. He just really put everything into it. And always, he was always the best about, "Do we need another take? "Do you want me to try this?" He'll do it. No complaints. Always full of energy. And so funny, man. God, I just want fo... Hey, Jake. You coughed a second ago. ls there a bug in the room? Not that I know of. Did I cough? So you didn't choke on a bug? Made it up. All of it. No. What do you mean? I don't think I did. Why? Has that happened? You just coughed and it sounded like... I just assumed you choked on a bug. Well, I don't think that's a reasonable assumption, Margie. I mean, unless you know something I don't about the bugs in this room. I don't think I choked on a bug. That's the thing about a sound booth. It's always bugged. Oh, come on, man. Is that a pun? ls that what you're doing? Did you just try to put a joke on the DVD commentary? I don't... That was just a fact. I don't joke. I don't understand humor. Mmm-hmm. - So, I don't... Is that what you do when you work in the booth for this long? Do you just sit on something like that for, like, 10 years and just Say, "One of these days I'm gonna put the bug joke in. "I'm just gonna hit the mic button and pop on in"? Um, I will be telling my family and friends about this commentary and the fact that I'm a part of it, if that's okay. - Oh, my God. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I think that's clearly what's going on here. You lied? By the way, I think there is a way to stop and go back and rerecord sections. I know earlier you told... I mean, it's too late now. We're an hour into the movie. But I think... Yeah, there's no way we can go back now. There was a couple points at the beginning where we could've. We could've, right? I knew it. We're too deep, we're in too deep, as they Say. Well, for the first time, I agree with you. This is just what it is by this point. And I've got way too busy of a day to redo this. So it is what it is. You got any thoughts on this scene here? "Love hurts." How did they get up in that tree? "Love wounds..." We just had... We just stepped them. We had a ladder. They just crawled up in the tree. Climbing trees is dangerous. I don't have children, but if I did, I would say, "Please, avoid climbing trees because when you fall you could hurt yourself." I mean, I guess in a way that's reasonable. But, also, kids love climbing. I mean, you got to climb a tree. Kids love climbing trees. You got to let your kids climb trees. Well, I'll never have children anyway, so it doesn't matter. That's not... I don't want to open that door with you, Margie. I'd actually love to talk about it if you are... Yeah, no, I had a feeling you might. And I don't, let's not make that... Let's do that... That's another disc, okay? I just, I'm not sure if I'm firm on that decision to not have kids, or if I should consider... Should I freeze my eggs? A clear line in the sand. Well, all 1 can say is I would support you if you did. l'm gonna support anyone who wants to take that route. And it's a decision you got to make for you. All right, but let's really not go farther than that into this discussion. If/ freeze my eggs, will you go in on it with me? They're liars! No, I won't go in on it with you. It costs a lot of money to do that. /'m sure it does. But that's not my problem, Margie. I mean, you can decide to freeze those eggs or not, that's up... You said you'd support me, though. You got... I know you work, Margie. I know you work. I'm looking at you do your job right now. If you want to save up... Well, no... I mean, how much do you need? Uh... Tatiana was jerking off our cousin Terry. Are you crying? Cousin Terry has a dick? No. It's hard to see you through the glass. /'m fine. Let's just... - Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. We can talk about it later. Listen, if you need help, let's talk. No, no, no. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. I can't do that, David. Oh, boy. What? I mean, just... I just had a kid. And I love having a kid. And I get it if you need... I mean... I would love to know what that feels like. She really had to pee? Anyway it's... Let's talk... Let's seriously... Let's, you and me, let's talk afterwards. /... Okay. - Okay. That'd be great. I can't believe what's happening here. I do want to remind you, though, about the heavy breathing. Thank you, thank you. Appreciate that. I'm gonna walk in on Mom... I ama heavy breather. I'm kind of worried about breathing heavily in this thing. Careful, when you scratch your face it brushes the mic and then it fucks me up. But have you seen this Push Pop scene? I forgot to talk about this Push Pop scene. Um, love the... Zac went full Brad Pitt in Se7en here. He did a full what's-in-the-box on what's-the-Push-Pop. Also, a little thank you to my good friend, Lauryn Kahn. A hilarious writer who I know from back when I started at Funny Or Die, and she started at Gary Sanchez Productions, who we're out of the same office. And we've been friends ever since that website launched. And she was one of our on-set writers. She came out for two or three weeks pitching jokes. And, um, she pitched that phrase Push Pop. I think, initially, we had a different phrase in there and she's like, "Let's try 'Push Pop." It was great. You're out of control! By the way, we cut right out of this shot before Tatiana's about to throw a drink in Becky's lap. Which you can see all about it on the deleted scenes. There's a really funny runner of Tatiana continues to throw her champagne glass into Becky's lap and make it seem like she peed her pants. And that was one of the things I hated losing in this movie as we got it down to time. It was a really funny runner throughout the movie. Talk about the centipedes. Oh, there were centipedes that... Yes, I forgot. We shot... We're back at the banyan trees here, shooting at night. We shot for three nights out here. Like The Truman Show. And centipedes were falling from the tree on all the crew and actors. And they were the biggest centipedes you've ever seen. They were six, seven inches long, a centimeter thick. They were nightmare centipedes. And apparently what had happened was, people were so worried about how many bugs there were gonna be in the forest at night that they had sprayed for mosquitos the day before we shooted. And it... "Before we shooted," before we shot. And it got rid of a lot of all the mosquitoes and small bugs. But apparently it just kind of slowly stunned the centipedes 'cause they were so much bigger than the other bugs that it didn't kill them. And so, six hours later after they sprayed as it was shooting, the centipedes finally started dropping from the trees in a daze 'cause they couldn't hold on to the branches anymore. And it was raining centipedes as we shot. That is terrifying and the stuff of nightmares. And it is true. That is absolutely what happened. And then one of the crew guys took one of the centipedes and put it into a cup. And started walking around showing it to everyone while it would crawl in and out of the cup on his hand. Ugh! Did you guys eat them? No, no one ate them. That would be... You could, though. If you were trapped, that's exactly what you would eat for the protein. I would eat them without being trapped. What, why? What? Why on Earth would you do that? Well, if you want... Can we have that conversation about freezing my eggs again? I'd like to... I think we should wait. And honestly, not even for me or the commentary's sake at this point. I think for you we should wait till after this. Well, you're the director. I deserve to have a little fun. What is that? Is that... Are you mad at me? Do you agree with me? I have no idea now, Margie. This is gonna be so much fun! I just... Yeah, this is... It's gotten out of control. I apologize. I feel like I'm... I'm sorry. I feel like this is too much. It's... No, no, no. - It's... You're... You're fine. Please, don't. This is how we do it, baby. Come on. Let's just try to get through this commentary. Absolutely. Let's both do our jobs here. Right? - Absolutely, let's do that. We'll just get this thing done. - Please, Iet's do that. Um, You love that movie. We were shooting on... How's it a bad idea if you love the movie? We were shooting on a prime lens here. Probably about 40 millimeters. Oh, my God, commentaries are So... -... boring. - And we were... It's, like, what is this? - Margie. /'m just... You're talking about... -... hearing him and sitting in here. I'm listening to this guy... - Can she hear me? ...ramble on about things he thinks about. Oh, my... Do you know you put the mic on? - It's just, when... What the fuck are... What... What am I even... What is my life? She doesn't even know she put the mic on. - What is my life? I just can't believe it. I can't believe... It's just a waste of his time and my time and everybody's time. Jesus. This makes me feel really shitty about the commentary. Oh, shit. Yeah, you got the... Your elbow"s on the button! What's that? Your elbow"s on the mic button. - Did you... Hello, everyone. Oh, no, I know, I wanted that. Um, I'm just gonna adjust a couple of levels. And I'll be right back. They're two of the sweetest... Where'd she go? She's running out of the booth. All right. Our first soeaker tonight... Where... Oh, my God. Well, God, I don't know what she's doing or where she went. Fricking Margie. My eyes are dry. Just give it to me. Uh, all right, listen, let's... I'm sorry. Uh, let's get back into this. "...my speech." Doing a little Chris Rock here. God, I'm sorry. I'm just thinking about, I don't know what's going on with her right now. She's talking about these eggs. She's talking about how boring commentaries are. I don't think she's happy. I don't know where she went. I'm starting to get a little scared. I feel like I should try to lock the door to this room. I don't know what's going on. Um... Why aren't you on my side, Dave? All right. Let's talk about, let's talk about this movie again right here. Fucking Zac Efron bringing it strong and hard right here. Boom. We thought this was so funny of Zac being such a good actor and just straight up yelling as seriously as he could, "I'm gonna draw. Like an artist." We even used that phrase. By the way, Lavell, our Keith. I haven't had a chance to talk about Lavell yet. So funny. Such a funny guy. Loved him on Breaking Bad. And we were able to steal him out. And, God, there's another... There's a great whole runner with him that got cut that's on the DVD that in every scene he just talks about how he's on vacation and he still hasn't been in the pool yet. That he's living in paradise and he just wants to get in that pool. But he's been so busy getting the wedding ready. That couldn't make it on. But, man, he was so funny. Um... The mics are on! - You're just fucking pissed off... Here we go, guys. ... because Tatiana finger diddled Terry. There it is! By the way, great pitch coming up here from Mary Holland who a little later here, where I was like, "If you have any ideas for this scene let me know." I told all the actors on this movie, "Anything you want to try or any ideas you have, "or jokes you want to pitch, let me know." I'm always down to try stuff 'cause that's how I run it and I want them to try things I say, so if they got things, let's try it. And that's why Mary's holding that champagne glass there. When she snaps it and breaks it in her hand, that was her pitch. That just, she said, "Can I please, please, have a glass "that I just shatter in shock and ruin my hand with?" And I said, "Absolutely. Call props." Said, "Please get breakable champagne glasses for her." And we did it. There we go. Love it, love it. And we actually had to remove it from her hand, digitally, in the next shot 'cause we're using a take where she hadn't broken it yet behind Eric there. And so, then, uh, we digitally removed it from the shot after she breaks it. They got so... This was one of those nights where it was raining. Kind of every 25 minutes we'd have to break while it rained for five minutes. And it was very hot and very humid. And Zac and Adam doing that fight was really hard on them, actually. And they got so sweaty by the end of it when they were lifting each other up. I think Adam literally almost hyperventilated at one point. When we finally cut for lunch there, um... Adam just stripped off every piece, Stripped all the way down to his underwear. Took the suit off, took the shoes off, took the socks off. He was just so hot and the air was so thick and humid that he was having trouble breathing after that. It's 'cause these guys give it their all. They're pros. By the way, you will notice that we are doing night scenes here. And we shot so many nights. It's actually rare for a comedy. I think we shot three or four weeks of nights on this movie. And it's tough. You do one week in the day then you got to switch your clock and get up where you're shooting from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. all day. And we were also shooting in Hawaii in the summer. Which meant the days were really long and the nights were short. And it can really mess with your schedule and the actors' schedule getting used to shooting all through the night for weeks at a time. They usually don't do it that much on a comedy. I think we shot a lot of nights for a comedy. Drama you might see it. People just change their schedules. They're up all night for a month while they're shooting. And I think we started doing, or at least once we did, we had nightcap drinks after shooting.
  
  0:13 · jump to transcript →
2. Jake Szymanski
  
  By the way, check out those horses. Another big training stunt. We had to ship horses in from the mainland to get the properly-trained horses. 'Cause, again, there's a whole horse sequence of stunts that didn't make it into the movie, but that should be in the cut features here. We did so much work with those horses. And now it just seems like, "They have one scene where they let horses out." We spent, like, a whole week of nights filming horses. And there's so much more footage on the DVD. But that's how it goes. Got to learn to not be precious when you get in that edit room. And just follow... Make the story work. Follow the jokes, follow the story. Clean it up. This is a fun scene to shoot where these two actually connect and get serious here. We shot this over two different nights, I think. Which I was worried about breaking up the flow of the scene, how we had to shoot it. But I think we shot all the wide shots one night. And then we went in for these close-ups another night. And we shot this towards the end of our schedule and towards the end of our stay at Turtle Bay. And I remember the actors, there was a little bit of how, "We've been so goofy and crazy for so many weeks shooting this, "how are we supposed to get a little serious and shoot this scene now?" It was like we all had to take a moment and reset and Say, "Okay, how are we gonna shoot this "like a real connection and still get some jokes in there, "but make sure we don't undersell the connection here?" Can I assuage you a few questions? That's always a little tricky, to switch modes when you're kind of used to doing one thing. Pop into another. You got to make sure everyone's on the same page. ...8O people listen to me. And it's fucked up. Me, too. I'm a natural born leader. Like George Washington. Yeah. Or another leader. Oh, she's back, she's back. - Jake. Oh, yeah, hey. - Hi. Hey, Margie. All right, here's one. I had to go to the bathroom. Okay. You don't have to tell me that. - I had to pee. You don't have to Say... I don't know, why would you tell anybody that? A stranger, me, but definitely at work. Why would you... You don't have to tell me that. I just want you to know. I had to pee, okay. I was not overwhelmed, emotionally. Sure, okay. I'm not gonna press you on that. I'm just gonna let you say that and I'm gonna give that to you. I peed in there if you want fo... - You don't have to keep saying it. The more you Say it, the more it's pretty obvious that you're lying, in fact. So I would just... - Okay, why would I lie about pee? That doesn't make any sense. You were gone a long time. lll say that. I will say that. If you really want to get into it, no, I don't think you left to pee, 'cause you were gone way too Iong. And I heard very heavy breathing and heaving outside the doors. These doors are supposed to be soundproof and I heard you. Okay? So there. I don't... That must have been in your movie or something. It wasn't in the movie. Ooh! My little cameo in the movie. Margie... - Who was that guy? Not important. Listen... Dave! Hi. Now I have to pee. 'Cause you have... All this talk about pee. What's going on? Are you okay? - Me? Um, I should have done this before we started. There's no way to stop the recording? - No. We cantt. Once we start, we can't stop. It's just like a Snickers bar. Okay, I'm just gonna run really... "Just like a..." I'm gonna just run really quick. Will you, um... I know this is crazy and probably something you haven't done before, but would you just mind filling in commentary for me for the next minute here? - OA, uh... Okay. Sure. - Okay, I'm gonna run. Okay? - I've never done the... Okay. Okay, just keep it... I just don't want there to be a blank spot in this. So I'm gonna run to the bathroom. Go for it. Okay. This a really good time. Uh, Jesus. This is a naked woman. There are horses. Um... I'm a woman, Dave. Deal with it. I done... It's vagina, vagina hair. I didn't come from that bush. There's, um... He's in a Suit. This is an attractive woman. Hi, Becky! - God, your bush is huge. And then... Margie, I'm sorry, I actually don't know where... Where's the bathroom? I'm so sorry. I ran down the hall. I went to the... Where... Oh, sure. It's down the hall and it's to the right. Down the hall, to the right. Okay, is it going okay? It's going really, really good. -/ think I'm doing well. - Okay, awesome. I will be right back. Just keep going. Okay. Why the fuck would you do that? I don't think you're supposed to go into the mystery bag... the night before the wedding. This is excruciating. Um... But Mike was right about you two. Uh, different gestures. Dave, I'll be honest with you. This is a scene that was shot at nighttime. There's fire in the background. The wind feels so nice. They... You have to be careful when you shoot with fire 'cause you might get burned. I'm so thirsty! Dave, we should get in the ocean. Um, and there's a bridge. Just be quiet. Oh, my God. What is the point of any of this? /, um, can't swim. That's a fun fact about me. I never learned. Okay, okay, okay. Thank you. - Oh, God. Hey, thank you very much. Did that go okay? Yeah, my pleasure. It went really well. -/ think I got some really good info in there. - Good, good. I'm trying to think of where we're at. Where did I leave? I left in the horses scene. So, I know you didn't know a lot of the same details I know. But, uh, just fun facts about that scene. Got... What... If was shot at night. Jeanie had to be naked. There's a vagina. There was fire. You got to be careful when you shoot with fire. People got to be worried about that. And there's a thing on a bridge. And here... - I covered all of these points. You know, I'm gonna listen to this at some point. I'm amazing. What? Really? You covered all that? Yeah, I got all... I got about how fire is dangerous. Fire is dangerous. You got to have a special fire guy on set when you have any fire. Talked about naked. - They were naked. Really? Did you really talk about that? Yeah, I... Yeah. Wow. But you didn't... I mean, they're real naked... You probably didn't go into the detail of we had to cover the vagina with a merkin and all that. You probably didn't say that word. - No... Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. It's not important. I don't even know why I'm saying that word. But mostly just sad. Listen, this is a really emotional moment of the movie here. Dad! - Don't! And, gosh, Zac doing that Rastafarian accent will always get me. And you can see behind the parents in that shot a little hint of our deleted scenes. There was an exploded pig in the background of that shot right there that is part of an entire story line about a roasted pig that did not make it into the movie. And, again, is on the deleted scenes. And it's still left over, you can see that. That scene was initially horses running through and destroying the place and digging up a roasted pig that Eric was so excited about doing a traditional pig for his Hawaiian wedding. And it's all gone now. A little 'round-the-horn here of everyone depressed the next morning. This is a real hotel room that we're shooting in here. We changed the walls, changed the furniture a little bit. By the way, have I taken the time to just stop and say how wonderful of a person Zac Efron is, and how fun it was to make an entire movie with him? Zac is one of those guys, just one of the sweetest dudes you'll ever meet. And you're not... You know what I mean? And I think it's good for people to know that he is one of the nicest, nicest guys I've ever worked with. And so good at what he does. And takes it so seriously. And always has thoughts to bring to the scene. And it was a pleasure. When I first... I actually first met Zac years and years ago for a very guerilla-style Funny Or Die video back in the day. I think, around when the 17 Again movie came out. We made a little Funny Or Die video that Zac was in. And when I first met him for this, to talk about doing this movie, which is, you know, six years after that thing. He was like, "Wait, do we know each other?" And I was like, "Yeah, back in the day we did this little Funny Or Die video "for an hour one day. It was real quick," and da, da, da. And he goes, "Yeah, yeah, I remember. We shot that that Funny Or Die video." He goes, "Man, people really thought that video was cool. "I got some, like, good props for doing that video. "Thank you so much for doing it." I was like... That was the first kind of thing after being a Disney star that people are like, "Hey, man, that's really cool that you did that." He was like, "I always loved doing that video." And I was like, "I got him." I was really, really excited and hopeful that we would actually be able to get him in the movie after that. And we did. He was in after our conversation that day. And it was really fun to spend time working on the character and working on the movie with him. It was fun to spend time with all these guys. Aubrey Plaza, I mean, come on. Who else can play the crazy Tatiana? 'Cause Aubrey is so funny and so good. And also a legit weirdo who can be a very weird person in the... And I mean that in the best way. I love Aubrey. And she's Tatiana in a way that, I think, other people, you would have known they were acting to be the crazy girl, a little bit. And I believe Aubrey somehow, a little bit more. Um... But I think occasionally... we should think about how we make... Here we go. We did a lot of work on this scene. This scene is kind of cobbled together from another scene that's not even supposed to go here that we put at the end, put at the end here. I love these girls here, kind of, learning empathy for the first time. Learning to feel for other people. Deciding they have to run off and save the wedding. Poor Mike. He's less special, but I played him so hard. They must be so mad at us! They must hate us. Fuck! I would hate us. I would fucking hate us! I hate us, man. I hate us! Believe it or not, that cut was not planned. Originally, the guy scene and the girl scene was very separate here. And then we decided to put the girl scene in the middle. 'Cause our guy scene was getting a little long. And we found that footage where they both said the same stuff and it seems very planned, and it was not. It was a very happy accident. Don't let your loser older brother... This was actually, this entire ending here was exactly what I mean about how great Zac is and how much thought he puts into it. And when we were about to film this scene, Zac called me into his room before we shot and he said, "You know, I really feel like these are brothers "and this is about them loving each other and trying to build each other up "and they should be talking about stuff from childhood." And Zac was a big part of writing a lot of the options we shot here and that it made it in the movie. Like, the whole Ninja Turtles run to do here was Zac's idea about doing a run about the Ninja Turtles. We had a couple other ones that we cut out. But it's like I can't imagine the movie without it now. And that was all, that was all Zacky. We're not going anywhere... until our little sister, Jeanie Beanie Weanie... The best compliment we got about this movie when people started seeing it is like, "I actually believe these two guys are brothers." I actually, it's not one of those movies where people feel forced together. And I think that speaks to, um, how good they both are and how well they both got along. I love them high-fiving over breaking a TV. We are so stupid. This scene right here actually, end of the movie here, one of my favorite scenes to shoot, and one of the first scenes we shot right after the meet and greet, after we had already made the mistake of starting with everyone in the meet and greet, we went to this location, this is week one of shooting, and shot six characters in a small room together. So it was a real fun first week for me as a director. Just dealing with, figuring out all our characters right away. We want you guys to love each other. Love each other. This is a fun one to shoot. I think, actually, I love this scene. I think the Fox execs saw the dailies from this scene, and they said, "Jake needs to move the camera more. "We're nervous. It's week one. "He's never done a movie before. "Is this going... Is this going okay?" And, I think, in fairness to them, I did a lot of long takes where we did many runs of different takes and it seemed very Static. But I think it turned out okay. I think the scene works. Pacing's in the editing. I hope it does. Maybe I should have moved the camera more. I don't know. ... read this same paragraph for 20 minutes. Another early talk that was fun to have of notes that came in were about the outfits. And I think there were some people who were worried that Mike and Dave were wearing too many crazy floral prints or that seemed too crazy. And I was a big, big believer that that is exactly who those guys should be. And they should be excited about their Hawaiian vacation and wearing big prints. There's something kind of dumb and loveable about the costumes in this movie that our main four wear. That I'm very, very glad we kept in. And that I fought to keep in on these guys. I'm hoping when Halloween comes around I will see two dummies in Hawaiian suits, walking around, pretending to be Mike and Dave. We'll see. If that happens, that is all 1 need. That is my measure of success on making a film. Will anyone, the following Halloween, be dressed as anyone from the movie? We shall see. I was drinking puddle water and I had to go to the hospital... 'cause puddles are really dirty. One time I was on peyote... and I signed up for a T-Mobile plan. One time I got high. Listen, I don't want to be too rough on T-Mobile here. I got a T-Mobile plan on my iPad. And it was just a, maybe it was an easy joke to go for. We went for it, guys. I'm sorry. Damn it! Sixty percent of my investments are in some pretty... It's so satisfying to see Eric here just get mad and blow up. You can hear the whole, when we did our test screenings, you just hear the whole audience kind of open up and love it, and just love to see him get mad after this whole movie of being kind of timid and polite to everyone. And, God, Sam does it so well. This was one of the audition scenes for sure. Bam! Two hot air balloon tickets for our honeymoon. Saving the day. Saving the day with that hot air balloon. Surprise. Aww! Now another thing about shooting this, one of our first days, again, and we were doing really long takes. It was week one on the shoot and I was, again, wanted to make sure we got everything, got all the options we could get to make sure we could cut it together any way we wanted. And we spent the first half of the day shooting Zac and Adam and Anna and Aubrey. And Sug and Sam, Jeanie and Eric were just kind of waiting off-screen, feeding their lines to everyone. Being great, great actors and great partners. And then all this coverage on them we kind of shot in the last 45 minutes of the day. And I felt bad we had to rush through it. But while they were waiting off camera the entire day, they came up with this wonderful hand-clapping to do and pitched it to me to do it. And I think it was literally because they were bored all day just waiting to be on camera, that they started doing this. And, of course, immediately put it in and wanted it in the movie. And it's such a wonderful little accidental by-product of making them wait all day to shoot. Do you have Zac Efron's number? This way! What was that, Margie? Do you have Zac Efron's number? I'm good. So what part you like, brah? We need the whole pig. Mmm. No. But we need to feed 100 people. Could we please, please have the wedding here? Just wondering if he might be interested in going in on freezing my eggs with me. You can't ask Zac to help you freeze your eggs, Margie. You just can't do it. You don't know him. Please? You asked me but you don't really know me. You can't just go asking people to help pay to freeze your eggs. That's not how it works. Start a GoFundMe page or a Kickstarter if you're gonna be asking strangers, but don't just ask for people's numbers in my phone so that you can call them and ask for money. Come on. Okay, /'m sorry. And don't... You got a little nest egg built up, I'm sure, a little savings account. You've been working... How long have you worked here? I have a gambling problem. Oh, Margie, you can't bring a kid into that world. You got to get that straightened up before you're even thinking about the kid thing. I can't swim. What?
  
  1:10:07 · jump to transcript →

Practical effects

Across the archive

Related topics