All language subtitles for 113 - Research

in the last

maybe decade

six seven eight years

I've begun a process of collecting

not just a style book

but also a research reel

I'll I'll find

everything around a subject that I possibly can

or I'll send a researcher out to do the same thing

and we build a real

it could be scenes from movies

they could be documentaries

they could be TV interviews

they could they could be still photographs

um I'll ask the various department heads wardrobe

production design

props to take their best research photos

and put them on the walls

very often I put them on the walls

near where the kitchen is in the production office

um and because you know

or the bathroom or both

so that nobody can walk to the kitchen or the bathroom

without kind of

um immersing themselves

in the possibilities for this story

it's a discussion point

and very often

the production designer will be walking down the hall

I'll crisscross with him or her

and we'll stop and say oh

look at this and it's a

it's a scene that somehow might answer a question

as to how we might approach a particular scene

and then very

very often the next question is

I wonder how they did that

or I wonder how we could do that

and that starts another level of research

if we don't

you know automatically know

through our own experience

of what kind of set we would need to build

what kind of environment we might need

what sort of uh

camera work was going on there

was it uh you know

what was the camera speed

what was the stock that was being used

it was film um

what was done in the di

if it was digital

um you know

how much of that is computer generated uh

or real in camera effects

how could we do it

how can we relate that

to the problems that we wanna solve creatively

and a lot of great conversations come out of it

and it gets back to that idea of everyone

slowly but surely

pulling in the same direction

and as that happens during pre production

as you have this conversation about the script

about this locations

about the casting

about what they might look like

about the schedule

all of it provides the director and opportunity to say

yes that works for our story

or maybe be convinced by somebody

that there's another way of looking at a scene

that the director hadn't thought of

and everybody agrees

suddenly now

everybody's pulling in the same direction

what happens then is the

the the quality of the questions and suggestions

that come a director's way

just you know

exponentially improves

cause there's a cohesiveness about it

there's a shared point of view

there's a there's a

there's a sort of a group intellect at work um

and it doesn't supersede the director's vision

it only reinforces it

um and broadens it

and it's very exciting

but a lot of it comes back to

problem solving research

which feels kind of mechanical

and ultimately

stimulates a creative conversation

when I directed Robert De Niro in Backdraft

which was fiction

but I wanted the environment to be as realistic

and authentic as it could be

I'd never really been exposed to thorough arguus

uh research

just hadn't

hadn't grown up with it

and Robert De Niro came in playing a fire investigator

it was only a four week role for him

it was almost a cameo

um being very well paid

we were delighted

thrilled to have Robert De Niro in our movie

I was working hard on that screenplay

the logistics were challenging and even dangerous

you know the the

the fire was a huge threat in fact uh

to all of us

and Robert De Niro was very unusual in my mind

terms of the way he approached his role

and it took place in Chicago

he's New Yorker

he wanted to meet some fire investigators he

he met three

meanwhile we were riding around in fire trucks

and kind of getting a general sense of it

he was drilling down

and he he had

he had one fire investigator read all the lines and

and also analyze whether they were authentic or not

and there were some

some areas where we made some mistakes and we fix

we fix those

another one had a cocky attitude

and kind of a sense of humor

another one had a very particular sound

kind of an accent and a way of standing and

I couldn't quite follow what Robert De Niro was doing

but I trusted it

and on Day 1

when we were shooting

I realized that he wasn't just creating

wasn't just counting on himself as some sort of

you know um conjurer

he was basically a mirror

and he had used this

this research

even in this supporting role

to give the audience um

sense of the truth as he chose to interpret it

he's more interpreter than he was conjurer or creator

but he took the posture and the sound from one guy

the attitude of another

the meticulous nature of the third fire investigator

and you know

and sort of ran it through the Robert De Niro filter

and it you know

and it rang true for him

and worked very well for the

the movie and was very

very detailed and specific

and at that point in my career I

I was afraid of doing a story based on real events

but few years later

when I was doing Apollo 13

I really thought a lot about Robert De Niro

and how much creativity

was generated out of that research

that the creativity was his interpretation

and I thought

that could be applied to directing any story

fact or fiction

but certainly one based on real events

and I threw myself into that kind of

meticulous research

I encouraged the actors to

on Apollo 13

it changed the script

it changed the way I shot scenes

it changed the dialogue and it

and I think it

it made it a movie that really resonates with audiences

and I began to understand how on a

on a on a subtle level

that that kind of attention to detail really

really matters to

to moviegoers and um

and perhaps that's not something that I've Learned

back in Maybury

on the Andy Griffith Show

you know um

that's that maybe

you know that's

that's a much more sophisticated

and throw away

of looking at tell

telling a story it again

it doesn't supersede

inspiration

excitement emotion

you know it's very emotional medium

but it reinforces all that

if it's done

and done well

so I've come to really appreciate the value of of

of deep research

research offers so many suggestions

um um you know

you learn a lot about the characters

so you have a lot to offer actors

um you details that

you know that become very

very specific

they also suggest ways of shooting scenes

you know like um

the idea of maybe using detail

let's say you're doing a period peace and um

you you do a little bit of research

and you begin to understand the way phones worked in

say 19:05 it's quite different um

and suddenly that's a possibility for audiences in in

in 2017 to find something amusing

well that that could

that could skew a scene

if you decide to begin

say on an insert of a phone

and the way they have to answer it

and it's a party line or something like that

launches a scene in a way that's very unexpected

and let's say there's eventually

supposed to be a dramatic turn in that scene well

if you can begin it with a little bit of organic humor

and then suddenly

you know shift into a dramatic moment

well you've

you've changed the dynamics of that scene

and it's a little more surprising and therefore

a little more engrossing

and where did that come from

it came out of research

and fascination with something like a telephone

and that is endless

that's what preparation is all about

preparation is about

broadening your understanding of the things

the factors

that can influence the story

and broaden the possibilities of that story