All language subtitles for 114 - Scene Deconstruction Raiders of the Lost Ark

one of the things

uh having grown up in the business as an actor

that I really had to work on as a director

is understanding action

Roger Corman gave me a very good piece of advice

when I was doing Grand Theft Auto

and I admitted that I was concerned

about all the car action scenes

that I was going to have to stage in in that one

and he said well

here's a clue for you

you understand staging actors

because you've been an actor

and I can see from your short films

that you're very good with the actors and the staging

said yes so well

they're all characters

I said yeah

he said so are the cars

and um ever since then

I've Learned to look at all of the elements

in an action sequence as

um you know

as characters really

as forces that are that are

that are interfacing

uh whether they're human

animal monster

fantasy or machine

um but I've also continued to try to push myself

to understand

the challenges of staging and shooting action

um the where the camera should be

um the editing

how does the production planning

influence the way the scene is going to work

how long should the shots be

and one day

I was on an airplane

and Raiders of Lost Ark was playing

and I wanted to see it again

I thought this is perfect

I'm thinking about action scenes

I love Raiders of the lost arc

I love the action in it it's fun

it's exciting

it's all the things that I love

um I watch it

and my headphones didn't work

and there were no other headphones

available on the airplane

and I was really annoyed and I

but so I said okay

well I won't bother

and then every once in a while

I would glance up

and I became riveted

and then came the

the famous truck chase

um where where

where Indy takes over the truck

I watched the whole thing without sound and I

the minute I got home I

I got hold of what was probably then a VHS

and I just started watching that scene over and over

without sound

and I Learned so much

I've done that since then with all kinds of scenes

music performance moments

you know other kinds of

other kinds of action

and even dramatic moments

and it's very interesting to

interesting to see how great directors

choose to stage and shoot scenes

and you are more sensitive to the details of the

kind of mechanics of it

where did the camera go how long

how long was the shot used

how many times was the same camera setup used

in that scene

by forcing yourself to kind of distance it

and just watch it with the sound off

so I thought today

it would be good to flashback to that moment

on that airplane

where my headphones wouldn't work and

and start off looking at um

the great Steven Spielberg

action sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark and let's

let's look at what might have gone into making it

now I wasn't there

I've never talked to Steven about it but um

let's let's

let's look at it

I think we might we might

we might surmise a few things

well that's a camera shot with a crane

it's one setup

this looks like two cameras

like an a and B camera

and you can also see that they use the double here

um and because you're kind of angling

either to his profile or the

or the back

so that might have been a second unit shot

towing scenes let's stop for one second

as an actor

these are the bane of your existence

uh it's very uncomfortable and

you know uh

towing vehicles with cameras mounted on the vehicle

or on a trailer alongside it

a camera car that's pulling it

especially out here in a rough

rough environment

as they were in with Raiders of the Lost Dark it's slow

it's tedious

it's dangerous

and I was very interested when I was watching the scene

to notice the speed of the vehicles

now when I watch the sequence

with the sound and John Williams music playing

I feel like it's

you know they're going 100 miles an hour

but um you know they're

they're not

now this scene is not the action yet

we'll talk some more

about it when we get to the truck

but let's carry on

it's another opportunity to use a stunt double

probably a second unit shot

that's second unit also

well the reason I could see is because the stunt guy

was definitely moving his head away

so that you could see it wasn't Harrison

and there's a close up of Harrison

I'll stop for a second

so how many times

has Harrison Ford been in this sequence so far

he rode his horse out

and went around on that crane shot

the very beginning and there

so how many times do they need Harrison Ford so far

in this first minute or so of this action sequence

twice uh Steven Spielberg is incredibly organized

in these kinds of ways

he comes out of television himself

and I guarantee you that those kinds of

of things were thought of and planned for in advance

meaning certain scenes could be done with the double

could be done with second unit

freeing um the

the director

Steven Spielberg

to stay with the actors in first unit

Mickey Moore

um is the second unit director on this

and I happen to know that

because he was also the second unit director

a few years later on Willow

and George Lucas

and Steven Spielberg had a lot of affection for

and respect for Mickey Moore

who was an old veteran

started as a child actor in the um

silent movie era

worked his way up

through Hollywood as a

as a prop man

as a as an assistant director

uh production manager

and eventually a director

and then in his retirement years

became one of the pre eminent action directors

Mickey directed a lot of this sequence

let's carry on

great shot dangerous shot

very difficult to ride a horse down in that way

so it's definitely a double

and also difficult to time with the truck

let's stop now

notice how long that shot was

it's not very long

so that tells me that they carefully set up

for just that moment when they would be firing shots

past the gun to the rider

and that makes the scene safer

more manageable

and contained

but it takes

it takes either storyboarding

or some thoughtful shot listing to say

we don't have to ride the horse

the the truck and the vehicle with the machine gun for

you know 1,000 feet down a bouncing road

that that would be irresponsible and um

and totally inefficient

but what we do need is this moment when the guns firing

and the gun misses

because Andy's able to ride the

the horse and

and get on the other side of the truck

that's Harrison himself

no question about that

not Harrison

but a great shot

but see the truck's not going very fast

if you notice

let's stop for a second

as exciting as that is

and as a tricky shot

the cameras down low to help um

intensify the speed

it also helps mask the fact that it's a

it's it has to be a stunt person

it wouldn't be safe for Harrison to have done that

and um and it

and it gives you the illusion of some speed

because the roads going by

you know close to a wide lens

wide lenses always help enhance speed

um but you can still look that and see

just by the rotation on the wheels that

you know not

not going that fast

going at a sane

measured speed

and they could perfectly well get away with it

and still make the scene exciting and much

much safer to do

okay fight scene

that's definitely Harrison

let's stop um

so a scene like that

of course is towing the vehicle

I might not even be the entire truck

I'm sure it wasn't

it probably

had to build a small compartment just for this fight

because they knew they were gonna have a

you know a great deal of action in that fight

and the safe way is to plant that onto its own

trailer you know

that you don't need to see the front of the vehicle

and it's much more efficient

if the director is able to say here's

here's what we need to sell the intent

the intensity of this action scene

we don't need more

um but we don't need less this is it

storyboarding helps immensely

with those kinds of decisions

sometimes making a model helps

just a small version of the set

so that you can

you can look at it

you can imagine the action

sometimes in preparation

you may tape it out

um or build a little mock up to

just make sure that you're not short changing yourself

but you don't want to be overly ambitious again

it makes action dangerous and incredibly uh

inefficient

um and nor nor do you want to

um you know

underserve the needs of the scene

let's keep going

very exciting

clearly second unit

dangerous driving here

we're back to that set

with the fights going on

great pieces again

very specific

storyboarded kind of sequence

the shot is designed to achieve one thing let's stop

whether it's a fall or skid

these things are not pieced together

in long runs

they're they're meant to be executed idea by idea

and that's what makes it efficient

and it's also what makes it

something that you can execute

with consistency and safety

and they're back into our set

you can see that that wide shot again

the truck was very measured

um I'm sure all the ladders were wired

it's just a good old fashioned fall

we're back to our set with a different background

here we're into second unit action

here's a big stunt

probably multiple cameras

each of these action ideas

set up to accomplish the thing it needs to

and really no more

let's stop for a second

often in a situation like this

it's a very good idea to have the design shot

a storyboarded shot

and yet to try to put a B camera or a C camera

if you're if you know

if you have it in various places

they may not be storyboarded

but they may be places where you know

the truck could go by closely perhaps

something will accidentally fall in the foreground

so you're not as meticulous about those shots

but uh very often

you're very happy to have them in the editing room

again let's keep checking the speed of the trucks

very intense sequence

but they don't have to be going 75 or 80 miles an hour

back to that same mock up set

all the wider shots can be done with doubles

so it's possible that Harrison only had to do

a couple of days of shooting for his

his part of the sequence

although there's some pretty intense stuff coming up

look at the way Spielberg keeps using that

close up of Harrison

well in those days those were models

miniatures thrown off of a real

probably off of a real cliff or a smaller cliff

great suspense build up back to that set with Harrison

he jerks a fake steering wheel one way

and the stunt double does it

again look at the speed of the truck

you don't have to be going that fast

for those riders that's a controlled fall

another not so controlled fall

but it wasn't an accident

no wires on these guys

still that set that they're using

that's not that set that's a real truck

the double back to a set on with Harrison

that looked like AAD B cameras side by side

you can begin to see if you watch a scene like this

you know how storyboarded and planned it might be

and how careful it would be

and therefore the execution winds up becoming efficient

back to our set

that's a particular set piece same with that

um so that Harrison could safely be in the shot

that one as well

and that was Harrison dragging his feet along the dirt

this is mimicking a famous scene

I think it's from John Ford's stage coach

famous stuntman invented this idea

and went under the stage coach

I can guarantee you that wasn't Harrison

but you can also see how specific shots are

that is Harrison of course

so it's not like he got off you know Scott free

what a sequence this is back to our sad Harrison again

more fighting

you can see that there are shots through

uh each door and then through that windshield

and that's basically the way that set is used

here's that set that we saw earlier with Harrison

that set up that stunt fall

they did it that way probably so they could have pads

you know they framed out the ground

so you see somebody fall

but you don't see him hit

that's much safer

because it meant they could put padding down

that could have been a and B cameras it's possible

and Indy makes it to the other side

who I'm exhausted

and I didn't have to do a darn thing except watch it um

it just gives you an idea about the value

of really analyzing

what excellent directors have done in the past

it doesn't mean that

you will choose to make your next sequence um

follow the aesthetics

or the cutting patterns uh

or the staging of

um you know

Raiders of the Lost Ark

or any other action scene you might watch

watching this sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark

over and over again in

inform me in a number of ways

but I think the

the No. 1 lesson that I Learned was that um

taking the action in controllable bits in moments

and having the patience to plan it and shoot it

idea to idea to idea

in a thoughtful enough way that it could it could

it could be seamlessly edited

was a far superior way to approach a sequence like this

rather than um

just staging a lot of action

and trying to shoot it over and over again

mad Max is an interesting one to watch

so is matrix

you know fascinating

we start getting into the world of CGI

and really slow it down

looking at the

you know the Marvel movies today it's a

it remains a fantastic

um exercise

in terms of just giving you some clues

and insights into

into the way others have done it

then it's the director's job to use it um

only for its

its inspiration and and

and also for some practical suggestions

if you want to do something like this um

here's the way you may want to approach it if if this

if this sort of

impact on the audience is what you're looking for

these are the building blocks that

at least worked in this particular circumstance and

but again um

you know it's

it's it's it's

it's not to do anything but excite you

excite your imagination and

um you know

and stir um

a kind of a menu of possibilities for you to draw upon

because there are always many

many different ways to present a dramatic idea

an exciting idea

to audiences

when Paul Greengrass stages a big action scene

in Born Identity

he does almost entirely the opposite

he comes from the documentary world

he wants a different kind of aesthetic

he's not going for this sort of uh

movie movie

action sequence

and in that case

he does use multiple cameras

he carefully stages the action

they they they

they work on it

they they plan it

the camera operators have an idea

as to what it's going to be

but they begin shooting in a

more of a documentary style

they stage it

and shoot it

they still break it down into

action moments

um but it's not as choreographed in appearance

and the shots are not composed necessarily

or at least

they're not meant to feel as

as as as composed and organized

and presented as an action sequence

like Raiders of Lost Ark

both incredibly effective

but aesthetically very different

and in both instances

you can learn a lot by

finding the scene that impresses you

and watching it over and over again

eventually turning the sound off

and beginning to understand

how those pieces came together