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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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JAMES CAMERON: What we have here
is the entire first future war
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sequence storyboarded
from end to end.
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So what I was thinking
is, we take the movie
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and look for the commonality.
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So here in the
storyboard, I imagine
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that Reese kind of
lays his head down
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on the side of the car
door and goes to sleep,
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and then this is a dream, as
opposed to what we wound up
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doing in the film, which
is that he's waiting--
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sitting, waiting in the car.
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And he looks over and sees
the construction vehicle.
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We do this kind of instant
transition to the future,
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but we don't know we're
in the future yet.
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But we are.
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We're now on a--
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the vehicle that has
treads in the future,
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it's called a hunter-killer,
and we tilt down,
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there are a bunch of
skulls on the ground.
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So clearly we've done some
kind of dreamlike transition,
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but we haven't seen the
moment where he fell asleep.
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And we don't even know
that that's happening yet.
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And now or in the future.
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So if you look at-- at
the storyboard for that,
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it looks like this.
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Here's the vehicle
with the treads
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near the skulls down below.
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Here's a fairly
abstract shot looking up
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at the hunter-killer.
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And then if you
progress the film,
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here's that-- here's that shot.
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Now I'm not seeing the
spotlight or the searchlight.
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And then we see
Reese in the ruins.
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He's established coming up here.
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It wound up being a
little bit different,
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but, you know, here we establish
Reese in his future world.
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You don't have to follow
the storyboards exactly.
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So here's the hunter-killer
crushing the skulls,
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and here's the hunter-killer
crushing the skull.
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So there are certain
images that survived
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through the process and certain
ones that were either winnowed
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out and we wound up not doing.
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For example, the
way I imagined it
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is that it's all very
abstract at first,
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and we see Reese
introduced by his legs
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running as he's getting
shot at by this machine,
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and we think he's
gotten killed, but he's
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hiding behind a column.
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I wound up not shooting that.
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I don't remember exactly
why at this point.
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Maybe because we
didn't have time,
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maybe I felt it just
wasn't necessary.
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But where we get into a
similarity to the sequence
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again is him taking cover.
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Ah.
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So here, we introduce this
young female resistance fighter,
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and then that moment is here.
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Now you can see that the
camera wound up reversed.
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Probably just simply because
of the way the set laid out,
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you know?
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And where the key light was.
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And me not having the time--
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and it really didn't matter.
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And so Reese signals
to her, and this
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is him signaling to her here.
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And then they run together.
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He signals and they run.
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But first they
crawl, then they run.
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So I think the fact the
idea of him crawling
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through the wreckage
is actually indicated
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in the next storyboard
while we see the--
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the hunter-killer
in the background.
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So it was all fairly well
thought out ahead of time,
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but the important thing
about storyboards is
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they're-- they're not--
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they're not an
absolute blueprint,
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they're a departure point.
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And what you shoot in the moment
is what becomes the final film.
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So you can see that the
idea of seeing the-- seeing
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the hunter-killer up
through the wreckage as it
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towers over them, I
believe that-- that concept
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was retained.
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Ah, there it is.
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So maybe-- maybe
in the cutting we
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decided it was better to put
that shot a little bit later,
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but you can see, there's
a fairly close correlation
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between a concept,
which is that there's
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some post-nuclear holocaust
wreckage in the foreground
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and this big chrome
machine with these lights,
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and it's kind of Reese's POV
as the little rat running
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through the maze and
seeing it up above,
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and that's more or less
what you have right here.
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So this was very useful
to the miniature unit
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when they were trying
to build on this.
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So they knew they had to
build a model big enough
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that they could put a foreground
piece and it would hold focus.
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So they wound up building
quite tall models.
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I think it was almost four
feet tall of the hunter-killer.
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So they get a lot of
information from these.
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And then we see Reese take
shelter behind something.
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Now they're running
through open space here.
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That's accounted for here.
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So we get the same idea.
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So again, this is just
an idea for a shot.
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This is the execution of
it, but what's locked in?
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The edgy lighting,
the spotlights,
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the emphasis on the kind
of blue night light,
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the cold feeling of it.
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The bright magnesium-like
explosions on the ground.
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So those ideas were already
embedded in the-- and these are
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sort of a combination of
storyboards and design
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drawings, really, because
they're-- they're giving a lot
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of information to
the model unit.
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There's a big shot where
they cover a lot of ground,
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and they run-- they run
across a large area.
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So here, you can see little
tiny figures running.
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Big machine in the
background and ruins.
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And-- and then they
reappear in another plate.
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So a plate is a live element.
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Sometimes the background
element, sometimes it's
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a foreground element.
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In this case it's a foreground
element of our characters.
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In this case, there are
actually two plates.
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There's one over here before
they go behind the car and one
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over here after they come
out from behind the car.
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And then there's
another big plate
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in the background that's of
the-- of the miniature, right?
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And then some optical lasers
are put across the foreground.
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And you can see that
that concept exists
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in the storyboard and
it's in the description
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of the storyboard here,
that that's one plate.
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The car is the breakpoint,
and that's another plate.
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So the other thing
that I think it's
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important to remember
about "The Terminator"
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is that it was done at a time
when we didn't have CG at all.
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So we were using
tools like miniatures,
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front screen projection,
rear screen projection.
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So this is a cheap,
low-budget, but high epic--
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you know, attempting to
be epic on a low budget
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and doing it with
rear projection.
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So literally, this
was a rear projection,
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this was a rear projection, and
that was a rear projection, all
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on a big miniature set.
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And that's how that was done.
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To me, the power of
rear screen projection
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was that you could
hand-hold the camera,
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and you could even
zoom in or move around
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and made it feel
very subjective.
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It didn't suddenly have
to become a lock-off,
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because a lot of visual
effects suffered from,
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all of a sudden you knew you
were watching a visual effects
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shot because the camera
locked off so that they
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could composite in things.
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It was all very crude.
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And nowadays it's not a problem.
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You just shoot--
shoot it handheld
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if you want a blue
screen shot, and you just
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make sure you've got
your tracking dots around
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and then they can
extract that camera move
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and apply the same camera
move to the background.
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So you're in a car,
and you're supposed
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to be driving down the freeway.
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There's nothing outside the
window but a blue screen.
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And the camera operator sitting
in the right seat-- well,
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I say this in New Zealand here,
they'd be sitting in the left
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side--
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shooting-- shooting
the actor driving.
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And the camera's
kind of shaky and you
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pan over and look out the
window and you come back.
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And there's nothing
there but blue.
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But it's relatively
easy to add a background
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plate of what's outside that--
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outside that window these days.
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It's-- it's not a big deal.
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I wound up with six
months to sketch out
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all of the key scenes and to
really refine all the designs
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and be ready.
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And when I got to shoot that
film, every second counted.
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We had 42 days, and a
lot of them were nights.
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And even on a guerilla
filmmaking schedule,
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I'm working 14-hour days,
it was a lot of material
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to shoot in that amount of time.
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But I was ready.
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I knew what to shoot.
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I knew every shot that I needed.
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And I was just a machine.
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Just going from shot to
shot to shot, you know?
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It's critically important
to know your film
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before you shoot your film.
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And everything
starts with the art.
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Spend a good part
of your time just
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looking at how things really
are with an artist's eye,
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like you're going
to try to paint it.
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Like Vermeer.
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You know.
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There were thousands of years
of painters before Vermeer,
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and Vermeer suddenly
figured-- he looked at light
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the way it came in a window
and the way it lit a scene
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or lit a figure of a woman
standing at a counter.
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And all of a sudden he
saw what that light did.
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00:10:02,020 --> 00:10:03,520
How bright the
source was, the fact
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that you didn't see
the source, you just
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00:10:05,187 --> 00:10:08,170
saw the effect of the source,
how it bounced around,
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00:10:08,170 --> 00:10:10,570
how it lit her, how
it lit the wall, how
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00:10:10,570 --> 00:10:13,000
the bounce from
the wall lit her.
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And all of a sudden he was
able to do something nobody
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had ever done before, which
is paint light the way
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it really worked.
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00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:22,510
And he just did it
with the wetware.
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00:10:22,510 --> 00:10:25,180
He didn't have any software,
he didn't have any computers,
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00:10:25,180 --> 00:10:26,388
he didn't even have a camera.
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It didn't exist yet.
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But he saw how light worked.
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So, I happened to be an artist.
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Great.
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A lot of-- some-- some
other directors are artists.
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00:10:35,140 --> 00:10:36,670
Ridley Scott's a
good sketch artist,
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00:10:36,670 --> 00:10:38,980
Guillermo Del Toro is a
very accomplished artist.
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00:10:38,980 --> 00:10:39,520
Great.
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00:10:39,520 --> 00:10:43,900
If you're not an
artist, study art.
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00:10:43,900 --> 00:10:45,737
Learn to draw on a
very rudimentary way,
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and I don't care if
it's balloon heads
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with smiley faces on them.
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Learn to draw so that
you force yourself
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00:10:51,670 --> 00:10:54,027
with a pencil and paper
to think compositionally.
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00:10:54,027 --> 00:10:56,110
Do I want the character
in the middle of the frame
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00:10:56,110 --> 00:10:58,110
or do I want them on the
left side of the frame,
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00:10:58,110 --> 00:11:01,330
leaving the rest of the frame
open in a cinemascope aspect
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00:11:01,330 --> 00:11:04,780
ratio like Sergio
Leone used to do?
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00:11:04,780 --> 00:11:06,440
What style am I going to do?
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00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:08,110
What's my compositional style?
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00:11:08,110 --> 00:11:09,940
So that you can have
that conversation.
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00:11:09,940 --> 00:11:13,500
First with yourself, then with
your director of photography,
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00:11:13,500 --> 00:11:16,610
and then subsequent to that,
in the moment on the set.
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00:11:16,610 --> 00:11:19,430
I like this, I don't like
that, pan more right.
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Study art so you
understand perspective,
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so you understand
light, so you understand
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these ideas of what's
going on in that frame.
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00:11:27,920 --> 00:11:33,170
Because figurative art, painting
has all been about the frame.
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00:11:33,170 --> 00:11:35,420
What's in and what's not.
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00:11:35,420 --> 00:11:37,790
And filmmaking is all
about what's in the frame
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and what isn't in the frame,
and what you need in the frame,
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00:11:42,020 --> 00:11:45,080
and what you can safely
exclude from the frame
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00:11:45,080 --> 00:11:46,368
and get by inference.
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00:11:46,368 --> 00:11:48,410
You don't have to see the
sun to know it's there,
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00:11:48,410 --> 00:11:49,727
it's coming in the window.
247
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That's an extreme example.
248
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You don't have to see the
other characters to know
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00:11:52,893 --> 00:11:55,585
they're still in the room
when you cut to a close-up.
250
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But what's in the frame
and why is it in the frame?
251
00:11:57,710 --> 00:12:01,250
And that's a question that I
ask myself a hundred times a day
252
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when I'm composing a shot.
253
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To this day.
254
00:12:03,620 --> 00:12:05,720
There's nothing automatic
about any of it.
255
00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:08,150
All of those decisions
are fresh decisions
256
00:12:08,150 --> 00:12:11,070
and they have to be
made every single day.
257
00:12:11,070 --> 00:12:12,640
So study art.
258
00:12:12,640 --> 00:12:13,990
Study photography.
259
00:12:13,990 --> 00:12:14,983
Still photography.
260
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Black and white photography.
261
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Understand light,
understand how it works.
262
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Those are great--
those are great basics.
263
00:12:20,770 --> 00:12:24,940
Before you ever pick up a motion
camera, study perspective.
264
00:12:24,940 --> 00:12:26,260
Study aerial perspective.
265
00:12:26,260 --> 00:12:28,690
What makes things look far away?
266
00:12:28,690 --> 00:12:33,330
So the most important thing
as a filmmaker in general
267
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is your power of observation.
268
00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:40,050
What you learn about
people by observing them.
269
00:12:40,050 --> 00:12:42,660
And participating with them.
270
00:12:42,660 --> 00:12:45,870
But there's a part of your
mind that's always observing.
271
00:12:45,870 --> 00:12:48,120
Even interactions where
you're directly involved, even
272
00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:50,190
in a heated argument or
in a torrid love affair
273
00:12:50,190 --> 00:12:53,010
or whatever it is, there's
a part of your mind
274
00:12:53,010 --> 00:12:56,910
that's a video camera that's
recording and making notes.
275
00:12:56,910 --> 00:12:59,640
Because ultimately you're going
to have to create something
276
00:12:59,640 --> 00:13:01,740
in a highly artificial
environment surrounded
277
00:13:01,740 --> 00:13:04,560
by lights and people
like we are right now,
278
00:13:04,560 --> 00:13:06,240
looking through
cameras, and you're
279
00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:09,180
going to have to create
a bit of reality that
280
00:13:09,180 --> 00:13:11,610
is credible to an audience.
281
00:13:11,610 --> 00:13:14,000
And it's especially
true in visual effects.
282
00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:15,740
You have to understand
how light works.
283
00:13:15,740 --> 00:13:17,930
You have to understand what
things really look like.
284
00:13:17,930 --> 00:13:20,630
Now that's if you're trying to
make a realistic visual effect.
285
00:13:20,630 --> 00:13:22,730
Some-- some people aren't
interested in reality,
286
00:13:22,730 --> 00:13:24,290
they might be going for some--
287
00:13:24,290 --> 00:13:27,320
some kind of heightened
or stylized look, or maybe
288
00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:29,270
it's a Pixar animated
film and the characters
289
00:13:29,270 --> 00:13:31,730
don't really exist and
everything is kind of
290
00:13:31,730 --> 00:13:33,110
heightened or stylized.
291
00:13:33,110 --> 00:13:38,550
That's great, but know the rules
before you break the rules.
292
00:13:38,550 --> 00:13:40,640
And these days with--
293
00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:43,400
with visual effects,
with the quality
294
00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:46,250
that's available
right now, there's
295
00:13:46,250 --> 00:13:48,680
nothing that can't
look 100% real.
296
00:13:48,680 --> 00:13:50,180
It's not-- it's not
about the tools,
297
00:13:50,180 --> 00:13:52,380
and not about how
expensive the tools are.
298
00:13:52,380 --> 00:13:55,100
It's about how good the
power of observation
299
00:13:55,100 --> 00:13:58,070
is of the people
manipulating the tools.
300
00:13:58,070 --> 00:14:01,070
And obviously that
buck finally stops
301
00:14:01,070 --> 00:14:04,770
on the desk of the director,
because the director's
302
00:14:04,770 --> 00:14:06,550
got to approve the shot or not.
303
00:14:06,550 --> 00:14:09,960
And it's going to cost you a
ton of money if you literally
304
00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:12,390
say,it doesn't look
real, try it again.
305
00:14:12,390 --> 00:14:15,630
And any filmmaker
should feel comfortable
306
00:14:15,630 --> 00:14:17,330
being able to do that.
307
00:14:17,330 --> 00:14:18,510
And then you have control.
308
00:14:18,510 --> 00:14:19,290
It's safer.
309
00:14:19,290 --> 00:14:21,970
You can control the lighting.
310
00:14:21,970 --> 00:14:24,210
It can always be exactly
the right time of day
311
00:14:24,210 --> 00:14:26,580
with the sun in exactly
the right position.
312
00:14:26,580 --> 00:14:29,010
But you have to be
very-- you have to be
313
00:14:29,010 --> 00:14:30,790
observant of the natural world.
314
00:14:30,790 --> 00:14:32,640
The key to visual
effects, I believe,
315
00:14:32,640 --> 00:14:38,258
the one great fundamental is
observe reality carefully.
316
00:14:42,650 --> 00:14:45,920
If you don't effects but you
want to do an effects film
317
00:14:45,920 --> 00:14:47,870
and you want to do
it on a low budget,
318
00:14:47,870 --> 00:14:52,190
get really chummy with some
aspiring visual effects
319
00:14:52,190 --> 00:14:54,530
people that have been noodling
around with this stuff,
320
00:14:54,530 --> 00:14:55,700
maybe doing it--
321
00:14:55,700 --> 00:14:59,480
maybe doing it at a
boutique effects house
322
00:14:59,480 --> 00:15:03,140
where they've actually been
hands-on and done shots,
323
00:15:03,140 --> 00:15:06,500
maybe working on
their own with apps
324
00:15:06,500 --> 00:15:08,000
like After Effects
and things like
325
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,210
that where you can do
relatively simple composites.
326
00:15:11,210 --> 00:15:14,840
Tracking-- tracking software
is readily available
327
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:16,790
now so that you
can track images.
328
00:15:16,790 --> 00:15:18,560
You can do composite work.
329
00:15:18,560 --> 00:15:23,640
You could even set up your
own facility if you wanted to.
330
00:15:23,640 --> 00:15:26,570
You could probably
put five or six seats
331
00:15:26,570 --> 00:15:29,750
in of Maya and Nuke
and things like that
332
00:15:29,750 --> 00:15:32,600
and just be able to do basics.
333
00:15:32,600 --> 00:15:34,460
So you've got a network.
334
00:15:34,460 --> 00:15:36,890
You've got to have
like-minded colleagues.
335
00:15:36,890 --> 00:15:42,523
You have to build your
little revolutionary army.
336
00:15:42,523 --> 00:15:43,940
You don't just
spend all your time
337
00:15:43,940 --> 00:15:45,860
knocking on doors trying to
have lunch with people that
338
00:15:45,860 --> 00:15:47,150
are way above you
in the food chain,
339
00:15:47,150 --> 00:15:48,380
you're wasting your time.
340
00:15:48,380 --> 00:15:50,000
You've got to work
at a peer level.
341
00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:54,080
There's no sort of inside
knowledge that so--
342
00:15:54,080 --> 00:15:55,730
that's a magic
bullet that's going
343
00:15:55,730 --> 00:15:58,910
to leap you up three levels
in the film industry.
344
00:15:58,910 --> 00:16:01,340
You have to work your way
up through those levels
345
00:16:01,340 --> 00:16:03,690
and you have to do it
by learning the craft.
346
00:16:03,690 --> 00:16:05,390
So it's a chicken
and egg problem.
347
00:16:05,390 --> 00:16:06,848
Who's going to give
you the budget?
348
00:16:06,848 --> 00:16:07,880
Well, probably nobody.
349
00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:09,860
So you have to figure
out how to do it
350
00:16:09,860 --> 00:16:12,710
for basically almost
nothing and build
351
00:16:12,710 --> 00:16:16,790
the skill set that is scalable
once you do get a little money.
352
00:16:16,790 --> 00:16:18,060
You've already done it.
353
00:16:18,060 --> 00:16:19,850
You've already done
examples of it.
354
00:16:19,850 --> 00:16:22,910
I'd already done,
working for someone else,
355
00:16:22,910 --> 00:16:25,370
working for Roger Corman
on super low-budget science
356
00:16:25,370 --> 00:16:29,930
fiction films, I'd done examples
of all the types of shots
357
00:16:29,930 --> 00:16:32,030
that I had in mind
for "Terminator."
358
00:16:32,030 --> 00:16:35,060
So I was taking what I
knew, I was meticulously
359
00:16:35,060 --> 00:16:36,680
planning how it was
going to be done,
360
00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:39,680
and-- and what that allowed
the-- the-- the effects
361
00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:45,020
people to do was to budget
very close to the bone.
362
00:16:45,020 --> 00:16:47,280
Because normally,
visual effects budgets,
363
00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:49,280
they have to pad them up
because they don't know
364
00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:51,110
what the director really wants.
365
00:16:51,110 --> 00:16:55,490
And that lack of precision
translates to additional costs,
366
00:16:55,490 --> 00:16:56,420
like a lot.
367
00:16:56,420 --> 00:16:58,050
They'll put in a
big fudge factor.
368
00:16:58,050 --> 00:17:01,490
It might be 30%, it might be
40%, because they don't know.
369
00:17:01,490 --> 00:17:04,963
But here, they could literally
budget almost to the dollar
370
00:17:04,963 --> 00:17:06,380
how much it was
going to cost them
371
00:17:06,380 --> 00:17:09,349
to do these shots because I
had been so precise in my--
372
00:17:09,349 --> 00:17:10,069
my previs.
373
00:17:10,069 --> 00:17:12,440
And that's what allowed us
to do the film for basically
374
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:14,060
$4 million below the line.
375
00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:19,880
So I felt I was
presenting a package
376
00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:22,880
to a low-budget producer
that was actually
377
00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:24,140
attractive and made sense.
378
00:17:24,140 --> 00:17:27,380
There was logic behind every
decision that was made.
379
00:17:27,380 --> 00:17:30,500
There was logic to shoot the
vast majority of the film
380
00:17:30,500 --> 00:17:32,780
on the streets of LA
with available light,
381
00:17:32,780 --> 00:17:37,040
and to only dip our toe into
the exotic environment that
382
00:17:37,040 --> 00:17:39,590
required the visual
effects sparingly.
383
00:17:39,590 --> 00:17:40,790
Pick our battles.
384
00:17:40,790 --> 00:17:42,500
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