FURIOSA MAD MAX Q&A w/ Director George Miller and Edgar Wright (Mad Max origin revealed!)

well okay so listen you know uh you know in you know in trailers you know in trailers when they say from the Visionary director of or from the Twisted mind of and usually it's always slightly overblown or annoying but his one man I think it fully applies to he's been blowing us all away for 45 years since the first Mad Max in 1979 and now here with the fifth film of the Saga please be upstanding for Dr George Miller [Applause] W I said nice things yeah um uh I think probably the first question we'll get to at the end is on that says how the hell do you make a film like that but we'll come to that and before we start that maybe you could tell us there we actually have like a connection with this film that relates to the leading lady so maybe you can tell that story well um when we when we decided to make this film I had no idea uh who could play furiosa uh given that that whoever was to play had big shoes to fil and um I happened we I was in London we had and you showed me the the first cut an early cut of lastar Soho and I sat and watched the the the movie it was just at the beginning of Co 2000 it was just before the lockdown it was like two nights before they locked down the UK yeah and we um and and I I was watching the the film and I was really caught up in the film and then Ana appeared and there was something very compelling about her and I don't remember exactly what I I I I I said that we went out to to to dinner and I empty restaurant was in an empty pre pandel yeah yeah that's right and we both had we both had sniffles yes I think we both thought we had it yeah and and and I and I said something like my memory of it was this I said you know Ana she'd be great for and you didn't know you didn't know what I was talking about what film and before I finish the sentence you said do it do it she she could do anything anything she's got it all that's my memory of it and you were so you were so confident about it because because we we known each other I thought okay that's about that's I I trust you trusted you I've heard that from other directors in the past and really fine directors but you never quite can get the the the truth sometimes but you were so confident you didn't even know what I was talking about and and and I was really uh and and so uh she actually did did some sort of some sort of uh tape for for us we talked about it she read the screen play and then we went through this preparation and about two weeks into the shoot I was you know I the day was I was I I went up to her and I said uh for me you're furiosa you're no longer are you and and and uh and you were absolutely right it's subsequently I learned why you was so confident she could do everything she's she's you know I could go on for and and I was and each as the film went on and the material was coming in she was doing such a a great work you know I'd say thanks edar thanks edar I remember the day afterwards I texted her and said you may get a text from George Miller did did and she was like what just um this is the second time I've seen it tonight and something when I saw it the first time when I was just in a screening with you I was really struck by how the ending uh sort of comes full circle with the first madmax in a way in terms of the word like a very creative revenge and I was just wondering before we get into furiosa obviously like Mad Max came out 45 years years ago in 1979 apart from the obvious what are the most Vivid differences between making this film and and making your first film oh huge actually uh mmax was uh a bate to me I I I I it did I didn't know at the time that uh things that in making any film is is um is like uh I I thought I thought if you prepared the hell out of a movie that it all the rest was it just a smooth execution and I wasn't prepared for all things going wrong and and I actually I actually even even though the film uh was successful I actually didn't think I was cut out for film making and um and and and uh so so I've certainly made more difficult films like the second one which was in as a result of doing the things that I I'm talking about Road Warrior or mmax 2 uh that was made uh as a result of all the things that I discovered from making the first film and that was much more arduous but it wasn't nearly as panicked and I'd say by the time all this time later that we' we did this film uh I'd learned um first of all I work with really fine cast and crew um but I've learned that um uh look after that first M I don't want to give long answers but but um after that first Mad Max um I remember talking to Peter we who' done two features and I said um GE I'm not cut out to do this is a why and I explain why nothing went the way it should it was like walking a big dog and I wanted to go this way and it dragged me off this way and and and uh he said but George it's always like that he used this analogy about uh Vietnam this is just the end of the Vietnam War he say it's like being on patrol with your platoon and you don't know where the U landmines are you don't know where the snipers are but you've got to finish the mission and you've got to be agile enough to adjust to any circumstance and still get the result and I I've carried that ever since and as we know it's always it's it can it can get quite crazy and it's really interesting then how to triage problems so you can actually find your way through and often come up with really good solutions to to that secondly all these years to even understand that and so whatever happened on this film weather Co and and and and Ju Just the rigor of doing heavy stunts and whatever whatever happened you know it it was it felt much more uh uh you know it felt more much more um I'm trying to find the notion of it much more comfortable even even the those moments when it got unpredict unpredictable that's that's the big difference across all those years one before we talk about furiosa I mean one thing about doing the road warrior in Mad Max 2 given that you had a tough experience on the first one the leap of ambition between the first and second one in terms of the style and the world is is huge so just I mean just talk about the the the I mean I think what's amazing about that film is it's so much more idiosyncratic and the style of It kind of remains into this film so what gave you the kind of um what gave you the sort of the courage to sort of go that much bigger with the second one well look the first one was very low budget the initial story was to be set in contemporary Melbourne about a Cop who family with same story and and and we we to do that and then we realized we couldn't afford to block us streets we couldn't afford extras we couldn't afford buildings uh to go into buildings or whatever it was very low budget so just just just to solve it we put a few years from now and went into a dystopian world so we could shoot we we could shoot in in uh in empty back streets on the edges of town we could go into buildings that were basically dilapidated they gave it to us for nothing and then inadvertently took the film into from uh it's a contempor and probably unlikely story within contemporary melbour at the time into into allegory and and it was and then despite all the all the trouble of making it and the and the the kind of Anguish and my best friend and Barron Kennedy my partner's best friend from school put money into it and there's no other financing and friends of theirs and so and so on and I was desperate not to lose their their money anyway he succeeded internationally in in in in um in Japan they said oh he's a samurai uh and in in Scandinavia they said he's a lone Viking and and the French said it's they Western on Wheels and suddenly I thought okay we tapped into some archetype that led me to Joseph Campbell and understanding and it's being I'm still doing it not not only trying to figure out how to tell stories but why we tell stories and and and and and just like the American Western from the from the silent movies were allegorical so the this you know these films are we took that into madmax 2 much more conscious of it and uh and and and even though that was a a kind of a Wilder production I Knew by then that we were on patrol in Vietnam and we were you know had to get through it and whatever happened we had to adjust to everything and so it was bit by bit um you know I I I I was I was asked to to talk about um to to to write something about St Spielberg I was L lucky enough to to work with him way to to watch him on set way back when we did Twi Z own movie and I had this sense about him you know the fol tale of BR rabbit in the Bri Bri patch he it felt like he was BR rabbit in the Bri patch he was completely At Ease on the movie Set and I thought God this is his natural habitat and and it's taken me all this time to get close to that and it's really interesting to to to to understand why what between Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road obviously he made other films in the interim live action and animation but what brought you back after 30 years what could you not let go of that you had to return to this world the big the biggest thing by look it's always driven by story and an idea came to me is is um you know that there's always a shift in in in in anything we do and particularly in in cinema and I realized that the audiences are reading we speed reading the language of cinemon now in a way and I thought what would we like to tell a story in which all the exposition had to be told on the run in other words it's a continuous Chase or race and then the idea was what if the what if the McGuffin soal was human so it was the story of Five wise being being that that's sort of came to me as an idea but the biggest thing by far once that story was starting to form was the difference in the technology um I you know I was lucky enough to be there at the beginning of the digital dispensation early '90s with the movie Babe uh we were at Universal simply because they just done Jurassic Park they understood what what what uh you know what what the technology could do we could make the animals talk um and that drove bab uh the bab films and then Andrew lesy the cinematographer on Baye went to shoot Lord of the Rings early early 2000s um he showed me the first motion capture of golum I had no idea what the motion capture was but I realized that's how we can get the the Penguins to dance in the story we had of the happy feed and and and having done the animations I suddenly realized this technology you can the cameras are much more ed are everything is much much Freer on on on every level of film making so to do that with an action film doing things that we couldn't do three decades before or whatever it was was very very enticing again always driven by story but the tools they as they're changing was very exciting to me and that informed so much of what we did on in Fury Road um even the simplest things like erasing your tracks in the sand and I remember reading about lawence of Arabia they had camel tracks and imagine you do a tank then you what do you do with the sand they bring helicopters in from the Jordanian Army that took a long time and some guy figured out some some grip or something figured out to a kind of on a big bit of like a a fishing rod putting one of those powder Puffs you know our mothers used to makeup REM yeah yeah make well the the P I think and and do that with the sand now now by the time you get to the desert in Namibia and you do you know a number of takes you could just go over your tracks keep the traction you want and need and AR raise the others um so many things on so many levels including safety that was the big enticement for me uh doing and then just to finish that that that the difference between the technology we used on Fury Road not almost a decade ago and what we did on furios is again quite significant I mean we we're in an Ever evolving process it's always been the same in C I want to talk about that in a second but one thing I wanted to ask is am I right in thinking that you wrote furiosa before Fury Road is that correct or at the same time no no we wrote Fury Road first but in order to make to in order to inform Fury Road we started to write the backstories of furiosa and Max because there's no way you could have even designed the film just the physical design costumes and cars and weapons but even or or even the behavior the all the gestures the language and and and so on of the film unless it was an underlying logic and and otherwise it would be too random so we had to write write some sort of document about the world and and furiosa's story and Max's story and that and and and they eventually that because the film kept getting delayed that furiosa ended up as a screen play so by the time the we started actually for real on on on Fury Road we were able to give that to the cast and crew and uh I remember indeed uh Charlie said when she read it probably about 6 months before R furios she said can we shoot this one first I said shall Le we planning this other film no we we we couldn't of course but but but um but but and and so uh when Fury Road got traction uh it it it felt it felt it it it felt that we should do it I was you know very engaged in the story and what was interesting to me is that it was a different it it wasn't a repetition of Fury Road the the two films as you saw one bus directly into the next one and and that was you know that that was interesting to me you know one happens over 3 days and two nights this is 18 years really and that was a a different Rhythm now if I'm wrong but Fury Road wasn't so much written as drawn or I rather like you work with a long time with Brandon McCarthy drawing the entire movie did you adopt a similar process with this no no um well Fury Ro was drawn and and uh and and then we then we had to write a screenplay for to go to to the studio and cast and crew because like storyboards you because they don't have the RH of time imp you know really implied you can't really judge it so we wrote a screenplay but it was it had illustrations and and concept argument a bit a bit like reading you know I I remember reading baby driver and you sent me you you sent me the the script which is I read on my iPad and you had those little icons where you click on the on those little earphones and as you reading it you were listening to the music that you eventually had in the movie that's that's the sort of thing we just did visually anyway to answer your question that was all storyboarded because that was by that was by far the most accurate way we could get convey the information of the shot you could describe it but you it's much easier to illustrate it also on that film we did a number of sequences with previous fairly Clum previous can be quite quite slow this film was almost flipped we certainly had storyboards but with extended sequences we used a system that uh guy noris uh who who Who's the second unit director St coordinat and we you know working been working together for so long and 21y old stuntman on the road warrior yeah 21y old stuntman on the road warrior played about three roles now he and his two sons developed this system called proxy which is basically using the Unreal Engine to to uh and the physics and and so on and and uh uh to to actually do uh basically map out the secrets in in in real time you could you could you could design the vehicle that that that Chrome War rig uh incredibly precisely you could you could take every every bike and every vehicle and every human uh you could put in your cameras we use the edge arm with the crane a lot there were also a thing called Tik Tock which which was a sort of a a crane system to get those guys who were flying and their parachutes and Par sales and things like that we could do all of that virtually and then use frames from that as story boards so we had so on on the call sheet you get the the story boards and and then you but then you had everything the movement a full simulation not not a simul but a full Rend uh rendering of the of the scene uh we called it we we modified toy box I didn't I didn't want to have the humans looking real so they looked like little toy soldiers still looking like their characters so they're colored a certain way CU I I didn't want to inter one of the things I say to storyboard Isis I don't want to see performance on the on the faces uh that one great story B I work with um Mark ston can't help himself and and and because he does a lot of comics and I'll I'll never forget um there was a shot he drew in Fury Road um of furyosa and um and I realized that Charlie's based to performance on what he had drawn it's one shot just looking over her over her arm is it for you and and and I said to him please don't do it on this because U because it's it's already preempting the work of the actor so I made sure that the that all all the characters in this were still like little colored plastic soldiers um specifically for that but if if you wanted to do something much more uh you know much more real uh you could do it anyway that was the big difference on this film and we did all the big sequences and even blocking some of the more static scenes simply simply because uh we could do it uh it was a kind of previs that then goes into postv which basically sets up all the visual effects that you need to do so to again that tool wasn't available 10 years ago we talk about just let's just take the stairway sequence in the middle of the film L as an example even with that previous tool like when when you're sitting around doing that like one of the things about the way you direct is that like the the choice of the angles is always perfect there's nothing really repeated there's no real sort of coverage in the sense of some light action directors might shoot something with seven cameras and just hose it down and then cut it together but you're incredibly specific and meticulous so even before you get on to the set how long does that take for you and guy and I'm not sure maybe your V effects who who would be part of that team and how long would it take to work out the angles for that starway sequence that uh that that that happens in the process of doing the uh in doing the the the Bry or the toy box thing that we called it um look I just on the any action sequence the first thing is it's got to be character driven that's obvious um otherwise it's just surface um so so it's you're looking at the dramaturgy exactly as you do a dialogue sequence or or something else um the second thing is I um it's a kind of there's no question it's a kind of visual music and in the same way that music there's a strong call relationship between one note or one chord and the next I believe it's the same with with with with uh you know with with C Cinema particularly kinetic sequences you know with the faster Rhythm so you that's got to be built into the design of the film we can do it today you can't once you had to write it and you can't describe that and you can't even really indicate it on story boards but now you can do that so that's that's that's the first that's the first thing um I uh the the um so putting that together w w would putting that together was really really key connecting each one moment to the next and once you do that and that's done to be honest that's explored while we're putting it together knowing what the story is knowing what you do I think we did some rough story boards knowing and and concept art on the way but you're building the sequence uh to a point where uh you've got enough information for everybody to know exactly what's happening and there are a lot of people uh involved in in in that stuff you know not the least of the safety people all the rigging every single person has got harnesses on and there's there's there's there's you know of course there's scaffolding and and and things the mobile scaffolding that that you you can erase it you know you erase it post and things like that so that's a way and and and the other thing that happens that happened in this film for instance with that with that war ring is we we thought look we need something else so as we're doing the previous we we we decided to use those claws those hydraulic Claws and something because they become so it's much more uh it it's much more plastic and you're evolving and plus I I've got I've got a strong visual imagination but I could never in my mind keep all all those all all those spatial Dynamics in my head uh unless we had a tool for instance you know we were under the war RG we're on top of the war RG in front of the back and we were in the airspace around it and you could imagine the shots but to see how one shot Flo into the next I I I you could do it but you couldn't hold the whole sequence in your head and so and then and then as you're putting together in a way that's readable then you can say oh then you see the opportunity for something else so it's almost like going out and improvising the sequence but you're doing it virtually and then you're making those adjustments does that make sense absolutely I mean what at what point because obviously you work with your um your uh wife Margaret six as your editor did she get involved at that point or did she come in when you shot the footage no no she gets involved way after we shot she doesn't both on Fury Road and and this she she she sort of glanced at the screenplay but but when she's in The Cutting Room she she's putting aside all the aspirations what we intended to shoot everything and just Jud and just judges each each shot and each frame basically on its parents regardless of what I wanted it to be she will which is which is really great because she sing it fresh yeah but that's great I mean something that's I mean it's interesting that you say you can't understand the geography of it because I I think you're the director who is the best at spatial geography in action and in drama it's just incredible and uh so it's interesting to me that you say that because I would say that that's the thing I take away from it I mean one other thing I we're going to unfortunately have to wrap up soon but like I want to just ask a couple more things just talk to me about when I'm watching a film like that I have no sort of concept at some point what is there and what isn't what is location what it sets like especially like in the bullet Farm in that quarry I really trying to figure out what I'm actually looking at so what is that process and who are you you're sitting down with your production design and your VFX person to sort figure out how to extend a sequence like that say with that one specific location what exactly are we looking at you you're looking um first of all uh the location actually a location very similar to it exists way in the center of Australia there's a gold mine that that looks very very similar to to that and um and I work with with a wonderful production designer Colin Gibson who wants to do everything real that gold mine is in very very remote location has about accommodation for about uh uh 100 people working on the mine and it's got all the equipment and so on the shooting crew on this film was 1,200 so so so to do so to do U to do that and cl say no we got to go out there we got to go out there we'd still be there I really believe we will so what we did is we basically B basically took most of the shape of particularly the the the main the the the the main uh Road where that that uh that was at the mine where where the truck and everything sort of Happ where they Waring and where everything happens and we took that and we um reproduced the key moments on a location much closer to Sydney where we were free to sort of really do Earthworks and so on build the big port colors added things that weren't available in the M had you where they were kind of what we call the FAS those where people stayed you know you had a sense that there were there were places where the people who worked at w of farm uh were you know there were sort of accommodation around the walls of it we both the tears were there in the original mind but we added some the various Terraces uh the buildings for instance uh there was a there was a thing we call a conveyor belt a big big some some sort of conveyor belt which is that big arm that catches the Waring that existed at the mine there were there were lots of excavators and and things like that that existed there but we actually got you know got them uh in like location much closer to Sydney so so and then we did you know well we couldn't do in in the mind we we we created it digitally so it's a it's definitely a mixture of real look there's the the big the big things with these films which um in which there's we we don't defy the laws of physics there's no people flying or Vehicles flying and um and and so you have to have what's what's essentially where you predict the I scan of of the audience will be which I think you can shutle shut you can you know where the majority of the eyes are going to be scanning you got to make sure that that's you've got to make sure that that's real and and and the rest you can build around it so you know when when you see dementus ride into a storm that's Chris Hemsworth riding into a storm but all that you know all that dust storm and and stuff that he rides into has to be created digitally you could do it you could do it uh you know with massive wind machines and so on but you wouldn't get the result that you're looking for so it's a mixture of two two quick questions to wrap up one from me and one from somebody else um Fury Road and furiosa I think can both uh be described as pure Cinema but what does that phrase mean to you oh let look I I started you know I I got into film simply by my I I used to do uh I used to draw and paint a lot that was my my interest and and I I I got in and and then I became interested in cinema and and I was I read Kevin Brown's book The pra gone by had a big effect on me uh he basically said all the syntax of Cinema you know Cinema is just 130 years old and and and a brand new language that is now global it's a universal language and the language was invented by the silent filmmakers in Europe and basically America uh my understanding and you know others might know better I remember reading once that when they first when people first saw a a closeup of a head turning they screamed because they thought it was a disembodied head and and that now that that language is read by little kids before they read in their own language anyway so I went into the cinema Master ke and haral lyd and and and and and I really for me they I realized that that Kevin Brown was right when sound came along as we all know things slowed down a lot and then the equipment and everything got more agile during the next decades and now we're at a point now with digital cameras uh you know you know there is an argument depending on the film for shooting Sy Lloyd but having shot you know for a long time on Celluloid by boy it's such a it's such an Antiquated system by by even for instance just I'm off the track but uh but but but I remember on uh on the first Mad Max we had an explosion and we had to and we had I think two cameras on it and we wanted to shoot the explosion I think uh I think we wanted to shoot at 96 frames or even 48 frames to put the mag on loaded up I don't know 2,000 foot reels we basic and then for somebody to actually uh start the camera and then be driven out you used half of the 2,000 ft just in that moment and if anything happened or it was delayed you'd have the explosion and you've run out of you've run out of film now the chips at least 45 minutes you can start the camera and get everyone out just on that simple you'd never make the sort of films that you could I'm I'm IO Wonder of of how great Cinema was done uh uh you know in in those days the time it would take to do it um uh and to do it for real uh just is um is you know is quite extraordinary to me anyway so so um so what was question I think you answered it pure Cinema yeah P there's no question to me and look I I I you know I I I I I remember hearing Roman palansky say there's only one perfect place for the camera at any given moment and having done animation I was able to do that in in in in in in practice I I saw that that was the case and and um and and and I'll give you a really I'll try to make this quick and really if you saw Happy Feet you you you meet the mother and you meet the father no you meet the mother and father and then you meet the egg and then little the little pigment comes out and the family is is together that's the you know opening St if you like of of of the movie then we then we cut to uh originally we cut to a school teacher who's teaching all the little penguins and and when we watched the film and it was all lensed it was fully performed uh voices and pretty good rendering of what it would look like and suddenly I realized that a made a real mistake the audience had no idea where the film who were the key characters because we go we meet Mother Father Little Penguin and a school teacher we there's no Direction there so we without changing anything except the camera we reens the sequence where instead of seeing the school teacher we see the little penguin go to school we follow the penguin into the into school and and we tell the story at that moment the audience knows purely by by by the point of view of the camera that this is the story of a little penguin we set up the story and I tell you had we not done that the the the the film would have lost all its Rhythm it would be another 10 minutes before you realize ah this is the guy we're following so palanski was right and by and and that and the next film I was doing was was Fury Road it was real and for a while there I thought gee I've really got to be thinking really really carefully that's to where the camera's got to be at any moment and uh and and so anyway that's what I mean by pe I guess well funny enough my last question has already just been answered because this is from our mutual friend Ana Taylor joy and her question was what informed furiosa that you learned while making happy feeds so she was like way ahead of us that was really her question you already just literally just answered it yeah well I think we have to wrap up there I not just for tonight not just for this film but let's thank George Miller for 45 years of [Applause] incredible very [Applause] here

Channel: The Imperial Communique

Views: 19,369

Keywords: Mel Gibson, Tom Hardy, Feature film, Dystopia, Wastelands, Australia

Id: 5khLTrmp2Xw

Length: 39min 59sec (2399 seconds)

Published: Sun May 26 2024