Transcripts
1. Welcome: Hi. I'm Piotr Zlotorowicz
and I'm a Film Director. I graduated directing at Polish national film
school in Lodz. When I'm recording this,
my recent feature, Faithbreaker, is premiering
at film festivals. Today, I want to teach
you how to shoot scenes that are potentially
dangerous to actors. Since I started making
movies in 2004, I had acquired a few challenging scenes
where my team had to hire a professional stunt man in order to shoot what was
planned in the script. Now, it doesn't
really matter what is the dangerous act that
you're dealing with. To shoot your film, you need to cooperate with a stunt coordinator
to make it happen. In this course, I'm
going to give you tools to communicate your
ideas with your team. You will also get
practical tips and tricks coming from 18
years of experience. We will begin with
the scene that I shot few years ago that involves
falling from the horse. I'm going to show
you how we were able to shoot the scene
with just one camera. I'm going to teach
you how to have a productive
rehearsal by showing you never-before-seen backstage
footage of preparations, and then I'm going
to teach you how to shoot a scene with
multi-camera setup. Finally, we are going to
analyze a stunt where you need to work under a
regime of a master shot, so the whole scene
is being shot in one uninterrupted,
continuous take. Now, even if you're not interested in making
films with stunts, there is still lots of value
in knowing the process of preparation that you need
to go through as a director. In this course, I'm
showing you how to use storyboards and other types of charts to express your ideas. You'll gain access to materials
that I created when I was preparing to shoot the scene that I'm
featuring in this course. In this class, all the theory
is backed up by examples. Also, you'll be able to practice these new skills with
three exercises. If you'll decide to post
your class projects, I'll personally
give you feedback, that way, we can all
learn as a community. So hopefully, see you
in the class. [MUSIC]
2. Prepping with Stunt Coordinator: [MUSIC] Thank you
for taking my class. Please remember that
at anytime you can speed up or slow down the
lesson tempo if you want. I usually watch lectures
with 1.5 speed. However, during these lectures, I will be showing
you examples scenes. If you choose to speed
up the lecture tempo, just remember to turn it
back to normal whenever we will be watching
the example scenes. Let's begin with a question. Why would you even
need a stuntman to perform all the dangerous
task instead of an actor? Wouldn't it be great if an
actor himself would do it? It certainly happened in
history of Hollywood. A famous example
was John Wayne who performed all his
stunts by himself. Well, I checked it out
and this rumor is untrue. John Wayne did some
of his stunts, but nothing really dangerous. Now, let's watch a
clip of the example. [NOISE] [LAUGHTER] Now, you can see in this example
that he is secured by a stuntman who is making sure that the actor stays intact. In really dangerous scenes, professionals did
the stunts for him. You need to understand
that the actor shouldn't be the one
performing the stunts. It might be tempting and some actors may even want to
do the stunts themselves, but it's just not practical. It doesn't matter if your film
has a small budget or not. First of all, if something
will happen to an actor, your whole production
will be stopped. If an actor unfortunately
breaks his arm, you have to wait until it will
heal to continue shooting. Another thing is that stuntmen are trained to do
dangerous things better. They know how to
fall or take punches that don't result in
them getting hurt. They have much better
reflexes than actor. Even if things will go
wrong during the stunt, with professional stuntmen, you have a better chance of everyone getting
out in good health. If you have anything potentially
dangerous in your film, hire a professional stuntman. Period. Now, another subject is assessing whether you even need a stuntman to do the stunt. If it's a scene where a car
is crashing into a building, it's probably better to do it without having anyone
driving the car. Now, there are a lot
of ways you can do it. You can have the car
on rails that you're going to erase in
post-production. Or you can have the car remotely controlled
by an operator. Take a look at another scene. It's from Gegen die
Wand or Head-On. [MUSIC] In a scene that
was planned like that, there was no reason to put
anyone inside of a car. As a director, you are in charge of the quality
of your film and you need to work closely with your production team
to find a way to achieve the best possible effect that the budget of
your movie can handle. Since the producer is the one responsible for
safety on the set, you two need to work closely to assess whether the idea you have of how you want to
shoot the scene demands an involvement
of a stuntman. But putting aside
all the exceptions, in 99 percent of the cases, you will be dealing with
situations where you'll need to shoot the dangerous part of the scene with a stunt double, who's going to
replace your actor. In this course, we are
going to talk about the scenes that require
working with stuntmen. Now, whatever that situation in your script is going to be, it can be a car accident or a jump or falling
from the horse. Your job is to direct the scene in a way that you can swap the actor with a stuntman in a manner that is invisible
for the audience. Then after the dangerous
activity is done, you need to swap them again. Now, [LAUGHTER] let me repeat it because it's super important. Your job as a director is to plan a scene in such
a way that will give you the opportunity to
seamlessly do those transitions. Let's talk about the
process that you're going through as a director who is preparing a
scene with a stunt, but from a production
standpoint. First of all, you and
your producer assess that the scene is potentially
dangerous and that you will need a
stuntman involved. You as a director, have to have an initial idea, how do you want the
action to look like? With this idea, you're
going to meet with a stunt coordinator to discuss ways of achieving the
effect that you want. A stunt coordinator
is in most cases, a very experienced stuntman
who is going to help you design how you're going to
shoot this particular scene. He's the one who is
going to tell you what is possible and what
is not possible. It's very important
that your director of photography also
attends this meeting. With this stunt coordinator, you're going to establish
what is possible, and with director
of photography, you're going to plan
how you're going to shoot the scene in a
form of a storyboard. A storyboard is a series of drawings similar
to the comic book, where you're going to draw the images that
you want to shoot. You and your DOP
are going to pick the exact shots where the actor will be
replaced by the stuntman. Then when you have
the storyboard ready, it's time to consult
it again with a stunt coordinator to make sure that you're all
on the same page. We're going to go through
this process in detail during the case study
later in this course. Now, I want you to remember that communication and patience
is the most important here. These scenes are very technical and the more you're going to plan ahead, the better. See you in the next lecture.
3. Creating an anticipation of the Cut: [MUSIC] Whenever you're faking
something in your film, you are going to
hide it under a cut. A cut is a transition
between two shots. There are rules
about making cuts. It's an art form in itself. We're not going to
talk much about the elusive art of film editing. It's not the subject
of this course. However, planning a cut is
your job as a director. In a situation where you
are dealing with a stunt, you may want to plan a cut
for two possible reasons. One is swapping an actor
with a stuntman, obviously. The other reason for a
cut is moving the point of view of the camera
to a better location. Is because some students
are going to look good only from one or two angles. Let's take a look at an example from John Wayne movie that
we have already seen. Now, they have faked
a punch there. Let's see the scene
one more time just to refresh your memory. [BACKGROUND] Now, obviously, they have moved the camera to this new location because
they didn't want to show that the actor who was playing and Native American didn't
hit John Wayne. From this angle, it would
be visible that the fist of Native American flew in
front of John Wayne's mouth. From the back,
however, it works. Now, to show the punch
from that angle, they needed to change the
position of the camera. The difficult part is that they need a reason
to make a cut, otherwise, it will
look suspicious. If the situation is static
and nobody is moving, and all of a sudden you cut
to another side of the bar, the audience is going to anticipate that something
is going to happen. You don't want
them to anticipate the punch just by making a cut. It's considered bad editing. Good editing always follows action and not the
other way around. In this particular example, they needed a pretext
to make a cut. They used a gesture of putting
the bottle on the bar. Any decisive move of an actor can be used as
a pretext to make a cut. Therefore, it's
much more natural to change the point of
view to another angle. Take a look at it one more time. [BACKGROUND] Now, I want you to be aware of that when we will be
analyzing other scenes.
4. Working with Stuntmen on the Set: [MUSIC] Sometimes
stunt coordinator is going to perform
the stunt himself. Usually, he will hire
a colleague that specializes in this kind
of a stunt that is needed, but in smaller productions, it happens more often. In the example scene that we're going to analyze in
the next lecture, the stunt coordinator had
problems finding a stunt man whose body type was similar to our actor and decided
to do it himself. Fortunately for us, he
was similar enough. Whoever is going
to be on the set, you as a director have to treat a stunt man
as a performer. I remember when I
was working with stunt man for the first time, I was very much surprised how involved they are in the
process of making the scene. How much they want to help
you realize your vision. After every attempt, the stunt
man would ask, how was it? Do you want me to
change something? You as a director, have to provide that
feedback for them. Remember that the
stunts are a part of your film and they can be carried out in
a number of ways. This is something that have
an impact on your story. To give you an example, we are going to watch two
clips of people getting shot. Now here's the first scene. Prepare yourself. This is going to be
mayhem. Let's watch. [NOISE] That's enough. [LAUGHTER] You could see
that these stunts men, were making an extra
effort with the arms and moving their whole body to make the scene more dramatic. A little bit over the
top in my opinion, this film haven't aged well. It's Wild Bunch
by Sam Peckinpah. Anyway, if you don't
give your stunt men any directorial notes about
how you want them to behave, you could expect them
doing that since this is a generic way of
being shot in the movies. Now, you can tell
stunt men to be more realistic like in
the next example. Let's watch Inception. [NOISE] You've seen these two men
falling from bullets. In Inception, Christopher Nolan wanted
to show the audience that these men with guns are bots that are spawned
like in video games. That's why he told stunt men to fell as if they were turned off. As you can see, it all
depends on the movie that you are doing and the
effect that you're after. Another thing is that
you need to understand that you have to be
decisive on your film set. If after the take
everything worked, you can't expect stunt men to do another take just
to make it better. You have to understand
that in every take, they are risking their health. If they succeeded and
the shot is acceptable, don't ask them to do it again. When you are directing actors, you can have as many takes as time on the
set will allow you. You may feel that
he or she needs one more take to make a good
performance much better. With the stunt man,
you shouldn't do it. You have to be aware of something that is
called a micro injury. Whenever you're going to
hit yourself lightly, you may suffer an injury that is so minor that you
don't even feel it. A stunt man who is performing the same fall
time and time again, during different takes is inflicting this type of
injuries on himself. After few years, these little injuries
may come back to them in a form of a disease or
vulnerability to contusions. Every stunt man is aware
of this phenomenon, so don't be angry at
them if they want a specific reason why they
need to do the stunt again. It's because their
health is on the line. You may get yourself in very interesting discussions on the set with your stunt men. In case of any problems, remember that your stunt
coordinator should be present on the set and assist you with the conversations
with the stunt men. I gave you some
fundamental theory, but every scene is
different and it's much easier to explain it by
giving you the example. Therefore, in the next lecture, we're going to have a case study of a scene
that I shot few years ago. It's a scene where we had a stunt man falling from
the horse two times. I'm going to show you the steps that we took to
prepare for shooting. In the whole course, I decided to give you
three examples of the scenes with different
ways of using the camera. The purpose of this is
to show you how much the production
circumstances impact the methods of achieving
the effect that you want. Meaning, how you're going to stage the scene for the camera. With the first example, I'm showing you how to shoot a stunt with just one camera. Very useful when
you're beginning as a director and you're working
with a smaller budgets. See you in the next lecture.
5. Filming stunts with one camera - case study - 4 best advices: [MUSIC] In this lecture,
we are going to analyze a scene that I directed. This is a teaser scene that we shot during the
development period. Back then, I was a director that hasn't shot his
first feature yet. This film was supposed to be
my first full-length film. The goal of the
scene was to show potential investors
what the film is about, the main conflict
between the characters, and how the film is
going to look like. We chose the scene where
there was horse training because we wanted to show that we are able to
film it successfully. Today this project is on hold. I'm planning on
rewriting the script as soon as I'm going to finish
working on my second feature. Anyway, I'm pleased
that I can show you the clip and teach you working with stuntmen
in the process. The dangerous part is obviously
falling from the horse. In this clip that I'm
about to show you, there are two falls. The first one we
see from far away; it's the one that
you see behind me. The second one is
much more dramatic because we are closer
with the camera. I'm going to stop the
scene right after the second fall and then
we're going to talk about it. Let's watch. [NOISE] [FOREIGN] [NOISE] In the second
part of the scene, there is going to be a
confrontation between brothers. But I stopped it since we are here to talk about the stunts. With the first stunt, the camera is so far away
that we didn't have to find a clever way to swap the
actor with a stuntman. This was shot so wide
that we weren't concerned that someone would recognize
that this is not an actor. The second stunt was much more trickier because the
camera is closer. Let's look at this
situation shot by shot. [NOISE] There is only one shot
with the stuntman. I'm going to mark the shots
for you and replay it. [NOISE] Let's take a look at the moment of
first transition. You see the actor walking
towards the horse. He starts mounting the horse, then we have a cut, and the person who finishes mounting the horse
is a stuntman. The key here is concealing the
cut under a physical move. Whenever a character is
making a sharp move, it's a good pretext
to make a cut. This move can be shutting a
door or punching someone. Whenever it's going to be, you have to plan it
ahead in detail, especially when you're working with just one camera
like we did here. This is my first advice, plan everything to
the last detail. Use storyboards so everyone know exactly what is your idea. These storyboards will be
your main tool in working with your stunt coordinator and your director
of photography. The three of you
should plan everything beforehand and then show it
to the rest of the crew. Now, let's look at
the storyboards that we created when we were
preparing for the scene. I'm going to focus on the exact moment of
the first transition. As you can see here, I drew it by hand on paper. If you want to take a look
at this at your own pace, please download this
course guidebook. I especially marked
which shot is the one that we are swapping an
actor with a stuntman. Cascadeur in Polish
means stuntman. Now, it may feel that it's boring to be so
meticulate about it, but trust me, precision
makes it work. If you try to freestyle
a scene like that, you're probably going to fail. My first advice was planning everything
to the last detail. Now, my second advice
is having a rehearsal. If it's possible for you to see the stunt earlier, do it. This is a rehearsal that we
did the day before shooting. They already transported
the horse to the location so we could
have an hour to try stunts. This is our stunt coordinator, Arthur, who also did the stunt. He is an amazing performer and a great specialist as well. I'm looking forward to
working with him again. Here you can see him wearing all the protective gear that was hidden under the costume
during the shooting. As you can see, me and my
director of photography were filming to look for
interesting camera angles. Afterwards, we would
review these recordings. Arthur delivered on the stunt what was promised
with the horse, so we decided to stick to what was planned
in the storyboard. Now, you can consider a
rehearsal of a stunt a luxury. When you're crushing a
grain silo into a building, or you're crushing two cars, you're not going to
have a rehearsal. It's just going to happen once
on the set and that's it. But if it's something
like a fight scene or a fall or people
who are on fire, anything that has a
choreography to it, it meets a rehearsal. Remember about that. Now, my third advice is shooting the scene in the right
order, shot by shot. Usually when you are
shooting a scene that is so technical and you
have everything planned, you may be tempted to
shoot it out of order. Maybe there will be
a better light in the afternoon from another
angle of the camera or other production
reasons that you will be asked to mix the order of
the shots, don't do it. With actions that depend
on the movement so much, you need to shoot
them one-by-one. The movement continuity
has to be the same. Imagine that the stunt man would sit on the horse much
slower than the actor, and then the cut wouldn't work. The audience would feel that
there was something wrong. They may not exactly know
why, but they will feel it. By shooting the scene
in the right order, it's much easier to ensure that the continuity of the
movement is right. In my opinion, in my scene, the first transition
when an actor is mounting a horse is perfect. But let's take a look at the moment during the
second transition [NOISE] You see that? It still works, but it's not perfect. You can see that
the stunt man was moving a lot faster
than the actor. Take a look again [NOISE] Is good enough, but it could be better. I remember that while editing, we had to use this
particular shot because in other takes, the actor wouldn't roll fast enough at the
beginning of a shot. As a director, you need
to be aware of that. Now, how can you control the continuity of the movement
when you're shooting, when you're on the set? You need to ask the camera
man to play the clip with the successful stunt and
judge it on the spot. You can also hire an onset editor who's going
to make the edits on the set. Is very smart choice. When we were making this scene, we had no budget for that. But if I could afford it, then I would want to have
a support like that. Instead, I remember that I asked the camera assistant to play the shot with a
successful stunt, and then I would estimate the intensity
of the movement by eye. Shooting the film,
shot by shot in the right order gives
you this opportunity. Now, let's talk about the fourth advice that
I already brushed up on while talking about keeping the right order of the shots and continuity
of the movement. The fourth advice
is committing to the right shot as
you are shooting. When we are directing actors, we tend to choose
the right shots at the editing table or your
editor does it for you. Well, scenes with stunts, demand deciding then
and there on the spot. Now, why is this important? Do you remember when I told you about continuity
of the movement? Each shot is going to
differ a little bit. You cannot control fully how a stunt man is going
to fall from a horse. Let's take a look at the
shots that I have chosen. He could have easily fall with his head on the other side. Then what? It would
be uneditable. That's why you need
to decide then and there which shot
is going to be. It may sound scary
because you may think, "What if I choose
the wrong shot?" But I don't think you will, because stunt scenes
are very technical. The stunt man either succeeded in doing the
stunt or he didn't. Is completely different
than working with actors. When you have a
dialogue scene with an actor and you're directing
their subtle emotions, you'll probably need
to make decisions, which shot to choose when you're at the editing
table, it's normal. With dialogue scenes, you really need to feel the mood of the scene
to make a decision. Here, it's much more simple. I mean, trust me, you're going to see it. If he was successful, then he was successful. If he failed, you're
also going to see it the and we'll
ask him to do it again. As you can see, with all these four devices
that I gave you, they all demand
you being able to watch the preview of
the stunt on the set. It's really crucial
that you have your own preview monitor. It's also important that you ask a camera assistant
to show you the shot of the stunt
whenever you need to control the continuity
of the movement. Be sure to show the
shot of a stunt to to actor so after
he hears action, he can emulate the
movement of the stunt man. When we were shooting the scene, we had the digital
preview monitor outside of this riding school. As you can see, this was far away since it's such
a vast complex. To work faster, I ended up giving Director's
remarks next to the camera. I previewed everything with the actors on the
focus polar screen, which was attached
to the camera. When you are preparing to
shoot a scene like this, you have to plan beforehand
how you're going to preview the stunt on the set. It's best if you have your
own wireless monitor. A monitor like this is called a clamshell for some reason. Just ask for it, someone from your
production team. Or if you're producing
the film yourself, then ask the camera rental. They'll have it for sure. See you in the next lecture.
6. Class Project 1: [MUSIC] [NOISE] [FOREIGN]. Now, we've begun this
class with a scene. I did it on purpose
so it would be more comfortable for
you to play it again. Now, it's obviously a Jackie Chan scene
without a stunt man. As I said before, if this
film would be produced today, your production team would want you to shoot the scene with a stunt man instead
of a lead actor. Rightfully so, he got hurt during shooting of
this particular stunt, and had to go to the hospital. Now, in this exercise, I want you to imagine that you're a director of this film. Your class project is to
prepare the storyboard where you will point out how
you would shoot this scene. You are restricted to
having just one camera. In the original scene, there are several camera angles, you are supposed to
choose just one. Now, it's important that
you do it on paper, and after reading it, other people can understand
what is your plan. I'm expecting you to
plan three shots. First one with the actor, then the second one
with the stunt man, and then the third one with the actor again after
the transition. If you want, you can
make it more complex, but planning just
three shots is enough. Now, I hope you remember
when we were talking about creating an
anticipation of the cut. This scene is a good
project because it's a negative
example of this rule. In this scene, the editing
is foreshadowing the action. Remember, I told you that the cuts should
follow the action, not the other way around. Take a look at the moment
before Jackie is going to jump. [NOISE] As you have seen, before Jackie
jumped, we could see him from far away
in the wide shot. That way, we knew that
he's going to jump. In this case, they did
it on purpose to show the audience that it's Jackie Chan himself
doing the stunt, so they sacrificed the rule that editing should
always follow action. If they would want
to respect the rule, this cut would
look as following. In the closeup, Jackie Chan
is initiating the jump. Then we have a cut, and we cut to a wide shot when
he is already in the air. [NOISE] Now, to be clear
about your project, when you will be working
on your project, I want you to respect the rule. I want you to create
an anticipation of the cut by planning a scene where the dangerous
task is going to be carried out by a
professional stunt man. Now, I do not encourage you to filming it
with your friends, or doing anything that
is similar to this. Stunt men are professionals, don't try to imitate
what they do. You may get hurt in the
process, so don't do it. The most educational part
of this process for you as a director is expressing
your intentions on paper. If you do not know how
to make storyboards, please consult the guide book that is available to this class. You'll find an example of a storyboard of
the scene that we analyzed in the
previous lecture, you'll also find a template of a storyboard that
you can multiply. Now, when you're drawing, remember that the purpose of the storyboard is to
be understandable, not to be privy. I mean, if you can draw is
great, but you don't have to. Now, to make sure that you understand what you're
supposed to do, I'm going to submit my proposition of shooting the scene as a project as well. My advice for you is
to look at it when you finish drawing
your own idea first. Now, there are a few ways
of doing this scene. Some ideas are easier
to do than others. It's not my position to judge which one is better
than the other one. When I'll be looking
at your projects, I'll think whether you are successful in expressing
your idea or not, and I'll give remarks to
every submitted project, so be sure to send it. See you in the next lecture.
7. Filming stunts with many cameras - case study of a stunt in Joker: [MUSIC] Now, I'm
going to show you materials from the set
with much bigger budget. The principles are the same. However, if you can
use multiple cameras, it makes the editing easier. In this lecture, we are
going to analyze the stunt from Joker where the
character is struck by a car. This is a scene where Joker is running away from the cops, he's hit by a car, then he stands up
and keeps running. Let's watch the clip
from the movie. [MUSIC] Arthur, we need to
talk. Arthur. [NOISE] Now let's watch the scene in slow motion where I'm
going to mark which shots are performed by an actor and which are performed
by a stunt man. [MUSIC] [NOISE] In the previous lecture, we've already talked about swapping an actor
with a stunt man. My guess is that they've
shot the stunt first. In this kind of situation, you never know where the
stunt man is going to land, which position he's
going to be in, so it's most convenient to shoot the stunt first
and then work with the actor to emulate stunt man movement in
two crucial moments. Now, the first key moment is the transition between
the actor and the stunt man. Now, you remember
when I told you about creating an anticipation
of the cut. In this scene, Joker is
running through the city, that's why they didn't have
to find a clever way to conceal the cut that will swap the actor
with a stunt man. When somebody is running, you expect the cut because you need to see
the actor traveling. Whenever they cut, the camera is in new place in the city. First the stairs, then the sidewalk, then he is crossing the
street and so on. So the first transition
is very simple, you just have to make sure that stunt man has the same
body type as an actor. The fact that he's wearing a makeup makes
things even easier. They've shot the stunt first. Then they had to make sure
that Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Joker, lands on the ground
in similar fashion. I have some behind the scenes footage from another angle, so let's watch that. [NOISE] Again, in
a stunt like this, you never know how exactly the movement is
going to look like. As you can see, the
stunt man is rolling his body to absorb the
energy of the impact. In the process of rolling,
he's looking around, getting his bearings and
already moving his body to land properly so he doesn't
suffer from an injury. As I told you before, stunt men train a lot beforehand
to get these reflexes. The stunt man successfully
completes the stunt, then the director
commits to a shot. Now, an actor
arrives on the set. When they were
shooting the stunt, he was probably in the makeup. Joaquin arrives on the
set and he watches the successful stunt with the director on a
preview monitor. Joaquin sees the movement. He's shown on the monitor where exactly he's
supposed to run, where he's going
to meet the car on the street and where
he's supposed to fall. While this preparation with
the actor is taking place, all the other departments are working to ensure continuity. Now, if the window
in the car cracked, then the car is replaced. Judging on the size
of the production, I think they've had another
car waiting just in case and notice that I'm saying
that if the window crack. In the scene, you can
see that it cracked but they might have
added this crack in CG, which is short for
computer graphics. They did that before in this
movie, look at this shot. Told you that? You're a ******-up, Arthur, and a liar. You're fired. [NOISE] This glass cracking
visual effect was added in post-production to make
the shot more dramatic. Anyway, now they are
ready to shoot Joaquin, so they rehearsed the movement. They are doing it very slowly. The goal of the rehearsal is to establish the
sequence of cues. The driver needs to see where is the place to successfully
hit the actor on the street. The driver needs to be queued by production assistants to start driving at the right time, so he meets the actor
in the right spot. Obviously, Joaquin is not going to run full force onto the car, the actor is going to stop in front of the
car and push back so the moment of him falling
on the street looks good. Now, I have found a footage
that some paparazzi filmed when they were shooting the scene or
rehearsing. Let's watch. [NOISE] As you can see here, the actor is making 10
percent of the effort. He forgot to jump on
the hood of the car. I imagine that it was one of the first takes or a rehearsal, so Joaquin didn't have
his timing right. Anyway, after a few attempts, they got more
comfortable and I found this shot where the
movement is more extreme. It looks more like the shot that was used in the
film, take a look. [NOISE] Now you can see how wet his costume is from
rolling on a wet pavement. This means that there were
several tries of this. Now, let's move on
to the topic of using many cameras to
film the stunt like this. Let's watch a clip in slow
motion and try to count how many cameras were
used to film this stunt. Now, are you ready?
Let's go. [NOISE] I counted for camera angles, I'm going to replay
the scene again with individual shots
marked on the screen. [NOISE] They've probably had
more cameras there but they've ended
up using only four. Now, when you have a budget for additional cameras is a great
way to cover the scene, you'll have more options
while you're editing. It's a common practice
to edit scenes like this from many angles because
it makes it more dynamic. Obviously, you have
to make sure that the cameras are not
filming each other, if they do, you can talk about concealing them in
the stenography. Here in this scene, you have a camera
that is inside of a car that's potentially
could be visible. Most of the time
it's not going to be a problem because
in your final edit, the shots are going
to be shown in such a rapid succession
that nobody will notice. But if for some reason camera is visible maybe something happened,
I don't know, maybe a sudden ray of light from the sky
illuminated the lens, and now it's the brightest
element in the frame, then you can erase it in CG. Usually, it's not a big of
a deal for a professional, it will cost something
but if you have money for renting couple of cameras
with crews to operate them, then tracking and erasing something from the shot
shouldn't be a problem. Now, let's talk about what kind of coverage
you want to have. Now, there is no point in having few cameras if they all film
the stunt in the same way. First of all, you need
to put the cameras in two positions perpendicular
to each other. Let's watch the scheme
that I have prepared. By the way this scheme is
available in the guidebook. Be sure to check it out. You don't want too many angles, this perpendicular
setup eliminates the problems of cameras
filming one another. In Joker, you have two cameras from the front and
one on the side. All of the cameras are
stationary on tripods, the one that is in the car
is fixed to one position, three others are following the character movement
during the shot. The cameras are stationary
on tripods as I said before, these shots look dynamic because the camera men are tracking Joker by moving the
tripod's heads. In wide shots, this
movement seems more subtle, in medium shots
this movement seems more erratic since Joker
is moving very fast. Now, when you have
so many cameras, you need to have a diversity
of the shots sizes. Here we have two
establishing shots, one is a wide shot at
the front of the car, the other wide shot
is inside of the car. However, in the editing, they have used it not as
an establishing shot, since this shot is
so short and shows only the most dynamic act of Joker hitting the
windshield of a taxi. I would say that it's used as one of the more dramatic angles. This division is mostly
about difference, whether it's a wide shot
or it's a medium shot, the mediums are going to
be much more dramatic, wide shots are going to
work as establishing shots, the ones that are used after the stunt so the audience
can get their bearings. It's exactly how it
was used in the Joker, after three dramatic shots, you get to see a wide
shot to establish some bearings and
assess what happened. Let's see the scene
in slow motion to differentiate
the camera angles. [NOISE] I'd say that it's a
good practice to have at least one wide
shot and one medium, that way you always have a
balance where you can use the wide shot as establishing shot so viewers can see
exactly what's going on, and then you have the
medium to excite them. This was the multi-camera setup, I had the pleasure of making
one scene with two cameras, we were crushing a grain
silo into a building, we shot it from two angles, it's perpendicular setup
just like in Joker. Have a look at the
scene [BACKGROUND] This scene is in my
film Fate Breaker. Whenever you're shooting
something that is so spectacular and expensive, [LAUGHTER] it's smart to have additional coverage
from other angles, especially when you won't
be able to repeat it. Things like this you
can do only once, we knew that it's never going
to fall the same way and rebuilding the shed that silo destroyed on the set
was never an option. So two cameras
were a smart move. Now, even though this scene was consulted and prepared
with a stunt coordinator, I'm not going to talk
about it in this course. While stunt coordinators
were responsible for preparing the silo
and planning the fall, there's no reason
to talk about it since during the
recording of The Fall, there was no one in the shot. No actor or stunt men were in the vicinity when this thing was crashing into the building, the actor that you
see in the frame was added to the shot
in post production. Therefore, I'm
going to talk about this scene maybe in the
future in another course whenever I'm going
to cover computer generated imagining,
which is CGI. This was the multi-camera
setup in Stunt scenes. In the next lecture, we are going to talk about
the situations when you can't use cuts to swap your
actor with a stunt man. But first, let me give you your next class
project. See you there.
8. Class Project 2: [NOISE] Oh my God. Now, again, for
your convenience, I've put the clip with the stunt at the beginning of the lecture. This one is not a film. It really happened. It's an accident where a
biker hits the rear of a car and after doing an
impressive flip in the air, he lands on the roof of
a car with his feet. It's a very unusual way of
surviving the accident. He moves just like a superhero when he is
landing on the car. Now, for the purpose
of our exercise, we are going to assume that our stuntman is capable
of doing just that. In real life, if you would
plan a stunt like that, you would have to do
within a studio with a special harness or go with animating the whole
thing with CGI. But again, for the
purpose of our exercise, we are going to assume
that you have found a stuntman that is able to
do it in Jackie Chan style, meaning to crush a bike like that and land on
the roof with his feet. Now, let's say that
your production has a big budget and you can
hire four camera crews. In this class project, I want you to plan a
stunt using four cameras. Your job as a director
is to figure out the four angles from which
that stunt would look cool. You also have to
decide which one are going to be medium
shots or wide shots. You can also use moving cameras, something that is
called a Russian arm. It's a camera on a crane
that is attached to a car. Your imagination
is limitless here. Now, I'm expecting you to mark the positions of the cameras
on the chart and draw, roughly, what does
the cameras see. As an example, you
can use the chart from a lecture about
the stunting jogger. I'll give remarks to every
project that is submitted. You may have to wait
for the week or two, but I'm committed to
give you feedback. I think it's great that we can
all learn from each other. Also, I'm going to submit
my own project as well. But my advice is that
you take a look at it when you complete
your own project first. I don't want my idea to limit your imagination.
Good luck.
9. Stunt in a mastershot - case study of a scene from "Three billboards": [MUSIC] Let's talk about
master shots or long shots, however you want to call it. I'm talking about the situation
when you are shooting the whole scene with one long take from the beginning
till the end. Since the whole scenes should
be filmed in one take, you are not allowed
to make any edits. Basically, you can't
use cutscening. This means that you will need to choreograph actors and
the camera in the way that will let you
swap the actor with the stuntman without
your audience noticing. Now, the chance that you'll have to do it in your career are very slim since it's
such an exotic task. There are not many stories that will demand the stage,
something like that. Our today's example is
one of those stories. We're talking about
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. There is a scene there where
Dixon is beating Red Welby. Now, as a director, I have to admit that there is no dramaturgical reason to do this scene as a master shot. It would be as much
brutal if it would be filmed with regular editing. I think that shooting the scene in a master shot
was overdoing it. I think that the director
was trying to show off, and let's just finish
this topic by saying that Three Billboards
are a wonderful film, even with all this
unnecessary flexing. But okay, let's make an
assumption that you, as a director, have a good reason to shoot the
scene as a master shot. You have to find a way
to swap the actor with a stuntman during the
uninterrupted shot. Now, let's see how they did it. See if you can spot
the transition, and then I'm going to
show you how they did it. Let's watch the
whole master shot. But first, a few
words of warning. This scene is very violent, so viewer discretion is advised. Do what he did every **** his life, help
people. [MUSIC] [NOISE] What the **** is going on? [MUSIC] [NOISE] [MUSIC]
Where are you going? [NOISE] You ******* pig, what the **** are you? [MUSIC] Shut up. [MUSIC]
See you, Rig. I got issues with White folks too. [MUSIC] What the **** are
you looking at? [MUSIC] Now let's watch the
moment of the transition. This time, I'm going to mark
on the screen when you are watching an actor and when we
are watching the stuntman. What the **** is going on? [MUSIC] [NOISE]. Where are you going? [NOISE] You ******* pig, what the **** are you? Shut up. [MUSIC] As you can see,
they needed to find a pretext to focus the camera on Dixon so the actor could run downstairs to have
a makeup with blood on, and at the same time, stuntman is being thrown
out of the window. You remember when I
told you about creating an anticipation of the cut to swap the actor with a stuntman. In master shot, you
have no cuts obviously, it's one continuous shot. What you do is you find a
pretext to focus the camera on action that doesn't involve the actor who you want to swap. In Three Billboards
is the action of Dixon breaking the window. As you can see, the
mechanics of the trick is similar to the situation
with regular editing. You need to find
an action that is going to focus the
audience's attention. The rule is that the camera
should follow the action, not the other way around. Now, let's see the
behind-the-scenes. Here you can see the exact
moment when they switched. The stuntman landed safely on a truck filled with
something soft. When Dixon was
walking downstairs, they drove the truck
out of the camera site. The actor had a quick change of makeup with the blood on
and lied on the ground. One side note, most master shots are
made with Steadicam. It's a camera rig that basically makes the movement of
the camera's motor. In this behind the
scenes footage, you can see the
cameraman is operating the camera without a Steadicam. It's 100 percent handheld and it's absolutely spectacular. He's going up the stairs with the camera and it's
barely shaking. I assume that it was stabilized digitally
in post-production, but still is very impressive. Very impressive. Congratulations to the
crew and the actors. They are the one
who made it happen. Just to finish up, I'll give you the
example of a film where this master shot stance
were purposeful. Making a stunt in a master
shot scene is very challenging and sometimes these challenges are the main strength
of the movie. In the film like Atomic Blonde, you have a very
generic character of a tough guy who is played
by Charlize Theron. The first five minutes, you'll think that it's
cool that they casted the woman in this
Rambo-like character, but then you are left with the story that is very generic. The main entertainment of
the film are the fights. The director of the film is an X stunt coordinator
so you could imagine that this
film is probably a list of all the things that he wanted to do as
a stunt coordinator, but wasn't allowed by the
directors he worked with. Atomic Blonde is probably
his opus magnum. In the case of this film, the action scenes are the
main attraction of the film, therefore, making
them as exotic and challenging as
possible made sense. With Three Billboards, it's totally different case. We love this film because of the characters and the
story and the dialogues. Is a great drama and the
comedy at the same time, is a very rare combination. I don't think
anybody went to see Three Billboards because
of the fight scene. You always have to think where is the quality of your film. What is keeping the audience
in front of the screen? Showing off or as I call it, flexing is sometimes a
little bit distracting.
10. Class Project 3: [NOISE] Now, if you want to go deep into staging a stunt, you can go ahead and
plan a master shot of the same scene from the
police story by Jackie Chan. The scene that I'm talking
about in its entirety, you can find at the beginning
of the first class project. To plan this master shot, we are going to combine storyboards with
the chart that is going to show the moment of transition between the
actor and the stunt man. To make things easier
as my own project, I prepared a combination of
this kind of materials for the scene that you have seen in three billboards outside
of Ebbing Missouri, you can find it in
this class guidebook. Now, in this exercise, your aim is to
present your idea for the realization of the scene on paper so others
could understand. Now, this scene has one
interesting feature. When Jackie Chan is jumping, he's traveling from the
first or second floor to the bottom very fast. You can't expect a guy with a Steadicam to jump after again, it wouldn't end well,
obviously, however, there is a technology for
those kinds of situations. There are cranes that
Steadicam operator can board and be transported
smoothly down stairs. That way you can follow
the action in one take. Let's just assume that you have a budget for a crane like that. Another assumption that you can make is that you can transport the actor downstairs before the stunt man is going
to make his jump. It would be a huge challenge
to transport the actor from the second floor to
the bottom floor in a matter of few seconds. If an actor is already waiting downstairs when the stunt
man is making his jump, it will be easier for you to
plan the second transition. Let's imagine that you have a teleportation device
on the set as well. Now, even with those
simplification, I know it's difficult. It's a challenging task
that is not only technical, but it's also creative. Therefore, you can think of
this project as optional. Now, I will be glad
if you'll upload either one of these three
projects from this class, because students
who will do that in my book are an elite. If you're going to go through the effort of completing
the projects, you're practically stepping
into the directors shoes, your starting to think about
working with moving images, just like a real
director does it. To encourage you to
post your projects, I'm going to repeat it again. I'm giving feedback to
every submitted project. I usually review my
online stats once a week and if I'll see
a project submitted, I'm going to respond. So go ahead and please
do that [LAUGHTER]. Good luck with the projects.
11. Exceptions - Actors performing the stunts: [MUSIC] Don't do scenes where actors performing
dangerous things. This lecture is here just
in case if you attempted to save some of the
production money and make the actor do it. I feel like this is a
sentence worth repeating. However, there are some
interesting examples that bent this rule. This is Grindhouse Death Proof. Here you could clearly
see the face of an actress performing
this crazy stunts. To this row, Quentin Tarantino, higher a professional stunt
woman who is also an actress. Remember when I told you about focusing on the main
quality of your movie. As a director, you have
to make these choices. I'm sure that producers
and distributors would prefer to hire
a star for this role, like Uma Thurman It would be easier to
advertise the film. But Quentin Tarantino went with his vision of doing the scene and the
producers backed him up. If this role would be played
by a regular actress, this whole action scene
where these two cars are racing with this woman on the hood would be very
hard to choreograph. You would always see the
face of the stunt double, not mentioning that seeing
her face when she is struggling to stay alive makes the scene
much more dramatic. This is the first exemption. You can also have
scenes where actors are performing alongside stunt men. It's usually fight
scenes where an actor is butchering hordes
of opponents. In Atomic Blonde, the movie that I
mentioned before, they have this huge
spectacular master shots scene where Charlize Theron, who is not a stunt woman, is beating lots of bad guys. From the beginning
till the end is the actress herself
performing in the seat. Now, why is that? Because this scene was planned accordingly with safety
of the actor in mind. Now, notice that Charlize Theron is just throwing punches, and everything that
is dangerous is performed by
professional stunt man. [NOISE] A scene like this
has to be choreographed. If you're making an action film, you don't have to choreograph
these scenes by yourself. I would ask a stunt coordinator to choreograph the
fight scene for me. On the highest Hollywood level, these stunt coordinators
prep by themselves and train the actors
for the scenes as well. They also make their
own previous materials, which is absolutely awesome. Now, I mentioned
this so you know how it looks like when
you have budget for it. When you're making
your first films and the budget is not that high, most likely you will
be choreographing it yourself with the help of
your stunt coordinator. There is absolutely
nothing wrong with that. Now, this is almost
the end of the course. See you in the next lecture, which is the last lecture.
12. Good Luck!!!: [MUSIC] Hey,
congratulations to you. I hope whenever you
face a challenge of a standard seen after watching this, you'll
know what to do. If you've learned
something valuable, please consider
making a review of the course and posting
your project, of course. I'd noticed that
one of 60 students ranks the course and even less
of you post the projects. Please be the one who makes
the effort and reviews the course so others could
benefit from your evaluation. Also, reading your reviews
keeps me motivated. Teaching online doesn't
bring a lot of money. If I could be honest, nothing compared to
screenwriting and directing, which is my main job. If you want me to
keep making more, please let me know by
dropping a positive review. Especially that the topic of this particular course is
so narrow and specialized, that I expect the audience
to be rather small. Now, the best way to check out my courses is my website,
cinemaexplained, I encourage you to
check it out since I'm on different platforms and this side is always up-to-date. Once more, thank you very
much for taking my class, and hopefully, see you again
soon. Bye bye. [MUSIC]
