Academy award-winning director Taika Waititi discusses one of the highest scenes from his new film 'Next Goal Wins.' Get his full breakdown of the top-of-the-mountain scene, from spiritual meanings to shooting the scene in Hawaii.
Director: Jameer Pond
Director of Photography: Charlie Jordan
Talent: Taika Waititi
Producer: Madison Coffey
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Associate Producer: Rafael Vasquez
Production Manager: Natasha Soto-Albors
Production Coordinator: Tania Jones
Talent Booker: Lauren Mendoza
Assistant Camera: Jack Belisle
Gaffer: Nikals Moller
Audio Engineer: Sean Paulsen
Production Assistant: Ziyne Abdo
Post Production Supervisor: Edward Taylor
Post Production Coordinator: Jovan James
Supervising Editor: Kameron Key
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Director: Jameer Pond
Director of Photography: Charlie Jordan
Talent: Taika Waititi
Producer: Madison Coffey
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Associate Producer: Rafael Vasquez
Production Manager: Natasha Soto-Albors
Production Coordinator: Tania Jones
Talent Booker: Lauren Mendoza
Assistant Camera: Jack Belisle
Gaffer: Nikals Moller
Audio Engineer: Sean Paulsen
Production Assistant: Ziyne Abdo
Post Production Supervisor: Edward Taylor
Post Production Coordinator: Jovan James
Supervising Editor: Kameron Key
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Michael has so many teeth.
00:02 I don't know if you've noticed that.
00:03 It's like one big tooth.
00:06 Hi everyone, I'm Taika Waititi
00:07 and welcome to Notes on a Scene.
00:09 I'm doing this with my new film, Next Goal Wins.
00:12 [audience applauding]
00:16 Oh God.
00:16 Oh God.
00:20 It's beautiful.
00:21 - You okay, Tom?
00:23 - It's beautiful.
00:23 Oh my God.
00:26 I look so easy from the bottom.
00:28 I wanted to see more Pacific Islanders on screen.
00:31 I just love the idea that this was a true story.
00:34 It's a classic underdog story and really uplifting one.
00:37 Kind of in the vein of all the great sports films.
00:40 This is just before the team is flying off
00:42 to the World Cup qualifiers
00:44 and they've been training for two or three weeks now
00:46 to get to this point.
00:47 And this is the finally conquered this mountain
00:49 the day before they head off.
00:51 Let's take a look.
00:52 - I know you can make it to the top.
00:54 Come on guys.
00:56 Keep going, keep going.
00:57 Don't stop, don't stop.
00:59 - You can take any frame from my films
01:02 and find a great depth and meaning in them
01:06 because I think about every single moment.
01:07 I pre-plan every shot.
01:09 We planted these trees about 17 years ago.
01:12 The grass was already there.
01:13 And of course, always, as always,
01:15 you know, the Fibonacci pattern there,
01:20 which is, you can see in every single frame
01:22 'cause I'm an artist
01:24 and the golden ratio is the most important thing.
01:27 In all work.
01:28 Thomas Rongan played by Michael Fassbender
01:30 gives a motivational speech
01:32 before they head off on their journey.
01:33 This actually happened.
01:34 So in American Samoa, there's a big mountain
01:37 and you said like a gun turret in World War II up there.
01:41 And the coach took the team all the way to the top
01:43 and he gave them this big speech.
01:45 This shot of course was done with a drone,
01:47 little miniature helicopter flown by mice.
01:50 (grunting)
01:52 (clapping)
01:54 - Oh God.
01:59 Oh God.
02:03 It's beautiful.
02:04 We shot this whole thing with a steady cam.
02:06 And big part of the scene was that Thomas
02:08 was trying to motivate the team throughout the whole film.
02:12 And he's trying to get them, you know,
02:13 to go up to the top of this mountain.
02:14 And ironically, when they all run to the top,
02:17 he's the one that's the most winded.
02:19 I think we were slowly losing light
02:20 and had to really move fast.
02:22 And so steady cam is a great tool,
02:24 especially when you've got 15 people in your scene.
02:26 - It looks so easy from above.
02:28 Can't breathe.
02:29 This spot here, this place,
02:33 tells of how your brave brothers
02:36 fought to protect American Samoa
02:42 and the rest of the world against evil.
02:44 - This mountain top is actually not in American Samoa.
02:47 We shot the film in Hawaii.
02:48 There's a bit more infrastructure there.
02:50 They've got a lot of shows and films that shoot there.
02:52 And so getting crew and gear would have been very hard
02:55 to source or to move into American Samoa.
02:58 So we found a lot of places within Hawaii
03:00 that matched a lot of the locations in American Samoa.
03:05 I think what's kind of cool about this scene,
03:06 especially here, if you look at this frame,
03:08 you get these nice backlit stuff
03:10 with these streaks and streams.
03:11 And you know, I'm not a religious person,
03:13 but I'm spiritual.
03:14 And I do love the kind of ethereal feeling
03:19 that you get from this.
03:20 And it's like, you've got this,
03:21 you know, they're on top of the mountain
03:22 as close as they can be to God.
03:24 Obviously this big giant ball of fire over there is the sun.
03:27 And you know, you get all these streaks coming through.
03:31 And if we actually go back a little bit,
03:32 you know, you've got these nice big flares and stuff
03:34 that wrap around everyone.
03:36 And look, there's this guy playing Samson.
03:38 He looks like an angel.
03:39 And so maybe I am religious.
03:43 It's just like, you know, as I say, you know,
03:46 I do plan things religiously.
03:49 And the symbolism of this is that Thomas
03:53 is amongst the angels, a team of soccer playing angels.
03:58 - Well, tomorrow we set off for the greatest war of them all.
04:03 - The more we talk about these flares,
04:04 the more I'm really liking them.
04:05 Fibonacci, baby.
04:07 Fibonacci right there, leaning to God.
04:11 - In two days time, we face our first enemy, Tonga.
04:16 Screw those guys.
04:21 There have been so many wars against those assholes.
04:25 The war of 1825, where they came to take,
04:31 they came to take our tuna.
04:34 But we handed their asses to them in a giant tuna can.
04:41 Thomas Rongan, the coach from my sources,
04:44 who told me, he actually just completely made up
04:47 these facts about American Samoa
04:50 and their rivalry with Tonga.
04:52 And say that there used to be these big wars
04:54 and that from this gun turret,
04:55 they'd defended the country against Tongan invasions
04:59 and stuff, and just complete nonsense.
05:03 That's not the case.
05:05 But what's funny is that he was trying to tell
05:06 the people who were from the country, their history.
05:09 - I still have to pack.
05:11 I always leave packing to the last minute.
05:13 It's so weird.
05:14 - They'll always forget to pack.
05:15 - Legs, healing water.
05:17 - Yeah, and also face.
05:19 (gentle music)
05:22 - That's actually Michael.
05:25 I really loved overhead shots and top down shots.
05:28 It was an idea that sort of just came to us again
05:29 in the moment.
05:31 We had a drone on hand and we thought,
05:32 well, why don't we get up here
05:33 and see what this will look like?
05:35 You know, a lot of people would read quite a lot
05:37 into this, wouldn't they?
05:38 A lot of brown people carrying a white man down a hill.
05:41 Don't read too much into it.
05:42 We all thought it would just be a funny idea.
05:44 Some people would say, oh, it's all about the white guy
05:46 'cause it's kind of like what you expect from a movie,
05:49 isn't it?
05:50 Like "Dancers with Wolves," white people being saved
05:52 by brown people.
05:53 And it is, and that's okay.
05:55 Like we didn't shy away from the idea of like,
05:57 because the true story is this guy came in to the island,
06:00 taught them how to become better soccer players,
06:02 and they taught him how to become a better person.
06:05 So, you know, it is a give and take thing.
06:07 And the idea of the white savior thing is something
06:09 like I think, you know, if you want to run away from it,
06:11 it's for me not as interesting as embracing it
06:13 and see what more you could do with that idea.
06:16 Because, you know, it's an old idea
06:18 and we've seen it before and just embracing this,
06:21 some of the cliches that you might see in films like this
06:24 and trying to push them even further.
06:26 That was the main idea.
06:28 So if you thought that this was really cool,
06:30 we've got jokes on you.
06:31 - And so we turn to Matthew 17,
06:34 when a man says to Lesu, "Lord have mercy on my son,
06:38 for he is a lunatic and is very ill.
06:42 For he often falls into the fire and often into the water.
06:47 Very clumsy, my boy."
06:48 - I feel really smart when, you know,
06:51 if I get shots of my films and like,
06:52 you start like obeying like laws of like thirds and halves.
06:56 And even if you weren't planning on that, you know,
06:58 when you discover that in your shots,
07:00 it makes you feel smarter than you actually are.
07:03 And of course, you will have noticed
07:07 that this shot is also representative of a soccer field.
07:12 So it's foreshadowing the game that they're about to play.
07:19 And although in the shot,
07:20 Thomas would seem like the center of the game.
07:25 All in a game, you know, as well as I do,
07:28 because you're all soccer fans,
07:29 that all of the action,
07:30 all the real storytelling happens out here in the pitch
07:35 with the players, not the coach.
07:37 It's the players who tell the story.
07:39 And then look, I've done that.
07:41 And once again, what do we have?
07:43 The sun.
07:45 It all comes full circle, doesn't it?
07:46 Very well thought out moment in my film.
07:49 - And Lesu said, "Bring him here to me."
07:53 Good old Lesu.
07:54 And Lesu rebuked him.
07:56 And the demon came out of him.
07:59 And the boy was cured at once.
08:01 - Thomas Rongan comes out and is reborn
08:06 and is now part of the team and welcomed into the fold.
08:09 I actually feel like that's something
08:11 that actually happened just naturally
08:13 within the filmmaking that, you know,
08:16 Michael came in and everyone here,
08:18 a lot of them knew each other,
08:19 but you know, everyone from Samoan and Pacific Islanders,
08:22 you know, he became part of their family
08:24 and they all still keep in touch now
08:26 and they're all still really good friends.
08:27 The idea of him being baptized and reborn, you know,
08:30 it is a big theme in the film,
08:33 this idea that someone who is all but given up on life
08:37 and has lost his way, finds family in a new place
08:41 and has to kind of kill that old version of himself
08:43 and be reborn in the waters of this island.
08:46 You know, even though it sounds a little kind of cheesy,
08:49 it's still a really cool concept.
08:52 People go through baptisms all the time in their lives
08:54 and it doesn't have to be religious ones.
08:56 It's just when you go in and you kind of wash everything away
08:59 and you emerge a new person.
09:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]