Rebel Moon director Zack Snyder answers your questions about filmmaking from Twitter. What actually is a director's cut? How does audience feedback shape creative decisions? What do filmmakers do to prepare for film shoots? Answers to these questions and many more await—it's Blockbuster Support.REBEL MOON PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER releases on Netflix April 19, 2024https://www.netflix.com/RebelMoonPart2Director: Lisandro Perez-ReyDirector of Photography: AJ YoungEditor: Louville MooreExpert: Zack SnyderCreative Producer: Jackie PhillipsLine Producer: Joseph BuscemiAssociate Producer: Paul Gulyas; Brandon WhiteProduction Manager: Peter BrunetteProduction & Equipment Manager: Kevin BalashTalent Booker: Meredith JudkinsCamera Operator: Oliver LukacsSound Mixer: Paul CornettProduction Assistant: Mike KritzellPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Ian BryantSupervising Editor: Doug LarsenAdditional Editor: Paul Tael; Jason MaliziaAssistant Editor: Justin Symonds
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TechTranscript
00:00I'm Zack Snyder, let's answer some questions
00:02from the internet.
00:03This is Filmmaking Support.
00:04And Iambaby wants to know,
00:10why did Rebel Moon's action sequence
00:12have so much slow motion?
00:13The obvious answer is slow motion is awesome.
00:15These movies are physical.
00:17There's a physicality to what our heroes go through.
00:20The use of slow motion to me is a way
00:22of just embellishing heroic moments
00:25that our heroes go through.
00:27Because I think I'm a fan
00:28of beautiful classic artwork or paintings.
00:31I like to kind of make the moments
00:33into those iconographic frames
00:36that you can hang on and see.
00:37Otherwise, you just go right by
00:38and you'd never have a chance
00:39to appreciate the composition,
00:41the sort of tension that's created by the characters
00:43and how they're pushing the frame
00:44in all the different directions.
00:45Slow motion tableau where you're moving with a character.
00:48I'm not a fan of action that is hidden by the camera.
00:52The camera becomes a third character in the fight
00:54when it's looking for the action.
00:56In the end, even in a sequence with a lot of editing,
01:00I tend to like to see the action unfold.
01:04ConanKun66 wants to know,
01:05directors cut, what does that mean?
01:08What happens is in the focus groups
01:11and in the studio screenings,
01:14people get ideas about the movie.
01:16And they're like, you know, it's too long.
01:18You've got too many shots of this.
01:19You need to cut that out.
01:20And what happens is inevitably for me,
01:22the movie will get changed based on studio opinion
01:26and things like that.
01:27And I'll be like, okay, that's great.
01:29This is the movie we're releasing in theaters.
01:31There used to be a thing called DVDs.
01:33And I would go over to that department and I would say,
01:35hey, would you guys be interested in an extended
01:38or director's cut of this film?
01:41You can sell it alongside the normal version
01:43and people will maybe buy additional DVDs
01:46based on the fact that this is never before seen.
01:49And inevitably DVD will be like, that's awesome.
01:51We can give you some money to make it as cool as you want.
01:54The Snyder cut of Justice League is the most
01:58on steroids version of that process.
02:01The studio finally did ask me after pressure
02:06from the fandom to finish my version of Justice League.
02:11One of the things that we restored
02:13was the original aspect ratio, which was 143.
02:16If you've seen the other version of Justice League
02:20that I have never seen, I think it's in 185.
02:23But for me, the movie was always supposed to be 143.
02:27And I think there was gonna be a compromise
02:29if there was a theatrical wide release
02:32of my version of Justice League.
02:35I did consider 166 as possible other ratio.
02:40At GoBerserk now wants to know,
02:43why did you choose 43 format for your Justice League cut?
02:46Justice League was originally framed to be 43
02:49because it was meant for an IMAX release.
02:52Now, if you've ever been to an IMAX theater,
02:54those screens are square.
02:55Justice League originally was composed and shot
02:58for a square presentation
03:00because it was meant to be shown in IMAX.
03:02And so that's why when someone says, why is it 43?
03:05It is 43 because it was meant to be in an IMAX theater.
03:10At Joel Getty would like to know,
03:11how much of a fight scene is really up to the writer
03:14and how much is up to the director and fight choreographer?
03:17My experience is that I like to talk with them
03:20about what I wanna see, what I want the actors to do,
03:23what I want the character to achieve.
03:25I always like to break the fights
03:27into like little mini three act movies.
03:30In the first act of the fight,
03:31the main character has a lot of confidence
03:33and they're like fighting with a lot of power.
03:35In the second act, they might make a mistake or get rocked
03:39and they lose confidence and they're now on their back foot.
03:42And then the third act, they turn it around
03:45and they actually are victorious.
03:47The way I use storyboards and action sequences,
03:49here's the things I need to see.
03:50I wanna really see Cora throw the hatchet
03:52and hit the guy in the forehead with it.
03:53When she's on the guy's body, she blows his brains out,
03:56but she's holding the back of his head, boom,
03:58and he falls and then she's gonna roll and like get the gun.
04:00Those are the two beats I wanna see.
04:01And then they'll start linking stuff together
04:03and be like, okay, we think if she throws the hatchet,
04:05she's gotta fight her way back
04:07and then get the hatchet out of his head
04:08and then use it later.
04:09That's how the collaboration works
04:11and then suddenly we have a whole fight.
04:12So TalksTalks wants to know,
04:14what do you find is the best way to pitch an idea?
04:17I like to kind of set it up a little bit
04:19so that it's not a cold pitch.
04:21This Army of the Dead idea I have,
04:23it's like a zombie heist movie,
04:24but let me tell you more about it when I see it.
04:26And then how much do you have to have worked out?
04:27I think you have to have the whole thing
04:29pretty much 100% worked out.
04:30I don't recommend going in without the idea figured out.
04:33I always say this, there's one tool that you have
04:36that everybody has and that really is your point of view.
04:40What I want from you is the way you see the world
04:44translated into a movie.
04:46So the way you visualize a scene
04:49is the unique thing that you have that no one but you has.
04:52You should do it from your personal perspective.
04:56Tell me about the way you see and that will engage me
04:59and it will intrigue me
05:01and I'll see something unique in your vision
05:03and then I'll write you a check
05:05for whatever, a hundred million dollars.
05:06At Podcast Movement wants to know,
05:09what role does feedback from your audience play
05:12in shaping your creative decisions?
05:14There's three sort of ways we do it.
05:16We have a trusted group where I would bring in
05:18like a bunch of my friends who I like their opinion
05:21and I trust their taste and I ask them a series of questions
05:23after they watch the movie.
05:24Next is a friends and family screening.
05:28So you could have 200 people at that
05:30and you show them the movie.
05:31I find friends and family are the hardest audience.
05:34You'd think that friends and family would be like,
05:36oh, they're gonna be nice to the movie and say nice stuff.
05:38They don't.
05:39Then we do a general preview
05:41where we go out into the theaters
05:43and we show the movie to just a general audience.
05:45You're walking by the theater
05:46and someone has a clipboard and goes,
05:47hey, do you wanna come see this movie?
05:48And you go and watch it and you give them feedback.
05:50Mostly feedback from the audience
05:52is related to confusion about the story.
05:55Was it clear that that character
05:57was the character they were referring to
05:59or when they went from this location to that location,
06:03were you lost?
06:04Those are the three methods that we normally use.
06:07The sort of online feedback, I don't really look at that.
06:10If you actually start to look at the internet
06:12for opinion about your work,
06:14you can really go down a rabbit hole
06:16and that's a dark place.
06:17At Concord Library wants to know,
06:19how do you build fictional worlds?
06:21I always like to start with myth.
06:22Your words, your drawings, your reference,
06:25your own personal taste,
06:26you sort of set an aesthetic for the world.
06:29And in setting aesthetic for the world,
06:31I'm inspired by those conversations to draw and paint.
06:34Those are the ways I start.
06:35In Rebel Moon, we travel throughout the galaxy
06:38and we go to all these different places.
06:39Now in the script, this place is like a mining colony.
06:42We go to a place that's like a floating dock.
06:44So once you have these kind of what I would say,
06:47these are images that I like,
06:48these are drawings that I've done,
06:50we could give them to a concept painter
06:52and that painter will do a full blown painting
06:55and then I can look at it and go like,
06:56that's exactly what I want it to look like.
06:58Those paintings, they really end up being
07:00the sort of touchstones of each one of the looks
07:02for the environments you go to.
07:04At Zoomer Podcast wants to know,
07:06how on earth do films get funded?
07:08Well, movies are like any business.
07:10It's whoever's got the sort of resources to make a movie
07:14and that is to say, they've got a chunk of money
07:16and set aside when they're gonna use this money
07:19and they're gonna give it to a filmmaker to make a movie.
07:21They say, okay, we really wanna make a horror movie.
07:24So they'll say, okay, do you have any ideas
07:26for a horror movie?
07:27Because we on our slate would love a couple horror movies.
07:29And so you pitch them and they go, yeah, it's pretty good.
07:32I think we should at least spend some money
07:34to write a script.
07:35And so they pull a small amount of the money off
07:36and they go, okay, go write your script.
07:37So you go and you write your script
07:38and they come back and they read it
07:40and they go like, either that's awesome.
07:42You did exactly what you said.
07:43We love it.
07:44Here's more money, go make it into a movie.
07:46Or they'll say, you know what?
07:48Here's some notes.
07:49It's not quite what we thought.
07:51Here's a little bit more money, can you fix it up?
07:52The other way it happens is they go,
07:54they have this pile of money and they have some ideas.
07:56We bought this newspaper article
07:58and they're like, hey, writer,
08:00would you write us a script based on this article?
08:03What do we do with it?
08:04Let's call some directors that we know.
08:06They read it, they come in and say,
08:07oh, this is how I wanna make that into a movie.
08:10I see it as like black and white, low angles.
08:12You know what, we love that.
08:13Here's money, go make that.
08:14And then they would go and make it.
08:15There's also independent films, you know,
08:17where like the financing is not raised from a single source.
08:21That's mostly based on the script
08:22and a filmmaker together.
08:23So you go to different film festivals,
08:26different marketplaces, and you say like,
08:28I have an idea for a movie.
08:29Robert Downey Jr. wants to be in it
08:30and I think it could be amazing.
08:31Based on that pitch, we can give you like $5 million.
08:35I'm like, okay, great.
08:35I'm gonna put that in my bucket.
08:36Now I go pitch it again in another room
08:39and they might have another five
08:40or European distribution or whatever.
08:42You can also raise enough money to shoot it that way
08:45and you'd have a bunch of partners.
08:46At Capybara wants to know, for movies,
08:48how do directors decide which scenes to do in which order?
08:51This is my basic philosophy
08:53for what order to shoot the movie in.
08:55Page one, shot one.
08:57Shoot the movie in order as best you can.
08:59And so then the characters are growing
09:01or progressing along that same timeline as the film itself.
09:04If you're doing a super complicated fight scene,
09:06sometimes it's good to do it right off the top.
09:09What happens with action inevitably is it takes a long time.
09:12It requires a lot of training, choreography.
09:15The way that happens is they spend time in the gym
09:18with the fight team learning it.
09:20So that requires, in prep, the actors,
09:24because they're not shooting,
09:24they have time to learn a really complicated fight.
09:27And when they come on the day now,
09:29they're super ready and they can do it incredibly well.
09:32At Rizzo Drayman asks, at Zack Snyder,
09:35how did you get your start as a director?
09:38Did you have to do an audition or something to start off?
09:41I'm just asking
09:42because I want to be a director in the future.
09:44Well, I went to film school to be a movie director,
09:47but about three quarters of the way
09:49through my college career,
09:51I was talking to the head of the department and he said,
09:54look, to guarantee yourself a job when you get out,
09:57if you'd made a bunch of TV commercials
09:58while you're here in school,
09:59you would have a reel
10:01and you could go get a job immediately.
10:03And when I got out of school,
10:04I went straight to work.
10:0610 years of TV commercials.
10:08A lot of the Clydesdale, Budweiser commercials
10:11or BMW for Subaru.
10:13I've done commercials for Bose speakers.
10:16I've done commercials for pretty much anything
10:18you could think of.
10:19So the way you get a TV commercial is,
10:20they have a idea for a commercial storyboard
10:23and they're like, you know what, Zack Snyder
10:24and this storyboard feel like a good match.
10:26Let's send it to him.
10:27Get them on the phone.
10:28They get on the phone and I go, this is what I would do
10:30if I was directing your TV commercial.
10:31It would be all these like super cool angles,
10:33lots of slow motion, all this cool cinematography.
10:37Your product would look amazing
10:39and people are gonna buy it.
10:40And so when I went to Universal Studios
10:43to audition to do the movie, Dawn of the Dead,
10:46I did have a vast knowledge of filmmaking,
10:50but I still had to do a song and dance
10:52and tell them how the movie would look
10:53and what would be in it.
10:54And they seemed to like it.
10:56At Summit Purchase wants to know,
10:57how do filmmakers prepare themselves for the shoots?
11:00Are there people beyond the crew
11:02you discuss the project with?
11:04Do you go into isolation?
11:05Do you focus on fitness before the shoot?
11:07I'm a writer, so I'm normally writing and drawing.
11:11I have drawn the storyboards
11:14for all the movies that I work on.
11:16And so I end up drawing probably about five months
11:20before I start shooting.
11:21For Rebel Moon, the movie I just finished,
11:23I created about 3000 drawings.
11:25And as far as fitness goes,
11:26we do really work on our fitness before the movie starts.
11:29It does come in handy, especially like me.
11:31I operate the camera and I was the director of photography,
11:34so I'm running around all the time.
11:36Shooting a movie is a marathon
11:37and you need to be in the best shape you can
11:40because it's gonna wear you down.
11:41At Flowers For You wants to know,
11:43are film directors in charge of scripts
11:45like planning the whole movie out?
11:48Or do film directors get hired
11:50after the movie's already completely written and planned out?
11:53There are times like Man of Steel where I got a script
11:56beyond the words, there was nothing planned.
12:00Of course, I've written half of the movies
12:02that I've directed,
12:04was very involved in all aspects of production,
12:06whether it be costume design or set design, cinematography.
12:10My last two movies, I also acted as the cinematographer.
12:14So not only was I the director telling the actors
12:18what to say based on words I had written,
12:21but I was also making shots based on drawings
12:24that I had done.
12:25At John Souther wants to know is,
12:26meddling studio executives are always painted as villains
12:30in film books, but I wonder how many films
12:33said executives have to actually improve?
12:35I don't know.
12:36I've had great studio executives
12:38who have given me amazing feedback.
12:41I just wish this.
12:42I don't know how to do it.
12:44You're the filmmaker, maybe you have an idea.
12:46So in answer to your question, I think probably a few.
12:49All right, so those are all the questions for today.
12:51Thanks for watching.