'Twisters' Director Reveals the Inspirations Behind the Film
Presented by Rolex | Director Lee Isaac Chung breaks down some of his favorite disaster movies that inspired his newest film, 'Twisters.' From the 1939 classic 'The Wizard of Oz' to Steven Spielberg's 'War of the Worlds,' hear Chung break down the influences behind bringing the natural monsters to life.TWISTERS is in theaters July 19, https://www.twisters-movie.com/
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00:00Hi, my name is Lee Isaac Chung, and I'm going to walk through some visual references and
00:05inspirations for the movie, Twisters.
00:16When I heard about the first Twister, I think it was a very mysterious trailer that popped
00:20up at the cinema where you're inside of a car and you're just driving, a tractor tire
00:26hits the window, and it kind of cuts to black.
00:28And I remember thinking when I saw that, that that's not going to be an interesting
00:32movie.
00:33Because I thought, when you see a tornado where I grew up, you just run from it.
00:36When I was very young, when we first moved to Arkansas, my dad moved us into a trailer
00:41home on this farm.
00:42A couple of weeks into that, a tornado was coming into the area.
00:46We didn't have a storm shelter.
00:48My parents were new immigrants from Korea.
00:50We didn't know what we were supposed to do.
00:52So my dad took us in a pickup truck and drove us to this place where he said, we're going
00:56to climb down into this low part of the ground and hide out if the tornado comes.
01:01And I remember that being quite a traumatic experience as like a four or five-year-old.
01:05When I watched the movie Twister, the first scene is this family running from a farm and
01:11trying to hide out this tornado, and instantly I was sucked in.
01:15I remember telling my parents that reminded me so much of when we were running from that
01:19night tornado.
01:20It was an instant connection.
01:22So when I started working on this movie, the first thing was that I just felt like
01:26I knew nothing about tornadoes.
01:28I hit the ground running with our science advisor, Kevin Kelleher, who was actually
01:32an advisor on the first Twister.
01:34I would be constantly talking to him, asking him about where the science is and what I
01:39can read, what I can watch.
01:41And then I threw myself into YouTube videos, which there is a deep hole of YouTube videos
01:47of tornadoes and storm chasing.
01:50I would take all of these clips, compile them in a folder, and I'd arrange them according
01:54to what I thought they should be in the script.
01:58And some of these chasers really produced their videos where you're switching between
02:02different angles and you're seeing the tornado from different places.
02:05An interesting note on that, the scientists are very ambivalent about all these chasers.
02:10So anytime I would tell them that I'm using videos of actual chasers, they would feel
02:13a little bit guarded about what I'm doing because they feel like those guys are always
02:17in the way.
02:18Those guys are always out there making their videos while the scientists are out there
02:22trying to do real research.
02:24So some of that in the movie is actually from real life.
02:27And I would try not to tell the scientists how much YouTube video I was using as a reference
02:31because it was a sore subject for them.
02:34And it was fun.
02:35When we were there, we brought in a lot of actual storm chasers into our scenes.
02:40So in the background, you have these real storm chasers with their real vehicles that
02:43are decked out and they would come and talk to us.
02:47There were a lot of interesting characters in that bunch.
02:49I love that on this page we have Jaws.
02:51Jaws was definitely a huge reference for me.
02:55This story about trying to figure out what to do about the shark with these three characters
02:59coming together essentially, with each of them having a very different personality.
03:04One of the things that I introduced in the movie were yellow barrels as a result because
03:08these yellow barrels were indicative of where the shark was many times.
03:11He developed a language, I feel, cinematically of really showing more the detailed effects
03:17of where a monster is rather than just showing the monster.
03:20So that was a real touch point for me as I tried to show our tornado, which I believe
03:25to be a monster.
03:26I tried to show a lot of the effects, like the way that it would make a stop sign spin
03:30or the way that it would make the windshield wiper get caught.
03:34But in general, Spielberg was a very huge reference, World to World.
03:37I watched this one a lot, not just for story, but also for framing because I knew that this
03:42film, the monster is very high up in the air.
03:46So that would just be like Tom Cruise right here would be looking at a tornado.
03:50I could very well let this be a Twister's frame.
03:53So that was a big reference for me visually, just to see how he was telling that story.
03:57Al Nelson at Skywalker Sound, who did our sound design for the tornadoes, he was trying
04:02to create a voice for the tornado, so that it's not just this inanimate object or an
04:07object that has no personality, but he wanted it to have an organic living voice.
04:11He wanted a kind of lonely sound to it, so it was wolves, seals, and it was horses.
04:19So those sounds he put in, he changed the speed of them, and he kind of cleaned them
04:25up and different things, and he integrated them into the tornado.
04:29Hopefully people feel it in some visceral way, that this tornado has a voice.
04:34So I had used weather very little in my previous films, and that's typically because I've been
04:40making very low-budget movies, and it tends to be quite a nightmare to shoot with rain
04:44towers and things like that.
04:46But on this movie, I knew that if I wanted rain, then I'd be able to get it.
04:49If I wanted wind, I'd be able to get it.
04:51And I went to town with it.
04:52I thought, I'm going to really try to use this and use it very well and learn from the
04:56masters.
04:57What have they done with weather?
04:59So Kurosawa, I felt like it all started with him for me.
05:02I went back and watched Seven Samurai, and Seven Samurai has some incredible scenes and
05:07sequences with rain.
05:08And I knew that I would be using a lot of rain in this film.
05:11And Ron, it has so much texture within the wind that's in the story.
05:16And watching the way that he uses his camera in opposition to the elements or in conjunction,
05:22there are things that he would do to create much more of an impact of the weather effects.
05:27So that's something that I was trying to do as well with the way that we were moving
05:30the camera.
05:31If wind is going in one direction, we try to counter it and just create more of a dynamic
05:36energy.
05:37By the way, this Wizard of Oz thing, I'm really happy this was here because Kate's journey
05:40to me, a tornado affects Kate's life and she's kind of transported to this new place and
05:46she has to find a way back home.
05:49That wasn't really in the script, but in my mind, I just felt like there's some similar
05:53tie between Kate's journey and Dorothy's journey.
05:57And at the end, when I was figuring out how do I frame the ending of the movie when Kate
06:01is surrounded by her friends, this was the exact frame that I showed to our cinematographer
06:06and our camera operator that ultimately we're going to land on this type of a frame.
06:11I tried to be very intuitive about how I was modernizing or making Twisters contemporary
06:18in the present day.
06:19I have a deep affinity and love for the first Twister.
06:22So I let that be my anchor, but I also didn't let it be some kind of chain.
06:27Like I wanted to make sure that we're making a whole new movie with whole new characters
06:32and a whole new science project, but one in which we really love the world of that original
06:36film.
06:37And I decided I'm just going to follow my own intuition and the things that give me
06:42delight, see where that leads.
06:44So this is my toy box and I'm just going to play.
06:47Oklahoma and Versimilitude.
06:51Oklahoma is really one of the big key factors of why I wanted to make this movie, to be
06:56honest.
06:57And I have such an affection for that state and for that area, the people.
07:01I made Minari there, a very personal film.
07:04I kept wondering, would I have a chance to go back?
07:06I really wanted to make another movie there.
07:08When I signed on to this film, I had all of that in mind.
07:12And then the studio asked me, now could you go please make this in Atlanta, because it's
07:15going to be cheaper to make it over there.
07:17So I went through the motions.
07:18I went to the state.
07:19I scouted locations to see if I can find Oklahoma in Georgia.
07:23But I just wasn't able to find it.
07:26And I asked the studio, please let me shoot it in Oklahoma.
07:28I'll do anything.
07:29And they said, OK, reduce the number of shooting days.
07:32Reduce your number of VFX shots and you can shoot in Oklahoma.
07:36And that's the deal I made, because I just believed even with VFX shots, the more that
07:41I can just have Oklahoma, the less I need to recreate things digitally or enhance things.
07:47I grew up right around there.
07:48I could walk into Oklahoma where I lived in Arkansas.
07:51It's just a place that I know really well.
07:54It's just in the bones.
07:55So you just naturally do things that bring you joy and texture of the place.
08:01So one of the things that I asked the location scout, Janice Pauly, who's incredible, I asked
08:06her, can you please find me red dirt roads?
08:08I need red dirt roads.
08:10Not all dirt roads are the same.
08:12That's specifically what I know.
08:14We had a baseball sequence in the script, but I said, I'd love to change it to the rodeo.
08:19I'd also love to change the rodeo grounds to really make the color of the dirt match
08:23what I remember and know.
08:25And even the look of the rodeo, I wanted to go that old time, like 1970s look, something
08:31that is much more classic that I recall looking in real life and also in magazines.
08:37And also the sequence at the farm that happens in the movie, that was really important for
08:42me.
08:43It's going to be very easy going on set.
08:44I try not to micromanage.
08:46And I felt like on that day I was very much in the weeds with making sure that they portray
08:51what a farm looks like, just because some of our team, they hadn't ever been really
08:56on a farm.
08:57So I was very particular about gloves and the way that the dirt should be on the shirt
09:02and stuff like that.
09:03So I do notice when it comes to details of the landscape and place, I just want to get
09:07it right.
09:09I don't think we see it enough in cinema, that area.
09:12So it is something that I wanted to get right.
09:14I feel like I see a Scorsese film and I understand New York City very well.
09:19Or if it's a Paul Thomas Anderson film in Los Angeles, I know that he knows the place
09:24and he picks up on these little mundane details of the place.
09:27And I kind of hope to do that too with this area that I love.
09:32I've been joking that Minari is in many ways a disaster movie.
09:36It's a movie about this family that really comes together as a result of a disaster.
09:40And that's often what disaster movies are about.
09:42The way that disaster can really bring people together or tear them apart, or even what
09:47it can do to a society or a group of people.
09:49But with Minari, my production designer, Yong Ok Lee, built this barn and we built it knowing
09:55that we're going to have to actually tear it apart and burn it.
09:59I remember we had quite a lot of trouble making negotiations with everybody to do this without
10:04VFX.
10:05Everybody wanted us to create a VFX fire, but I was very adamant we need to actually
10:09burn the barn to really feel the fullness of the thing.
10:12And our special effects guy rigged this thing up and we only had two takes to do it.
10:17And when it went, it was a fireball and it was much bigger than anything any of us expected.
10:23And this is Steven Yeun and Yeri Han here.
10:25It was so hot that I had to run up and pull them back physically because they were just
10:30in it.
10:31They were just performing.
10:32And I felt from a distance, I could feel the heat of it.
10:36And once I came to my senses after seeing this giant fireball, I ran up and I pulled
10:40them back and we reset and continued filming.
10:43They were just in awe, as were a lot of us on set.
10:46And when I was editing the movie, this scene I would go back to over and over again because
10:51I just felt like it expressed something so visceral and unexplainable, mysterious.
10:57And it did the job of really transforming these characters.
11:00And I wondered what would it be like to make an entire movie where that is happening over
11:04and over again.
11:05And when I got the script for Twisters, it was an aha moment.
11:08I could feel like my new fireballs were these tornadoes and I could really use those as
11:12a way to tell this story about people.
11:14I'm hoping for that sense of awe.
11:17This one, this Wakita scene, I remember my production designer worked on this scene in
11:23the first Twister, Patrick Sullivan.
11:25And he had so many regrets about this scene, even though it was so beautiful.
11:29He kept saying, we can do better.
11:31So we're going to do better.
11:32And he just felt like we can get more damage and we can make it look more epic.
11:36So for the past 27 years, he's been sitting on this scene wishing to improve upon it.
11:42And I let him go to town in our film and he and Missy Parker, our set deck, they hit the
11:48ground running.
11:49They went to places where they were actually salvaging from real tornado damaged areas,
11:54bringing trees over and rubble into our film.
11:57It's not just a bunch of junk that gets thrown out there.
12:00You have to really build these buildings to look like they were built fully and then
12:04they were destroyed.
12:06That for similitude is very difficult.
12:08And that level of detail, yeah, it's impressive.
12:13I love all of these Howard Hawks movies in the 1940s.
12:17And there are many other filmmakers who were doing these films.
12:19Preston Sturges was one, Billy Wilder.
12:22They were doing these movies in which often it'd be a divorce couple.
12:25The question in the movie is, will this couple ever come back together?
12:30And more often than not, what is missing in their lives is adventure.
12:34It's almost a purpose for that adventure to exist in the movie, simply as a means to get
12:38the two people back together.
12:40Michael Crichton and his wife, they were the ones who decided we need to bring back His
12:45Girl Friday into this story of Twister.
12:47And they're the ones who implemented that.
12:49I thought it was brilliant.
12:50It's two people who share a similar interest.
12:54And that's what I was hoping with Twisters, that Glenn's character, Daisy's character,
12:57you see the shared affinity and it brings them together.
13:00I would listen to the soundtrack of Fire of Love while I was making this film.
13:05And I recommended that all of the actors watch Fire of Love because I wanted them to understand
13:11that at the core, this film is about a relationship.
13:14And I love that this relationship between these two is really informed by a shared reverence
13:18for nature.
13:19One that leads them to the brink of disaster.
13:22I mean, they actually got so sucked into it that their lives were consumed by an actual
13:28volcano.
13:29And I just thought that relationship and love story was very fascinating.
13:33Daisy so loved this movie that she wanted a camera in Twisters.
13:38She said she also wants to be a photographer.
13:40That ended up being a part of her character, and it specifically came from Fire of Love.
13:46In some ways, I kind of felt like we have gone through a time of trauma and fear in
13:50society.
13:51And I thought it's interesting to be making this movie now when we went through this weird
13:56time.
13:57Now we're wondering, how do we get back out there?
13:58Do we look for ways to simply be safe and hiding and away and in New York City the way
14:04that she does?
14:05Or what of her past can she go back to and really explore and go back to and honor and
14:11embrace?
14:12I definitely felt in my life that the people who annoy me most are the people who have
14:17traits that I myself wish I did not have.
14:20And I felt like Kate must be running from certain aspects of herself, and those aspects
14:25are in Tyler.
14:26So I was hoping that'd be a nice romance between Kate and somebody who has all these qualities
14:31of herself that she's been really wanting to bury and remove and she might actually
14:35hate.
14:36And that creates this nice love-hate tension and relationship.
14:40I asked Glenn to be really annoying to her in the beginning, and it was fun.
14:45I could tell he really relished doing that.
14:47But what I loved was that Daisy always stood her ground, and that just made her so much
14:52cooler.
14:53There were so many scenes where she would do something and she was just not falling
14:57prey to Tyler's charms or to his teases, and it just made her so much of a better character
15:03to me.
15:04I kind of see myself as Kate in many ways.
15:07I grew up on a farm.
15:08I headed to the cities.
15:10I felt like I need to run away from this identity.
15:13Also when I was a kid, I loved Spielberg movies, Amblin movies.
15:18Those were my favorite movies.
15:19When I got to college, I found out that those are not very sophisticated.
15:23Just as I was trying to remove any bits of my Ozark, hillbilly, farming identity, I was
15:30squashing even that side.
15:32And I was really trying to develop tastes in all these different things.
15:37I think it wasn't until maybe my daughter was born that I just thought all of that stuff,
15:42all of those concerns, maybe I take life a little too seriously or even taste of films
15:48too seriously.
15:49And I started to see things more through her eyes as a kid.
15:52And then in wanting to do my next project after Me Nutty, I just wanted to be a kid
15:57again.
15:58And there's an element to Kate's story where she just has to capture that childlike joy
16:02and go back to what she was always loving.
16:08Thank you so much for watching, for listening.
16:12I hope you all will take a chance to go out there and find some awe.