Director Jake Schreier talks to The Inside Reel about perspective and perception in terms of performance and camera style in regards to the home entertainment release of his Marvel movie: "Thunderbolts*".
00:25I'd like not to die today so maybe somebody else should be driving?
00:29Marvel Studios.
00:30Thunderbolts.
00:31The New Avengers.
00:32Buy it on digital July 1st.
00:33Own it on Blu-ray July 29th.
00:35Thunderbolts is not an easy film to make.
00:38It's complex and yet it's very thematically, you know, key and solid.
00:43Could you talk about that?
00:44Because the whole idea of Thunderbolts also, at least from my perspective, and feel free
00:50to disagree because it's your movie, is about perspective and perception.
00:54Every single character and the way they perceive themselves, the universe, and everything else,
00:59internally and externally.
01:01Very sort of complex existential question, but can you talk about that a little bit?
01:05Yeah, I think that that's really cool that you sort of picked up on the idea of perspective,
01:11because that's something that, you know, even in, that's something that, you know, Sonny
01:15and I talk a lot about in Beef and how we approach making it and, you know, tried to bring some of that,
01:20those concepts to Thunderbolts, which is this idea of like really trying to enforce character perspective through camera perspective
01:27and the way the film is made and really like emphasize the ways in which sort of people see themselves
01:32and view others like relative to them.
01:34And I think that in this case, you know, the movie on a lot of levels is about like how alone you see yourself
01:42versus how connected you imagine yourself to be.
01:45And when you, when you feel alone, your sort of perception of others and the way that you relate to them,
01:50you know, that, that can be very isolating and sort of over the course of the film,
01:54we're hoping to kind of bring you, bring these characters to a point where they're able to recognize themselves
02:00in each other, but that's not a thing that they can do at the start.
02:03And obviously probably the greatest dichotomy.
02:06And that is like that relationship between Yelena and Bob and, you know, how, how low and how dark it will get for Bob.
02:13But the way in which she's able to kind of connect with that is what that perception and that sort of that,
02:21that relative perspective is kind of the crux of what is able to save it, the world in the film.
02:29Let's talk facts.
02:30The Avengers are not coming.
02:33Who will keep the American people safe.
02:43There's some big threat out there.
02:45And you are going to help me stop it.
02:47Wait, us?
02:48Yeah, you.
02:49Why? You got some place to be?
02:50I love that guy.
02:54Now, can you talk about, you know, because obviously these kinds of movies have to be boarded,
02:58you know, over and over with all the previous.
03:00But the thing is, is that a lot of it has to do with reflecting the visual style of what's in Bob's head in certain ways with what's in everybody else's head.
03:09Can you talk about visual style aside from the action sequences?
03:13Because that's a different thing.
03:14But at the end, that sort of melts together.
03:16Yeah.
03:17Yeah.
03:18I think that's what was so fun is that, you know, to me, you know, boarding and camera perspective is just as important in your dialogue scenes as it is in your action, you know, and really trying to set up like a kind of visual pattern for, you know, there was this thing that we found.
03:33I think like the first scene that we filmed that had this was the vault sequence when there's a countdown and I went up to Florence and I was like, oh, in this moment, can you just sort of think about, you know, we hadn't shot her on the building in the beginning.
03:46But I was like, if you can imagine how low that moment feels, you know, given that she's about to potentially die here, like, can you just think about how you might perform that and see if there's anything that you could bring to this that felt related to that.
03:59And then she did this like beautiful, I mean, everything Florence does is kind of magical, but this beautiful moment of kind of closing her eyes and taking a deep breath and opening them and sort of making peace with that.
04:09There's something wrong with me.
04:17An emptiness.
04:22I thought it started when my sister died, but now it feels like something bigger.
04:32Just a void.
04:39And then that was so kind of nice that she and I sort of made that a like a repeated pattern in the film.
04:48And then I tried to kind of echo that in the shot structure and how we see her in the opening shot.
04:53And then, of course, how we see her in the last shot of the film.
04:56So that there would be this kind of visual mnemonic of tracking that progression for her as she moves through it.
05:02And so I think, you know, there's a lot of things like that in the way people see Bob and the way those shadows emerge and the way that we're at sort of a distance from him at the beginning.
05:12And then as he becomes a stronger perspective character in the film, we get closer and closer to him and are able to understand his perspective.
05:19And, you know, every scene we did try at least to map out, you know, because it is an ensemble film, obviously, you know, Yelena's probably like our most dominant character.
05:29But everyone has a moment where we want to be with them and really mapping out whose scene is this or even within a scene.
05:34Like at what moment is it important to be with Walker and to feel the way Walker feels as apart from them or to be with Ava and feel her sense of isolation.
05:43You know, and we did create kind of a map for that throughout that we tried to follow.
05:50Or maybe I'm just bored.
06:08Boo.
06:13But you did bring the power of each and every character that each feel so individual.
06:23Now, granted, we've seen a lot of these characters before in certain ways, but even with Walker, I felt like in certain points, you've got a little bit of Kurt out of them, you know, where you feel that sort of snarky element, but it's done in good humor.
06:36And that's a direction thing. That's pinpoint. Could you talk about finding those characters sort of flaws or strengths within each of the characters visually, because it's it's what's said between the lines sometimes, you know?
06:48Yeah, well, Wyatt and I are very good friends and we did a show called Lodge 49 together.
06:55So that was fun just to get to have a kind of another, you know, anytime you have that familiarity with an actor and you're friendly, there's a there's a comfort and a kind of trust there that makes it easier to find that stuff.
07:08I think, yeah, like there's always sort of like you've got characters that are hiding things, you know, and Walker is telling a lie to others, but he's also telling a lie to himself.
07:19And I think that that could probably describe every character in the movie.
07:23And so when people are kind of lying or, you know, being not being honest with themselves, a lot of time that does live in between the lines.
07:32And so then it's important to have in those moments to have the character be on, you know, I think, sorry, have the camera be on slightly wider lenses, a little bit closer to that character.
07:42So we really feel close to them and like we're being asked to pick up on those moments.
07:48Or there are times when I think like you can see Yelena clocking that lie and then you want to be further from Walker.
07:55But you're being given insight in the way that Yelena responds to that as to what she's recognizing as you start to bring them together.
08:03But there's always a kind of decision being made about whose perspective we're in and what we're attempting to pick up in those moments.
08:10Let's do this.
08:11Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new Avengers.
08:20This has makings of team that can raise to glory.
