00:00I remember at one point he was saying he didn't want the padded desk he just
00:07wanted a regular desk I did not want that in the end the foam was attached to
00:12an actual desk it landed somewhere between what he wanted and what we
00:15thought we were providing which was you know total protection I'm Ari Aster and
00:20I am apparently going to be breaking down some scenes from my movies
00:23no they're yours sheriff they're your streets to keep safe and where is your
00:27man this is a scene from my first feature hereditary so you got some fly VFX here
00:42I wanted to just have hundreds of real flies accumulating in the attic my first
00:49plan was to lock off the set and just leave some you know rotting stuff in
00:55the room for like days just let the room become you know permeated I was
01:00disabused of the notion that that would be possible pretty quickly something to do
01:05with I think PETA was involved fly wranglers are hard to come by but we
01:10actually did I did hire somebody to catch flies and so we did let some flies into
01:16the room but they didn't get very it didn't it didn't do much it just made the
01:20room unpleasant to be in
01:24there's a real corpse we cut off its head it's not true sorry
01:46I will say I was kind of surprised by the time the film came out and people were
01:58telling me that the the clucking was effective because while we were
02:01shooting this I just kept thinking like this is not gonna fucking work this is
02:04so silly
02:16Alex basically went method for this film and he really got into a pretty intense
02:24psychological space he was definitely in a zone for this scene and I think he's
02:30amazing in this scene it in particular especially in what is about to happen
02:36for that I think we at first the idea because I wanted it to feel unnatural as
02:42we tied rope to his hand and tugged it up but we found that it was even more
02:47effective when he just did it himself
02:49Peter what's wrong
02:51Peter are you all right
02:56that push-in ended up working I was I wasn't sure if it would where we can't
03:05it off axis as we push in there's a bit being done here with makeup with his lip and
03:10his eye which which we kind of artificially opened beyond what would seem natural the
03:16rest of what we're seeing here is Alex just acting very well him going
03:22almost purple is not makeup that's him
03:24Peter what are you doing man
03:26in order to get that effect we did that backwards so had had him press his face
03:36into the desk and then pull it back quickly
03:38this he actually did go into the table I think his nose would be
03:46right around there this is a padded table so we put foam on the top to protect him but I
03:52hadn't thought of the fact that you know beneath the foam is still a table so it's
03:57still solid beneath the foam I think he did unfortunately hurt his nose which was
04:03obviously not intentional I don't think any permanent damage was done I remember at
04:07one point he was saying he didn't want the padded desk he just wanted a regular desk I did
04:12not want that in the end because the foam was attached to an actual desk it landed somewhere
04:19between what he wanted and what and what you know we thought we were providing which was you know
04:24total protection
04:25yeah so you know everybody reacting there didn't have to act much because Alex was actually doing
04:39that or rather the reaction didn't take much acting yeah Alex is great in this scene he really he really
04:47gave it I did write backstories for all of these characters more than I ever have done since I went a
04:52little crazy with the backstories wrote like these 20 page biographies for each character but with
04:59Alex it was mostly us just talking about life and family and art and our own histories and and just
05:05closer to therapy do I want to let do I let him finish screaming yeah there it is what's that
05:14that's not for us this is a scene from Midsommar which was my second film I think you should not
05:21so they want her to go to Siv's house uh but she's hearing noises in uh the temple and she has a bad
05:33feeling about what's in there and feels compelled to investigate and uh is about to discover that
05:40her boyfriend is in some sex ritual and it's it'll be disturbing to her
05:46so this is a steadicam shot
05:51nice to have the light from the keyhole illuminating her her eyes
06:03I offered to provide something on the other side of that but she didn't need it some people would
06:17would request something there so that they're not just you know acting but she did not need it
06:22so here again is we have a steadicam shot they have sort of an empathy based language they are
06:33all kind of like a hive mind and so the idea was to have them kind of move in all together at once
06:40to uh to support her and kind of whisk her away here we drift in nice to have the door framing this
06:48here we move into handheld which is the only time we do this in the film
06:52i try to only kick into handheld when uh the scene itself is is is kind of off balance
07:00all of these actresses well most of them we flew in from sweden and uh they are all uh accomplished
07:19theater television film actors we were very lucky to have them
07:24there was a lot of talk about this before we started shooting
07:32florence is not like a big crier and she was very nervous about even taking on the part because
07:39she was just worried that she wouldn't be able to do these scenes and by the time they came around
07:44she was i don't know what she had done to prepare but she was very ready she was able to launch into
07:49this stuff whatever she was worried would be inaccessible to her was not
07:53what the the scene required was kind of laid out pretty clearly in the script
08:11i remember there was an energy that morning among all of these women you know they were nervous but
08:16very excited and you know i think i maybe talked them through the cycle here and like you know
08:22she's gonna crawl off the bed try to crawl towards the exit you're gonna crowd her and kind of make her
08:28look into your eyes you look into hers and just you know follow her breathing and kind of train her
08:35and then the way that they launch into the the crying is uh really strong and really moving to me and
08:55scary and strange and uh i i'm very proud of the scene and i'm i'm really i'm really proud of this cast i think they are amazing
09:04this is a heavily choreographed film there's a lot of dance from actual dance sequences when they're
09:26all competing to become the may queen movements they do and gestures to to you know um a sort of sign
09:32language that we've incorporated into the affect language and the choreographer anna vanuk a really
09:37brilliant swedish choreographer who was a hugely helpful in this film lent a lot of herself to this
09:46couldn't have done it without her
09:53so i think all together we probably did it wasn't many it was maybe three or four takes all together
10:01because at a certain point they're just sapped we set it up so that the first couple takes could be
10:08the prime ones
10:15pretty sure i was in the uh the operator's ear there to move to move closer and then to move out which is
10:21how we have that pull back
10:28their screaming there is meant to uh synchronize with the the moaning screaming that's happening
10:34in the the sex ritual in the next scene so we we we keep that tempo going um over the cut
10:40i really love this scene and i really love these actresses and then just the spill of two 300
10:51construction jobs ongoing this is from my new film eddington the scene is one of the first scenes in the
10:56film and it's uh the first time we will meet the mayor of eddington played by pedro pascal we've just
11:04been introduced to joaquin phoenix's character joe cross who's the sheriff of sevilla county he's about
11:10to walk into frame you just let these guys build this whatever data complex and then they open
11:15close it down for whatever reason we just got to eat there there's clawbacks on everything they're
11:18talking about a hyperscale data complex that's tied to ai and how they can get that through and make it
11:25happen gross receipt taxes payback property there's no wishing tech away whether we jump on the boat now
11:33or get bulldozed these guys they're bringing an actual infrastructure for a real future a real future
11:39they're like what this uh neon sign does for the scene it uh casts both of them in in red light
11:47this was an empty building that was not safe to even really stand in and so we had to we had to
11:53fortify the building itself and then um and build the whole for the whole thing for from scratch one thing
11:59about this set that unfortunately is not clear in the film is we had a mural painted all across
12:08the bar that depicted the history of eddington and uh and ted garcia's family the garcia family has
12:15deep roots in in eddington i just didn't anticipate how dark all the scenes would be and the fact that
12:21that mural is like completely invisible so anyway that's some work that you know just kind of went
12:28out the window can we count on your yay tomorrow what is the problem
12:38well he's outside i had to lock the door to keep him outside it's been a whole hour like this
12:46i can't understand you yes you can
12:53he's disturbing the peace again he's blocking the entrance i was uh pleasantly surprised how much
13:00chemistry joaquin and pedro had they really liked each other and um and they uh just had this like
13:07instant rapport made each other laugh a lot and this scene was actually difficult to get through
13:13because for whatever reason they were very giggly they were making each other laugh
13:17all night and it was a tight night so that was fun for a little bit um what are you even doing in
13:23there it's takeaway drinks town council members that's essential business well you can't just call
13:28essential business whatever you want i like glass because it catches reflections and that just makes
13:34any frame more interesting what is that borges quote uh mirrors are abominable because they
13:40multiply the number of men so i i like reflections not for that reason but i but i but i but i always
13:45think about that the city council meeting wherever city council people congregate it's the mayor's
13:50office if i'm inside okay then you are open and you have a paying customer who's trying to he's aggressive
13:58he's dangerous he needs to be locked up where would you have to send him in your streets no they're yours
14:03sheriff they're your streets to keep safe and where is your man he doesn't have a mascot yeah
14:12you can sort of see the mural back here and it and it continues here and goes over here anyway
14:22uh that's what i'm talking about lodge the homeless man is played by clifton collins jr who's a great
14:28actor and was great in this and yeah he is kind of deliberately kind of sidelined all the way through
14:34the film there's nobody who cares about him he's he's he's not tied to anybody else i i don't want to
14:40give anything away but uh he becomes important and at the same time remains expendable i maybe that's
14:49saying too much he's coughing okay no mask either with this guy well i will say we shot bow is afraid
14:58with all those covid protocols it made the process of making that film so difficult even certain things
15:04like uh actors could not be within three feet of each other for longer than 15 minutes cumulatively
15:12over the day and you'd have somebody with a stopwatch you know so every take that you know it it goes
15:17four minutes and actors are you know within that bubble like that's okay you've got you've got 11
15:23minutes now over the whole day and then and then it's over this would have been a perfect movie to
15:27make in in 2021 when we made beau because everybody was masked up anyway he's also got a young guns 2
15:34poster and i think that says a lot about ted up here you've got winners of the miss fiesta
15:41uh competition it's a beauty competition i'll tell you what this is the kind of thing that i would do
15:48myself that that me and the art team would would do but the truth or consequences museum we shot this
15:54film in truth or consequences new mexico had uh an exhibit for the past winners those were just priceless so
16:03we we actually borrowed those from the museum well yeah the scene continues but uh you're gonna have to
16:11buy a ticket and go watch it
