'Together's' Ending: Yes, The Final Shot Is Wild, And Alison Brie And Dave Franco Have A Hilarious 'Qualm' With It

Cinema Blend

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Together. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk!  Watching Together at a screening last month, I found myself wowed, impressed, and mesmerized by the movie’s final shot. The film builds well to its freaky, body horror-centric climax, which sees Alison Brie’s Millie and Dave Franco’s Tim submit and embrace the force that is fusing them together, and I left the theater instantly curious how the final shot came together with the Mille/Tim hybrid that greets Mille’s parents at the door of their home when the older couple arrives for a Sunday visit.  Fortunately, one of the best aspects of my job is that I get to satisfy that kind of curiosity via interviews with filmmakers and actors, and that’s exactly what I got to do when I sat down with writer/director Michael Shanks, Alison Brie and Dave Franco during the Los Angeles press day for the new horror movie. In separate interviews (as captured in the video above), I asked them all about how that final shot was accomplished, and not only did I learn about the execution of some amazing special and visual effects work, but I discovered that the married stars have a hilarious “qualm” with the final look.

Transcript

00:00But I do want to ask about the final shot because, like, the merge, how was it?

00:04Was that an actor? Is that visual effects? I mean, how are they?

00:06The very final shot, that is a combination of practical and visual effects.

00:13So it's Allison in a wig with shoulder pads with Dave Franco makeup eyebrows

00:19and Dave Franco makeup contact lenses.

00:22And then our visual effects supervisor did the comp herself of cutting out Dave's nose

00:27and jawline and kind of, like, sticking it together.

00:30Oh, my God.

00:30And, yeah, I'm so proud with how it came out because that's been in there from the first draft

00:35of just, like, the movie has to end in this shot.

00:37I don't know why, but I just kind of felt like that's the end, yeah.

00:39Sure.

00:40Creating that, I mean, can you both talk about that, going through the makeup process?

00:44Yeah, well, so the final shot is, it's my body, it's me.

00:49We shot me with some shoulder pads with Dave's eyebrows and a wig.

00:54And then we shot Dave's face, Dave in the same spot.

00:58And they ended up, you know, overlaying, doing the VFX.

01:01It's Dave's nose, it's Dave's jaw, it's Dave's Adam's apple.

01:04The funniest thing about that to me is we did a couple test screenings before Sundance.

01:10And in the test screenings, you know, we were testing levels of how much of Dave's face,

01:15how much of my face, but the audio wasn't mixed yet.

01:18So it was my voice.

01:19And hearing my voice would send signals to the audience's brain.

01:23So I would sneak in the back of these test screenings, the audience didn't know I was

01:27there.

01:27And after one of them, they're asking questions, and what did you think about this final person

01:31and how did it make you feel and what did it look like to you?

01:33And one person goes, it just looks like Alison Brie.

01:36And I turned to one of our producers and I was like, that's the meanest thing anyone's

01:41ever said.

01:41Because we will say, one qualm we have with that final creature is we were just disappointed

01:47with how unattractive.

01:49We wish they were a little more attractive, like the merging of our two faces made that

01:54face.

01:55They're not unattractive, but we just wanted them to be a little cuter.

01:58Yeah.

01:59So it's not the face that either of you would kind of make out with if you saw them, like

02:02it on the big screen.

02:03No.

02:04I don't think I want to make out with any version of both of us merged anyway, no matter

02:08how attractive they are.

02:10I don't know if that's true for me, but.

02:12Interesting.

02:14Yeah.

02:15I'll have to see some different versions and decide.

02:17So.

02:25Yeah.

02:27I don't know.

02:32Yeah.

02:33Yeah.

02:34Yeah.

02:37I don't know.

02:38Yeah.

02:39Yeah.

02:42Yeah.

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