The art of creating awe Rob Legato
I worked on a film called Apollo 13 and
when I worked on this film I discovered
something about how our brains work and
how our brains work is that when we’re
sort of infused with either enthusiasm
or awe or fondness or whatever it
changes in alters our perception of
things it changes what we see changes
what we remember and as an experiment
because I
dauntingly create a task for myself of
recreating saturn v launch for this
particular movie because I put it out
there I felt a little nervous about it
so I need to do an experiment and bring
a group of people like this in a
projection room and plays the stock
footage and when I played the stock
footage I was simply wanted to find out
what people remembered what was memoral
about it
what should I actually try to replicate
what should I try to emulate some degree
so this is the footage that I was
showing everybody and what I discovered
is because of the nature of the footage
and the fact that we were doing this
film there was an emotion that was built
into it and our collective memories of
what what this launch meant to us and
all these various things when I showed
it and I asked immediately after the
screening was over what they thought of
it what was your memorable shots and
they changed them they were had camera
moves on them they had all kinds of
things
shots were combined and I was just
really curious I mean what the hell were
you looking at just a few minutes ago
and how come and how’d you come up with
this sort of description and what I
discovered is what I should do is not
actually replicate what they saw is
replicate what they remembered so this
is our footage of the of the launch
based on basically taking notes asking
people what they thought and then the
combination of all the different shots
and all the different things put
together create their sort of collective
consciousness of what they remembered it
looked like but not what it really
looked like so this is what we created
for Apollo 13
so literally what you’re seeing now is
the confluence of a bunch of different
people a bunch of different memories
including my own of taking a little bit
of liberty with the subject matter I
basically shot everything with short
lenses which means that you’re very
close to the action but framed it’s very
similar to the long lens shots which
gives you a sense of distance so he’s
basically was setting up something that
would remind you of something you
haven’t really quite seen before
and then I’m gonna show you exactly what
it is that you were reacting to when
you’re reacting to it
and pretend they’re clapping for me so
now what I’m in a parking lot I’ve
basically it’s a tin can and I’m
basically recreating the launch with
fire extinguishers fire that I have wax
that I threw in front of the lens to
look like ice and so basically if you
believed any of the stuff that I just
showed you what you were reacting to
what your remoting to is something
that’s a total falsehood and I found
that really kind of fascinating and in
this particular case this is the climax
of the movie and you know the the weight
of achieving it was simply take a model
throw it out of a helicopter and shoot
it and that’s simply what I did that’s
me shooting and I’m a fairly mediocre
operator so I got that nice sense of
verisimilitude of a kind of you know
following the rocket all the way down
and given that little sort of edge as
desperately trying to keep it all in
frame so then I come up to the next
thing we had a NASA consultant who was
actually an astronaut who was actually
on some of the missions of Apollo 15 and
he was there to basically double check
my science and I guess somebody thought
they needed to do that I don’t know why
but they thought they did so we were off
we’re you know he’s a he’s a hero he’s
an astronaut and we’re all sort of
excited and you know I gave myself the
liberty of saying you know some of the
shots I did didn’t really suck that bad
and so maybe maybe you know I was
feeling kind of good about it so I had
brought him in here and you need to
really a check and see what we were
doing and basically give us our a-plus
report card and so I showed him some
shots we were working on and waiting for
the reaction that you hope for it which
is what I got
so I showed him these two shots and then
he basically told me what he thought
okay
it’s what you dream about so what I got
from him is he turned to me and said you
would never ever design a rocket like
that you would never have a rocket go up
all the gantt your arms are going out
you imagine the tragedy that could
possibly happen with that you would
never ever design a rocket like that and
you’re looking at me it’s like yeah I
don’t know if you noticed but I’m the
guy out in the parking lot recreating
one of America’s finest moments with
fire extinguishers already and and I’m
not gonna argue with you you’re an
astronaut a hero and I’m from New Jersey
so I’m just gonna show you some footage
I’m just going to show you some footage
and tell me what you think and then I
did kind of get the reaction I was
hoping for so I showed him this and this
is actual footage that he was on this is
Apollo 15 this was his mission so I
showed him this and the reaction I got
was interesting so and what happened was
I mean I what I sort of in tuned and
that is that he remembered it
differently he remembered that was a
perfectly safe sort of gantry system
perfectly safe rocket launch because
he’s sitting in a rocket that has like a
hundred thousand pounds of thrust built
by the lowest bidder he was hoping it
was going to work out okay so he twisted
his memory around now Ron Howard ran
into Buzz Aldrin who was not on the
movie so he had he had no idea that we
were faking any of this footage and he
just responded as he would respond and
I’ll run this Buzz Aldrin came up to me
and said hey that launch footage I saw
some shots I’d never seen before did you
guys did what vault did you find that
stuff in and I said well no vault buzz
we you know we generated all that from
scratch and he said wow that’s pretty
good
can we use it
I think he’s a great American
so Titanic was a if you don’t know the
story doesn’t end well Jim Cameron
actually photographed the real Titanic
so he basically set up or basically
shattered the suspension of disbelief
because what he photographed was the
real thing a mere sub going down or
actually two Mir subs going down to the
real wreck and he created this very
haunting footage it’s really beautiful
and it conjures up all these at various
different emotions but he couldn’t
photograph everything and to tell the
story I had to fill in the gaps which is
now rather daunting because now I have
to recreate back to back what really
happened and I had to you know I’m the
only wanted to really blow it at that
point so this is the footage he
photographed and it was pretty moving
and pretty awe-inspiring so I’m gonna
just let it let it run so you kind of
absorb this sort of thing and I’ll
describe my sort of reactions when I was
looking at it for the very first time I
got the feeling that I wanted to
basically see it come back to life I
automatically wanted to see this this
ship this magnificent ship basically in
all its glory and conversely I want to
see it not in all its glory basically go
back to what what it looks like so I
conjured up an effect that I’ll be later
going to show you what I try to do which
is kind of the heart of the movie for me
and so that’s why I wanna do the movie
that’s why I wanted to create these sort
of things I created and I’ll show you
you know another thing that I found
interesting is what we really were
remoting to when you see when you take a
look at it so here’s the behind the
scenes a couple little shots here so
when you saw my footage you were seeing
this basically a bunch of guys flipping
a ship upside down and the little mirror
subs are actually about the size of
small footballs and shot and smoke Jim
went three miles down and I went about
three miles away from the studio and
photographed this in a garage
and so but what your remoting to or what
you’re looking at had the same feeling
the same haunting quality that Jim’s
footage had so I found it so fascinating
that our brains sort of once you believe
something’s real you transfer everything
that you feel about it this this quality
you have and it’s totally artificial
it’s totally make-believe yet it’s not
to you and I found that that was a very
interesting thing to explore and use and
it caused me to create the next effect
that I’ll show you which is this sort of
magic transition and all I was really
attempting to do is basically have the
audience cue the effect so it became a
seamless experience for them that I
wasn’t showing you my sort of
interpretation I was showing you what
you wanted to see and the very next shot
right after this
so you can see what I was doing so
basically if there’s two subs in the
same shot I shot it because where’s the
camera coming from and when Jim shot it
was only one sub because he was
photographed from another and I don’t
remember if I did this or Jim did this
I’ll give it to Jim because he could use
the pat on the back okay so now the
Titanic transition so this is what I was
referring to where I wanted to basically
magically transplant from one state of
the Titanic to the other
so I’ll just play the shot once and
where I was hoping for is it just melts
in front of you
that was the last time Titanic ever saw
daylight so um what I did is basically
had another screening room experience
where I was basically tracking where I
was looking or where we were looking and
of course you’re looking at the two
people on the on the bow of the ship and
then at some point I’m changing the
periphery of the shot I’m changing it’s
becoming the rest a trek and then I
would run it every day and then I would
find exactly the moment that I stopped
looking at them and start noticing the
rest of it and the moment my eye shifted
we just marked it to the frame the
moment my eye shifted I immediately
started to change them so now somehow
you missed where it started and where it
stopped and so I’ll just show it one
more time and is literally done by using
what our brains naturally do for us
which is which is as soon as you shift
your attention something changes then I
left the little scarf going because it
really wanted to be a ghostly shot
really wanted to feel like they were
still on the wreck essentially that’s
where they were buried forever or
something like that I just made that up
as incidentally last time I ever saw
daylight Ozar long film to work on now
you go is another interesting movie
because the movie itself is about film
illusions is about how our brain is
tricked into seeing a persistence of
vision that creates a motion picture and
one of the things that I had to do is we
Sacha Baron Cohen is very clever very
smart guy
comedian wanted to basically do an
homage to that kind of the Buster Keaton
sort of slapstick things and he wanted
his leg brace to get caught on a moving
train very dangerous very impossible to
do and particularly on our stage because
there literally is no way to actually
move this train because it’s it fits so
snugly into our set so let me show you
the scene and then I basically used the
trick that was identified by Sergei
Eisenstein which is if you have a camera
that’s moving with a moving object what
is not moving appears to be moving at
what is moving appears to be stopped so
what you’re actually seeing now is the
Train is not moving at all and what is
actually moving is the floor so this is
the shots the low that’s a little video
of what you’re looking at there which is
our little test so that’s actually what
you’re seeing and I thought it was sort
of an interesting thing because it was
part of the omage of the of the movie
itself is is coming up with this sort of
genius trick which I can’t take credit
for I’d love to but I can’t because it
was invented like in 1910 or something
like that
is I told Marty and it’s kind of one of
those mind things that it’s really hard
to really get until you actually see at
work and I said you know what I was
gonna do and he said so let me see if I
get it straight the thing with the
wheels that doesn’t move
and the thing without the wheels that
moves precisely
brings me to the next and final Marty’s
not going to see this is he this isn’t
viewed outside of the next illustration
is something that there is a like all
one shot theory it’s a very elegant way
of telling the story especially if
you’re following somebody on a journey
and that journey basically tells
something about their personality in a
very concise way and what we wanted to
do based on the shot in Goodfellas is
join the great shots ever at the Martin
Scorsese film of basically following
Henry Hill through what it feels like to
be a gangster walk going through the
Copacabana and being treated in a
special way he was the master of his of
his universe and we wanted you go to
feel the same way so we created this
shot
and we felt that if we could basically
move the camera with him we would feel
what it feels like to be this boy who is
basically the master of his universe and
his universe is the you know behind the
scenes in the bowels of this particular
train station and only he can actually
navigate through and do it this way and
we had to make him feel that this is his
normal everyday sort of life so the idea
of doing that as one shot was very
important and of course in shooting in
3d which is basically it’s a huge camera
that’s hanging off of a giant stick so
to recreate a Steadicam shot was that
was the task and make it feel kind of
like what the reaction got when you saw
the Goodfellow shot so what you’re now
gonna see is how we actually did it it’s
actually five separate sets shot at five
different times with two different boys
the one on the left is where the shot
ends and their work shot on the right is
where it takes takes over and now we
switch boys so it went from ASA
Butterfield who’s the star of the show
to his standin I wouldn’t say a stunt
double there’s a crazy rig that we built
for this and so this is and now this is
the set number three were into and then
we’re going to go into the basically the
very last moment of the shot is is
actually the Steadicam shot everything
else was shot on cranes and various
things like that
and it literally was done over five
different sets two different boys
different times and it all had to feel
like was all one shot and what was sort
of great for me was it was probably the
best reviewed shot I’ve ever worked on
and you know it’s kind of proud of it
when I was done which is which was you
should never really be proud of stuff I
guess so I was kind of proud of it I
went to a friend of mine and said you
know this is
you know kind of the best reviewed shot
ever worked on what do you think was the
reason and he said because no one knows
you had anything to do with it so all I
can say is thank you and that’s my
presentation for you