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