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Hi, I'm Stephen Sommers,
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the writer/director/producer of Van Helsing.
And to my right...
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Hi, I'm Bob Ducsay.
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I'm the producer, and unbelievably,
editor of the movie also.
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Why unbelievably, Bob?
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Because it's really bad
to have two jobs on a movie.
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- It's worse to have three.
- it is, actually. I'm lucky only to have two.
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Sit down, here we go.
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Originally, when we came up with it
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we thought we were going to use
the old 1932 black-and-white logo.
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The very first time we put it up
on the screen, I thought, "No.
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"I think it will take people out of the movie."
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So that's how we came up with this idea
to use the new logo
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and go into black and white.
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Interestingly enough about the 1932 logo,
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this is the second movie
we thought we would try to do that.
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We tried it on the Mummys, too.
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We're going to stop trying to put
the 1932 Universal logo on our movies.
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- It never works out.
- it takes people out for some reason.
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That intro, that whole opening there,
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was shot by
our second unit director, Greg Michael,
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who's been with us since film school.
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He was my camera operator
at film school, 15 years ago.
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It was about 5 degrees out.
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We sent them hundreds of miles
out into the wilderness.
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- In the Czech Republic.
- and they froze their rear ends off.
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And you see all the steam
coming out of Top Hat's mouth.
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In fact, the snow that's there...
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We didn't really ever want this
to be a snowy scene,
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but the snow was there, and there it is.
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And now we go back
to soundstages down in LA.
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Success!
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Count, it's just you.
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I was beginning to lose...
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This was really fun, I thought.
Just to be in Frankenstein's laboratory.
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A pity your moment...
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Also, Allen Daviau, our cinematographer...
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with the fantastic opportunity to shoot,
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I think it's the first seven minutes or so
of the movie, in black and white.
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A wonderful opportunity for Allen
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because you don't really get
a lot of chances
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to shoot black and white in movies now,
especially movies of this size.
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I love this moment here.
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Somebody came up with that and I thought,
"That's cool."
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The black and white idea was
in the very first draft, second paragraph.
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It said, "This entire opening sequence
will be shot in black and white."
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The studio loved the idea,
and it always remained so.
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I love this bit right here.
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I love Dracula popping up
from different places
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and you don't know
how he's getting around.
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- You said you believed in my work.
- And I do.
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But now that it is,
as you yourself have said,
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a triumph of science...
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Every actor in this movie
was just so much fun to work with.
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These guys, Richard and Sam here...
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terrific.
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One of the things that's kind of interesting
about this sequence,
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something that
I've never really seen before,
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is the chance to do
21 st century visual effects
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in a black-and-white sequence.
We've got a few things coming up here
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that are a great deal of fun.
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I said to Ben Snow
of Industrial Light & Magic...
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Ben's one of the supervisors on the show.
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I said, "Have you ever done
special effects in black and white?"
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And he goes, "No, there's not much
call for it anymore."
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Feel free. I don't actually need you
anymore, Victor.
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Look back at that window.
I love that rain dripping off the window.
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I could never allow him
to be used for such evil.
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There's Shuler Hensley. We met Shuler...
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He won the Tony last year for playing
Jud Fry in Oklahoma! on Broadway.
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He just blew our socks off.
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We happened to be casting in New York,
and Bob dragged me to Oklahomal...
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and there was Shuler.
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You have been so kind to me, Doctor,
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This is Kevin J. O'Connor. He's been in...
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This is our third movie.
He was Pantucci in Deep Rising,
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he was Beni in the first Mummy,
and now he's Igor.
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It's really fun to see Kevin
in this big make-up role.
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It's funny, you can see him
right through the make-up.
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- It's hard to hide Kevin.
- yeah, it's hard.
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I'm already dead.
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We actually shoved that sword
through Richard.
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That's not a special effect.
We had to pay him extra.
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And Richard can actually do that.
That's the funny thing.
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- In fact, it was the reason he was cast.
- it had nothing to do with his talent.
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I just love shadow work.
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Michael Curtiz is
my all-time favorite director.
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Not only did he direct Casablanca,
but what I consider one of the greatest,
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if not the greatest romantic adventure
movie, the Errol Flynn Captain Blood.
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He was very much
into German expressionism
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with all the shadow work and stuff like that.
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That's got to hurt.
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He only did two takes of that.
The stuntman was good.
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This shot is a...
There's a lot of different ideas here.
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This exterior was shot
in the Czech Republic
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and some of the blue screen
was shot in Los Angeles.
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Then, of course, there are
some matte paintings in this shot.
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You see right here this beautiful painting
by Syd Dutton,
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who handled all of the environments
in the movie.
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Whenever you see steam coming out
of Frankenstein's leg, that was added later.
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Because the guy who invented
that little piece couldn't make it work.
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This was a very hard shot.
It was finished very late in the game.
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It was very hard
to complete this transformation.
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That last little bit there
was always a bit of a hassle.
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But I think it worked out rather beautifully.
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I just love this shadow shot.
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Most of this stuff is written in the script.
I had these ideas.
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I watched these movies.
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I fell in love with the characters,
the look, the feel.
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I thought, "That's what
this opening sequence is all about."
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It's just a big homage
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to all of those wonderful
Universal horror classic monster movies.
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- Coming up here, you're going to see...
- we set up the alcohol.
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That's why the windmill can blow up later.
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- It's sort of a still.
- absinthe. You got to watch that stuff.
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People in the Czech Republic...
These are extras we photographed there.
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- They are the greatest torch throwers ever.
- in the history of torch throwing.
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It's truly unbelievable. These people
just have this outrageous skill.
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I'm actually not joking.
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I think they've actually done this in the past.
It worries me a little bit.
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There's two pieces obviously.
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The lower half of the windmill
and the people
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were shot on one location.
That was mainly second unit.
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And then up here was a different location.
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What you are seeing here is a composite.
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All those people were shot on one night,
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and Frankenstein was shot
on a completely different night.
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We just slap it together.
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There's a lot of manipulation of images.
Here on this shot
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the fire has been added,
the lightning has been added.
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Throughout the film,
there are little enhancements
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that are done to the original photography.
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Things that you wouldn't even do
five years ago
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because it was a lot more difficult.
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And now these smaller visual effects
are common in movies of this size.
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Syd Dutton and his gang did these shots
right here, and I just thought...
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They were so expressionist.
It was wonderful, the vampires flying over.
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Yeah, there's one coming up here
that's particularly great.
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It's so expressive.
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The music, Alan Silvestri once again
did the score for us.
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That last one's got a
"Surrender, Dorothy!" kind of vibe
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to it. It's really great.
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A lot of it's the music.
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There's Sam.
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There's Sam, there's Sam's double.
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Yeah, don't look too closely, but...
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That was pretty good, though.
Really, you can't tell.
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That's a miniature you're seeing.
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But, of course, when we say miniatures,
it's 15 feet high.
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- Or was it 20 feet high?
- Something in that neighborhood.
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And there are our gals. Oh, yeah.
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We cast for six months trying to find them.
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It was really hard to find
three gorgeous girls who can act.
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And then, one day, Silvia and Elena
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and Josie came walking into our lives.
I remember I got this tape
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from Elena Anaya from Spain. I popped it in.
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She's really beautiful,
and she was really scary, creepy.
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And I thought, "She's perfect.
Maybe this is just who she is.
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"Maybe she is really creepy."
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And so I met her.
She's very lovely and she was perfect.
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The same day I was in London,
and Silvia came walking in.
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She was the girl. A week later,
we met Josie, and we had our brides.
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I got this idea of the half-built Eiffel Tower
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when I was visiting my parents in Arizona.
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In one of these poster shops,
I saw this poster with it half-built.
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I thought, "That's perfect." I realized it was
the exact time period I was shooting in.
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This sequence is one of the few sequences
that was restructured in the movie.
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If you were to read the original screenplay
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the sequence with Anna and Velkan
that's going to come up
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in a few minutes, used to be in this place.
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We thought it was better to introduce
Van Helsing sooner
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given that the movie is called Van Helsing.
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In that previous shot, where we go
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from Notre Dame across the river
and all the way down,
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nothing in that is real, except Hugh.
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Not even the cobblestones he's walking on
are real. It's all digital.
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We put a bunch of real stuff in there
to try to help Syd Dutton out
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and when we got into post,
his famous response was,
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"Guys, don't help me."
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We just made his life more difficult.
He had to paint out all this stuff.
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Greg spent three hours putting up
this gargoyle for him in the foreground.
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Of course, Syd had to paint it out.
It's all fake.
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Elena Anaya saw that shot
and was convinced we'd shot in Paris
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and not invited her. I said, "No, not real."
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You're about to meet Mr. Hyde here.
He's obviously an all-CG creation.
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But he has a lot of assistance
from all sorts of people.
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He's voiced by Robbie Coltrane,
who we worked with
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on The Adventures of Huck Finn.
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We also do something
called motion capture.
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His more basic body movements,
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the running, the jumping,
that sort of thing,
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were actually done by Shuler Hensley,
who plays Frankenstein.
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So Shuler got to partially play
two monsters in the movie.
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He was dressed in a motion capture suit.
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It has targets all over it. And he would
do a lot of the things that you see here
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- while the computer captured it to...
- not that.
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Although that would have been interesting
to see. We should have made him do that.
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Over and over again. Take 46.
"Shuler, jump further."
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...you're a deranged psychopath.
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I don't know if it's on any of the
Making of stuff that's in here
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but Shuler also stood in
while these shots were photographed.
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So he's actually standing there to the right,
for Hugh to have someone to play off of.
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He has this ridiculous cutout head of Hyde
on top of...
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How Hugh could have gotten through
this scene without laughing
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the entire way is beyond me. I hope
some of that's on the disk. It's hilarious.
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Shuler and Hugh know each other.
They go way back.
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They were both in Oklahoma! in London,
five or six years ago.
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So they can't stop laughing.
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I had Frankenstein and Van Helsing
in full costume singing...
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These guys can sing. And hamming it up.
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Singing Happy Birthday to me in Prague.
Really funny.
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All that you're looking at here, it's all fake.
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This is real.
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Real, fake, fake, real.
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One of the things that happens
in this sequence
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is that there is actually
a rather large set that was built here.
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This is similar to the technique
that was used throughout the movie
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where Allan Cameron,
our great production designer
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built these gigantic sets.
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But they often needed to be extended.
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So there's a lot of blue screen work
even in a set like this
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where parts of the background
are digital or matte painting.
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The hat is digital, that bell is digital.
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Everything else is real.
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It's something
that ILM likes to call Sommersizing.
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They say you can't really
build a set that's big enough,
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or you don't have soundstages big enough
to make Steve happy,
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so you build the biggest set you can,
and then set up blue screens and extend it.
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Which is pretty much how this whole movie
was put together.
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There's a chart they call
the "Sommers chart" up at ILM.
231
00:11:50,544 --> 00:11:53,296
It has five boxes.
On the far left, it says, "Just right."
232
00:11:53,380 --> 00:11:56,383
The next box says, "Too much."
The next box says, "Way too much."
233
00:11:56,466 --> 00:11:59,094
The next box says,
"Oh, my God, the computer's crashing."
234
00:11:59,177 --> 00:12:01,596
And the final box says, "What Steve wants."
235
00:12:01,680 --> 00:12:03,557
The butt crack shot there,
236
00:12:04,808 --> 00:12:06,727
I take full responsibility for that.
237
00:12:06,810 --> 00:12:09,062
And that's a mixed bag. Let's face it.
238
00:12:09,146 --> 00:12:11,898
I thought Stacey Snider,
the chairman of Universal...
239
00:12:11,982 --> 00:12:14,359
She loves our stuff, but I thought,
240
00:12:14,443 --> 00:12:16,695
"For sure, this is one of those that
Stacey'll groan.
241
00:12:16,778 --> 00:12:18,196
"She'll really not like that."
242
00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:20,449
The first time she saw it,
she burst out laughing.
243
00:12:20,532 --> 00:12:22,367
And I thought, "She likes it." Watch this.
244
00:12:22,451 --> 00:12:25,287
People were always shocked in the theaters
when they saw that.
245
00:12:25,370 --> 00:12:29,166
Stacey said, "it makes him seem so real.
Especially when he pulls up his pants."
246
00:12:29,249 --> 00:12:31,877
"Because he cares about his appearance,"
is what she said.
247
00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:35,964
And, Stacey, sorry for mentioning
that you liked the butt crack shot.
248
00:12:37,174 --> 00:12:39,176
We do want to work with you again.
249
00:12:41,928 --> 00:12:45,766
This was so much fun. This entire sequence,
because it's so expensive
250
00:12:45,849 --> 00:12:49,644
to have a three-dimensional creature
like Mr. Hyde here, in almost every shot,
251
00:12:49,728 --> 00:12:53,607
you have to not only storyboard it,
but we did what's called pre-visualization,
252
00:12:53,815 --> 00:12:56,610
where we did a cartoon
of most of the things
253
00:12:56,693 --> 00:12:59,112
so we knew exactly
how we were going to shoot it
254
00:12:59,196 --> 00:13:03,033
and cut it before we did.
All these shots are a tad expensive.
255
00:13:03,700 --> 00:13:06,036
This would be one of those scenes.
256
00:13:12,459 --> 00:13:14,211
May he rest in peace.
257
00:13:15,629 --> 00:13:18,423
This is probably a good time
to mention Hugh Jackman.
258
00:13:18,507 --> 00:13:22,260
We've been saying this a lot over
the last few weeks as we finished the film
259
00:13:22,344 --> 00:13:25,347
and I think it's worth mentioning again.
260
00:13:25,514 --> 00:13:29,267
We never had anyone in mind
outside of Hugh to play this role.
261
00:13:29,643 --> 00:13:33,313
He really embodied everything we thought
made up Van Helsing.
262
00:13:33,855 --> 00:13:36,691
He's strong, and a great actor,
263
00:13:36,775 --> 00:13:39,611
and can be very physical,
and he's charming and charismatic.
264
00:13:39,694 --> 00:13:41,822
He was everything we hoped
Van Helsing would be.
265
00:13:41,905 --> 00:13:45,492
When we cast him, I hadn't seen X-men.
X2 hadn't come out yet.
266
00:13:45,575 --> 00:13:49,830
This was over two years ago.
Bob saw him in London, on stage.
267
00:13:49,913 --> 00:13:51,832
That was about five years ago.
268
00:13:51,915 --> 00:13:55,669
He was cast in this movie
based on his performance in Oklahoma!
269
00:13:55,752 --> 00:13:57,003
So think about that for a stretch.
270
00:13:57,087 --> 00:14:00,173
In hindsight it's like, "it's obvious.
He was in the X-men movies."
271
00:14:00,257 --> 00:14:01,967
But at the time, you know...
272
00:14:03,468 --> 00:14:04,803
Bless me, Father, for I have...
273
00:14:04,886 --> 00:14:07,848
Sinned. Yes, I know.
You're very good at that.
274
00:14:08,098 --> 00:14:09,224
Remember this guy?
275
00:14:09,307 --> 00:14:13,770
He was in The Mummy Returns,
he was the evil curator. Alun Armstrong.
276
00:14:14,437 --> 00:14:16,481
He's the guy that many people...
277
00:14:16,940 --> 00:14:19,234
Reporters are always asking
about blue screen.
278
00:14:19,317 --> 00:14:21,695
They're always asking myself and actors,
279
00:14:21,778 --> 00:14:25,115
"How hard is it to act against nothing,
act against a blue screen?"
280
00:14:25,198 --> 00:14:28,034
So one day I went
to Alun Armstrong and said,
281
00:14:28,118 --> 00:14:31,913
"I'm always giving BS answers.
How hard is it to act against nothing?"
282
00:14:31,997 --> 00:14:36,543
And he said, "My dear son, often in
my career, I've had to act against nothing."
283
00:14:37,460 --> 00:14:41,006
So there you have it,
blue screens and actors.
284
00:14:41,089 --> 00:14:43,216
So he said, "Blue screen?
It doesn't bother me a bit."
285
00:14:44,968 --> 00:14:47,554
When we found you crawling up the
steps of this church...
286
00:14:47,637 --> 00:14:51,850
At this point, I... Two and a half years
ago, these were ideas in my head.
287
00:14:52,309 --> 00:14:54,102
I never knew if they would work or not.
288
00:14:54,185 --> 00:14:56,605
Now that we've screened it,
audiences seem to like it.
289
00:14:56,688 --> 00:14:59,357
I've always been in love
with the Knights Templar guys.
290
00:14:59,441 --> 00:15:02,861
I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool
if there's this ancient secret society
291
00:15:02,944 --> 00:15:05,405
"based under the Vatican
made up of all the religions?"
292
00:15:05,488 --> 00:15:07,115
This scene at the confessional
293
00:15:07,198 --> 00:15:09,910
was the very first scene
that was photographed in the movie.
294
00:15:09,993 --> 00:15:11,244
Yeah, day one.
295
00:15:12,621 --> 00:15:14,831
This is a gigantic set
296
00:15:14,915 --> 00:15:17,792
that Allan Cameron built in Prague.
297
00:15:18,126 --> 00:15:21,755
We'd shot most of the location work
in the Czech Republic
298
00:15:21,838 --> 00:15:23,381
and then some set work here.
299
00:15:23,465 --> 00:15:26,468
- One of the things that you can see...
- look at the far top right.
300
00:15:26,551 --> 00:15:29,596
See that red guy in the background?
That's Hugh and the Cardinal.
301
00:15:29,679 --> 00:15:31,514
There's a big mirror on the back wall.
302
00:15:31,598 --> 00:15:34,392
You can see it
right below Hugh's chin there,
303
00:15:34,476 --> 00:15:36,937
that's a reflection of the Cardinal
in the background.
304
00:15:37,020 --> 00:15:41,441
That giant mirror is used to extend
an already large set.
305
00:15:41,524 --> 00:15:44,361
That's a very old technique.
306
00:15:44,444 --> 00:15:47,238
Something that we really love to do,
307
00:15:47,322 --> 00:15:50,158
even though the movie's filled with lots of
308
00:15:50,617 --> 00:15:52,911
really advanced visual effects,
309
00:15:52,994 --> 00:15:55,121
there's lots of old movie ideas in here.
310
00:15:55,205 --> 00:15:59,167
Those are things that were done in the past,
decades ago,
311
00:15:59,250 --> 00:16:01,711
to make sets look bigger.
That's a technique
312
00:16:01,795 --> 00:16:04,506
that Allan employed here,
really to great effect.
313
00:16:04,589 --> 00:16:07,801
We've screened the movie now
about a half a dozen times.
314
00:16:08,259 --> 00:16:10,261
The screenings have been great.
315
00:16:10,345 --> 00:16:12,806
Audiences are screaming
and laughing and cheering.
316
00:16:12,889 --> 00:16:15,725
The one thing I still don't know,
and I wonder if I ever will:
317
00:16:15,809 --> 00:16:17,602
Do people understand
318
00:16:17,686 --> 00:16:21,648
that this secret society is made up
of all the religions of the world?
319
00:16:21,731 --> 00:16:23,984
I was wondering.
Because it's in the Vatican,
320
00:16:24,067 --> 00:16:27,028
I think that some people think
it's just a Catholic organization.
321
00:16:27,112 --> 00:16:29,030
But, if you notice, there's...
322
00:16:29,114 --> 00:16:33,034
- There went a monk and a mullah...
- a monk and a mullah and a rabbi.
323
00:16:35,495 --> 00:16:37,622
It's probably really obvious.
324
00:16:37,998 --> 00:16:40,333
One of the things
by moving that sequence,
325
00:16:40,417 --> 00:16:43,753
with Anna and Velkan
which you're about to see,
326
00:16:43,962 --> 00:16:47,632
is that it turns out now in the movie
that the way we first meet Anna
327
00:16:47,716 --> 00:16:49,092
is through these photographs.
328
00:16:49,175 --> 00:16:52,804
Interestingly enough, those are not
the original photographs that we shot.
329
00:16:52,887 --> 00:16:56,057
At the time of the original
production photography, we decided
330
00:16:56,141 --> 00:16:58,601
that we wanted to use
a different photograph of her
331
00:16:58,685 --> 00:17:00,895
and those were changed in postproduction.
332
00:17:00,979 --> 00:17:02,731
Nice little boring detail for you.
333
00:17:02,814 --> 00:17:05,775
Valerious the Elder left this here
400 years ago.
334
00:17:06,776 --> 00:17:08,570
We don't know its purpose
335
00:17:08,653 --> 00:17:10,280
but he would not have left it lightly.
336
00:17:10,697 --> 00:17:12,115
This was fun.
337
00:17:12,449 --> 00:17:15,702
That's an interesting thing.
Bob and I have been really lucky.
338
00:17:15,785 --> 00:17:19,330
We've done only about a day
and a half's worth of re-shoots or pick-ups.
339
00:17:19,414 --> 00:17:22,500
Because as an editor, director, and writer,
340
00:17:22,917 --> 00:17:27,213
we just try and figure out any problems
the movie might have without re-shooting.
341
00:17:28,298 --> 00:17:30,050
Just moving that one scene to later,
342
00:17:30,133 --> 00:17:33,887
we never lose anything. People wonder
if there's going to be a director's out.
343
00:17:33,970 --> 00:17:37,932
I say, "My director's cuts are in the theater."
Our scripts are very tight.
344
00:17:39,059 --> 00:17:40,226
Faster, please.
345
00:17:40,310 --> 00:17:42,312
Here we're going to meet David Wenham.
346
00:17:42,645 --> 00:17:45,732
His character, Carl,
was named after Carl Laemmle,
347
00:17:46,483 --> 00:17:49,819
who was a producer
way back when on the Universal lot.
348
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:52,822
It was funny,
we were just about to cast this role
349
00:17:52,906 --> 00:17:55,408
and Bob got a tape from Australia.
350
00:17:55,492 --> 00:17:58,495
He came running into my room, saying,
"You got to look at this."
351
00:17:58,578 --> 00:18:02,290
And it's a guy with no neck,
a really bad haircut, and big, floppy ears.
352
00:18:02,373 --> 00:18:04,667
I just loved him. He's perfect. He's funny.
353
00:18:04,751 --> 00:18:07,170
When he was talking
about werewolves and vampires,
354
00:18:07,253 --> 00:18:09,672
he was so earnest and believable.
I called up Hugh,
355
00:18:09,756 --> 00:18:11,591
because Australia is such a small country.
356
00:18:11,674 --> 00:18:14,219
They were both Australian,
they must know each other.
357
00:18:14,302 --> 00:18:17,013
Hugh said, "I love him, he's great.
358
00:18:17,305 --> 00:18:21,059
"But how can he be my sidekick?
He's this really tall, handsome guy."
359
00:18:21,142 --> 00:18:23,394
I'm like, "This must be
a different David Wenham."
360
00:18:23,478 --> 00:18:25,855
I found out David's about one inch shorter
than Hugh.
361
00:18:25,939 --> 00:18:29,442
As you go through the movie, watch
how short David appears to be with Hugh.
362
00:18:29,526 --> 00:18:32,570
Somehow he got rid of his neck,
put black tack behind his ears,
363
00:18:32,654 --> 00:18:34,280
and gave himself a really bad haircut.
364
00:18:34,364 --> 00:18:35,365
It worked.
365
00:18:35,448 --> 00:18:38,076
I'm sure he was very uncomfortable
the entire movie.
366
00:18:38,868 --> 00:18:42,622
Look at how short he is with Hugh,
and really there's only an inch difference.
367
00:18:42,705 --> 00:18:44,207
I don't know how he does it.
368
00:18:44,499 --> 00:18:46,543
Glycerin 48.
369
00:18:51,339 --> 00:18:53,716
Sorry!
370
00:18:53,883 --> 00:18:58,012
This is always fun. That's a cheap gag,
but sometimes I can't help myself.
371
00:18:58,513 --> 00:19:00,932
You put the movie in front of an audience...
372
00:19:01,015 --> 00:19:04,144
and you see that they react to this,
which is great.
373
00:19:04,227 --> 00:19:05,895
...arrows in rapid succession...
374
00:19:05,979 --> 00:19:07,814
I sat around trying to figure...
375
00:19:07,897 --> 00:19:10,984
There's only so many ways
you can kill a vampire or a werewolf
376
00:19:11,067 --> 00:19:13,695
but I figured in our movie,
we got to use the same ways
377
00:19:13,778 --> 00:19:16,406
but we got to be a little more high-tech,
a little cooler.
378
00:19:16,489 --> 00:19:19,617
Then, I do have to explain it.
That's why he says, "Gas-propelled."
379
00:19:19,701 --> 00:19:22,620
So everything has to be actually
19th-century functional.
380
00:19:23,413 --> 00:19:25,832
Look at this. This is just one shot.
381
00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:29,002
When you have two great actors
who are always on their game
382
00:19:29,085 --> 00:19:32,172
and never pause and never screw up,
you can do a shot like this.
383
00:19:32,255 --> 00:19:35,049
They're playing around, talking,
and there's no pause or bump.
384
00:19:35,133 --> 00:19:37,594
You just let the camera run. I love that.
385
00:19:37,677 --> 00:19:40,013
What it does is to create a light source
386
00:19:40,096 --> 00:19:41,681
equal to the intensity of the sun.
387
00:19:41,764 --> 00:19:43,391
This will come in handy how?
388
00:19:43,474 --> 00:19:45,768
I don't know. You can blind your enemies.
389
00:19:46,311 --> 00:19:48,313
This is the first week of photography.
390
00:19:48,855 --> 00:19:51,566
We're shooting this the first few days.
This was in Prague.
391
00:19:51,649 --> 00:19:53,735
Everybody's just getting used to each other.
392
00:19:53,818 --> 00:19:57,363
I think it's actually worth mentioning.
It's April 30 right now.
393
00:19:57,822 --> 00:19:59,741
The movie opens in a week.
394
00:20:00,366 --> 00:20:03,703
So we're sitting here,
doing this DVD commentary
395
00:20:03,786 --> 00:20:06,789
having actually just finished the movie
about a week ago.
396
00:20:06,873 --> 00:20:11,628
It was completed a very short time ago.
So it's all very fresh in our heads.
397
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,380
- And we have no idea...
-"Is it going to go well?"
398
00:20:14,464 --> 00:20:17,217
"Are people going to want to see it?
What's going to happen?"
399
00:20:17,300 --> 00:20:19,636
We have no perspective whatsoever.
400
00:20:20,803 --> 00:20:24,891
This is a forest outside of Prague.
Will Kemp.
401
00:20:25,308 --> 00:20:29,145
Will came to us.
He literally walked off the street in London.
402
00:20:29,395 --> 00:20:32,815
And he auditioned for us. He was amazing.
He just did a great audition.
403
00:20:32,899 --> 00:20:34,359
As he was about to leave, I said,
404
00:20:34,442 --> 00:20:36,861
"Can you pretend you're transforming
into a werewolf?"
405
00:20:36,945 --> 00:20:40,448
He was like a contortionist.
I said, "What have you been doing?"
406
00:20:40,531 --> 00:20:44,577
He said, "Actually, I'm in the ballet."
He's a fantastic dancer.
407
00:20:44,661 --> 00:20:46,746
He said, "And I've done a few commercials."
408
00:20:46,829 --> 00:20:50,416
A couple of months later, he's on television.
He's the GAP guy.
409
00:20:50,500 --> 00:20:53,169
He's being mauled on the streets
by teenage girls.
410
00:20:53,253 --> 00:20:54,671
Anyway, here we go.
411
00:20:55,338 --> 00:20:56,589
Come on.
412
00:20:56,923 --> 00:20:58,258
Dracula unleashed you...
413
00:20:58,341 --> 00:21:01,219
We're about to meet
our first of three werewolves.
414
00:21:01,302 --> 00:21:04,722
The werewolves were a real big challenge
415
00:21:04,847 --> 00:21:07,100
from a visual effects standpoint.
416
00:21:07,183 --> 00:21:10,520
They were hard creatures to design,
to execute,
417
00:21:10,853 --> 00:21:13,189
to figure out how they should move.
418
00:21:13,606 --> 00:21:17,360
In the end, I think the effect
is actually quite terrific.
419
00:21:18,027 --> 00:21:20,822
One of the things that was important
about this sequence,
420
00:21:20,905 --> 00:21:24,242
because we actually considered
deleting this sequence from the movie
421
00:21:24,325 --> 00:21:26,828
not because we didn't like it,
but for pace reasons...
422
00:21:26,911 --> 00:21:29,372
- I think...
- people are going to go, "Pace reasons?"
423
00:21:29,455 --> 00:21:30,832
Now I understand.
424
00:21:30,915 --> 00:21:33,042
-'Cause the movie was too fast?
- exactly.
425
00:21:33,126 --> 00:21:36,713
But one of the things that we found
was really important in this sequence,
426
00:21:36,796 --> 00:21:38,006
among other things,
427
00:21:38,089 --> 00:21:40,842
was that it established the werewolf
as a vicious character.
428
00:21:40,925 --> 00:21:44,137
You want to make sure that you carry that
with the rest of the movie.
429
00:21:44,220 --> 00:21:47,932
It also established how heroic Velkan is,
and Princess Anna.
430
00:21:48,016 --> 00:21:51,311
We love this scene. The problem is,
when we originally had it sooner,
431
00:21:51,394 --> 00:21:53,313
when it was the second scene
in the movie,
432
00:21:53,396 --> 00:21:55,315
we weren't getting to the story
quick enough.
433
00:21:55,398 --> 00:21:56,607
Then I had this idea one day,
434
00:21:56,691 --> 00:22:00,028
"You got to keep this scene,
'cause it's so great for Velkan and Anna,
435
00:22:00,111 --> 00:22:03,031
"and the werewolf. If you take it
and put it down the line,
436
00:22:03,114 --> 00:22:05,700
"that also makes the slideshow
much more important.
437
00:22:05,783 --> 00:22:08,661
"Because these slides we're seeing,
we don't know them yet."
438
00:22:08,745 --> 00:22:11,914
But now, the audience knows
who these two characters are,
439
00:22:11,998 --> 00:22:14,208
that they're the last of the Valerious.
440
00:22:14,292 --> 00:22:17,003
They have to kill Dracula
before they both die, blah, blah.
441
00:22:17,086 --> 00:22:19,756
Anna, hurry!
442
00:22:22,884 --> 00:22:26,679
Kate Beckinsale was the very last person
that we cast in the movie.
443
00:22:27,138 --> 00:22:30,850
Casting the character of Anna
was a real struggle.
444
00:22:30,975 --> 00:22:33,353
Because the character has to be beautiful,
445
00:22:33,436 --> 00:22:37,565
she has to be capable of appearing
as a Gypsy princess,
446
00:22:37,648 --> 00:22:41,319
she has to be a terrific actress,
she has to be able to kick ass.
447
00:22:41,402 --> 00:22:43,363
It's a very demanding role.
448
00:22:43,446 --> 00:22:47,367
Kate was always someone
that we considered very highly
449
00:22:47,784 --> 00:22:50,995
but we never even
thought about casting her
450
00:22:51,079 --> 00:22:53,373
because she was in a movie
called Underworld.
451
00:22:53,456 --> 00:22:56,709
They were in the process of
making the movie while we were casting.
452
00:22:56,793 --> 00:23:00,254
Not only did that seem to be
a little bit of a problem
453
00:23:00,338 --> 00:23:02,006
but she would never want to do it.
454
00:23:02,090 --> 00:23:05,635
There would be no way that she'd want
to go from that picture to this one.
455
00:23:05,718 --> 00:23:09,055
In fact, after we had struggled
for the longest time
456
00:23:09,138 --> 00:23:11,557
trying to find someone
that fit all those needs...
457
00:23:11,641 --> 00:23:15,144
That could stand toe-to-toe with Hugh,
in the looks and acting categories.
458
00:23:15,228 --> 00:23:17,772
Exactly. We got a call from Kate's agent
459
00:23:17,855 --> 00:23:20,775
and she said, "Why haven't
you considered Kate for this role?"
460
00:23:20,858 --> 00:23:24,237
I explained the reasons. She said,
"I think Kate would like this movie.
461
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:27,407
"I think it's a terrific script."
And the next thing you know...
462
00:23:27,490 --> 00:23:30,368
We realized
they are completely different movies.
463
00:23:30,451 --> 00:23:33,579
- Different characters, different movies.
- it's an absolute miracle.
464
00:23:33,663 --> 00:23:35,790
Because she does a wonderful job.
465
00:23:35,873 --> 00:23:38,334
I could never imagine
anyone else in this role.
466
00:23:50,847 --> 00:23:53,641
This is Alberta, Canada.
467
00:23:54,434 --> 00:23:56,644
You get photography
from all over the world.
468
00:23:56,727 --> 00:24:00,106
There was one shot earlier
from New Zealand. The ship shot.
469
00:24:00,648 --> 00:24:05,027
About nine countries are represented here.
Actors from 11 countries. So there you go.
470
00:24:06,904 --> 00:24:11,534
That last shot, that matte painting
was done by Weta Digital in New Zealand.
471
00:24:12,535 --> 00:24:14,912
This was shot right outside of Prague.
472
00:24:14,996 --> 00:24:17,290
If you notice, the mountains
473
00:24:17,373 --> 00:24:21,586
in every shot in this sequence,
are all digital mountains.
474
00:24:22,420 --> 00:24:26,340
This was shot on a plain outside of Prague.
475
00:24:26,883 --> 00:24:29,969
That's actually a good example
of Sommersizing
476
00:24:30,052 --> 00:24:32,680
because this is an absolutely gigantic set.
477
00:24:32,763 --> 00:24:33,973
I can't help myself.
478
00:24:34,056 --> 00:24:36,976
And it's really beautiful
in its own right, although...
479
00:24:37,059 --> 00:24:38,352
It has two cemeteries.
480
00:24:38,436 --> 00:24:41,647
- Two cemeteries, a bar, a church.
- back alleys.
481
00:24:42,315 --> 00:24:46,444
But adding that was something that
we always anticipated and planned to do
482
00:24:46,527 --> 00:24:51,407
because we really wanted this village
to be set in a very difficult valley.
483
00:24:51,908 --> 00:24:55,912
Transylvania 's a difficult place to live,
and we wanted it to look that way.
484
00:24:59,332 --> 00:25:03,002
Look at these guys. You have to go
to Eastern Europe to get people like this.
485
00:25:03,085 --> 00:25:04,962
The extras were fantastic.
486
00:25:05,046 --> 00:25:07,924
They were a delight to work with,
and actually took direction.
487
00:25:08,007 --> 00:25:11,719
Usually, extras are the bane of most...
I say this on every commentary.
488
00:25:11,802 --> 00:25:15,515
Extras are the bane of a director.
489
00:25:15,598 --> 00:25:18,351
There's always one extra
who keeps looking into the camera.
490
00:25:18,434 --> 00:25:19,769
He just can't help himself.
491
00:25:19,852 --> 00:25:22,813
Then there's always another extra
who wants to show
492
00:25:22,897 --> 00:25:25,107
that he is a master thespian.
493
00:25:25,191 --> 00:25:29,195
Master thespian isn't called for when
you're just supposed to be standing there.
494
00:25:29,278 --> 00:25:31,280
But these guys are just in the background.
495
00:25:31,364 --> 00:25:34,659
But they did a fantastic job.
Wonderful faces, as you can see here.
496
00:25:34,742 --> 00:25:36,369
You refuse to obey our laws?
497
00:25:36,452 --> 00:25:39,622
- The laws of men mean little to me.
- Fine.
498
00:25:39,914 --> 00:25:40,957
Kill them.
499
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,001
I love this character Top Hat,
who's in the background there,
500
00:25:44,085 --> 00:25:47,505
played by Tom Fisher
who was Spivey in Mummy Returns.
501
00:25:47,588 --> 00:25:50,132
I forgot about that.
502
00:25:52,510 --> 00:25:55,846
Here we introduce our brides as creatures.
503
00:25:56,472 --> 00:26:00,268
There was an interesting methodology
that was used to create these shots.
504
00:26:00,351 --> 00:26:02,562
The shots are what we call hybrids.
505
00:26:03,729 --> 00:26:06,941
The bodies are obviously digital creatures.
506
00:26:07,525 --> 00:26:10,403
But we photographed the actresses
in make-up,
507
00:26:10,861 --> 00:26:14,532
on wires, against a blue screen,
with motion capture suits on,
508
00:26:14,782 --> 00:26:19,662
so that their faces, their heads actually,
could be integrated with the CG bodies.
509
00:26:20,121 --> 00:26:24,000
We've got a good one coming up here
of Josie Maran that's a close-up.
510
00:26:25,876 --> 00:26:28,921
There you go.
That shows the technique rather well.
511
00:26:29,338 --> 00:26:32,717
We wanted to try to avoid
some of the problems
512
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:35,595
that we had with the Scorpion King
in The Mummy Returns,
513
00:26:35,678 --> 00:26:38,180
where you attempt to make a photo-real,
514
00:26:38,264 --> 00:26:40,558
or a more realistic-looking character.
515
00:26:40,641 --> 00:26:42,977
It was hurt a lot by being an all-CG creature.
516
00:26:43,060 --> 00:26:45,646
This methodology
proved to work really well.
517
00:26:45,730 --> 00:26:48,107
We spent hundreds and hundreds,
518
00:26:48,190 --> 00:26:51,193
probably 1,000 hours
in methodology meetings with everybody,
519
00:26:51,277 --> 00:26:53,613
between stunts and camera crew rigs,
520
00:26:53,696 --> 00:26:55,114
and ILM people.
521
00:26:55,197 --> 00:26:58,326
Because I said,
"In this movie, people have to fly." See that.
522
00:26:59,201 --> 00:27:02,705
Everybody's so used to putting actors
on wires in front of a blue screen.
523
00:27:02,788 --> 00:27:04,373
It's so boring, it's been so done.
524
00:27:04,457 --> 00:27:07,585
I said, "The real challenge here is
we got to get people flying,
525
00:27:07,668 --> 00:27:08,711
"doing loop-the-loops."
526
00:27:08,794 --> 00:27:11,255
These Cablecam operators
showed up in Prague
527
00:27:11,339 --> 00:27:14,258
and we had every crane
in the Czech Republic
528
00:27:14,508 --> 00:27:16,010
over the top of this village.
529
00:27:16,093 --> 00:27:18,179
We were like giant puppeteers.
530
00:27:18,262 --> 00:27:21,057
There's wires going everywhere.
We're flying cameras.
531
00:27:21,682 --> 00:27:25,394
The same rig is used in NFL games,
but it's easy, it's on a grid.
532
00:27:25,478 --> 00:27:27,897
It's a rectangle. They go up and down,
back and forth.
533
00:27:27,980 --> 00:27:30,608
In a movie like this,
scenes like this, we had to go
534
00:27:30,691 --> 00:27:34,195
do loop-the-loops, go left to right,
back and forth, and spin around.
535
00:27:34,278 --> 00:27:36,656
It was much more complicated.
At one point
536
00:27:36,739 --> 00:27:40,076
the camera got away from us
and hit maybe 60 miles an hour,
537
00:27:40,159 --> 00:27:43,412
and everybody's running as
they thought the cable was going to snap
538
00:27:43,496 --> 00:27:46,165
and the camera's going to fly
into the crowd. It didn't.
539
00:27:46,248 --> 00:27:49,126
Another time, the camera got so fast
540
00:27:49,210 --> 00:27:51,253
it went through the front door of the church.
541
00:27:51,337 --> 00:27:52,421
...the sun.
542
00:27:52,505 --> 00:27:56,008
But just the camera rigs and the stunt rigs
in this sequence,
543
00:27:56,092 --> 00:27:59,595
and in future village sequences at night
when the pygmy bats come in,
544
00:27:59,679 --> 00:28:03,224
it was just unbelievable how many cranes
and wires were above this village.
545
00:28:03,307 --> 00:28:07,520
It's really complicated. if you go back to
the shot that preceded the sun coming out
546
00:28:07,603 --> 00:28:10,189
when Verona lifts the guy and bites him.
547
00:28:10,272 --> 00:28:13,150
If you stop and think about that,
the background was shot
548
00:28:13,234 --> 00:28:15,528
with a camera that's flying,
and at the same time
549
00:28:15,611 --> 00:28:19,031
a guy was on wires
and had to be coordinated with the camera.
550
00:28:19,115 --> 00:28:22,576
It's very complicated.
So not only was the camera flying
551
00:28:22,660 --> 00:28:24,328
through the sequence at great speed,
552
00:28:24,412 --> 00:28:28,040
but often, stunt people,
and even Hugh and Kate
553
00:28:28,124 --> 00:28:30,960
were often on wires
while the camera is also flying.
554
00:28:31,043 --> 00:28:32,878
It was a very complicated sequence.
555
00:28:32,962 --> 00:28:35,923
Earlier, when Kate gets grabbed
and lifted into the air,
556
00:28:36,006 --> 00:28:40,302
that's Kate, and when Hugh grabs her feet
and they are flying, that was them.
557
00:28:40,386 --> 00:28:44,181
When actors say,
"Yeah, I do all my stunts..."
558
00:28:44,348 --> 00:28:48,018
Quite unbelievably, these two did
virtually every stunt in the movie.
559
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,073
That's digital. The last shot,
where Kate gets thrown.
560
00:29:01,157 --> 00:29:02,992
That's such great digital work.
561
00:29:03,617 --> 00:29:06,579
- Kate didn't do it.
- she didn't do that one.
562
00:29:07,288 --> 00:29:10,040
This is obviously Kate here. She is on wires.
563
00:29:11,876 --> 00:29:15,337
- It turns digital.
- that's all digital, right there.
564
00:29:17,923 --> 00:29:22,052
Another one of our tricks, which
we're trying to get away with in this movie
565
00:29:22,136 --> 00:29:24,972
is not only... Look at Verona there.
It's people flying.
566
00:29:25,055 --> 00:29:27,933
The audience should watch this
and be into it
567
00:29:28,017 --> 00:29:31,812
and not be taken out
because of the blue screen or the bad stuff.
568
00:29:32,396 --> 00:29:36,025
Some good stuff with Kate coming up here.
She does this stuff with the tree.
569
00:29:36,108 --> 00:29:39,028
- She gets slammed into the tree here.
- watch this shot.
570
00:29:39,779 --> 00:29:43,282
That's got to hurt.
The audience always reacts to that shot.
571
00:29:43,365 --> 00:29:45,117
Even I keep going, "How did we do that?"
572
00:29:45,201 --> 00:29:46,619
The craziest thing about that
573
00:29:46,702 --> 00:29:50,539
is that she is hanging, I'm not exaggerating,
about 30 feet in the air on wires
574
00:29:50,623 --> 00:29:52,458
and is getting slammed into a tree.
575
00:29:52,541 --> 00:29:55,961
To say that she was a trouper with this stuff
is a real understatement.
576
00:29:56,045 --> 00:30:00,132
It was wrapped with foam rubber,
but hard foam rubber.
577
00:30:00,466 --> 00:30:03,385
And it's also about 10 degrees outside.
578
00:30:06,263 --> 00:30:08,390
Nice to see you, too, Aleera.
579
00:30:09,683 --> 00:30:13,521
In this movie I decided,
"it's got to either be the real actors
580
00:30:13,604 --> 00:30:16,732
"or we got to push them to the very limit,
and then we go digital."
581
00:30:16,816 --> 00:30:19,109
So there's a lot of digital double work.
582
00:30:19,193 --> 00:30:22,780
Everybody, especially ILM took
a huge leap forward, just in the last year,
583
00:30:22,863 --> 00:30:27,576
with digital doubles,
with hair, skin color, and clothing.
584
00:30:28,244 --> 00:30:31,580
Most of the time you can't tell,
I don't think the average person...
585
00:30:31,664 --> 00:30:35,501
Sometimes even I can't tell where it's Hugh
and where it's his digital double.
586
00:30:35,584 --> 00:30:39,505
That's Josie. Look at that.
I just wanted people flying.
587
00:30:39,588 --> 00:30:42,550
I didn't want it to be
actor against blue screen on wires.
588
00:30:42,633 --> 00:30:46,011
This is one of the complicated, last shots
completed in the movie,
589
00:30:46,095 --> 00:30:48,722
completed just about
three weeks ago, maybe?
590
00:30:48,806 --> 00:30:51,976
Yeah, and all these movies are so complex
and so difficult,
591
00:30:52,059 --> 00:30:54,228
we knew for a year
we were coming out on May 7
592
00:30:54,311 --> 00:30:57,356
and so we back it up from there,
and need every minute we can get.
593
00:30:57,439 --> 00:30:59,775
Until they ripped the film out of our hands
and said,
594
00:30:59,859 --> 00:31:03,737
"We got to get this out in 40 different
countries and seven different languages."
595
00:31:04,780 --> 00:31:07,199
I hope you have a heart, Aleera,
596
00:31:07,283 --> 00:31:10,327
because someday I'm going to drive
a stake through it.
597
00:31:12,788 --> 00:31:15,165
That's the back alley of our set.
598
00:31:20,421 --> 00:31:23,424
Allan Cameron, my production designer,
he's been a...
599
00:31:23,507 --> 00:31:26,302
I guess I started with him on Jungle Book,
10 years ago.
600
00:31:26,385 --> 00:31:29,430
He did The Mummy movies, he did this.
He's just fantastic.
601
00:31:29,513 --> 00:31:32,516
We sit around, discuss things,
and watch movies.
602
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:34,393
My cinematographer Allen Daviau was game.
603
00:31:34,476 --> 00:31:37,396
We'd sit around and watch
all the Universal horror classics
604
00:31:37,479 --> 00:31:39,982
and decide what we liked
and how we'd put a spin on it.
605
00:31:40,649 --> 00:31:42,401
So sad.
606
00:31:42,484 --> 00:31:43,819
The church!
607
00:31:50,951 --> 00:31:53,287
We thought we'd try
some dead air for a while.
608
00:31:53,370 --> 00:31:56,790
See if we lost you. Did we lose you?
I was watching the movie.
609
00:31:56,874 --> 00:32:00,586
It's hard when the brides come on
to pay attention.
610
00:32:00,669 --> 00:32:02,755
Hello, Anna, my dear.
611
00:32:03,464 --> 00:32:06,926
This is actually a sequence
that we spent a long time on
612
00:32:07,009 --> 00:32:08,969
in every single area.
613
00:32:09,053 --> 00:32:12,765
The pre-visualization on this sequence
took a great deal of time.
614
00:32:12,848 --> 00:32:14,892
It was put together in a very detailed way,
615
00:32:14,975 --> 00:32:19,313
and, of course, the photography
of the sequence took a very long time,
616
00:32:19,438 --> 00:32:22,650
then the cutting of the sequence
is very complicated and involved
617
00:32:22,733 --> 00:32:25,986
'cause there are so many different stories
going on simultaneously,
618
00:32:26,070 --> 00:32:27,696
and then the visual effects.
619
00:32:27,780 --> 00:32:29,949
So this was one of those
big-challenge sequences.
620
00:32:30,032 --> 00:32:34,787
Hugh's stunt double, he broke his leg
getting slammed into that cart.
621
00:32:34,870 --> 00:32:36,705
The only injury on the movie.
622
00:32:36,789 --> 00:32:40,751
Hugh's stunt double broke his leg
on that cart. Is that important?
623
00:32:40,918 --> 00:32:42,920
I think it is. Sure, I mean...
624
00:32:43,295 --> 00:32:45,798
We're just trying to fill dead air here.
625
00:32:45,881 --> 00:32:50,135
We're really interested in about 20 minutes,
half-hour and then it's gonna go down.
626
00:32:50,219 --> 00:32:52,721
It really goes downhill very quickly.
627
00:32:52,805 --> 00:32:56,433
We should practice this, Bob.
We should come in here and practice.
628
00:32:56,517 --> 00:32:58,060
Here she comes!
629
00:33:01,772 --> 00:33:04,900
This is fun. Those are cable rigs.
630
00:33:04,984 --> 00:33:06,944
It's like flying cameras all around.
631
00:33:07,027 --> 00:33:08,737
I love that shot.
632
00:33:26,839 --> 00:33:29,675
I love that. That's another good shot.
ILM shot.
633
00:33:29,758 --> 00:33:32,511
It's just visually...
I mean, we've seen fangs to death.
634
00:33:32,594 --> 00:33:34,304
I just wanted to do something different.
635
00:33:34,388 --> 00:33:38,183
I was watching all the old movies
and reading the books,
636
00:33:38,267 --> 00:33:41,729
and I thought, "Vampires, okay, well,
we knew they can turn into bats
637
00:33:41,812 --> 00:33:44,815
"but bats don't scare me."
I grew up with bats in Minnesota.
638
00:33:44,898 --> 00:33:47,526
And I thought,
"But what if they had 15-foot wing spans?"
639
00:33:47,609 --> 00:33:52,156
This is the last special effects shot,
finished about a week ago, in the movie.
640
00:33:52,239 --> 00:33:54,199
- Bye, Josie.
- poor Josie.
641
00:33:54,283 --> 00:33:55,701
She goes down bad.
642
00:33:57,786 --> 00:34:01,790
Van Helsing has his little signature there.
I think it's a small indication,
643
00:34:01,874 --> 00:34:04,084
and I think you can see it
in Hugh's performance.
644
00:34:04,168 --> 00:34:07,046
One of the things
that is part of the Van Helsing character
645
00:34:07,129 --> 00:34:09,506
is that he's very torn
about what it is that he does.
646
00:34:09,590 --> 00:34:13,052
He has to do this job, he has to
vanquish the world from these creatures...
647
00:34:13,135 --> 00:34:14,720
See, no cows were hurt in this movie.
648
00:34:14,803 --> 00:34:16,764
It's a good thing, too. See, the cow lived.
649
00:34:16,847 --> 00:34:20,559
The audience was sitting there worrying
about the cow until that very moment.
650
00:34:20,642 --> 00:34:23,562
My wife would not have been happy
if we had killed the cow.
651
00:34:24,563 --> 00:34:28,609
It's interesting. Somehow it's all right
to kill people in movies
652
00:34:28,692 --> 00:34:32,029
but the second you harm an animal,
you're in bad shape.
653
00:34:32,446 --> 00:34:34,531
By the way, I'm sure you all knew this,
654
00:34:34,615 --> 00:34:37,451
when Marishka grabbed the cow
and threw it through a wall...
655
00:34:37,534 --> 00:34:42,456
It was an actual cow that the vampire
picked up and threw into the building.
656
00:34:43,165 --> 00:34:45,167
And after 37 takes, killing 37 cows,
657
00:34:45,250 --> 00:34:48,253
then we decided,
"Maybe we should do this digitally."
658
00:34:49,004 --> 00:34:51,048
No, that wasn't a real cow.
659
00:34:51,131 --> 00:34:54,051
If you look at the shot
that Steve's talking about
660
00:34:54,134 --> 00:34:56,386
there is actually a real cow
that's standing there.
661
00:34:56,470 --> 00:34:59,848
And Hugh leaps in front of it,
and then there's a switch off,
662
00:35:00,349 --> 00:35:03,602
if you put your DVD player on,
and look at it a frame at a time,
663
00:35:03,685 --> 00:35:05,687
you'll see there's a blend that happens.
664
00:35:05,771 --> 00:35:09,108
First, I think the cow's face gets changed
to the digital cow,
665
00:35:09,191 --> 00:35:12,194
then part of the body.
Anyway, it's how it was accomplished.
666
00:35:12,277 --> 00:35:14,321
And it wasn't hurt at all.
667
00:35:14,404 --> 00:35:18,534
No. Again, I wanted to do amazing things
with humans and animals,
668
00:35:18,617 --> 00:35:20,494
and you'll see later on with the horses...
669
00:35:20,577 --> 00:35:23,455
A: Horses can't do what I want them to do
in this movie
670
00:35:23,539 --> 00:35:27,084
and they would all die doing it
if we tried to do it with real horses.
671
00:35:27,167 --> 00:35:29,753
So we did a lot of digital horse work.
672
00:35:39,888 --> 00:35:44,143
This is where Richard is introduced
for the first time in the movie in color,
673
00:35:44,226 --> 00:35:46,728
and he is in his lair in...
674
00:35:46,812 --> 00:35:48,689
The brides are hanging upside down.
675
00:35:49,773 --> 00:35:52,901
He's on wires here, Richard.
I always thought this was a fun shot.
676
00:35:52,985 --> 00:35:56,405
Everybody always smiles.
People always smile during this shot.
677
00:35:56,780 --> 00:35:58,365
"He can walk up walls."
678
00:35:58,448 --> 00:36:02,661
One of the great things about working
with the actors on this show is that
679
00:36:02,744 --> 00:36:07,040
they really did have to do a lot of wirework.
Right here, they're hanging upside down...
680
00:36:07,124 --> 00:36:09,334
Try to hang upside down
for more than two minutes.
681
00:36:09,418 --> 00:36:11,545
You only get a couple of takes.
We were rushing.
682
00:36:11,628 --> 00:36:15,507
I can do it. I've got this thing in the house,
so I hang upside down. It's great.
683
00:36:15,591 --> 00:36:17,509
Besides Bob,
684
00:36:18,218 --> 00:36:21,054
it's really hard,
because by the time we get them up there,
685
00:36:21,138 --> 00:36:24,975
it takes five minutes to get them up there,
upside down, get the camera ready,
686
00:36:25,058 --> 00:36:27,519
you've only got a couple of takes
before they pass out.
687
00:36:27,603 --> 00:36:30,272
But the actors were tremendously game.
688
00:36:30,522 --> 00:36:33,192
I listen to these commentaries
and people always say that.
689
00:36:33,275 --> 00:36:35,986
Maybe it's really true,
but it really is true here.
690
00:36:36,069 --> 00:36:37,529
Yeah, as opposed to everyone else.
691
00:36:37,613 --> 00:36:41,116
Exactly. Everyone else is lying,
and we're telling the truth.
692
00:36:41,575 --> 00:36:42,784
...forever.
693
00:36:43,035 --> 00:36:44,328
My Lord.
694
00:36:44,411 --> 00:36:48,123
I love the look of the hair straight up.
I had to hang them upside down.
695
00:36:48,207 --> 00:36:52,669
Part of being a vampire. I had to do it. I read
all the mythologies, and I know my lore.
696
00:36:52,753 --> 00:36:55,505
And I really wanted to take it and run with it.
697
00:36:55,589 --> 00:36:58,967
But soon the final battle will begin.
698
00:36:59,259 --> 00:37:02,054
I must go and find out
who our new visitor is.
699
00:37:02,346 --> 00:37:05,724
That was actually the first werewolf shot
we did in the movie
700
00:37:05,807 --> 00:37:08,101
and he started off as a shadow.
701
00:37:09,144 --> 00:37:11,146
And it's a digital shadow.
702
00:37:11,521 --> 00:37:13,232
This is actually a wonderful shot.
703
00:37:13,315 --> 00:37:16,026
Again, combining digital with live action...
704
00:37:16,109 --> 00:37:19,196
Those are digital characters,
but do you know where they switch?
705
00:37:19,279 --> 00:37:21,740
Take a look at it with a DVD player,
frame by frame,
706
00:37:21,823 --> 00:37:23,408
it's actually very impressive.
707
00:37:23,492 --> 00:37:26,203
...bear the sorrow if we fail again.
708
00:37:29,498 --> 00:37:31,583
Another Allan Cameron set.
709
00:37:33,168 --> 00:37:36,255
One of the things that Allen Daviau
was doing in the sequence
710
00:37:36,338 --> 00:37:39,633
and something that happens
in various moments throughout the film,
711
00:37:39,716 --> 00:37:42,761
is that Steve has a real passion
for photography
712
00:37:42,844 --> 00:37:46,640
that has both cool colors and warm colors
in the same shot.
713
00:37:46,723 --> 00:37:49,935
I think you'll find that in numerous places
throughout the film
714
00:37:50,018 --> 00:37:54,273
where you will see
blue used in combination with warm white.
715
00:37:54,356 --> 00:37:55,691
Blue and gold.
716
00:37:56,024 --> 00:37:58,443
Why do you torment that thing so?
717
00:37:59,194 --> 00:38:00,737
It's what I do.
718
00:38:01,029 --> 00:38:02,698
"It's what I do."
719
00:38:03,532 --> 00:38:05,993
Greg Cannom did the effects make-up
in the movie.
720
00:38:06,076 --> 00:38:10,956
He did Igor and Frankenstein
and also the brides' make-up
721
00:38:11,039 --> 00:38:14,543
when they're creatures,
and did an absolutely phenomenal job.
722
00:38:14,626 --> 00:38:17,296
Again, going back to
using all kinds of techniques
723
00:38:17,379 --> 00:38:19,673
to make the movie where there's make-up...
724
00:38:22,884 --> 00:38:25,637
- So, how did you get here?
- We came by sea.
725
00:38:25,721 --> 00:38:27,639
- Really? The sea?
- Well, yes.
726
00:38:27,723 --> 00:38:29,808
- The Adriatic Sea?
- So, where do I find Dracula?
727
00:38:29,891 --> 00:38:30,976
I love this scene.
728
00:38:31,059 --> 00:38:33,395
This was the first scene
where Kate and Hugh
729
00:38:33,478 --> 00:38:37,816
got together and acted for the first time.
About an hour and a half outside of Prague.
730
00:38:39,192 --> 00:38:42,904
It's funny, because the first scene we shot
was with Hugh and the Cardinal,
731
00:38:42,988 --> 00:38:46,325
and it went all well, and we got
to this scene, I love this location,
732
00:38:46,408 --> 00:38:50,495
but it was the first time the two leads
were getting together. They were so terrific.
733
00:38:50,579 --> 00:38:54,082
I really understood the tone,
as a director you hope you understand it,
734
00:38:54,166 --> 00:38:57,169
but with these movies,
you want it to be scary, to have humor,
735
00:38:57,252 --> 00:38:59,129
romance, a little bit of everything.
736
00:38:59,212 --> 00:39:01,673
I knew the exact tone of this movie.
737
00:39:01,757 --> 00:39:05,927
When these two actors came in
and did this scene, it shifted by about 10%.
738
00:39:06,011 --> 00:39:08,513
It became a little more real and dramatic,
I think.
739
00:39:08,597 --> 00:39:11,058
I just knew after this scene
that I was in good shape.
740
00:39:11,141 --> 00:39:14,519
My father spent most of his life
looking for answers year after year.
741
00:39:14,603 --> 00:39:17,689
Tearing through the tower,
combing through the family archives.
742
00:39:17,773 --> 00:39:20,108
- Carl, the tower. Start there.
- Right.
743
00:39:21,276 --> 00:39:24,029
Look at this move. That's Kate's move.
744
00:39:24,112 --> 00:39:26,823
I said, "Kate, put a knife
in your boot or something."
745
00:39:26,907 --> 00:39:30,202
She says, "How do I get it there?"
"I don't know, think of something."
746
00:39:30,285 --> 00:39:34,206
She did that move and behind me,
I heard 10 crewmembers go, "Ooh."
747
00:39:34,623 --> 00:39:37,000
So I said, "Yeah, that's what I want, Kate."
748
00:39:37,084 --> 00:39:40,837
Also in that same series of shots,
you should go back and take a look at this.
749
00:39:40,921 --> 00:39:44,132
You will see one of Steve's
annoying tendencies as a director.
750
00:39:44,216 --> 00:39:47,052
On Kate's side, you will see
she has her hands on her hips
751
00:39:47,135 --> 00:39:49,554
which I will grant you is very cool and great.
752
00:39:49,638 --> 00:39:52,099
But on the other side,
her hands are not on her hips
753
00:39:52,182 --> 00:39:54,851
because that was the previous thing
that was photographed.
754
00:39:54,935 --> 00:39:57,145
They were shot out of order
755
00:39:57,229 --> 00:40:00,607
so Steve came up with this afterwards,
so when you look at these...
756
00:40:00,690 --> 00:40:02,025
This is an editor talking.
757
00:40:02,109 --> 00:40:05,237
When you look at this, you go,
"What's up with the continuity?"
758
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:07,447
- No way. No one notices.
- it's ridiculous.
759
00:40:07,531 --> 00:40:09,408
Nobody even in the editorial noticed that.
760
00:40:09,491 --> 00:40:12,994
No, I understand, I'm just pointing out
that these sort of things happen.
761
00:40:13,078 --> 00:40:15,580
When she had her back to me,
I was focusing on Hugh,
762
00:40:15,664 --> 00:40:18,083
and somebody said,
"Her hands are just staying there."
763
00:40:18,166 --> 00:40:20,335
He's really lucky he got away with it.
764
00:40:20,419 --> 00:40:22,421
- Yeah, it was good.
- it is good. I love it.
765
00:40:22,504 --> 00:40:24,005
I wouldn't change it for the world.
766
00:40:24,089 --> 00:40:25,257
It's just harder to see.
767
00:40:25,340 --> 00:40:28,927
So this is actually an interesting moment.
That shot right there,
768
00:40:29,010 --> 00:40:32,431
that was shot on location as a pick-up,
because as written,
769
00:40:32,514 --> 00:40:34,683
for some reason,
we thought this would be okay,
770
00:40:34,766 --> 00:40:37,519
he actually hit her, and knocked her out.
771
00:40:37,602 --> 00:40:41,106
And it was photographed that way,
and we saw the dailies and we were like,
772
00:40:41,189 --> 00:40:42,649
"Well, that's never gonna work.
773
00:40:42,732 --> 00:40:46,278
"We're gonna hate Van Helsing.
The audience is gonna burst into laughter."
774
00:40:46,361 --> 00:40:50,907
So, on location, while we were still
making the movie in the Czech Republic,
775
00:40:51,741 --> 00:40:55,454
we shot this little pick-up
and the background is actually a slide.
776
00:40:55,537 --> 00:40:57,956
Yes, as soon as I saw this shot, I just went,
777
00:40:58,039 --> 00:41:00,917
"We can't hit her, let's spray her
with some knock-out gas."
778
00:41:01,001 --> 00:41:04,880
Exactly. Hopefully, you can catch these
problems while you're making the movie
779
00:41:04,963 --> 00:41:06,965
because it's much easier to solve then.
780
00:41:07,048 --> 00:41:09,634
But I'm really amazed
that we thought that would be okay.
781
00:41:09,718 --> 00:41:13,388
There were people in our office that
complained about that in the script
782
00:41:13,472 --> 00:41:15,348
and we ignored them. "No, it'll work fine."
783
00:41:15,432 --> 00:41:18,685
He's trying to save her life,
she's trying to take on Dracula herself.
784
00:41:18,768 --> 00:41:20,145
He's doing the right thing.
785
00:41:20,228 --> 00:41:23,648
And, of course, it was awful.
Anyway, it's fixed now.
786
00:41:24,065 --> 00:41:28,111
I write the scripts that I'm directing,
and between Bob and I,
787
00:41:28,528 --> 00:41:32,199
we worked so diligent on the scripts.
Our scripts are very tight going in.
788
00:41:32,282 --> 00:41:35,160
We've thought of every possible hole
and problem.
789
00:41:35,243 --> 00:41:38,288
You can't think of everything,
but you're trying to because
790
00:41:38,371 --> 00:41:42,501
so many movies are forced to do
days and weeks of re-shoots and pick-ups
791
00:41:42,584 --> 00:41:47,047
because of problems, that we try to
all the way along, get it while we're there.
792
00:41:47,130 --> 00:41:49,633
Because doing re-shoots
costs so much more.
793
00:41:49,716 --> 00:41:52,719
And, when you get into post,
you have everything.
794
00:42:02,270 --> 00:42:06,441
Not to make this the sequence
about problems with continuity
795
00:42:06,525 --> 00:42:08,735
but this is slightly interesting.
796
00:42:08,818 --> 00:42:12,030
Pay attention to the sequence
and watch Kate's hair.
797
00:42:12,113 --> 00:42:15,825
Her hair changes a lot in the sequence,
and this was the very first stuff
798
00:42:15,909 --> 00:42:18,161
that was photographed with Kate.
799
00:42:18,245 --> 00:42:22,082
I'm going to be honest about it,
Kate didn't like her hair in the movie
800
00:42:22,165 --> 00:42:24,793
and it got changed a couple of times.
801
00:42:25,001 --> 00:42:27,379
She addressed this up front.
802
00:42:27,462 --> 00:42:30,006
It got changed while we were shooting
the sequence
803
00:42:30,090 --> 00:42:34,761
so you can see the many hairstyles
of Anna in this sequence.
804
00:42:35,637 --> 00:42:38,348
See where Kate picks up the gun,
and she cocks it.
805
00:42:38,431 --> 00:42:40,100
She was being really delicate about it.
806
00:42:40,183 --> 00:42:42,435
She kept picking up that gun
and gently cocking it.
807
00:42:42,519 --> 00:42:43,895
By about the fourth take, I said,
808
00:42:43,979 --> 00:42:46,815
"Kate, when you pick that up,
I need a bigger cock."
809
00:42:46,898 --> 00:42:50,151
And she looked at me and said,
"Stephen, don't we all."
810
00:42:51,361 --> 00:42:54,197
Can you put that on the DVD?
I don't know if that's possible.
811
00:42:54,281 --> 00:42:58,159
Here you go, look at the straight hair.
It changes throughout the scene.
812
00:42:58,243 --> 00:43:01,454
Then again, it works. I guarantee you,
unless we pointed that out,
813
00:43:01,538 --> 00:43:05,333
it's not something that you would
ever notice, but the fact of the matter is
814
00:43:05,417 --> 00:43:08,253
- her hairstyle changes...
- now, these are Kate's first scenes
815
00:43:08,336 --> 00:43:12,465
and she wasn't trusting us on the hair,
and then she got into the spirit.
816
00:43:18,179 --> 00:43:22,225
Of course, when you see shots like this,
maybe she was right, the first week.
817
00:43:22,309 --> 00:43:25,645
Yeah, there may have been
a hair malfunction in that shot.
818
00:43:25,729 --> 00:43:28,148
We were having
some hair problems that day with Kate.
819
00:43:28,231 --> 00:43:29,858
Then we got over it and were fine.
820
00:43:29,941 --> 00:43:32,027
Oh, my God, you're alive.
821
00:43:34,112 --> 00:43:36,573
This was actually Will's first scene also.
822
00:43:37,032 --> 00:43:40,994
Again, you get this incredible benefit
from his background,
823
00:43:41,077 --> 00:43:42,579
on the stage as a dancer,
824
00:43:42,662 --> 00:43:45,707
because these contortions
that he goes through
825
00:43:46,374 --> 00:43:51,296
and his ability to apparently climb a wall
really does come from the actor.
826
00:43:58,511 --> 00:44:03,016
I think that this shot is very cool,
because it's very organic.
827
00:44:03,141 --> 00:44:07,270
There's a guy crawling up the wall.
It's a very well accomplished shot.
828
00:44:08,605 --> 00:44:13,318
There's some old movie trickery here also,
because this set is actually on the floor
829
00:44:13,401 --> 00:44:17,405
and the camera is put in a position
where it appears like it's the wall.
830
00:44:17,906 --> 00:44:22,577
So again, using many old-time and new-time
techniques all within the same shot.
831
00:44:24,204 --> 00:44:27,165
When I was thinking about the werewolf
when I watched movies
832
00:44:27,248 --> 00:44:31,169
and I didn't want him to just grow hair.
I thought of these creatures logically
833
00:44:31,252 --> 00:44:34,714
and said, "A werewolf is like an alcoholic
or a drug addict.
834
00:44:34,798 --> 00:44:38,760
"He could be your neighbor, best friend,
brother. He's very noble during the day
835
00:44:38,843 --> 00:44:42,097
"but at night, when his demons come out,
when the full moon comes out,
836
00:44:42,180 --> 00:44:45,183
"he's uncomfortable in his own skin,
so he'd want to rip it off.
837
00:44:45,266 --> 00:44:47,102
"He just can't stand it anymore."
838
00:44:47,185 --> 00:44:49,104
That's when I thought, "He can rip it off..."
839
00:44:49,187 --> 00:44:51,690
And I mentioned these things
to some of the guys at ILM
840
00:44:51,773 --> 00:44:54,109
and they came down and created this idea.
841
00:44:54,317 --> 00:44:58,363
They did some drawings that represented
that, and they took it and ran with it.
842
00:44:58,446 --> 00:45:02,701
It looked great. We had some really great
creature designers on this movie.
843
00:45:02,784 --> 00:45:04,911
Crash and Patrick Tatopoulos,
844
00:45:05,245 --> 00:45:06,621
a group of great people.
845
00:45:06,705 --> 00:45:11,000
Greg Cannom and the whole slew of people
up at ILM,
846
00:45:11,084 --> 00:45:16,005
a lot of people contributed to
the great design work you see in the movie.
847
00:45:16,548 --> 00:45:18,883
At least, we hope you think
it's great design work.
848
00:45:18,967 --> 00:45:20,510
Bob, they've already bought the DVD.
849
00:45:20,593 --> 00:45:22,554
So chances are they actually like the movie.
850
00:45:22,637 --> 00:45:23,972
That's true.
851
00:45:31,187 --> 00:45:32,313
I like these shots.
852
00:45:32,397 --> 00:45:34,941
This is a very iconic shot.
853
00:45:35,024 --> 00:45:38,653
When Steve spoke with Gabriella Pescucci
who's our costume designer,
854
00:45:38,737 --> 00:45:42,490
this great Italian lady
who did a phenomenal job,
855
00:45:42,574 --> 00:45:47,245
he said, "What I need out of the
Van Helsing costume, is it to be so iconic
856
00:45:47,328 --> 00:45:50,999
"that if you see him completely
in silhouette, that you'll know who he is."
857
00:45:51,082 --> 00:45:52,250
Silhouetted against the moon.
858
00:45:52,333 --> 00:45:56,004
I have Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf man,
and they're so iconographic,
859
00:45:56,087 --> 00:45:59,424
Van Helsing's got to have that.
It's funny, so many people said,
860
00:45:59,507 --> 00:46:02,761
"The hat. Where did you get that from?
Was it from Indiana Jones,
861
00:46:02,844 --> 00:46:05,263
"or Clint Eastwood
in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,
862
00:46:05,346 --> 00:46:07,432
"or Vampire Hunter D?"
They had all these ideas.
863
00:46:07,515 --> 00:46:11,186
"No, I told my costume designer to come up
with something so iconographic
864
00:46:11,269 --> 00:46:15,231
"that if he were silhouetted against
the moon, you would know it was him."
865
00:46:17,108 --> 00:46:19,027
This is a fun scene. I love the snow.
866
00:46:19,110 --> 00:46:20,862
What a coincidence.
867
00:46:21,362 --> 00:46:25,325
People don't know this, but every movie
made, you have to lip-synch dialogue.
868
00:46:25,408 --> 00:46:29,454
You just do. There's all kinds of mechanical
problems. It has nothing to do with,
869
00:46:29,537 --> 00:46:32,457
hopefully speaking, it doesn't have to do
with the performances.
870
00:46:32,540 --> 00:46:34,125
It's just that in a scene like this,
871
00:46:34,209 --> 00:46:38,379
what you have is snow machines
and wind machines blowing snow around.
872
00:46:38,505 --> 00:46:40,298
So you can't hear a thing.
873
00:46:40,381 --> 00:46:43,009
So all you're getting on the set
is actually guide track.
874
00:46:43,092 --> 00:46:47,514
And then the actors come in afterwards
and they have to lip-synch all their dialogue.
875
00:46:47,972 --> 00:46:50,809
Whenever you see two people talking
in front of a waterfall
876
00:46:50,892 --> 00:46:54,020
or in the middle of a Manhattan street,
they have to lip-synch that.
877
00:46:54,103 --> 00:46:57,649
Because it's just so loud,
and the background is so obnoxious.
878
00:46:59,192 --> 00:47:02,987
This is one of the first sequences that
we had to deal with the Velkan werewolf.
879
00:47:03,071 --> 00:47:05,323
That's a cool shot.
We had a lot of problems...
880
00:47:05,406 --> 00:47:08,743
This is my least favorite shot in the movie
coming up, I'll show you.
881
00:47:08,827 --> 00:47:10,119
Sorry, ILM.
882
00:47:10,411 --> 00:47:12,622
We love your stuff, but... Right there.
883
00:47:12,705 --> 00:47:16,251
What was with that werewolf?
But the rest was okay.
884
00:47:16,334 --> 00:47:19,921
Maybe you all have
your favorite shot to hate, but that's ours.
885
00:47:20,588 --> 00:47:22,257
If people knew...
886
00:47:23,341 --> 00:47:25,009
These two together, it was just great.
887
00:47:25,093 --> 00:47:27,637
He's not your brother anymore, Anna!
888
00:47:28,888 --> 00:47:31,516
- You knew?
- Yes.
889
00:47:33,101 --> 00:47:36,229
Before or after I stopped you
from shooting him?
890
00:47:36,312 --> 00:47:37,355
Before.
891
00:47:37,438 --> 00:47:38,773
And still you tried to kill him!
892
00:47:38,857 --> 00:47:40,567
He's a werewolf! He's gonna kill people!
893
00:47:40,650 --> 00:47:42,193
He can't help it! It's not his fault!
894
00:47:42,277 --> 00:47:43,695
I know, but he'll do it anyway!
895
00:47:43,778 --> 00:47:46,030
Do you understand forgiveness?
896
00:47:46,322 --> 00:47:48,783
Yes. I ask for it often.
897
00:47:48,867 --> 00:47:52,579
In this movie, I wanted as much...
Watching the old horror classics,
898
00:47:52,662 --> 00:47:57,584
I wanted as much atmosphere as possible.
There's always rain, steam, and mist,
899
00:47:57,667 --> 00:48:02,422
and I wanted to throw in snow as well.
Just to keep things interesting.
900
00:48:02,505 --> 00:48:06,885
Transylvania's a really amazing place,
because you get all kinds of weather.
901
00:48:06,968 --> 00:48:10,471
If you actually stop to think about it,
that last scene in the armory
902
00:48:10,555 --> 00:48:13,224
where she ran into Velkan,
it's pouring down rain
903
00:48:13,308 --> 00:48:16,811
and we come to this scene
and it starts to snow. I guess it got colder.
904
00:48:16,895 --> 00:48:20,523
In fact, we knew that was going to be
an issue, it's all wet down
905
00:48:20,607 --> 00:48:24,569
when we start, but the fact is that the
weather in Transylvania is always changing.
906
00:48:24,652 --> 00:48:28,364
That's what the thousands of hours
of methodology means, we go through,
907
00:48:28,448 --> 00:48:32,493
the whole gang of us, every department,
line by line through a movie like this.
908
00:48:32,952 --> 00:48:37,457
That's why at the beginning
of the sequence, you see the snow start.
909
00:48:37,540 --> 00:48:40,793
I have to give that to Sylvie,
my French script supervisor
910
00:48:40,877 --> 00:48:44,339
who's been with me for about 15 years.
But she's really into continuity.
911
00:48:44,422 --> 00:48:46,466
That's her nickname.
She's the continuity girl.
912
00:48:46,549 --> 00:48:48,760
She keeps everything straight.
She wanted to know,
913
00:48:48,843 --> 00:48:50,053
"When does it starts snowing?"
914
00:48:50,136 --> 00:48:53,681
So we had to show that it started snowing.
I thought it was kind of nice.
915
00:48:57,602 --> 00:49:01,814
It's always good to have a Jacob's ladder.
These are great iconic images,
916
00:49:01,898 --> 00:49:04,984
things that go back to the original movies.
917
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:07,445
When you think of Frankenstein's lab,
918
00:49:07,528 --> 00:49:10,782
all those weird machines
are the first thing that come to mind.
919
00:49:10,865 --> 00:49:13,117
- Igor.
- Yes, master.
920
00:49:13,368 --> 00:49:14,827
How long before we are ready?
921
00:49:14,911 --> 00:49:18,122
You see the little Dwergi here.
When I was figuring out the script
922
00:49:18,206 --> 00:49:21,459
I realized, at some point,
somebody's got to take apart this lab
923
00:49:21,542 --> 00:49:24,170
and move it from Castle Frankenstein
to Castle Dracula.
924
00:49:24,253 --> 00:49:25,380
It couldn't just be Igor,
925
00:49:25,463 --> 00:49:28,216
and Dracula's not going to do it,
so he had to have helpers.
926
00:49:28,299 --> 00:49:29,926
And I came up with these Dwergis.
927
00:49:30,009 --> 00:49:32,845
Actually, I just called them trolls
or something.
928
00:49:32,929 --> 00:49:37,850
Bob's assistant looked it up and found that
German Gothic trolls were called "Dwergi."
929
00:49:38,184 --> 00:49:41,688
"Dwerger" plural, "Dwergi," singular, I think.
I can't remember.
930
00:49:41,771 --> 00:49:44,273
Anyway, I thought they were pretty cool.
931
00:49:46,067 --> 00:49:47,443
Nightmares.
932
00:49:50,113 --> 00:49:52,407
This is the last scene we shot in Prague.
933
00:49:52,490 --> 00:49:54,325
We blew fake snow throughout...
934
00:49:54,409 --> 00:49:56,744
You would not believe how cold it was.
935
00:49:57,996 --> 00:50:02,000
God bless the Czech Republic, it's
a beautiful place, the people are wonderful,
936
00:50:02,083 --> 00:50:04,085
it is just so cold there.
937
00:50:04,168 --> 00:50:08,548
See, Bob's from Miami, I'm from Minnesota,
so I thought it was rather balmy, actually.
938
00:50:09,298 --> 00:50:12,677
Yeah, maybe it does relate to Minnesota
a little. It just seems colder.
939
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:15,179
The man who lived here
was killed a year ago.
940
00:50:15,263 --> 00:50:17,932
- A grave robber, among other things.
- A year ago.
941
00:50:18,016 --> 00:50:20,435
It was just after that
that your father went missing.
942
00:50:20,852 --> 00:50:22,645
Sometimes you make decisions like,
943
00:50:22,729 --> 00:50:25,440
"I was gonna have them do
that whole dialogue riding horses."
944
00:50:25,523 --> 00:50:28,943
It was the last night in Prague,
it's freezing cold, it was time to go
945
00:50:29,027 --> 00:50:32,447
and I said, "Let's just have you walking.
You're looking at the trail.
946
00:50:32,530 --> 00:50:35,825
"It's too hard to follow these horses down
for one line of dialogue."
947
00:50:35,908 --> 00:50:39,203
There was even a question of whether
that scene would make the movie.
948
00:50:39,287 --> 00:50:40,413
But it did.
949
00:50:43,124 --> 00:50:45,251
Now all that is fake, it's digital,
950
00:50:45,334 --> 00:50:47,378
and now we're on a real set.
951
00:50:47,462 --> 00:50:50,423
For those of you who care,
for that sort of thing.
952
00:50:52,967 --> 00:50:55,803
Werewolves are such a nuisance...
953
00:50:55,887 --> 00:50:58,639
And for people keeping track
from a financial standpoint
954
00:50:58,723 --> 00:51:02,185
the shot you're about to see
is one of the most expensive shots.
955
00:51:02,268 --> 00:51:03,519
So, ENJOY-
956
00:51:12,153 --> 00:51:13,863
That's a great moment right there.
957
00:51:13,946 --> 00:51:18,367
One of the things that you really hope for
is that you can make it seem like it's real
958
00:51:18,451 --> 00:51:21,704
and when you see that moment there,
with the furry face,
959
00:51:21,788 --> 00:51:24,332
I'm not sure you could imagine
how that was done.
960
00:51:24,415 --> 00:51:27,251
Right. When his ribs pop up
and his leg bone pops out...
961
00:51:27,335 --> 00:51:28,836
ILM did a terrific job.
962
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,130
There's only the one werewolf shot
we really hate.
963
00:51:31,214 --> 00:51:34,175
I think we've only complained
about one shot.
964
00:51:34,258 --> 00:51:36,344
And there are 1,200 in the movie.
965
00:51:36,427 --> 00:51:39,347
I'm not sure how many have passed by
by this point, but...
966
00:51:40,014 --> 00:51:43,643
Don't wish for death so quickly.
I intend for you to be quite useful.
967
00:51:43,726 --> 00:51:45,478
I would rather die than help you.
968
00:51:45,561 --> 00:51:48,648
Don't be boring.
Everyone who says that dies.
969
00:51:48,731 --> 00:51:50,358
Besides, tonight,
970
00:51:50,441 --> 00:51:52,401
after the final stroke of midnight,
971
00:51:52,485 --> 00:51:55,071
you will have no choice but to obey me.
972
00:51:55,154 --> 00:51:58,449
The thing about Richard
is that while casting Dracula
973
00:51:58,533 --> 00:52:02,787
we went to several actors, and it was funny
because they'd read the script,
974
00:52:02,870 --> 00:52:05,414
they'd really love the character
and how it was written.
975
00:52:05,498 --> 00:52:07,125
They loved the script and the story.
976
00:52:07,208 --> 00:52:10,795
We got several responses.
They would call me up and they'd say
977
00:52:10,878 --> 00:52:15,007
"I love your script, I love the play,
but I don't know how to play Dracula."
978
00:52:15,091 --> 00:52:18,970
I'd be terrified. Like my wife said,
it's been done a hundred different ways
979
00:52:19,053 --> 00:52:22,890
some good, some not so good.
And then, we were casting actresses,
980
00:52:22,974 --> 00:52:26,269
and we met three Australian actresses
in a period of about four days.
981
00:52:26,352 --> 00:52:28,271
The first one read the script and said,
982
00:52:28,354 --> 00:52:30,940
"Have you ever thought of
Richard Roxburgh for Dracula?"
983
00:52:31,023 --> 00:52:33,901
I said, "I don't know who he is."
And she said, "He's great."
984
00:52:33,985 --> 00:52:36,946
Two days later another Australian actress
said the same thing.
985
00:52:37,029 --> 00:52:41,325
By the time the third one came and said,
"Richard," I said, "Who is this guy?"
986
00:52:41,409 --> 00:52:45,454
So we started looking him up,
sent him the script and I flew to Prague
987
00:52:45,538 --> 00:52:50,418
because I thought, "I got to get this guy."
He is so fantastic and he is just fearless.
988
00:52:50,668 --> 00:52:52,295
And he did a terrific job.
989
00:52:53,296 --> 00:52:54,672
And that's how we got Richard.
990
00:52:54,755 --> 00:52:56,507
If you get the chance to kill one, do it...
991
00:52:56,591 --> 00:52:59,385
- because they'll do worse to you.
- Right.
992
00:53:04,432 --> 00:53:07,310
Apparently Anna can understand Dwergi.
993
00:53:08,019 --> 00:53:12,648
She's translated here and now she's
relaying that information to Van Helsing.
994
00:53:12,732 --> 00:53:15,776
I love the fact that she can speak Dwergi.
I wish I spoke Dwergi.
995
00:53:15,860 --> 00:53:18,237
Remember this room?
See how big this room is?
996
00:53:18,321 --> 00:53:22,158
We are always taking sets
and revamping them.
997
00:53:23,784 --> 00:53:26,954
Richard is actually upside down here.
He's just on wires here.
998
00:53:27,038 --> 00:53:28,873
He was always game for that sort of thing.
999
00:53:28,956 --> 00:53:32,126
In fact, if you look very closely,
the wire is still in the shot.
1000
00:53:32,210 --> 00:53:34,670
Yeah, at the bottom of his feet.
1001
00:53:35,504 --> 00:53:38,549
Now look at Velkan. Why is he so oiled up?
1002
00:53:40,092 --> 00:53:44,222
If you look at that shot, the make-up girls
were really into oiling Velkan up.
1003
00:53:44,889 --> 00:53:48,309
I'm watching the shot on the monitor
and I go, "Why is he so slimy?
1004
00:53:48,392 --> 00:53:50,728
"He's covered in oil. What's that all about?"
1005
00:53:50,811 --> 00:53:53,231
The make-up people were all giggling.
1006
00:53:54,273 --> 00:53:56,525
- You ever see these things before?
- No.
1007
00:53:56,609 --> 00:53:57,652
What do you think they are?
1008
00:53:57,735 --> 00:53:59,654
This line right here,
1009
00:54:00,321 --> 00:54:02,490
A man with three gorgeous women
for 400 years.
1010
00:54:02,782 --> 00:54:04,992
That's when I knew I could write this movie.
1011
00:54:05,076 --> 00:54:08,412
I sat around for a long time.
The studio had no idea what I was doing.
1012
00:54:08,496 --> 00:54:10,915
I told them I wanted to go off
and make a small movie.
1013
00:54:10,998 --> 00:54:14,210
And then I watched all the
original horror classics, just as a lark.
1014
00:54:14,293 --> 00:54:17,588
I fell back in love with all the characters
and the look and the feel.
1015
00:54:17,672 --> 00:54:21,050
It's all so visual and atmospheric.
It's just wonderful.
1016
00:54:21,342 --> 00:54:23,803
But I thought,
"What if I put all three of them,
1017
00:54:23,886 --> 00:54:26,305
"Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf man
into the same movie?"
1018
00:54:26,389 --> 00:54:29,684
That sounds like a great idea,
but if it's just our hero
1019
00:54:29,767 --> 00:54:33,771
kills off the three monsters,
people will hate me, critics will kill me.
1020
00:54:33,854 --> 00:54:37,525
And these movie lovers will kill me,
so I didn't think it was possible.
1021
00:54:37,608 --> 00:54:41,779
Then one day, I was looking at this poster
in my office of Dracula and three brides
1022
00:54:41,862 --> 00:54:42,822
and I thought,
1023
00:54:42,905 --> 00:54:45,783
"What would a man do
with three gorgeous women for 400 years?"
1024
00:54:45,866 --> 00:54:49,328
I answered that question and thought,
"Maybe I'm going down a dead end
1025
00:54:49,412 --> 00:54:52,206
-"because vampires are the undead..."
- no pun intended.
1026
00:54:52,748 --> 00:54:56,419
"...their children would be born dead.
1027
00:54:56,502 --> 00:55:00,256
"The brides would be ragging on Dracula:
'We've got to do something about this.".
1028
00:55:00,339 --> 00:55:01,799
And what would he do?
1029
00:55:01,882 --> 00:55:05,636
He'd go find
the most brilliant, mad scientist surgeon
1030
00:55:05,720 --> 00:55:08,306
he could find, Victor Frankenstein,
hire him,
1031
00:55:08,389 --> 00:55:10,933
bring him over to Transylvania,
set him up in a lab,
1032
00:55:11,017 --> 00:55:13,644
and Victor Frankenstein would try to find
the key to life.
1033
00:55:13,728 --> 00:55:16,605
And that's when I knew a plot was born,
and I knew
1034
00:55:16,897 --> 00:55:19,817
I could come up with a great story
with these three characters.
1035
00:55:19,900 --> 00:55:22,320
And that's when I started thinking
about Van Helsing.
1036
00:55:22,403 --> 00:55:25,573
I just loved his character
in the original Bela Lugosi movie.
1037
00:55:25,656 --> 00:55:28,200
I thought he was really worldly
and confident. Loved him.
1038
00:55:28,284 --> 00:55:31,120
But I thought my guy had to be younger,
cooler, and hipper
1039
00:55:31,203 --> 00:55:32,705
with a lot better weapons.
1040
00:55:32,788 --> 00:55:34,415
It was that moment when I said,
1041
00:55:34,498 --> 00:55:37,585
"What would a man do
with three gorgeous women for 400 years?"
1042
00:55:37,668 --> 00:55:40,296
Then I figured it out.
I sat around for two more months,
1043
00:55:40,379 --> 00:55:42,673
scene by scene, plotting it out.
1044
00:55:42,757 --> 00:55:47,136
That's when I went to Stacey Snider,
the chairman of Universal.
1045
00:55:47,219 --> 00:55:49,138
Mary Parent,
one of the Presidents was there.
1046
00:55:49,221 --> 00:55:51,432
Bob and I went in,
and I pitched them the story.
1047
00:55:51,515 --> 00:55:54,101
They both had these big smiles.
They were really excited.
1048
00:55:54,185 --> 00:55:57,396
But Stacey said, "What happened
to that small movie you were writing?"
1049
00:55:57,480 --> 00:55:59,565
I said, "Forget it, we're doing this."
1050
00:55:59,648 --> 00:56:00,983
And here it is.
1051
00:56:13,537 --> 00:56:15,539
And here's a great moment.
1052
00:56:17,124 --> 00:56:19,794
I just loved the audience's reaction to this.
1053
00:56:19,877 --> 00:56:21,796
It's a guaranteed leap.
1054
00:56:25,257 --> 00:56:26,675
That's one of the cheapest shots.
1055
00:56:26,759 --> 00:56:29,887
We set up a camera over Hugh's shoulder
and said, "Reach for it."
1056
00:56:29,970 --> 00:56:33,641
It is one of the few places
that puppets were used.
1057
00:56:33,724 --> 00:56:36,644
Both, that hand
and also the creature that pops out there
1058
00:56:36,727 --> 00:56:40,398
is a puppet done by Greg Cannom
and his group.
1059
00:56:40,481 --> 00:56:42,483
Yeah. They did a great job.
1060
00:56:43,692 --> 00:56:44,944
Come on!
1061
00:56:45,361 --> 00:56:49,657
This shot coming up here
is all digital until the end.
1062
00:56:49,740 --> 00:56:53,494
The environment is digital,
the cocoons, the bat,
1063
00:56:53,911 --> 00:56:55,788
everything that you see there is...
1064
00:56:55,871 --> 00:56:58,749
And right here, we come into our set.
1065
00:56:59,125 --> 00:57:02,336
So I grabbed this piece
with Dracula and the brides,
1066
00:57:02,420 --> 00:57:04,797
and ILM hooked up the first part.
1067
00:57:06,924 --> 00:57:11,345
I always like this moment here, because
there's this moment of this creature
1068
00:57:11,429 --> 00:57:16,350
bonding with its mother,
and it's kind of twisted in a good way.
1069
00:57:16,517 --> 00:57:20,354
They need to feed.
Teach them how. Teach them!
1070
00:57:20,438 --> 00:57:24,108
I tell you, Silvia, Elena, they just love flying.
1071
00:57:24,608 --> 00:57:27,153
I never got on wires.
I always wanted to go on the wires.
1072
00:57:27,236 --> 00:57:29,155
They had so much fun. I love this shot.
1073
00:57:29,238 --> 00:57:33,117
These little baby bats
presented a fairly big design challenge.
1074
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:37,163
Not so much a design challenge, actually
the design of the creature is quite nice
1075
00:57:37,246 --> 00:57:41,125
but the decision to have them
look to be very light-colored
1076
00:57:41,208 --> 00:57:44,295
actually presented a lot of problems for ILM.
1077
00:57:44,378 --> 00:57:46,964
Because they just didn't
take the light very well
1078
00:57:47,047 --> 00:57:49,467
and in some places
they appeared to be blue,
1079
00:57:49,550 --> 00:57:51,427
and in some places, a little white.
1080
00:57:51,510 --> 00:57:54,889
At first it looked like a flock of sea gulls
for a while.
1081
00:57:54,972 --> 00:57:57,683
And then they kind of
started getting it down.
1082
00:57:58,058 --> 00:58:00,561
Now that I have your attention...
1083
00:58:05,524 --> 00:58:09,778
This is the same dining room that
Hugh and Kate were walking through earlier.
1084
00:58:09,862 --> 00:58:11,489
We just revamped it into this.
1085
00:58:11,572 --> 00:58:14,325
It's something that
a good production designer would bring
1086
00:58:14,408 --> 00:58:18,954
because the last thing you want to be doing
is spending a lot of money on a set that...
1087
00:58:19,038 --> 00:58:22,249
The dining room set that that came through,
it's a small scene.
1088
00:58:22,333 --> 00:58:26,086
And if you can somehow do both scenes
with the same set, all the better.
1089
00:58:32,927 --> 00:58:35,596
This is my homage to Wizard of Oz shot.
1090
00:58:35,763 --> 00:58:37,223
I should probably point out,
1091
00:58:37,306 --> 00:58:39,934
there's homages to about 15 movies
in this movie.
1092
00:58:42,436 --> 00:58:45,105
Again, this is down in Playa Vista in LA.
1093
00:58:45,898 --> 00:58:47,483
I wanted to do this as a oner.
1094
00:58:47,566 --> 00:58:50,152
I just thought,
"Richard, take it away. Have fun."
1095
00:58:52,363 --> 00:58:56,450
I can tell the character of a man
by the sound of his heartbeat.
1096
00:58:57,493 --> 00:58:59,954
Usually when I approach...
1097
00:59:00,037 --> 00:59:02,706
This is such a strong performance.
1098
00:59:02,790 --> 00:59:07,002
If you didn't know how much you would like
Dracula, this is when you went, "Okay."
1099
00:59:07,461 --> 00:59:11,382
Strange that yours is so steady.
1100
00:59:12,299 --> 00:59:16,095
So I went back to the original,
not only movies, but the books,
1101
00:59:16,178 --> 00:59:18,180
and I just thought
the same with Frankenstein.
1102
00:59:18,264 --> 00:59:20,266
People are like,
"Frankenstein's a big monster.
1103
00:59:20,349 --> 00:59:24,186
"He screams and yells and kills people."
But he's so much more.
1104
00:59:24,270 --> 00:59:25,646
And so was Dracula.
1105
00:59:29,358 --> 00:59:33,153
This was so much fun. I guess
this might have been my favorite set.
1106
00:59:33,237 --> 00:59:36,949
Just being in Frankenstein's laboratory.
Something about it.
1107
00:59:38,409 --> 00:59:42,204
It has such a different vibe and color
than it does in black and white, too.
1108
00:59:42,288 --> 00:59:46,166
Even though we're in this location twice,
once in the beginning and again here,
1109
00:59:46,250 --> 00:59:49,003
it's really wonderful to see it
both those ways.
1110
00:59:52,381 --> 00:59:54,258
Now we're back in Prague,
1111
00:59:55,009 --> 00:59:56,218
this is the shot...
1112
00:59:56,302 --> 01:00:00,139
Greg Michael grabbed this shot. He
and the second unit did a lot of this here.
1113
01:00:00,222 --> 01:00:01,765
Oh, my God.
1114
01:00:02,850 --> 01:00:04,977
This is actually a very complicated shot.
1115
01:00:05,060 --> 01:00:07,980
You see those people
being lifted up there, they're on wires
1116
01:00:08,063 --> 01:00:10,399
and the camera is flying on a wire also.
1117
01:00:10,482 --> 01:00:14,570
So there's a lot of coordination
between stunts and the camera department.
1118
01:00:14,653 --> 01:00:16,488
It's a very complicated shot.
1119
01:00:16,572 --> 01:00:19,617
People wonder, "Why do they have
a second unit shooting this stuff?"
1120
01:00:19,700 --> 01:00:23,996
It's because I can't afford to spend
all night long getting one shot.
1121
01:00:24,079 --> 01:00:26,290
And that's why you have
the second unit come in
1122
01:00:26,373 --> 01:00:30,169
and they've got 30 stuntmen on wires
and a camera on wires.
1123
01:00:30,252 --> 01:00:33,714
They spend nine hours lighting it,
setting up and testing it.
1124
01:00:33,797 --> 01:00:36,425
Sometimes they'll go all night
and get one shot.
1125
01:00:36,508 --> 01:00:38,385
The most complicated shots sometimes...
1126
01:00:38,469 --> 01:00:40,929
are all storyboarded, pre-visualized,
and figured out.
1127
01:00:41,013 --> 01:00:44,600
Greg helps me every bit
and then I got to send Greg out to do it.
1128
01:00:58,739 --> 01:01:02,284
I know all my mythology,
I know all the lore, like I said earlier.
1129
01:01:02,368 --> 01:01:06,163
We know you can kill vampires
with a stake in the heart,
1130
01:01:06,246 --> 01:01:10,334
but I'm thinking, "Dracula, he's like
the godfather of all vampires.
1131
01:01:10,417 --> 01:01:12,169
"He's the king vampire, father vampire.
1132
01:01:12,252 --> 01:01:15,089
"You can't just stick a stake in his heart
and kill him."
1133
01:01:15,172 --> 01:01:17,216
So I like to play with the rules a little bit.
1134
01:01:17,299 --> 01:01:20,260
We all know you can't see
Dracula's reflection in a mirror.
1135
01:01:20,344 --> 01:01:23,138
But nobody has ever asked why.
So I asked why.
1136
01:01:23,222 --> 01:01:25,557
I guess I have too much time on my hands.
1137
01:01:25,641 --> 01:01:28,602
I asked why,
and then I come up with an answer.
1138
01:01:34,733 --> 01:01:36,735
See this first Dwergi? Watch this.
1139
01:01:36,819 --> 01:01:39,154
This is one of our stuntmen and he missed.
1140
01:01:39,238 --> 01:01:41,532
He really hurt himself there,
if you're wondering.
1141
01:01:41,615 --> 01:01:44,576
He was supposed to fall into the pot
and he missed.
1142
01:01:45,786 --> 01:01:48,956
This is another one of those sequences
that we all talk about.
1143
01:01:49,039 --> 01:01:51,959
That boring talk about
how the actors do their own stunts.
1144
01:01:52,042 --> 01:01:55,879
But, in fact, every shot in that sequence,
except for one, Kate actually did.
1145
01:01:55,963 --> 01:01:58,590
When she leaps on to that rope,
that's actually Kate.
1146
01:01:58,674 --> 01:02:02,261
It's great to have cast members
that are game for doing that
1147
01:02:02,344 --> 01:02:05,013
because it allows you
that much more latitude
1148
01:02:05,097 --> 01:02:08,308
when you're putting the movie together
because it's the real person.
1149
01:02:08,392 --> 01:02:10,436
You don't have to cut around
a stunt person.
1150
01:02:10,519 --> 01:02:14,398
Also myself, with the metabolism I have,
I have to go, go, go.
1151
01:02:14,606 --> 01:02:19,403
And to suddenly stop, de-rig
an actor to rig up a stunt person...
1152
01:02:19,486 --> 01:02:23,198
with all the padding and all the wireworks...
1153
01:02:23,282 --> 01:02:25,993
- And the harnesses.
- let's keep going.
1154
01:02:26,910 --> 01:02:28,996
She probably won't break her leg.
1155
01:02:30,456 --> 01:02:33,083
Yeah, the insurance companies
enjoy listening to that.
1156
01:02:34,084 --> 01:02:38,881
Trained by monks and mullahs
from Tibet to Istanbul.
1157
01:02:40,132 --> 01:02:42,509
Protected by Rome herself.
1158
01:02:43,302 --> 01:02:45,304
It was funny because both the actors
1159
01:02:45,387 --> 01:02:48,640
showed up,
and I could tell they were really excited,
1160
01:02:48,724 --> 01:02:52,102
the two of them to be playing opposite
each other, with each other,
1161
01:02:52,186 --> 01:02:53,437
and they were almost nervous.
1162
01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:56,273
They were really excited,
there was a little bit of tension...
1163
01:02:56,356 --> 01:02:57,900
You just have to have this scene.
1164
01:02:57,983 --> 01:03:00,903
This moment where these two
get to suss each other out.
1165
01:03:00,986 --> 01:03:02,863
It is the good guy and the bad guy meet.
1166
01:03:02,946 --> 01:03:05,324
And you really need this moment
in a movie like this.
1167
01:03:05,407 --> 01:03:08,160
When I'm plotting these movies,
I'm trying to figure out...
1168
01:03:08,243 --> 01:03:11,455
First I have to figure out
all the characters, then the story,
1169
01:03:11,538 --> 01:03:15,125
the plotting, how it weaves in and out.
I just know there's a point where,
1170
01:03:15,209 --> 01:03:18,545
"When does the good guy
meet the bad guy? What happens there?"
1171
01:03:20,214 --> 01:03:21,965
How do you know me?
1172
01:03:23,050 --> 01:03:24,176
That was a really fun scene.
1173
01:03:24,259 --> 01:03:27,721
The whole crew was just watching
two great actors talking.
1174
01:03:27,805 --> 01:03:30,682
Sometimes it's just as exciting
as all the explosions.
1175
01:03:30,766 --> 01:03:34,019
People probably don't believe me
on that one. That's the problem.
1176
01:03:34,102 --> 01:03:35,437
And why should they?
1177
01:03:35,521 --> 01:03:39,316
The problem with me is that,
as a writer, I love special effects
1178
01:03:39,399 --> 01:03:43,111
and things blowing up, and I love to be
as creative and imaginative,
1179
01:03:43,195 --> 01:03:44,530
and as interesting as possible.
1180
01:03:44,613 --> 01:03:48,700
But as a director, I'd really rather
just sit with two actors in a room.
1181
01:03:48,784 --> 01:03:52,162
So I'm kind of schizophrenic.
Every day on the set, I curse the writer.
1182
01:03:52,246 --> 01:03:54,665
I hate the writer. He drives me crazy.
Look at this.
1183
01:03:54,748 --> 01:03:57,334
Every shot has got to have
some complication in it.
1184
01:03:57,417 --> 01:04:01,171
So when I'm writing it, people say,
"Do you visualize it as a director?" Never.
1185
01:04:01,255 --> 01:04:03,298
Even at this stage, I just sit and write
1186
01:04:03,382 --> 01:04:06,134
and I'm having so much fun
letting my imagination go wild
1187
01:04:06,218 --> 01:04:10,347
and when I finish it,
I think, "God, I have to direct all this stuff."
1188
01:04:10,430 --> 01:04:12,808
That's why every day on the set
I curse the writer.
1189
01:04:12,891 --> 01:04:16,812
Allow me to reintroduce myself.
1190
01:04:17,521 --> 01:04:22,442
I am Count Vladislaus Dragulia.
1191
01:04:24,611 --> 01:04:26,947
Born 1422.
1192
01:04:27,030 --> 01:04:29,533
I wanted the actors
to be free to walk around and,
1193
01:04:29,616 --> 01:04:32,870
so we did the scene with a Steadicam.
I use a Steadicam rarely.
1194
01:04:32,953 --> 01:04:35,831
I use it during chases a lot.
It's a really great tool.
1195
01:04:35,914 --> 01:04:39,251
But people tend to overuse it. But I thought,
"That scene is a dance."
1196
01:04:39,334 --> 01:04:41,211
Van Helsing would never let Dracula
get too close to him,
1197
01:04:41,295 --> 01:04:45,841
and yet Dracula wants to connect with him,
remind him of their past history.
1198
01:04:45,924 --> 01:04:48,343
So it was fun, because it was myself
and two actors walking around
1199
01:04:48,427 --> 01:04:51,597
figuring out the beats and the moments.
It was fun.
1200
01:04:57,978 --> 01:04:58,979
Carl.
1201
01:05:02,524 --> 01:05:04,359
These guys were great.
1202
01:05:05,652 --> 01:05:07,946
Doesn't work out well for them at all.
1203
01:05:10,991 --> 01:05:13,660
This was shot over our set in Prague.
1204
01:05:17,915 --> 01:05:19,041
It's actually funny.
1205
01:05:19,124 --> 01:05:22,002
In the scene that's gonna come up here,
for some reason,
1206
01:05:22,085 --> 01:05:24,630
the friar is the only person
that gets laid in the movie.
1207
01:05:24,713 --> 01:05:27,799
So we were still trying
to figure that one out.
1208
01:05:28,592 --> 01:05:30,552
There is something wrong with me.
1209
01:05:34,348 --> 01:05:37,893
This is on a soundstage in Los Angeles.
1210
01:05:37,976 --> 01:05:40,729
We just added all the sky
and the mountains.
1211
01:05:40,854 --> 01:05:42,689
It's actually a gigantic set,
1212
01:05:42,773 --> 01:05:47,194
but again, a gigantic set
with a 360-degree blue screen
1213
01:05:47,277 --> 01:05:49,780
which allows
all those backgrounds to be put in.
1214
01:05:49,863 --> 01:05:52,407
Obviously, the mountains
are not there on the soundstage.
1215
01:05:52,491 --> 01:05:54,451
We had so many sets on this movie.
1216
01:05:54,534 --> 01:05:57,996
Some of the biggest sets ever built
were built for this movie.
1217
01:05:58,080 --> 01:06:02,501
Some of the sets were so big,
that's why they call it Sommersizing,
1218
01:06:02,668 --> 01:06:05,462
we actually couldn't build them indoors.
We rented a huge,
1219
01:06:05,545 --> 01:06:08,423
somebody said it's the world's biggest
parking lot in Downey.
1220
01:06:08,507 --> 01:06:10,634
Though they were supposed to be
interior sets
1221
01:06:10,717 --> 01:06:12,594
we had to shoot them at night, exterior
1222
01:06:12,678 --> 01:06:14,972
because we had to
build on these parking lots.
1223
01:06:15,055 --> 01:06:18,475
Because they wouldn't
fit into any soundstage on this planet.
1224
01:06:26,483 --> 01:06:30,404
Now, when I wrote this next bit...
I love humor. I'm always going for humor.
1225
01:06:30,487 --> 01:06:34,491
I love to scare people,
and I love drama and romance and humor.
1226
01:06:34,908 --> 01:06:38,495
I never thought this would make the movie.
This moment right here.
1227
01:06:38,578 --> 01:06:40,622
How can I ever repay you?
1228
01:06:43,375 --> 01:06:47,504
I just thought, "I'm pushing it a little bit.
Maybe it's a little silly."
1229
01:06:47,587 --> 01:06:51,008
I've seen it screened
in front of six screenings now
1230
01:06:51,091 --> 01:06:54,177
and the audience eats it up.
So what can I say?
1231
01:06:54,261 --> 01:06:58,140
It's great. The actress
who plays the barmaid is a Czech actress.
1232
01:06:58,223 --> 01:07:01,143
Her name is Dana Moravkové,
and she did a lovely job.
1233
01:07:01,226 --> 01:07:04,604
She's someone we found locally
and is well-known in the Czech Republic.
1234
01:07:04,688 --> 01:07:07,441
- She was terrific.
- she did a very charming performance.
1235
01:07:07,524 --> 01:07:10,944
It would appear the good doctor
took the key to life to his grave.
1236
01:07:16,450 --> 01:07:18,035
Hunt them down.
1237
01:07:20,537 --> 01:07:22,998
The brides in the background.
They're kind of dramatic.
1238
01:07:23,081 --> 01:07:26,710
I don't know if you've noticed,
but they're a little overwrought at times.
1239
01:07:26,793 --> 01:07:29,713
Because they're bigger-than-life characters.
1240
01:07:29,796 --> 01:07:32,799
The intention behind all the vampires
is that
1241
01:07:32,883 --> 01:07:35,218
they live kind of a operatic life.
1242
01:07:36,511 --> 01:07:38,889
See that big pinwheel
in the background there?
1243
01:07:38,972 --> 01:07:42,726
That's why I put it in the ILM shot up front,
it's a hint as to where they are.
1244
01:07:42,809 --> 01:07:45,479
So we got to this location, I thought,
"When we get here
1245
01:07:45,562 --> 01:07:47,856
"we won't know
it's that windmill that burned down."
1246
01:07:47,939 --> 01:07:49,983
That's why I put the pinwheel
in the background.
1247
01:07:50,067 --> 01:07:51,485
I wanted people to remember...
1248
01:07:51,568 --> 01:07:54,404
We could've given the windmill an eyepatch.
1249
01:07:54,488 --> 01:07:56,990
- Or a big sign.
-"Windmill this way."
1250
01:07:57,991 --> 01:08:00,786
This scene was shot at a ranch in Malibu.
1251
01:08:01,870 --> 01:08:05,332
- it really is an international movie.
- We were everywhere.
1252
01:08:05,999 --> 01:08:10,212
Hugh putting the hat on her, I thought
of this as I was driving to the set. I thought,
1253
01:08:10,295 --> 01:08:12,923
"it's pouring rain, he's wearing a hat,
she's getting wet.
1254
01:08:13,006 --> 01:08:15,133
"Wouldn't he be a gentleman
and give her the hat?"
1255
01:08:15,217 --> 01:08:17,594
But I didn't know
how it was going to come across.
1256
01:08:17,677 --> 01:08:21,556
I remember calling Bob, saying, "What do
you think of this?" And he says, "Well
1257
01:08:21,640 --> 01:08:24,726
"let him put it on her head
and you'll know when you see it."
1258
01:08:24,810 --> 01:08:27,813
By the way, that hat? It's a one-of-a-kind.
1259
01:08:27,896 --> 01:08:31,733
We could never duplicate that hat,
we don't have time to tell the whole story.
1260
01:08:31,817 --> 01:08:34,277
So in that scene when it's raining,
after every take
1261
01:08:34,361 --> 01:08:37,030
people kept grabbing it
and they'd use air blowers to dry it off.
1262
01:08:37,114 --> 01:08:39,199
They were so afraid of ruining that hat.
1263
01:08:48,917 --> 01:08:52,295
This is a little set
we built on a soundstage in Prague.
1264
01:08:53,171 --> 01:08:54,381
Vampire.
1265
01:08:57,717 --> 01:08:59,052
Vampires!
1266
01:09:01,138 --> 01:09:05,809
And as Bob said earlier, the only person
who gets his due is the friar.
1267
01:09:06,059 --> 01:09:07,727
Now I remember.
1268
01:09:09,563 --> 01:09:10,814
This used to be real elaborate.
1269
01:09:10,897 --> 01:09:13,608
When the script was originally written,
they were in bed
1270
01:09:13,692 --> 01:09:16,528
and it was a tapestry
above them on a canopy.
1271
01:09:16,611 --> 01:09:20,157
And Allan Cameron and I talked it out
and decided it would be too hard
1272
01:09:20,240 --> 01:09:22,117
especially shooting up David's nose
1273
01:09:22,200 --> 01:09:25,162
and so we decided to switch it
to a secret trapdoor in the wall.
1274
01:09:25,245 --> 01:09:26,580
"May become a wolf"
1275
01:09:27,247 --> 01:09:28,832
This was great fun, at least for me.
1276
01:09:28,915 --> 01:09:31,459
It's what I always hoped for
in movies like this
1277
01:09:31,543 --> 01:09:34,629
where you've got
this sort of mysterious prop
1278
01:09:34,713 --> 01:09:38,175
and something that comes to life
to help tell the story.
1279
01:09:38,258 --> 01:09:40,677
It's very adventurous
and a great deal of fun.
1280
01:09:40,760 --> 01:09:41,845
David's so good.
1281
01:09:41,928 --> 01:09:45,390
He is Mr. Exposition in this movie.
He has to deliver so much of it
1282
01:09:45,473 --> 01:09:49,019
but I think it's so interesting,
what he's saying and how he performs it.
1283
01:09:49,102 --> 01:09:51,104
He does such a great job.
1284
01:09:58,445 --> 01:10:00,155
Meanwhile...
- back in Prague,
1285
01:10:00,238 --> 01:10:03,783
back in Barrandov studios...
Another Allan Cameron set.
1286
01:10:07,662 --> 01:10:09,831
Okay, so I have a question here.
1287
01:10:10,415 --> 01:10:14,544
What you're gonna see here is that...
We meet Kate here and she gets out...
1288
01:10:14,628 --> 01:10:15,879
But her hair's great.
1289
01:10:15,962 --> 01:10:17,923
She gets out and then, Hugh shows up.
1290
01:10:18,006 --> 01:10:20,050
So where's he been? And he just let her...
1291
01:10:20,133 --> 01:10:22,302
I mean, she's just supposedly
staying in there.
1292
01:10:22,385 --> 01:10:25,555
He didn't go wake her up or something?
What's up with that?
1293
01:10:25,639 --> 01:10:28,975
Look at the big pile of food
that Frankenstein has been eating.
1294
01:10:29,059 --> 01:10:30,602
What are those bones?
1295
01:10:31,311 --> 01:10:34,689
The head of that shot,
no one notices we built this big tent
1296
01:10:34,773 --> 01:10:37,442
with all that stuff in the background.
No one notices that.
1297
01:10:37,525 --> 01:10:39,861
Around 360 pounds.
1298
01:10:40,779 --> 01:10:42,530
8.5 to 9 feet tall.
1299
01:10:44,074 --> 01:10:48,328
It's actually kind of funny here
'cause in the original production dialogue
1300
01:10:48,411 --> 01:10:49,829
he tells her to be quiet.
1301
01:10:49,913 --> 01:10:53,375
And then he continues to yap,
and make so much noise.
1302
01:10:53,458 --> 01:10:57,462
We went back and looped it
with a softer performance
1303
01:10:57,545 --> 01:10:59,673
so it made a bit more sense.
1304
01:11:00,090 --> 01:11:01,466
The Frankenstein monster!
1305
01:11:01,549 --> 01:11:04,719
Monster? Who's the monster here?
1306
01:11:06,680 --> 01:11:09,015
You spend thousands of hours
in methodology meetings
1307
01:11:09,099 --> 01:11:11,268
trying to figure every single detail out.
1308
01:11:11,351 --> 01:11:12,978
Sometimes, in hindsight, you look and go,
1309
01:11:13,061 --> 01:11:15,814
"You didn't need to figure it out."
Here's one of my favorites.
1310
01:11:15,897 --> 01:11:18,692
That was in the script,
and it turned out so well.
1311
01:11:18,775 --> 01:11:20,568
Talking of methodology meetings,
1312
01:11:20,652 --> 01:11:23,238
see what Frankenstein is wearing?
His costume?
1313
01:11:23,321 --> 01:11:25,532
We'd discuss where he would get clothes.
1314
01:11:25,615 --> 01:11:28,410
He fell down, he didn't have anything on,
he burned up
1315
01:11:28,535 --> 01:11:31,121
and we decided, "The sails of the windmill."
1316
01:11:31,204 --> 01:11:33,498
That's what he's wearing.
The sails of the windmill.
1317
01:11:33,581 --> 01:11:36,876
That was our logic.
Of course, no one will have any idea.
1318
01:11:38,044 --> 01:11:41,131
- There's logic in everything.
- there is a reason behind it
1319
01:11:41,214 --> 01:11:43,717
even if you don't get it.
1320
01:11:45,552 --> 01:11:49,055
This is great make-up
1321
01:11:49,139 --> 01:11:50,432
by Greg Cannom,
1322
01:11:50,515 --> 01:11:53,143
- Yeah, he did great.
-...who executed this make-up,
1323
01:11:53,226 --> 01:11:55,312
plus Igor and also the brides.
1324
01:11:55,395 --> 01:11:57,605
One of the reasons we like Greg is that
1325
01:11:57,731 --> 01:12:00,233
in all his work, you can always still see
the actor
1326
01:12:00,358 --> 01:12:01,568
behind the make-up.
1327
01:12:01,735 --> 01:12:04,904
If we were to put Shuler's face
up next to Shuler in make-up
1328
01:12:05,030 --> 01:12:07,532
you would see
that there are a lot of similarities.
1329
01:12:07,615 --> 01:12:11,328
Frankenstein looks better.
He's a much more handsome man.
1330
01:12:11,411 --> 01:12:12,579
That's what I was getting at.
1331
01:12:12,662 --> 01:12:15,665
In fact, Shuler walks around
with this make-up on a daily basis
1332
01:12:15,749 --> 01:12:17,834
because he feels
it has improved his love life.
1333
01:12:17,917 --> 01:12:20,045
I heard his wife makes him put it on.
1334
01:12:20,420 --> 01:12:23,590
Shuler, are you out there?
We love Shuler, he's so good.
1335
01:12:23,882 --> 01:12:27,177
Five to nine hours in make-up
every day he was on the set.
1336
01:12:27,260 --> 01:12:29,596
Another thing you'll see
when you watch the make-up
1337
01:12:29,679 --> 01:12:31,264
is you see how well it moves.
1338
01:12:31,348 --> 01:12:35,518
It's important, because you want to see
the humanity behind the creature.
1339
01:12:35,935 --> 01:12:37,854
It's the reason that you use this technique.
1340
01:12:37,937 --> 01:12:40,273
Many techniques were used
in making the movie.
1341
01:12:40,357 --> 01:12:42,984
We liked combining them,
so it's not all CG,
1342
01:12:43,068 --> 01:12:44,319
so it's not all blue screen.
1343
01:12:44,986 --> 01:12:49,908
You have all kinds of different techniques.
Sometimes even within a single shot
1344
01:12:50,116 --> 01:12:53,203
you have a real person
and a digital person,
1345
01:12:53,286 --> 01:12:55,205
and all different kinds of techniques.
1346
01:12:55,288 --> 01:12:59,209
It's very complicated to work that way.
But hopefully, the results...
1347
01:12:59,292 --> 01:13:02,045
Going into this movie,
I decided I don't want...
1348
01:13:02,337 --> 01:13:03,421
I don't like prosthetics.
1349
01:13:03,505 --> 01:13:06,674
Every time I know it's a man in a suit
or a man in a mask,
1350
01:13:06,758 --> 01:13:09,719
I'm like, "it's a man in a mask."
I'm taken out of the movie.
1351
01:13:09,803 --> 01:13:12,931
And that's why Greg Cannom's
gang did such a good job on Frankenstein.
1352
01:13:13,014 --> 01:13:15,642
You're just watching a man, a performance.
1353
01:13:16,976 --> 01:13:20,146
It's same with the werewolf.
Especially the final werewolf.
1354
01:13:20,397 --> 01:13:22,649
I said, "Guys, it can't be a man in a suit
1355
01:13:22,732 --> 01:13:24,984
"and it can't be CG." It's got to be real.
1356
01:13:25,693 --> 01:13:28,238
My wife said, "I want to
run my fingers through his hair
1357
01:13:28,321 --> 01:13:29,322
"it looked so real."
1358
01:13:29,406 --> 01:13:32,242
We took a huge leap forward
between Mummy Returns and this movie.
1359
01:13:32,325 --> 01:13:33,743
We're always learning.
1360
01:13:37,831 --> 01:13:41,251
Oh, my God. He's seen us.
1361
01:13:41,793 --> 01:13:43,086
Now they'll come for him.
1362
01:13:43,169 --> 01:13:45,088
Neither you nor I will be able to stop them.
1363
01:13:45,171 --> 01:13:47,841
If I can get him to Rome,
we can protect him there.
1364
01:13:48,216 --> 01:13:49,759
And then the painting came alive
1365
01:13:49,843 --> 01:13:51,594
and the two creatures attacked each other.
1366
01:13:51,678 --> 01:13:53,763
- What does it mean?
- I don't know.
1367
01:13:53,972 --> 01:13:56,516
Listen, Carl, whatever you do,
don't stare at him.
1368
01:13:58,643 --> 01:13:59,811
I'm staring at him.
1369
01:14:00,728 --> 01:14:01,729
Is that a man?
1370
01:14:03,982 --> 01:14:07,152
This movie gets a lot of great laughs,
a lot of great screams.
1371
01:14:07,819 --> 01:14:09,070
It's very interactive.
1372
01:14:09,154 --> 01:14:10,363
I always like how
1373
01:14:10,447 --> 01:14:14,117
Anna shuts the door mid-sentence.
She's like, "Enough from you."
1374
01:14:14,200 --> 01:14:16,578
She deals with these monsters
on a daily basis.
1375
01:14:16,661 --> 01:14:18,496
She doesn't have to put up with this.
1376
01:14:19,205 --> 01:14:24,169
This is a great moment here to hear
Alan Silvestri's main Van Helsing theme
1377
01:14:24,919 --> 01:14:29,090
which is very surprising
and a wonderful addition to the movie.
1378
01:14:30,091 --> 01:14:31,634
Alan said at one point,
1379
01:14:31,718 --> 01:14:35,972
"You know, I really find that
I can do anything in this film and it sticks."
1380
01:14:36,055 --> 01:14:37,932
And he often did, too.
1381
01:14:38,016 --> 01:14:40,435
He's got the choir,
the electronic instruments,
1382
01:14:40,518 --> 01:14:42,228
all kinds of stuff going here.
1383
01:14:43,897 --> 01:14:46,065
I think the score is magnificent.
1384
01:14:50,028 --> 01:14:52,530
See those horses down there?
Those are digital horses.
1385
01:14:52,614 --> 01:14:53,907
Real horses there.
1386
01:14:54,991 --> 01:14:57,410
We did a lot of this. Lot of everything.
1387
01:14:57,494 --> 01:14:58,912
It's like magic.
1388
01:14:59,078 --> 01:15:01,247
All the special effects teams and houses
1389
01:15:01,414 --> 01:15:03,166
took a huge leap forward.
1390
01:15:03,249 --> 01:15:06,252
I've learnt a lot doing The Mummy
and The Mummy Returns.
1391
01:15:06,878 --> 01:15:08,505
We're getting good at sleight of hand.
1392
01:15:08,588 --> 01:15:12,008
The audience doesn't want to know
if it's a man in a suit or if it's real.
1393
01:15:12,091 --> 01:15:13,510
They just want to be in the movie.
1394
01:15:13,593 --> 01:15:17,096
They don't want to be taken out.
That's our job, to keep them in the movie.
1395
01:15:21,100 --> 01:15:24,771
In this sequence, virtually every camera rig
you could imagine was used.
1396
01:15:24,854 --> 01:15:26,147
Those point-of-view shots
1397
01:15:26,231 --> 01:15:28,650
of the brides, or the coach,
like this one here.
1398
01:15:28,733 --> 01:15:32,570
These are photographed with
a small remote-controlled helicopter
1399
01:15:33,029 --> 01:15:36,533
that has a 35-mm camera on it,
which is interesting.
1400
01:15:36,616 --> 01:15:38,868
The camera that's on cables is also used
1401
01:15:38,952 --> 01:15:41,454
when Hugh gets picked up
off the coach, here.
1402
01:15:42,205 --> 01:15:44,332
You're going to see that device in use.
1403
01:15:44,415 --> 01:15:46,543
So pretty much anything you could do
is in here.
1404
01:15:46,626 --> 01:15:48,461
Watch this next shot.
1405
01:15:49,003 --> 01:15:51,714
It's really funny
when using those helicopter shots
1406
01:15:51,923 --> 01:15:55,176
the man guiding them would be in the shot
and we had to paint him out.
1407
01:15:57,387 --> 01:16:00,431
Watch this shot. This is very complex.
1408
01:16:00,515 --> 01:16:03,643
Hugh is in this shot,
including the cameras and horses.
1409
01:16:03,726 --> 01:16:05,353
Now, to have all this work
1410
01:16:05,645 --> 01:16:08,648
and the horses to come back into the shot,
that's a oner.
1411
01:16:08,731 --> 01:16:10,275
There was no editing in that.
1412
01:16:10,358 --> 01:16:13,319
There was a lot of special effects
in the background, but...
1413
01:16:13,403 --> 01:16:15,905
When they were preparing
to do that shot, I thought,
1414
01:16:15,989 --> 01:16:18,116
"We'll have to find
another way of doing this
1415
01:16:18,199 --> 01:16:20,243
"because we're never
going to get that shot."
1416
01:16:22,245 --> 01:16:24,706
This is digital Hugh.
That's not really Hugh Jackman.
1417
01:16:25,498 --> 01:16:26,708
There's Hugh.
1418
01:16:27,834 --> 01:16:28,835
Not Hugh.
1419
01:16:29,043 --> 01:16:30,044
Hugh.
1420
01:16:31,212 --> 01:16:34,424
If you're wondering how it's made,
that's how we do it.
1421
01:16:34,507 --> 01:16:38,553
This is also a great sequence
to listen to for the sound.
1422
01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:41,639
There's just amazing work here
1423
01:16:41,806 --> 01:16:44,183
by Per and Karen,
the sound-effects editors,
1424
01:16:44,350 --> 01:16:48,938
and our mixing team, Leslie, Dave,
and Dennis. Tremendous work in here.
1425
01:16:49,397 --> 01:16:50,398
Storytelling.
1426
01:16:51,232 --> 01:16:53,776
We worked with a lot of the same people
for a long time.
1427
01:16:53,860 --> 01:16:56,279
Even the new people in this movie did great.
1428
01:16:56,696 --> 01:16:58,615
They're absolutely terrific.
1429
01:16:58,698 --> 01:17:02,327
This sort of sequence is very difficult
to accomplish on every level.
1430
01:17:02,410 --> 01:17:04,078
Every single shot.
1431
01:17:04,162 --> 01:17:07,123
Planning, all the figuring out
that has to happen.
1432
01:17:07,206 --> 01:17:09,500
How do you shoot this?
1433
01:17:09,584 --> 01:17:13,504
All the visual effects, the cutting,
the mixing, the music.
1434
01:17:15,423 --> 01:17:17,967
This is one of the better sequences
in the movie.
1435
01:17:25,224 --> 01:17:29,437
There's a great story-telling lie here,
obviously, which is a great deal of fun.
1436
01:17:29,520 --> 01:17:31,731
Because when you see
that carriage go over
1437
01:17:32,899 --> 01:17:35,109
we know that Frankenstein and Carl
are in there.
1438
01:17:35,193 --> 01:17:37,862
It turns out that they're not.
They're in another coach,
1439
01:17:37,945 --> 01:17:41,282
and poor Verona is duped into her death.
1440
01:17:43,409 --> 01:17:45,953
- Good riddance to one more bride.
- these are real horses.
1441
01:17:48,289 --> 01:17:50,583
But there was a guy driving them.
1442
01:17:50,917 --> 01:17:52,251
We painted him out.
1443
01:18:01,803 --> 01:18:04,472
The stuntman jumps off the coach,
but then that's Hugh.
1444
01:18:04,764 --> 01:18:06,724
It's funny.
Hugh has a good story about that.
1445
01:18:06,808 --> 01:18:08,226
During this sequence
1446
01:18:08,309 --> 01:18:12,021
the stunt guys were putting him between
the horses under the wheel there
1447
01:18:12,105 --> 01:18:13,648
and Hugh did that.
1448
01:18:13,731 --> 01:18:16,192
He was underneath the coach,
with his legs spread,
1449
01:18:16,275 --> 01:18:19,570
and the wheel right between them,
and they raced him down the road.
1450
01:18:19,654 --> 01:18:22,699
And when they stopped,
the stuntmen hugged and cheered, saying
1451
01:18:22,782 --> 01:18:26,494
"We've never seen an actor do something
like this!" That's Hugh Jackman there.
1452
01:18:26,577 --> 01:18:28,037
After they did this shot, they said,
1453
01:18:28,121 --> 01:18:31,374
"That was fantastic! We've never seen
an actor do anything like this."
1454
01:18:31,457 --> 01:18:32,709
And Hugh was like, "What?"
1455
01:18:32,792 --> 01:18:35,503
"Why have you never seen
anyone do this before?"
1456
01:18:35,878 --> 01:18:37,797
"Well, because it's wildly dangerous."
1457
01:18:39,966 --> 01:18:42,051
I think Hugh thought,
1458
01:18:42,135 --> 01:18:45,722
"Maybe I should be reevaluating
some of the stunts I'm doing in the movie."
1459
01:18:45,805 --> 01:18:48,474
Those are digital.
The whole shot is, in fact, digital.
1460
01:18:52,812 --> 01:18:56,357
When I say "digital," what happens is
we scan these actors into a computer.
1461
01:18:56,441 --> 01:18:59,068
See those horses? That's digital.
Those aren't real horses.
1462
01:18:59,152 --> 01:19:02,530
That's not a real carriage.
Nothing in this shot is real.
1463
01:19:04,490 --> 01:19:07,410
We scan all this into a computer
so that it is absolutely,
1464
01:19:07,493 --> 01:19:10,496
dimensionally, in every way possible,
as real as we can get it.
1465
01:19:16,669 --> 01:19:18,921
Things like the fire
are added into these shots
1466
01:19:19,005 --> 01:19:21,758
as you couldn't safely put fire in
that close to the actor.
1467
01:19:21,841 --> 01:19:24,844
- That's added in postproduction.
- that was where they balked.
1468
01:19:24,927 --> 01:19:28,097
Actually, Hugh caught Shuler on fire
a few times
1469
01:19:28,181 --> 01:19:30,099
and he said, "I really can't do it again."
1470
01:19:30,641 --> 01:19:32,727
So we settled on the visual effects.
1471
01:19:32,894 --> 01:19:35,354
The funny thing
about the Dwergi earlier on...
1472
01:19:35,438 --> 01:19:38,232
They're supposed to be
in all these rain sequences.
1473
01:19:38,316 --> 01:19:39,776
So Gabriella made their costumes
1474
01:19:39,859 --> 01:19:43,112
with this thick coating of something
on them to make them waterproof.
1475
01:19:43,196 --> 01:19:45,656
Then, when they end up
in Frankenstein's laboratory
1476
01:19:45,740 --> 01:19:48,910
with all those raining sparks...
They were always catching on fire.
1477
01:19:48,993 --> 01:19:51,871
Every day, half a dozen Dwergi
would catch on fire.
1478
01:19:52,371 --> 01:19:55,917
It's one of the things we learnt about Dwergi
while shooting the movie.
1479
01:19:56,000 --> 01:19:59,045
- They spontaneously combusted.
- they are quite flammable.
1480
01:19:59,128 --> 01:20:01,214
I'm going to write
a little handbook on Dwergi.
1481
01:20:01,297 --> 01:20:03,090
I could make some money off that.
1482
01:20:05,176 --> 01:20:08,554
As a sort of nod to the reality
of setting Dwergi on fire
1483
01:20:08,888 --> 01:20:12,725
in the last sequence of the movie,
you see a lot of Dwergi in the movie on fire.
1484
01:20:12,892 --> 01:20:14,811
At that point, we were doing it on purpose.
1485
01:20:14,894 --> 01:20:17,396
We found out
that it was obviously very easy.
1486
01:20:17,480 --> 01:20:19,524
You just ignite their costume,
and off they go.
1487
01:20:19,607 --> 01:20:22,527
You only have to pay them
when they know they'll be set on fire.
1488
01:20:22,610 --> 01:20:23,820
Then they negotiate with you.
1489
01:20:23,903 --> 01:20:27,698
If you don't tell them that,
you say, "Sorry, we didn't mean to do that."
1490
01:20:27,782 --> 01:20:31,369
I wonder if at any point,
this Dwergi-on-fire story was interesting.
1491
01:20:35,748 --> 01:20:39,418
This scene was shot in Griffith Park,
Los Angeles.
1492
01:20:41,170 --> 01:20:45,091
Which is usually something reserved
for a Roger Carmen-budget movie,
1493
01:20:45,383 --> 01:20:48,845
but for some reason,
not that there is anything wrong with that,
1494
01:20:48,928 --> 01:20:51,097
but for whatever reason,
1495
01:20:51,180 --> 01:20:53,683
we were supposed
to shoot this sequence in Prague.
1496
01:20:53,766 --> 01:20:55,852
The scheduling got messed up
and we ended up...
1497
01:20:55,935 --> 01:20:59,856
And then to find something that was
reasonably appropriate... But it worked out.
1498
01:21:04,569 --> 01:21:07,446
Elena's crouched down below this tree,
and she popped up,
1499
01:21:07,530 --> 01:21:09,073
just timing there.
1500
01:21:09,156 --> 01:21:12,118
- No special effects there.
- she really lays into her there.
1501
01:21:12,618 --> 01:21:16,038
I think they liked each other, though.
The actresses.
1502
01:21:16,831 --> 01:21:18,541
So, running through Griffith Park
1503
01:21:19,000 --> 01:21:22,128
and we find ourselves in Budapest.
1504
01:21:22,628 --> 01:21:26,966
Who would admit, on a movie of this size,
that you shot in Griffith Park?
1505
01:21:27,800 --> 01:21:29,969
I think that's impressive.
1506
01:21:30,303 --> 01:21:33,014
We love to point out our mistakes,
how lame we can be,
1507
01:21:33,472 --> 01:21:34,932
as long as it all comes together.
1508
01:21:35,725 --> 01:21:38,311
These are some beautiful paintings
by Syd Dutton.
1509
01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:41,397
The St. Charles Bridge in Prague.
1510
01:21:42,273 --> 01:21:45,234
We got called when they were
looping the movie in Hungarian
1511
01:21:45,484 --> 01:21:47,570
and in several other
East European languages.
1512
01:21:47,653 --> 01:21:50,406
She says it's Prague.
They asked me, "Couldn't you say..."
1513
01:21:50,489 --> 01:21:52,241
It was supposed to be in Budapest.
1514
01:21:52,325 --> 01:21:56,203
In many languages she'll say Prague 'cause
they say, "Everyone knows that bridge."
1515
01:21:56,287 --> 01:21:58,581
She can't say it's in Budapest.
Everybody will laugh.
1516
01:21:58,664 --> 01:22:01,167
The master commands a trade.
1517
01:22:02,501 --> 01:22:04,503
The monster...
1518
01:22:04,587 --> 01:22:07,006
This day was freezing cold.
Absolutely freezing.
1519
01:22:07,089 --> 01:22:08,424
Elena is in bare feet.
1520
01:22:08,507 --> 01:22:12,219
She was kind of hanging out
all over the place, and she was frozen.
1521
01:22:12,303 --> 01:22:15,848
She kept saying,
"The fingers on my feet are so cold."
1522
01:22:16,015 --> 01:22:18,100
But she was such a trouper.
1523
01:22:18,351 --> 01:22:20,519
Because I think it was 20 below here?
1524
01:22:20,686 --> 01:22:22,730
And look at what she's wearing.
1525
01:22:22,855 --> 01:22:27,401
It was so outrageously cold, you cannot
imagine it, and there she is doing this.
1526
01:22:28,861 --> 01:22:31,614
Do we notice she's in bare feet?
Elena hasn't come to me.
1527
01:22:31,697 --> 01:22:35,117
Now that she's seen the movie,
and she's very happy, she never asked me,
1528
01:22:35,201 --> 01:22:38,788
"Why are my feet freezing in that scene?
Why was I in bare feet?
1529
01:22:38,871 --> 01:22:40,373
"You don't even see my feet.
1530
01:22:40,706 --> 01:22:41,874
"Dumb director."
1531
01:22:43,709 --> 01:22:45,252
He has been bitten.
1532
01:22:45,336 --> 01:22:46,796
Bitten by a werewolf.
1533
01:22:48,464 --> 01:22:52,009
Now you will become that which
you have hunted so passionately.
1534
01:22:55,805 --> 01:22:59,767
Here is where, for a moment,
Frankenstein thinks he's being betrayed
1535
01:22:59,850 --> 01:23:01,268
by Van Helsing.
1536
01:23:01,602 --> 01:23:04,188
Maybe the audience
thinks Van Helsing will betray him.
1537
01:23:04,271 --> 01:23:08,025
At this point, you know Van Helsing so well,
he's got something up his sleeve.
1538
01:23:08,109 --> 01:23:11,904
But Frankenstein makes a good point.
That's what is so beautiful about this.
1539
01:23:11,988 --> 01:23:13,197
"You're a monster now.
1540
01:23:13,280 --> 01:23:15,825
"You're going to see what it's like
to be like me."
1541
01:23:15,908 --> 01:23:17,243
The symmetry law.
1542
01:23:17,952 --> 01:23:19,620
This scene had no dialogue in it.
1543
01:23:19,704 --> 01:23:21,288
I made this up the night before.
1544
01:23:21,372 --> 01:23:24,166
I realized I had this one big shot
I wanted to do
1545
01:23:24,250 --> 01:23:27,086
and there was a lot of exposition
to happen in the next scene.
1546
01:23:27,169 --> 01:23:29,547
I thought,
"The next scene I've got ballroom stuff.
1547
01:23:29,630 --> 01:23:31,215
"I don't want David yapping there."
1548
01:23:31,298 --> 01:23:33,926
So I added those lines
where he's talking about his hat.
1549
01:23:34,010 --> 01:23:35,678
This must be some sort of sin,
1550
01:23:35,761 --> 01:23:37,722
how many commandments
can we break in one day.
1551
01:23:37,805 --> 01:23:39,807
I just added that the night before.
1552
01:23:39,890 --> 01:23:42,852
And we decided to put all the dialogue here.
This is a cemetery.
1553
01:23:42,935 --> 01:23:45,521
I can't believe
they let us shoot in a cemetery.
1554
01:23:45,604 --> 01:23:47,148
Not without some help from the dead.
1555
01:23:47,231 --> 01:23:48,816
This was a fun afternoon.
1556
01:23:49,483 --> 01:23:52,403
Two actors, a camera, and a cemetery.
What more do you want?
1557
01:23:58,993 --> 01:24:01,746
This sequence is probably
1558
01:24:02,288 --> 01:24:05,041
one of the most complicated sequences
in the entire movie
1559
01:24:05,124 --> 01:24:07,209
because there had to be
so much coordination
1560
01:24:07,293 --> 01:24:09,378
between every single department
in the movie,
1561
01:24:09,462 --> 01:24:12,506
between the hundreds of costumes
that Gabriella had to make.
1562
01:24:15,051 --> 01:24:18,345
We photographed this
in a church in Czech Republic in Prague.
1563
01:24:18,429 --> 01:24:21,307
There were lot of restrictions
on what we could do in here.
1564
01:24:21,390 --> 01:24:25,269
We couldn't actually have
that flamethrower there.
1565
01:24:25,352 --> 01:24:27,438
That had to be added in postproduction.
1566
01:24:28,814 --> 01:24:33,110
All the wires, the trapezes
are very important part of the sequence
1567
01:24:33,194 --> 01:24:35,196
and yet we weren't able to rig the church
1568
01:24:35,279 --> 01:24:37,990
because we weren't allowed
to do any rigging of any kind.
1569
01:24:38,074 --> 01:24:40,034
So it complicated things for everyone.
1570
01:24:40,117 --> 01:24:44,497
All the trapeze artists and high-wire walkers
were added in post.
1571
01:24:44,872 --> 01:24:47,708
We shot them all in LA
and added them in post.
1572
01:24:51,796 --> 01:24:54,090
In the script,
I thought, "if Dracula threw a ball
1573
01:24:54,173 --> 01:24:56,884
"what would it look like?"
A veritable Cirque du Soleil.
1574
01:24:56,967 --> 01:24:58,219
And it was Bob who said,
1575
01:24:58,302 --> 01:25:01,222
"It isn't a veritable Cirque du Soleil.
It is Cirque du Soleil. "
1576
01:25:01,305 --> 01:25:03,432
So we got Debra Brown who choreographed.
1577
01:25:03,516 --> 01:25:05,601
She's done a bunch of their shows.
1578
01:25:05,684 --> 01:25:07,686
O and Mystére...
1579
01:25:07,770 --> 01:25:09,772
All kinds of Cirque du Soleil work.
1580
01:25:09,855 --> 01:25:14,151
She was a fantastic asset to the production
and to the sequence in particular.
1581
01:25:14,235 --> 01:25:16,445
How does it feel
to be a puppet on my string?
1582
01:25:16,529 --> 01:25:19,365
We had 400 of the greatest ballroom dancers
in Europe
1583
01:25:19,448 --> 01:25:21,826
who happened to be based in Prague,
so we got them
1584
01:25:21,909 --> 01:25:23,869
which made my life so easy.
1585
01:25:23,953 --> 01:25:26,789
It was up to Debra just to get
these two actors to dance.
1586
01:25:27,873 --> 01:25:29,667
They did a pretty good job.
1587
01:25:30,459 --> 01:25:34,130
This is the second time that Steve's had
a ballroom sequence in his films.
1588
01:25:34,255 --> 01:25:38,342
The last time there was a sequence like this
in one of his films was Jungle Book.
1589
01:25:38,509 --> 01:25:41,554
Doing this in India made it very difficult,
1590
01:25:41,846 --> 01:25:44,223
so the dancing was very bad,
to say the least.
1591
01:25:44,306 --> 01:25:45,766
There were extras off the street.
1592
01:25:45,850 --> 01:25:48,227
It's very hard to manage.
It was a real problem.
1593
01:25:48,310 --> 01:25:51,730
We really lucked out here, because
we were able to avoid that problem.
1594
01:25:51,814 --> 01:25:55,526
We actually had real ballroom dancers here
to work to Debra's choreography.
1595
01:25:57,695 --> 01:26:00,239
Carl, I need you to do something.
1596
01:26:00,739 --> 01:26:02,366
I'm not gonna like this, am I?
1597
01:26:06,704 --> 01:26:08,664
Don't we make a lovely couple?
1598
01:26:08,747 --> 01:26:10,499
That was a really good move of Richard's.
1599
01:26:10,583 --> 01:26:13,169
Richard and Kate,
every once in a while we had to stop
1600
01:26:13,252 --> 01:26:14,879
because they couldn't stop laughing,
1601
01:26:14,962 --> 01:26:17,298
because they were so appalled
by each other's...
1602
01:26:17,381 --> 01:26:20,426
There's a shot earlier,
where Kate's literally trying to lead.
1603
01:26:25,556 --> 01:26:28,100
You've heard us mention
how cold it was in Prague.
1604
01:26:28,225 --> 01:26:31,061
The coldest I've ever been in my life
was in this church.
1605
01:26:31,645 --> 01:26:35,149
Later on, Richard walks up in a close-up.
And you can see his breath.
1606
01:26:35,232 --> 01:26:38,903
We thought a vampire shouldn't have
breath. We had to paint his breath out.
1607
01:26:39,278 --> 01:26:41,405
It was 20 degrees outside.
1608
01:26:42,031 --> 01:26:45,784
Minus 10 inside,
because it was a freezing, damp,
1609
01:26:46,035 --> 01:26:48,621
- concrete building.
- it was like you were in a freezer.
1610
01:26:48,704 --> 01:26:50,915
The problem was we couldn't have
heaters inside
1611
01:26:50,998 --> 01:26:53,459
because there were frescoes in the church
1612
01:26:53,542 --> 01:26:55,711
and they were very concerned
about damage
1613
01:26:55,794 --> 01:26:58,714
which we understood,
but it made shooting very difficult
1614
01:26:58,797 --> 01:27:00,507
especially for the actors.
1615
01:27:00,591 --> 01:27:03,552
Because if you were to jump
behind the camera
1616
01:27:03,636 --> 01:27:06,513
you would see everybody in parkas
and polar gear,
1617
01:27:07,139 --> 01:27:09,308
and there's Kate in that dress.
1618
01:27:09,642 --> 01:27:11,977
All the extras were such troupers.
1619
01:27:12,186 --> 01:27:13,812
Every time I called, "Cut,"
1620
01:27:14,146 --> 01:27:16,315
people behind the scenes
would come running out
1621
01:27:16,398 --> 01:27:19,568
with 450 parkas and hats and gloves.
1622
01:27:20,945 --> 01:27:22,905
It was so cold. Yet you look at this and go,
1623
01:27:22,988 --> 01:27:25,324
"How can that be?
It looks really nice and warm."
1624
01:27:26,325 --> 01:27:27,618
Gabriel.
1625
01:27:30,663 --> 01:27:33,332
Here's one of these questions
you have to ask
1626
01:27:33,415 --> 01:27:35,501
in movies like this.
1627
01:27:35,668 --> 01:27:38,712
Of all the plans Van Helsing could have had
to rescue Anna,
1628
01:27:38,837 --> 01:27:41,090
was that a good plan?
1629
01:27:41,173 --> 01:27:44,385
If you stop to think of all the things
that could have gone wrong.
1630
01:27:44,468 --> 01:27:45,594
That's my daughter there.
1631
01:27:45,678 --> 01:27:49,139
-...It would have been disastrous.
- samantha June and her cousin Abby.
1632
01:27:49,223 --> 01:27:52,601
What if they would've stepped
10 feet to the left or 4 feet to the right?
1633
01:27:52,685 --> 01:27:55,104
Van Helsing would have swooped down
and missed her.
1634
01:27:55,187 --> 01:27:58,065
Exactly. What if Carl
didn't catch him on fire in time?
1635
01:27:58,148 --> 01:28:00,609
What if Van Helsing
couldn't make the exchange
1636
01:28:00,776 --> 01:28:03,696
from one trapeze to another?
It would have been embarrassing.
1637
01:28:04,363 --> 01:28:06,282
I think that there was a better plan.
1638
01:28:06,490 --> 01:28:08,701
I don't think that he thought it through.
1639
01:28:08,826 --> 01:28:10,202
But it was really cool.
1640
01:28:10,369 --> 01:28:13,080
At the end of the day,
it was really cool and cinematic.
1641
01:28:14,832 --> 01:28:17,418
It was really fun shooting.
To have this many extras...
1642
01:28:17,501 --> 01:28:20,713
Again, my daughter and my niece
up in the top left. ..
1643
01:28:20,796 --> 01:28:23,549
Were you paying attention to Dracula?
You were drawn to them.
1644
01:28:23,632 --> 01:28:25,592
I was drawn completely to them.
1645
01:28:25,676 --> 01:28:27,636
Poor little girls. It was freezing cold here.
1646
01:28:27,720 --> 01:28:29,513
They were in make-up, hair, and wardrobe
1647
01:28:29,596 --> 01:28:31,849
just because they wanted to do it
for 10 hours.
1648
01:28:33,517 --> 01:28:35,936
There's Bob's wife, right in the middle,
dead center.
1649
01:28:36,020 --> 01:28:37,021
That's Bob's wife.
1650
01:28:37,104 --> 01:28:40,566
See, it was Old Home Week. It was
Family Day on the set of Van Helsing.
1651
01:28:41,900 --> 01:28:44,028
She doesn't normally look like a vampire.
1652
01:28:49,700 --> 01:28:52,494
Now I know what it's for.
1653
01:28:53,078 --> 01:28:55,080
- Where are we going?
- Through that window!
1654
01:29:02,421 --> 01:29:03,756
That's a fun effect.
1655
01:29:03,839 --> 01:29:07,259
This next shot, this wide shot,
this was added very late.
1656
01:29:07,343 --> 01:29:09,219
Two weeks before the movie came out.
1657
01:29:09,303 --> 01:29:11,972
Not very long ago at all, because Steve felt
1658
01:29:12,056 --> 01:29:14,975
the way it was designed,
you didn't have this big shot
1659
01:29:15,100 --> 01:29:17,436
and it felt a little anticlimactic.
1660
01:29:17,603 --> 01:29:19,313
This was really fun.
1661
01:29:20,522 --> 01:29:24,151
We shot this whole water sequence
in less than two days.
1662
01:29:24,318 --> 01:29:27,488
We had to get to our next set,
get out of town.
1663
01:29:27,571 --> 01:29:31,408
Just one of those things. No matter how big
the movie is, you got to keep moving.
1664
01:29:31,492 --> 01:29:33,744
It was fun, playing in the water...
1665
01:29:35,287 --> 01:29:38,248
It's raining, there's water,
there's Frankenstein, Dwergi.
1666
01:29:38,332 --> 01:29:40,751
It was one of those really fun sets.
1667
01:29:43,170 --> 01:29:47,091
It's actually a really big set
in a very small soundstage.
1668
01:29:47,174 --> 01:29:49,051
There is no room.
1669
01:29:49,301 --> 01:29:52,137
Every wall in there
is pushed up against the stage wall.
1670
01:29:52,805 --> 01:29:55,933
I'll find you!
I'll get you back and set you free!
1671
01:29:56,016 --> 01:29:59,686
Right at the end of this next shot,
the boat actually hits the blue screen.
1672
01:29:59,812 --> 01:30:02,147
Right about there,
it's hitting the blue screen.
1673
01:30:02,314 --> 01:30:04,191
That's how tight we were.
1674
01:30:05,109 --> 01:30:07,277
- I must save him.
- No, you can't.
1675
01:30:07,361 --> 01:30:08,487
Why?
1676
01:30:08,737 --> 01:30:11,323
I cabled Rome earlier
to apprise them of our situation.
1677
01:30:11,407 --> 01:30:12,408
What did they say?
1678
01:30:12,491 --> 01:30:15,911
Kate's kept ballooning up.
The air would fill out her costume.
1679
01:30:15,994 --> 01:30:20,374
You can actually see that in the wide shot
where they're starting to swim.
1680
01:30:20,749 --> 01:30:22,126
In the first take, I said,
1681
01:30:22,209 --> 01:30:25,421
"Soon as Van Helsing's swimming,
you guys start swimming, too."
1682
01:30:25,504 --> 01:30:29,091
No matter how good a swimmer Kate is,
she couldn't move more than 6 inches.
1683
01:30:29,174 --> 01:30:30,592
Did they tell you how to kill me?
1684
01:30:30,676 --> 01:30:33,345
The correct angle of the stake
as it enters my heart?
1685
01:30:33,429 --> 01:30:36,014
The exact measure of silver in each bullet?
1686
01:30:36,473 --> 01:30:38,225
- Stop!
- No, I left you out!
1687
01:30:42,771 --> 01:30:44,231
I remember writing this.
1688
01:30:44,898 --> 01:30:47,484
How important was that?
When I came up with the idea
1689
01:30:47,568 --> 01:30:49,945
that Van Helsing gets bitten,
1690
01:30:50,028 --> 01:30:52,489
I knew that it would be
a great twist for an audience.
1691
01:30:52,573 --> 01:30:55,159
No one is expecting
Van Helsing to get bitten
1692
01:30:55,242 --> 01:30:56,952
and he's going to turn into a werewolf.
1693
01:30:57,035 --> 01:30:58,579
"God, then what's going to happen?"
1694
01:30:58,662 --> 01:31:00,706
It's a matter of keeping
the twists and turns,
1695
01:31:00,789 --> 01:31:03,250
having everything
somehow come together at the end.
1696
01:31:03,709 --> 01:31:05,043
It's starting.
1697
01:31:08,088 --> 01:31:10,048
Thank God for waterproof make-up.
1698
01:31:17,931 --> 01:31:20,517
This is a late entry in the script.
Suddenly we realized,
1699
01:31:20,601 --> 01:31:22,728
"We have to make sure
everyone knows they took
1700
01:31:22,811 --> 01:31:25,689
"the lab from here to Castle Dracula."
So we added this scene.
1701
01:31:25,772 --> 01:31:28,150
This is actually added during photography.
1702
01:31:31,069 --> 01:31:33,363
I always wondered what the studio thinks
1703
01:31:33,447 --> 01:31:35,908
when I see something like this roll in.
1704
01:31:35,991 --> 01:31:38,785
"What's this?
I don't remember this being in the movie."
1705
01:31:38,869 --> 01:31:42,831
That's why we read the script repeatedly
and be as meticulous as we can.
1706
01:31:42,915 --> 01:31:46,793
As big goofballs as we are, we're very
meticulous because we hate story holes.
1707
01:31:46,877 --> 01:31:48,420
...the son of Valerious the Elder.
1708
01:31:48,545 --> 01:31:49,630
The son of your ancestor.
1709
01:31:49,713 --> 01:31:50,672
Everybody knows that.
1710
01:31:50,756 --> 01:31:53,175
Watch this scene. It's one take.
1711
01:31:53,258 --> 01:31:55,260
I had a shot list, about 17 shots.
1712
01:31:55,344 --> 01:31:58,347
I said, "I'll get inserts
of everything he's talking about."
1713
01:31:58,430 --> 01:32:00,849
Then I thought,
"I have these three great actors
1714
01:32:00,933 --> 01:32:03,393
"who will do a brilliant job,
they won't miss a beat,
1715
01:32:03,477 --> 01:32:05,103
"they won't have a bad pause,
1716
01:32:05,187 --> 01:32:06,688
"I've got a great cinematographer,
1717
01:32:06,772 --> 01:32:09,483
"a great camera operator,
let's just choreograph this."
1718
01:32:09,650 --> 01:32:13,028
And we spent a couple of hours rehearsing
and playing around, and...
1719
01:32:13,779 --> 01:32:16,949
it's really hilarious to watch a scene like this
being photographed.
1720
01:32:17,032 --> 01:32:19,201
Because all the crosses
the actors have to do...
1721
01:32:19,284 --> 01:32:21,537
They're trying not to trip over...
1722
01:32:21,620 --> 01:32:24,081
There, he's got to
step over the dolly track...
1723
01:32:24,164 --> 01:32:26,667
There are so many people in this room
right now,
1724
01:32:26,750 --> 01:32:30,254
the production mixer, the boom operator,
all these various people,
1725
01:32:30,337 --> 01:32:31,964
it looks so ridiculous
1726
01:32:32,047 --> 01:32:33,549
watching it being photographed.
1727
01:32:33,632 --> 01:32:37,803
It's amazing that it looks the way it does
when it's actually on film.
1728
01:32:38,512 --> 01:32:41,265
sending him through a door
from which there was no return.
1729
01:32:41,348 --> 01:32:43,308
- And then the Devil gave him wings.
- Yes.
1730
01:32:43,392 --> 01:32:44,560
So where is this door?
1731
01:32:44,643 --> 01:32:47,563
You have to make sure
the actors are always facing camera.
1732
01:32:49,815 --> 01:32:53,026
It was a real dance. You get
three great actors, a great camera operator,
1733
01:32:53,110 --> 01:32:57,531
myself, and all of us sit around
and dance for an hour or two, rehearsing.
1734
01:32:58,115 --> 01:33:01,785
And you get this. it's mainly so Bob
doesn't have anything to do editorially.
1735
01:33:01,868 --> 01:33:04,538
I know. I wish the whole movie
was photographed like this.
1736
01:33:04,621 --> 01:33:06,373
It would make my job so much easier.
1737
01:33:06,748 --> 01:33:08,250
You said your father spent hours
1738
01:33:08,333 --> 01:33:10,544
staring at this painting,
trying to find the lair.
1739
01:33:10,627 --> 01:33:12,754
I think you were right. Quite literally.
1740
01:33:12,838 --> 01:33:15,799
This is a great scene.
Sort of like that painting turning around.
1741
01:33:15,882 --> 01:33:18,135
This is the stuff of adventure.
There's a map.
1742
01:33:18,218 --> 01:33:20,512
The map is going to turn into something.
1743
01:33:21,263 --> 01:33:23,599
It's going to be a portal into another world.
1744
01:33:23,849 --> 01:33:25,892
That's what these movies are all about.
1745
01:33:25,976 --> 01:33:28,895
Transporting people to some place
that they can't normally go.
1746
01:33:33,150 --> 01:33:35,694
- Your father didn't have this.
- Where did you get that?
1747
01:33:36,278 --> 01:33:38,238
When I was making The Mummy movies...
1748
01:33:38,322 --> 01:33:41,783
I watch all the movies and do
a lot of research because I love this stuff.
1749
01:33:41,867 --> 01:33:44,453
I'm always reading books.
Every book I get my hands on...
1750
01:33:44,536 --> 01:33:46,288
With the Mummys, I read about scarabs.
1751
01:33:46,371 --> 01:33:48,165
Some people thought
they were flesh-eating.
1752
01:33:48,248 --> 01:33:50,917
I thought, "That's a cool thing.
I have to remember that."
1753
01:33:51,001 --> 01:33:54,296
With this, I thought Dracula
doesn't have a reflection in the mirror
1754
01:33:54,379 --> 01:33:55,881
so Hugh has to ask why.
1755
01:33:56,214 --> 01:33:59,092
And David says,
"Maybe to Dracula, it's not a mirror."
1756
01:33:59,176 --> 01:34:01,178
And here we go. We have a portal.
1757
01:34:01,637 --> 01:34:04,014
Dracula has no reflection in the mirror.
1758
01:34:04,097 --> 01:34:06,558
While thinking about the script,
I got to this point,
1759
01:34:06,642 --> 01:34:09,770
"We're heading into the third act.
We want to go. We can't say,
1760
01:34:09,853 --> 01:34:12,356
"'Our heroes have to
go on another trekking montage.".
1761
01:34:12,814 --> 01:34:15,776
Get the map out,
they've got to get on a horse,
1762
01:34:15,859 --> 01:34:17,653
a train, and a steamboat.
1763
01:34:17,736 --> 01:34:20,614
I thought there's got to be a way,
some sort of a porthole,
1764
01:34:20,697 --> 01:34:24,701
but it has to fit into the mythology.
That's how I came up with the mirror thing.
1765
01:34:24,785 --> 01:34:27,245
These are very nice visual effects.
Very organic.
1766
01:34:31,541 --> 01:34:34,961
It's cold. And it's snowing.
1767
01:34:37,297 --> 01:34:39,508
This was a complicated scene to shoot
1768
01:34:40,300 --> 01:34:43,887
because it's a mirror. Who'd have
put a mirror in? That's always a problem.
1769
01:34:45,806 --> 01:34:47,224
Be careful.
1770
01:34:48,725 --> 01:34:53,063
We shot part of this in Prague
and part of this in soundstages in LA.
1771
01:34:53,355 --> 01:34:56,733
There's a location in Prague,
a soundstage in Prague
1772
01:34:56,817 --> 01:34:59,361
and I think a pick-up here in Los Angeles.
1773
01:35:01,446 --> 01:35:04,783
The other side of the mirror
was what we photographed in LA.
1774
01:35:04,866 --> 01:35:06,785
So three different places.
1775
01:35:08,453 --> 01:35:11,456
It's just the way of scheduling
and the mechanical effects,
1776
01:35:11,665 --> 01:35:14,000
special effects, all have to work together.
1777
01:35:15,627 --> 01:35:17,796
If you notice, this is just on a soundstage
1778
01:35:18,630 --> 01:35:21,800
but it's snowing, so we wanted to make sure
it looked cold, so...
1779
01:35:22,300 --> 01:35:23,510
Watch Kate's mouth.
1780
01:35:24,136 --> 01:35:26,972
See that breath? That's digital breath.
1781
01:35:30,559 --> 01:35:32,227
We're persnickety about this stuff.
1782
01:35:32,310 --> 01:35:34,646
Even if you don't notice it,
it will feel more real.
1783
01:35:34,730 --> 01:35:38,567
If you actually see the real element
that this visual effect came from,
1784
01:35:38,650 --> 01:35:41,111
it's pretty ridiculous.
There's an actual mirror there.
1785
01:35:41,194 --> 01:35:43,405
The actors are standing
in front of the mirror...
1786
01:35:43,488 --> 01:35:45,574
And you're seeing me
and the whole camera crew.
1787
01:35:45,657 --> 01:35:48,952
You see these guys in shorts
moving a camera.
1788
01:35:49,077 --> 01:35:51,955
It takes some of the magic out of the scene.
1789
01:35:52,122 --> 01:35:53,540
For the longest time
1790
01:35:53,665 --> 01:35:55,375
that's how you watch the movie.
1791
01:35:55,584 --> 01:36:00,130
You see the whole camera crew right there,
and it drives you... For month after month.
1792
01:36:10,640 --> 01:36:13,977
This is a great...
I really don't want to call it a matte painting.
1793
01:36:14,060 --> 01:36:16,271
A great visual effect by Syd Dutton.
1794
01:36:18,023 --> 01:36:21,318
The only element in the shot that's real,
not surprisingly
1795
01:36:22,694 --> 01:36:25,530
is the shot of the three actors
as they walk forward.
1796
01:36:26,323 --> 01:36:28,241
We're going to go stop Dracula.
1797
01:36:28,325 --> 01:36:30,368
This is in Downey, a lot of stuff coming up.
1798
01:36:30,452 --> 01:36:33,330
All the exteriors, the bridge coming up,
all the stuff.
1799
01:36:33,413 --> 01:36:36,333
The sets were too big to build
on a soundstage.
1800
01:36:39,503 --> 01:36:43,381
That moment there, and this moment here
were rather problematic for Steve.
1801
01:36:43,715 --> 01:36:45,884
He was always concerned that
1802
01:36:46,218 --> 01:36:49,554
even in the realm of this movie,
the fact that he's a werewolf,
1803
01:36:49,763 --> 01:36:51,389
that seemed to really push things.
1804
01:36:51,473 --> 01:36:55,811
I think that if you could have changed
that in the end, you probably would.
1805
01:36:55,894 --> 01:36:57,437
It kind of worked out.
1806
01:37:02,776 --> 01:37:04,736
Another great shot. I just love that.
1807
01:37:04,820 --> 01:37:08,031
This is a parking lot in Downey, California.
1808
01:37:08,281 --> 01:37:10,575
And Syd Dutton
came and added a few things.
1809
01:37:11,159 --> 01:37:12,953
This again... This set was so big...
1810
01:37:13,036 --> 01:37:16,748
It's an interior. So you think you shoot
during the day, on an interior set,
1811
01:37:16,832 --> 01:37:20,377
but it was so big, these were
all nighttime shoots in a parking lot.
1812
01:37:25,340 --> 01:37:27,676
- Please don't kill me!
- Why not?
1813
01:37:28,009 --> 01:37:30,303
It's funny
because Kevin gets so into his character.
1814
01:37:30,387 --> 01:37:34,015
I was halfway through writing the script,
and I called up Kevin,
1815
01:37:34,099 --> 01:37:36,852
"I have this idea, Igor is in it.
You want to play lgor?"
1816
01:37:36,935 --> 01:37:39,020
"I got to play lgor." "Right, you're the guy.
1817
01:37:39,104 --> 01:37:42,023
"Start thinking about it."
Even before I'd finished the script...
1818
01:37:42,107 --> 01:37:45,193
When I'm writing, I never think
about what actor can play what part.
1819
01:37:45,277 --> 01:37:48,989
'Cause I don't know if they're free,
if they want it, if we can afford them.
1820
01:37:49,072 --> 01:37:51,449
There is one exception, and that is Kevin J.
1821
01:37:52,284 --> 01:37:54,244
So halfway through the script,
I said, "Kevin...
1822
01:37:54,327 --> 01:37:56,872
"you're Igor, start thinking about it."
His walk...
1823
01:37:57,163 --> 01:38:00,959
Right down to the way he walks, limps,
the way he turns his head,
1824
01:38:01,167 --> 01:38:02,836
he did just such a great job.
1825
01:38:04,462 --> 01:38:06,798
- There is a cure.
- What?
1826
01:38:06,882 --> 01:38:10,302
Dracula. He has a cure to remove
the curse of the werewolf!
1827
01:38:10,385 --> 01:38:12,679
In the book,
he ends up in the Arctic, Frankenstein.
1828
01:38:12,762 --> 01:38:15,223
I thought, "I wanna put a lot of ice
in for Frankenstein."
1829
01:38:15,307 --> 01:38:19,185
I hope people think he's encased in ice.
That's the idea.
1830
01:38:19,352 --> 01:38:23,440
Also, Dracula's castle
is a bit of an ice castle.
1831
01:38:23,523 --> 01:38:27,944
It's not made of out ice
but it's in a frozen, cold place.
1832
01:38:28,028 --> 01:38:29,195
So, it just fits.
1833
01:38:29,279 --> 01:38:30,864
Vampires don't feel cold.
1834
01:38:30,947 --> 01:38:32,240
Why does Dracula have a cure?
1835
01:38:32,324 --> 01:38:34,451
- I don't care!
- I do.
1836
01:38:34,784 --> 01:38:37,412
Why does he need one? Why?
1837
01:38:37,954 --> 01:38:40,248
See the thing in lgor's hand?
1838
01:38:40,373 --> 01:38:43,543
We gave it to Igor because
it's got to be something he can have.
1839
01:38:43,627 --> 01:38:45,712
Hugh can't have too many weapons
in his sleeve.
1840
01:38:45,795 --> 01:38:48,173
It'll get ridiculous,
so we gave Igor that thing.
1841
01:38:48,256 --> 01:38:49,507
Hugh grabs it away from him.
1842
01:38:49,591 --> 01:38:51,927
What do you think Igor
was planning on using it for?
1843
01:38:52,010 --> 01:38:54,471
- Clipping wires. It was wire clippers.
- yeah.
1844
01:38:54,554 --> 01:38:57,223
Everything makes sense,
even if you don't think it does.
1845
01:38:57,307 --> 01:38:59,142
I thought maybe he smokes cigars.
1846
01:38:59,768 --> 01:39:01,144
Yes, I am.
1847
01:39:01,853 --> 01:39:04,439
Here's the plan. When the bell
begins to toll midnight
1848
01:39:04,522 --> 01:39:05,815
you'll be able to kill Dracula.
1849
01:39:05,899 --> 01:39:07,275
We just need to find the cure
1850
01:39:07,359 --> 01:39:09,277
and get it into you before the final stroke.
1851
01:39:09,361 --> 01:39:11,112
Are you insane? What kind of plan is that?
1852
01:39:11,196 --> 01:39:13,949
If they even suspect you
of misleading them...
1853
01:39:14,032 --> 01:39:16,368
This little throwaway gets a big laugh.
1854
01:39:17,494 --> 01:39:20,956
Look at the way Kate puts her leg up,
she knows how to work it.
1855
01:39:21,414 --> 01:39:22,958
Look at her posture there.
1856
01:39:23,833 --> 01:39:25,460
Would I lie to you?
1857
01:39:25,543 --> 01:39:29,965
This is really fun. For me, as a director,
this is fun, having the four actors on stage.
1858
01:39:30,048 --> 01:39:33,635
Just coming up with the coverage,
choreography, it's really fun.
1859
01:39:36,221 --> 01:39:38,723
- I don't think I could.
- You must.
1860
01:39:40,684 --> 01:39:43,979
It was fun, because once Kate
got over the initial week of bad hair
1861
01:39:44,062 --> 01:39:45,146
then it was all great.
1862
01:39:45,230 --> 01:39:48,817
David's hair... Friars back then
always had these bad bowl cuts
1863
01:39:48,900 --> 01:39:50,402
with the bald thing on the top,
1864
01:39:50,485 --> 01:39:54,447
and Gabriella Pescucci, the costume
designer, insisted that David do this.
1865
01:39:54,531 --> 01:39:56,116
David was like... As game,
1866
01:39:56,199 --> 01:39:58,034
and as sweet as David is, he's like,
1867
01:39:58,118 --> 01:40:00,996
"I am not going to shave
the middle of my head bald.
1868
01:40:01,079 --> 01:40:03,039
"I want..."
1869
01:40:03,748 --> 01:40:07,627
And he was right in the end, 'cause
it's really cute. it makes him really cute.
1870
01:40:07,711 --> 01:40:11,423
Even as Gabriella was pushing that,
I thought, "Those hair-cuts look..."
1871
01:40:11,506 --> 01:40:12,882
Let's get back to the kiss here.
1872
01:40:12,966 --> 01:40:15,885
Both Kate's fiancé and Hugh's wife
1873
01:40:15,969 --> 01:40:18,013
came up to me after this,
and they were so...
1874
01:40:18,096 --> 01:40:21,182
Usually when there's a kissing scene,
the director milks it all day,
1875
01:40:21,266 --> 01:40:23,226
they do a hundred different takes.
1876
01:40:23,601 --> 01:40:25,770
We popped this off in an hour and a half.
1877
01:40:25,854 --> 01:40:27,105
They were passionate and polite.
1878
01:40:27,188 --> 01:40:29,941
Every time I've seen this now,
the audience cheers.
1879
01:40:30,150 --> 01:40:32,944
I think it's one of those things
you can't really plan.
1880
01:40:33,028 --> 01:40:36,656
You can only hope that there's chemistry
between your two leads
1881
01:40:36,740 --> 01:40:39,492
and we got it
in such a great way here because
1882
01:40:39,576 --> 01:40:43,413
the romance in the movie
is not given an enormous amount of time
1883
01:40:43,580 --> 01:40:46,082
and yet, it's an essential part of the film.
1884
01:40:46,291 --> 01:40:48,752
So it really needs to come from the actors.
1885
01:40:48,835 --> 01:40:51,796
They really pull it off.
The audience is really glad
1886
01:40:51,880 --> 01:40:53,715
that they get together in that moment.
1887
01:40:53,798 --> 01:40:56,926
I find that shot where she runs off
to be kind of a sad shot
1888
01:40:57,010 --> 01:41:00,055
because I always imagine
that's the last time he'll ever see her.
1889
01:41:00,138 --> 01:41:02,057
I think you get that feeling from that shot.
1890
01:41:02,140 --> 01:41:04,142
There's a sadness to it, no matter what.
1891
01:41:04,225 --> 01:41:08,480
And now you must give that life
to my children.
1892
01:41:08,897 --> 01:41:10,106
Up!
1893
01:41:16,321 --> 01:41:19,491
These shots were fun.
Again, the laboratory stuff.
1894
01:41:20,116 --> 01:41:23,787
This is Syd Dutton, and this is ILM.
1895
01:41:24,829 --> 01:41:26,372
This is a very...
1896
01:41:26,498 --> 01:41:27,916
This is me, actually,
1897
01:41:27,999 --> 01:41:31,002
- and then right now, it becomes ILM.
- Very large model.
1898
01:41:32,003 --> 01:41:34,089
It's funny, because whenever people say,
1899
01:41:34,172 --> 01:41:37,008
"We're using miniatures," I always think,
1900
01:41:37,175 --> 01:41:41,262
"This miniature you'd think
is 6 or 12 inches tall. It's 15 feet tall."
1901
01:41:41,971 --> 01:41:45,767
It's absolutely gigantic.
It took up a better part of the soundstage.
1902
01:41:45,850 --> 01:41:48,603
It's another thing we really like to do
as much as we can.
1903
01:41:48,686 --> 01:41:52,190
We've had some bad luck in the past
when environments were all digital
1904
01:41:52,649 --> 01:41:56,402
and if you use parts of real sets
or models and enhance them
1905
01:41:56,694 --> 01:41:59,197
with digital paintings,
you get a much better result.
1906
01:41:59,280 --> 01:42:01,783
Just matte paintings alone
usually don't cut it anymore.
1907
01:42:01,866 --> 01:42:03,409
Audiences can feel it's a painting.
1908
01:42:03,493 --> 01:42:05,662
You have to enhance it
with everything you can.
1909
01:42:05,745 --> 01:42:10,041
Put people in, clouds, water,
atmosphere, miniatures, models.
1910
01:42:15,755 --> 01:42:17,215
There's our little set.
1911
01:42:17,549 --> 01:42:20,635
I like this next prop coming up.
I thought this is a really cool...
1912
01:42:20,718 --> 01:42:22,679
I vaguely described it in the set
1913
01:42:22,762 --> 01:42:26,391
and I knew it had to be encased in a jar
because of what happens later.
1914
01:42:31,271 --> 01:42:32,939
I'll go first.
1915
01:42:36,151 --> 01:42:39,445
This is a good example
of what I was talking about earlier
1916
01:42:39,529 --> 01:42:42,031
where the combination
of warm and cool light...
1917
01:42:42,115 --> 01:42:45,243
It's just a very adventurous palette
1918
01:42:45,368 --> 01:42:47,871
and something that works very well
for the movie.
1919
01:42:47,954 --> 01:42:50,832
Allen Daviau really mixed it up a lot
in the film.
1920
01:42:50,915 --> 01:42:54,252
There's a lot of
different photographic looks.
1921
01:42:55,253 --> 01:42:56,421
Carl!
1922
01:42:59,215 --> 01:43:01,301
Stay as long as you like.
1923
01:43:01,384 --> 01:43:02,552
You try to get Igor.
1924
01:43:02,635 --> 01:43:05,096
Kevin just threw those lines out.
Improvved it.
1925
01:43:05,180 --> 01:43:07,265
Igor's so proud of himself there.
1926
01:43:08,016 --> 01:43:10,268
"You try to get Igor. Igor get you!"
1927
01:43:14,939 --> 01:43:17,901
There was so much electricity
added to shots in this movie
1928
01:43:17,984 --> 01:43:21,279
it's all over the place.
Electricity plays such a vital role.
1929
01:43:21,362 --> 01:43:23,907
Lightning and electricity is a big theme.
1930
01:43:28,536 --> 01:43:30,997
This is a pretty successful
digital double here.
1931
01:43:36,294 --> 01:43:38,379
Here I thought
there's going to be some point
1932
01:43:38,463 --> 01:43:41,049
where we see what Dwergi really looked like.
There you go.
1933
01:43:41,132 --> 01:43:43,551
We don't get to look at him
for very long, do we?
1934
01:43:43,635 --> 01:43:45,887
He gets dispatched pretty quickly
by Van Helsing.
1935
01:43:45,970 --> 01:43:47,263
He took Anna's advice.
1936
01:43:47,347 --> 01:43:51,517
- Go ahead. Grab it.
- You go ahead and grab it.
1937
01:43:51,851 --> 01:43:53,436
If there's one thing I've learned
1938
01:43:53,519 --> 01:43:56,814
it's never to be the first to stick
your hand in a viscous material.
1939
01:43:58,149 --> 01:44:01,945
It's funny. One of the guys, Joe Grossberg,
came up with the idea of the mouth.
1940
01:44:02,028 --> 01:44:04,822
I just thought she was going to
drop down and scare the kids.
1941
01:44:04,906 --> 01:44:07,075
One of the guys in our department
came up with,
1942
01:44:07,158 --> 01:44:09,369
"What if we put the mouth in?"
I thought, "Great!
1943
01:44:09,452 --> 01:44:12,080
"Now we know where the vampire babies
get their mouths."
1944
01:44:12,163 --> 01:44:14,791
...get their beautiful mouths from.
Look, it's from Mom.
1945
01:44:18,795 --> 01:44:21,464
Viscous material! What did I tell you?
1946
01:44:21,547 --> 01:44:23,216
Get it!
1947
01:44:23,299 --> 01:44:27,053
This was funny. I can't remember
how they escaped from this room.
1948
01:44:27,136 --> 01:44:29,722
But Bob said in one of the drafts,
"it's too easy."
1949
01:44:29,806 --> 01:44:31,808
That's how we came up with the acid.
1950
01:44:32,100 --> 01:44:36,437
It's like she knocks it over
and acid burns Aleera's face.
1951
01:44:36,604 --> 01:44:40,692
Instead of them breaking out of the room,
why doesn't she use the acid?
1952
01:44:42,068 --> 01:44:43,945
You can't go until I say you can go!
1953
01:44:44,529 --> 01:44:46,739
- That was a fun shot.
- yeah, really good.
1954
01:44:46,823 --> 01:44:49,659
Things just weren't working out
for Aleera here.
1955
01:44:51,869 --> 01:44:53,621
Kate's stunt double.
1956
01:44:53,705 --> 01:44:56,249
As much as Kate did,
she had to land on the floor.
1957
01:44:56,332 --> 01:44:59,711
There's no pads. We threw her over things
a lot and she just has to land.
1958
01:44:59,794 --> 01:45:01,754
She took a beating, Karin did.
1959
01:45:01,838 --> 01:45:03,214
She did an amazing job.
1960
01:45:03,298 --> 01:45:06,050
As much as Kate did, sometimes,
you just would not...
1961
01:45:06,134 --> 01:45:08,303
That's the problem.
Kate did so much stuff that,
1962
01:45:08,386 --> 01:45:11,639
eventually, we had to use Karin,
her stunt double, and it'd be like,
1963
01:45:11,723 --> 01:45:14,851
"Karin, we're really going to hurt you.
We're really sorry."
1964
01:45:15,727 --> 01:45:19,314
Earlier, when the three stunt people
jumped out that plate glass window
1965
01:45:19,397 --> 01:45:21,149
back at the ballroom sequence...
1966
01:45:21,232 --> 01:45:24,694
They jumped out, and I came around
to thank them for what I considered
1967
01:45:24,777 --> 01:45:26,362
a small stunt
1968
01:45:26,446 --> 01:45:29,324
and it's one thing seeing two stuntmen
cut up and bleeding,
1969
01:45:29,407 --> 01:45:31,743
it's another seeing a stuntvvoman
cut up and bleeding.
1970
01:45:31,826 --> 01:45:34,495
People think it's candy glass.
What I learned that night
1971
01:45:34,579 --> 01:45:37,415
is you only jump through candy glass
if it's 4 feet by 4 feet.
1972
01:45:37,498 --> 01:45:40,543
A window that big
actually has to be tempered glass.
1973
01:45:40,626 --> 01:45:43,004
So those three stunt people
are leaping through
1974
01:45:43,087 --> 01:45:45,214
your windshield. A giant windshield.
1975
01:45:45,298 --> 01:45:48,551
It turns into these little shards.
When they jump through, they land
1976
01:45:48,634 --> 01:45:52,722
and they don't move. They can't move,
because there are so many tiny bits of glass.
1977
01:45:52,805 --> 01:45:55,558
Karin must have had 30-40 little...
1978
01:45:55,641 --> 01:45:58,936
It's like somebody took a razorblade and...
Oh, God.
1979
01:45:59,020 --> 01:46:03,066
I didn't know until that moment. I thought
they were jumping through candy glass.
1980
01:46:03,149 --> 01:46:05,610
- And we think our jobs are hard.
- that was unpleasant.
1981
01:46:05,693 --> 01:46:08,279
But that's what they do. They knew going in.
1982
01:46:08,363 --> 01:46:10,531
The next day, I'm walking down
a Prague street,
1983
01:46:10,615 --> 01:46:13,201
I see Karin walking down the street
with her boyfriend.
1984
01:46:13,284 --> 01:46:16,662
I was like, "Should I cross the street?
Is he going to kick my ass?"
1985
01:46:16,746 --> 01:46:19,165
But he's a stunt guy, too. He's okay.
1986
01:46:30,301 --> 01:46:31,886
This is all fun stuff.
1987
01:46:34,138 --> 01:46:36,808
Here's a lot of storytelling without dialogue.
1988
01:46:37,308 --> 01:46:39,769
With all these shots,
you understood what was going on.
1989
01:46:39,852 --> 01:46:42,105
In fact, if you think about it
1990
01:46:42,188 --> 01:46:44,941
this whole section of the third act
1991
01:46:45,149 --> 01:46:47,860
has virtually no dialogue in it, whatsoever.
1992
01:46:54,909 --> 01:46:56,160
One more bolt...
1993
01:46:56,244 --> 01:46:58,830
- There's your flaming Dwergi right there.
- one more to come.
1994
01:46:58,913 --> 01:47:02,041
Hopefully, that one
was lit on fire intentionally.
1995
01:47:05,002 --> 01:47:06,671
Look at the blend they did here.
1996
01:47:06,754 --> 01:47:09,257
They did such a good job
going from human to monster.
1997
01:47:09,340 --> 01:47:10,842
There's a better one coming up.
1998
01:47:12,301 --> 01:47:14,470
You're almost out, my friend!
1999
01:47:18,516 --> 01:47:20,435
Stuff like this is really hard to shoot
2000
01:47:20,518 --> 01:47:22,979
because the actors
are being rained on all the time.
2001
01:47:23,062 --> 01:47:25,898
The effects make-up
is always more trouble in the rain.
2002
01:47:25,982 --> 01:47:28,651
Flaming Dwergi. That's a real guy.
2003
01:47:28,985 --> 01:47:30,570
Any time you see rain in a movie
2004
01:47:30,653 --> 01:47:33,364
know that the filmmakers
went through a lot more trouble
2005
01:47:33,448 --> 01:47:35,700
to have to deal with that.
No one's happy about...
2006
01:47:35,783 --> 01:47:39,328
It's one thing to run out in the rain
if you have to get to your car
2007
01:47:39,412 --> 01:47:41,664
and you get a little wet, but...
2008
01:47:41,747 --> 01:47:44,125
Unfortunately, when you have
these rain sequences...
2009
01:47:44,208 --> 01:47:46,752
the whole last part of the movie
is done in the rain...
2010
01:47:46,836 --> 01:47:51,174
it means that for weeks and weeks,
everyone is soaking wet.
2011
01:47:51,257 --> 01:47:54,051
When you're Frankenstein,
and you're lying on a table,
2012
01:47:54,135 --> 01:47:57,388
and it's pouring on your face,
and every time you open your eyes...
2013
01:48:06,606 --> 01:48:11,235
This particular shot was pre-visualized
way before we even shot the movie.
2014
01:48:11,360 --> 01:48:13,237
We just did... Rpin and his gang
2015
01:48:13,446 --> 01:48:15,907
did these shots
because we couldn't storyboard them.
2016
01:48:15,990 --> 01:48:19,660
They were so complicated, no one
would understand if we just drew them out.
2017
01:48:19,744 --> 01:48:23,039
So what we did was pre-visualization.
It was just animating the shots.
2018
01:48:23,122 --> 01:48:24,916
So people could see it in 3-d.
2019
01:48:27,793 --> 01:48:30,463
Some of this is all digital,
up in Marin County.
2020
01:48:30,546 --> 01:48:33,925
Some of it was shot in a parking lot
in Downey, some on soundstages.
2021
01:48:34,008 --> 01:48:38,179
It's like playing 3-dimensional chess
16 hours a day, six, seven days a week,
2022
01:48:38,346 --> 01:48:39,889
for two straight years.
2023
01:48:40,681 --> 01:48:43,976
It's nice with all the swinging in the movie.
Frankenstein does it,
2024
01:48:44,060 --> 01:48:46,187
Anna does it, Van Helsing does it.
2025
01:48:46,270 --> 01:48:48,564
I think we'll probably find out
2026
01:48:48,773 --> 01:48:51,567
there's some circus family
in their common past
2027
01:48:51,943 --> 01:48:54,111
that put them on wires, day after day.
2028
01:48:54,320 --> 01:48:56,948
They are actually quite good,
quite acrobatic.
2029
01:49:01,035 --> 01:49:04,789
This was a fun little effect
we just came up with in post.
2030
01:49:05,289 --> 01:49:09,377
She should have vampire vision.
She could see veins and a heart and...
2031
01:49:09,460 --> 01:49:11,462
I thought this was a really good moment.
2032
01:49:11,671 --> 01:49:14,006
A company called Zoic did that shot.
2033
01:49:14,507 --> 01:49:16,509
This was a pain-in-the-butt shot.
2034
01:49:16,759 --> 01:49:21,138
The other two actresses were flying about,
and trying to time that shot was a pain.
2035
01:49:21,514 --> 01:49:23,349
It kind of works out.
2036
01:49:29,063 --> 01:49:31,649
There's a big blue screen
behind both these actors.
2037
01:49:32,024 --> 01:49:33,484
We built the bridge.
2038
01:49:34,652 --> 01:49:39,198
This is a very nice moment
between Carl and Frankenstein.
2039
01:49:39,365 --> 01:49:40,700
Frankenstein making his case...
2040
01:49:40,783 --> 01:49:44,287
when Carl knows what he's supposed to do
for the Order and the Vatican.
2041
01:49:44,370 --> 01:49:48,040
Maybe that's the scene everyone hated
so much they streamed out of the theater.
2042
01:49:48,124 --> 01:49:52,169
That's a possibility, but from my standpoint,
it's a very nice scene.
2043
01:49:52,253 --> 01:49:55,715
I don't want to make any assumptions
about anyone who's watching this...
2044
01:49:55,798 --> 01:49:57,258
what they think of anything.
2045
01:49:57,341 --> 01:50:00,094
If they're watching the disk,
they must have liked the movie.
2046
01:50:00,177 --> 01:50:04,056
Or they thought, "I have to buy the DVD
to see what these guys were thinking...
2047
01:50:04,140 --> 01:50:06,392
"when they set out to make this movie."
2048
01:50:16,152 --> 01:50:18,321
This is a stuntman.
Watch the Frankenstein stuntman.
2049
01:50:18,404 --> 01:50:21,157
He's out cold there.
He missed the mat and his head hit.
2050
01:50:22,658 --> 01:50:25,911
Here we have more Dwergi on fire,
which is always a great deal of fun.
2051
01:50:25,995 --> 01:50:27,830
Tired of talking
about the Dwergi on fire yet?
2052
01:50:27,913 --> 01:50:31,667
You're going to see a fire extinguisher blast
come in at the bottom of the screen
2053
01:50:31,751 --> 01:50:35,671
because obviously those actors need
to be extinguished as quickly as possible.
2054
01:50:35,755 --> 01:50:37,423
Even though we're joking about this,
2055
01:50:37,506 --> 01:50:40,968
there's real danger in that
any time you have fire involved.
2056
01:50:41,135 --> 01:50:44,972
We had R.A. Randell
and a world-class stunt crew.
2057
01:50:45,181 --> 01:50:48,351
They were so safe, these sets.
They were always in good hands.
2058
01:50:48,434 --> 01:50:50,645
That's why I think they can push it so much.
2059
01:50:52,480 --> 01:50:53,773
So be it.
2060
01:50:56,901 --> 01:51:00,321
Dracula has some type
of time fetish, apparently,
2061
01:51:00,571 --> 01:51:03,908
because right out his window
is the most gigantic clock
2062
01:51:03,991 --> 01:51:05,660
you've ever seen in your life.
2063
01:51:05,743 --> 01:51:09,163
And you'd think a guy who's been around
for 400 years, who can't die,
2064
01:51:09,246 --> 01:51:11,165
would not give a crap about time.
2065
01:51:11,248 --> 01:51:15,753
Maybe it was one of the previous tenants',
and he hasn't had a chance to get it out.
2066
01:51:21,509 --> 01:51:25,179
We're very happy with the way
the Van Helsing werewolf turned out.
2067
01:51:25,262 --> 01:51:28,432
He was the third werewolf
of the trilogy of werewolves.
2068
01:51:28,516 --> 01:51:31,310
He was the last one to come on line
and so a lot of things
2069
01:51:31,394 --> 01:51:34,647
that were learned from doing
the other werewolves were applied here.
2070
01:51:34,730 --> 01:51:36,524
And I think, really successfully.
2071
01:51:36,607 --> 01:51:40,403
When you watch this, you know
it's a visual effect. What else could it be?
2072
01:51:40,486 --> 01:51:42,446
We didn't really use a real werewolf.
2073
01:51:42,530 --> 01:51:45,700
One of these is a visual effect,
the other one I raised from birth.
2074
01:51:45,783 --> 01:51:47,743
I won't tell you which one.
2075
01:51:48,285 --> 01:51:52,790
But at the same time, as a visual effect,
I think that it's extremely successful.
2076
01:51:52,873 --> 01:51:55,209
You have beautiful work with the hair
2077
01:51:55,292 --> 01:51:58,295
and it's got real emotion.
It's great work by ILM.
2078
01:51:58,379 --> 01:52:02,508
Every one of those shots is a real pain,
because I wanted it to be so interactive.
2079
01:52:02,591 --> 01:52:05,845
So when they're moving, touching things,
slamming each other around,
2080
01:52:05,928 --> 01:52:10,224
things needed to explode and break
and the bridge needed to collapse.
2081
01:52:16,647 --> 01:52:17,648
Go!
2082
01:52:17,940 --> 01:52:19,483
This was a really fun scene.
2083
01:52:19,567 --> 01:52:21,777
We called it
The Beauty and the Beast scene.
2084
01:52:21,861 --> 01:52:24,822
Because, you know,
look at this shot, right there.
2085
01:52:25,656 --> 01:52:29,076
She's looking so beautiful there,
and he's this beast in the background.
2086
01:52:29,160 --> 01:52:32,955
This is a really great moment.
Audiences seem to just love this.
2087
01:52:33,414 --> 01:52:36,834
Two great actors.
What more do you want as a director?
2088
01:52:40,421 --> 01:52:43,924
We had lots of combinations
of techniques. This is a matte painting.
2089
01:52:44,008 --> 01:52:46,218
That's a real set.
2090
01:52:46,302 --> 01:52:49,096
That's a real set
but with enhancements in the background.
2091
01:52:49,180 --> 01:52:52,975
This is digital.
That's a digital Carl running around there.
2092
01:52:55,352 --> 01:52:57,271
And that's a digital Carl.
2093
01:52:58,355 --> 01:53:01,275
You know what we should do?
We should go through it and lie.
2094
01:53:01,358 --> 01:53:05,029
- See that?
- that's a digital actress right there.
2095
01:53:05,154 --> 01:53:07,406
That is not Kate Beckinsale.
2096
01:53:09,033 --> 01:53:11,368
That actually is Kate,
who went out the window there.
2097
01:53:11,452 --> 01:53:14,789
This is Kate, actually on wires.
2098
01:53:15,039 --> 01:53:19,043
Obviously she's against a blue screen,
and there's all kinds of safety involved
2099
01:53:19,126 --> 01:53:22,797
but she is actually doing most of what
you see here. That's Kate on a wire.
2100
01:53:22,880 --> 01:53:25,716
The only time we don't use safety
is on the actor's last day.
2101
01:53:25,800 --> 01:53:27,551
- Then it doesn't matter.
- exactly.
2102
01:53:27,635 --> 01:53:32,515
Because your chances
of having some problem are greatly reduced.
2103
01:53:34,058 --> 01:53:35,851
That's got to hurt.
2104
01:53:37,144 --> 01:53:39,271
Those are strong fingers.
2105
01:53:47,363 --> 01:53:50,866
You are being used, Gabriel, as was I.
2106
01:53:51,325 --> 01:53:53,994
But I escaped. So can you.
2107
01:53:55,329 --> 01:53:56,872
All of this, every shot,
2108
01:53:56,956 --> 01:54:00,709
because these shots are so complicated,
difficult, and expensive,
2109
01:54:00,793 --> 01:54:02,962
everything had to be figured out in detail.
2110
01:54:03,462 --> 01:54:07,925
I had to sit there. We'd shoot this
and I had to imagine every move.
2111
01:54:08,008 --> 01:54:10,219
I just had to sit there, staring at a blank.
2112
01:54:10,302 --> 01:54:12,847
Nothing's happening,
just the camera's moving around.
2113
01:54:12,930 --> 01:54:17,184
I had a storyboard in my head and
a world-class crew and people helping me.
2114
01:54:17,268 --> 01:54:18,978
Dracula just got it like a bug.
2115
01:54:19,061 --> 01:54:22,273
- That was a bug-zapper shot.
- i love when he gets zapped there.
2116
01:54:23,023 --> 01:54:27,319
There's no dignity sometimes.
He got zapped by his own lab equipment.
2117
01:54:29,238 --> 01:54:31,031
That was a great shot.
2118
01:54:34,952 --> 01:54:38,581
This scene, I was always excited to get it
in front of the real audience
2119
01:54:38,664 --> 01:54:43,085
because by this point of the movie,
you've really had it with Aleera.
2120
01:54:43,168 --> 01:54:47,339
She has to go. I always hoped
that the audience would react well.
2121
01:54:47,423 --> 01:54:50,551
Thankfully, they did.
They are really pleased
2122
01:54:50,634 --> 01:54:52,803
that Aleera finally gets her comeuppance.
2123
01:54:58,434 --> 01:55:00,019
It was just wonderful.
2124
01:55:00,477 --> 01:55:04,481
All the actors were game.
They were so into it.
2125
01:55:04,565 --> 01:55:07,192
They just brought so much to it
and took it seriously.
2126
01:55:07,276 --> 01:55:09,236
I had so much fun making this movie.
2127
01:55:09,320 --> 01:55:12,907
It would be so much more interesting
if it was really awful making the film.
2128
01:55:12,990 --> 01:55:15,409
- No.
- it would, it really would.
2129
01:55:15,492 --> 01:55:17,703
It was awful, but in a really wonderful way.
2130
01:55:17,786 --> 01:55:19,622
- Exactly.
- the people were all great.
2131
01:55:19,705 --> 01:55:23,834
It's a lot of hard work,
but we just had a great time making the film.
2132
01:55:23,918 --> 01:55:27,171
Not that anyone listening to this
really cares about that at all
2133
01:55:27,254 --> 01:55:30,174
- but it really is true.
- look at that.
2134
01:55:33,427 --> 01:55:35,888
ILM outdid themselves on this stuff.
2135
01:55:40,976 --> 01:55:43,854
One of the interesting inventions
of this scene
2136
01:55:44,396 --> 01:55:46,941
is the fact that the characters
switch back and forth.
2137
01:55:47,024 --> 01:55:50,110
- It was key for me.
- the reason for it isn't the transformations
2138
01:55:50,194 --> 01:55:52,947
because the transformations
are handled really quickly.
2139
01:55:53,030 --> 01:55:55,824
- We're not interested in them in this scene.
- at this point.
2140
01:55:55,908 --> 01:55:58,369
Yeah, but rather the fact these two actors,
2141
01:55:58,452 --> 01:56:01,956
these two characters get to face-off
as themselves
2142
01:56:02,039 --> 01:56:03,958
and not as CG creations.
2143
01:56:04,041 --> 01:56:08,212
So I think it was a very effective tool.
It worked out really well.
2144
01:56:08,295 --> 01:56:12,383
That's why I came up with the invention
of the moon. I tried to establish it up front.
2145
01:56:12,466 --> 01:56:14,301
When the moon's covered,
he turns into human.
2146
01:56:14,385 --> 01:56:17,054
When it's revealed,
he goes back into becoming a werewolf.
2147
01:56:17,137 --> 01:56:21,350
When I'm plotting out the movie, I know
I don't want to get to the third act
2148
01:56:21,433 --> 01:56:25,479
and have Hugh Jackman
and Richard Roxburgh as CG characters.
2149
01:56:25,562 --> 01:56:29,233
I got to figure how to get them in and out,
'cause you want moments like this.
2150
01:56:29,316 --> 01:56:32,987
And then the moments of the CG guys.
It's a good blend.
2151
01:56:33,654 --> 01:56:37,074
So Dracula is missing his finger there
in that shot.
2152
01:56:37,157 --> 01:56:40,911
And in the subsequent couple of shots,
if you're interested...
2153
01:56:40,995 --> 01:56:44,623
- When you watch the movie again...
- notice that's the only time that happens.
2154
01:56:44,707 --> 01:56:48,335
We didn't want to spend money
getting rid of his finger in those previous...
2155
01:56:48,419 --> 01:56:50,796
When you're watching
the movie the first time
2156
01:56:50,879 --> 01:56:54,633
you're not watching it with that in mind.
You don't think in reverse that way.
2157
01:56:54,717 --> 01:56:58,971
But that is a continuity mistake, if you will.
2158
01:56:59,054 --> 01:57:01,557
But we knew going, who wants to
spend money and time
2159
01:57:01,640 --> 01:57:04,518
getting rid of something
that no one's ever gonna notice?
2160
01:57:11,692 --> 01:57:15,571
This whole scene right here, for me,
it's a cover of a romance novel.
2161
01:57:15,654 --> 01:57:18,574
I looked at this
and said it has to be so romantic. Look.
2162
01:57:18,657 --> 01:57:20,576
We know what's about to happen here.
2163
01:57:20,659 --> 01:57:24,872
But the design of the window,
the clouds, the moon
2164
01:57:24,955 --> 01:57:29,626
and the fact that, like, "What is a
red velvet couch doing in this laboratory?"
2165
01:57:29,835 --> 01:57:32,212
I knew it had to be a red velvet couch.
2166
01:57:32,296 --> 01:57:36,341
You got to check that couch out. I really
want to meet Dracula's interior designer.
2167
01:57:36,425 --> 01:57:40,137
Apparently, it looks like
it's made out of some spine or something.
2168
01:57:41,555 --> 01:57:44,308
I just love the reactions of audiences.
Audiences cheered.
2169
01:57:44,391 --> 01:57:48,645
They were cheering during that,
and suddenly it gets real quiet.
2170
01:57:50,647 --> 01:57:53,108
The ending to this movie was first draft.
2171
01:57:53,817 --> 01:57:56,779
I thought this was the perfect ending
to this movie.
2172
01:57:57,071 --> 01:57:59,364
You know,
Van Helsing accomplishes his mission.
2173
01:57:59,448 --> 01:58:02,576
Princess Anna accomplishes her mission.
She saves her family
2174
01:58:02,659 --> 01:58:06,413
and now she's going to go.
She said earlier she would see them again.
2175
01:58:07,831 --> 01:58:11,668
See this shot. Look at that,
the candles, the moon, the werewolf,
2176
01:58:11,752 --> 01:58:16,340
the beautiful woman, the velvet couch.
This is all off the cover of a romance novel.
2177
01:58:18,092 --> 01:58:20,260
It's the only ending
the movie could have had.
2178
01:58:20,344 --> 01:58:21,929
It worked out so great.
2179
01:58:22,012 --> 01:58:25,349
That shot there
where Hugh transforms originally,
2180
01:58:25,432 --> 01:58:27,893
take a look at this
when you watch the shot again.
2181
01:58:27,976 --> 01:58:31,939
He was naked
and we added digital pants on to him.
2182
01:58:32,022 --> 01:58:36,110
Not for ratings reason, but we found when
we were showing the movie to people
2183
01:58:36,193 --> 01:58:39,655
the audience would be
where we wanted them to be,
2184
01:58:39,738 --> 01:58:43,283
- feeling bad about Anna having died.
- they were so with us emotionally.
2185
01:58:43,367 --> 01:58:45,285
- This is the very first screening.
- yeah.
2186
01:58:45,369 --> 01:58:48,664
We were watching it. Bob and I
had the same feeling at the same time.
2187
01:58:48,747 --> 01:58:51,959
As the werewolf's turning back
into Van Helsing, I'm thinking,
2188
01:58:52,042 --> 01:58:54,753
I could feel the audience,
they were with us emotionally.
2189
01:58:54,837 --> 01:58:58,090
I thought, "My God,
we were both right and felt the same thing."
2190
01:58:58,173 --> 01:59:01,927
Suddenly every woman in the audience
went, "There's Hugh Jackman's ass!"
2191
01:59:02,010 --> 01:59:04,513
And half the men in the audience
or all the men went:
2192
01:59:04,596 --> 01:59:06,682
"I don't wanna see no man-ass."
2193
01:59:07,683 --> 01:59:10,102
I could just feel it before we even saw it.
2194
01:59:10,185 --> 01:59:13,313
And so, the next screening,
we just kind of painted it out.
2195
01:59:13,397 --> 01:59:16,567
It had nothing to do with ratings,
it would have still been PG-13.
2196
01:59:16,650 --> 01:59:19,987
It was all about keeping the audience
emotionally where we wanted them.
2197
01:59:20,070 --> 01:59:21,947
But in the director's cut...
2198
01:59:22,281 --> 01:59:24,992
We ought to put it like a screensaver.
Sell a screensaver,
2199
01:59:25,075 --> 01:59:28,203
"You wanna see Hugh Jackman's..."
Don't worry, Hugh.
2200
01:59:49,641 --> 01:59:53,562
Part of this is shot in a soundstage,
and a part of it in a parking lot.
2201
01:59:53,645 --> 01:59:57,774
And part of this is shot
out at Palos Verdes, California.
2202
01:59:57,858 --> 02:00:01,528
This is a real location.
Everything in this direction is real location.
2203
02:00:01,612 --> 02:00:05,699
- That's real water. The sky's been changed.
- we always replace skies.
2204
02:00:05,782 --> 02:00:10,621
The sky's been changed, but everything else
you see there is in Southern California.
2205
02:00:15,709 --> 02:00:18,212
This is a very tricky scene,
probably the hardest
2206
02:00:18,295 --> 02:00:21,840
from a visual effects standpoint.
Weta Digital did these shots.
2207
02:00:21,924 --> 02:00:25,219
The trick is you want to tell the story,
you want to understand,
2208
02:00:25,302 --> 02:00:27,137
have some idea what's going on
2209
02:00:27,221 --> 02:00:30,557
but at the same time, you want it
to be as vague as it possibly can.
2210
02:00:30,641 --> 02:00:32,893
It's the only time
I ever used the word "subtle."
2211
02:00:32,976 --> 02:00:36,855
No one's ever heard me use the word
"subtle." And this one, it had to be subtle.
2212
02:00:36,939 --> 02:00:39,942
And we were very worried,
taking this into the first preview,
2213
02:00:40,025 --> 02:00:41,944
whether this would be accepted or not.
2214
02:00:42,027 --> 02:00:46,114
You always have the possibility
that people will respond very badly.
2215
02:00:46,198 --> 02:00:48,408
Thankfully, that wasn't the case.
2216
02:00:48,492 --> 02:00:51,995
We learned a few things
about the sequence and made adjustments.
2217
02:00:52,788 --> 02:00:54,414
We found that people...
2218
02:00:54,498 --> 02:00:58,585
You never know, people might look at this,
"it's such a downer ending."
2219
02:00:58,669 --> 02:01:01,296
Actually, it's the only ending.
It was the perfect ending.
2220
02:01:01,380 --> 02:01:04,174
We have seen it now with a lot of audiences.
2221
02:01:04,383 --> 02:01:05,801
It was a worry and a risk.
2222
02:01:05,884 --> 02:01:09,096
It sucks that Anna dies
because Anna's a great character.
2223
02:01:09,179 --> 02:01:11,682
And it would be great
if she could be kept around.
2224
02:01:11,765 --> 02:01:14,518
She's heroic and has accomplished
everything she wanted to.
2225
02:01:14,601 --> 02:01:17,980
From the story's standpoint,
it's the only ending you could imagine.
2226
02:01:18,063 --> 02:01:22,526
Let's be honest. Were Van Helsing
and Anna gonna settle down
2227
02:01:22,609 --> 02:01:24,569
and buy a little house?
2228
02:01:24,778 --> 02:01:26,321
They're both adventurers.
2229
02:01:26,405 --> 02:01:30,200
I keep hoping that Eve from The Mummy
will show up with a book.
2230
02:01:30,867 --> 02:01:33,829
- And bring her back.
- she'll say a chant and she'll be fine.
2231
02:01:33,912 --> 02:01:36,581
Every time I watch it, it never happens.
2232
02:01:44,047 --> 02:01:48,635
This was shot out in Piru, California,
for those of you still with us
2233
02:01:48,719 --> 02:01:50,470
after two hours and two minutes.
2234
02:01:50,554 --> 02:01:54,725
And I have one question for you,
why would you be? That's the big question.
2235
02:01:54,808 --> 02:01:57,602
Anyway, thank you very much
for watching the movie,
2236
02:01:57,686 --> 02:01:58,812
buying the DVD.
2237
02:01:58,895 --> 02:02:01,356
Thank you from Stephen Sommers
and Bob Ducsay.
2238
02:02:01,440 --> 02:02:03,275
We'll see you next time. Thank you.