STACK Magazine November Issue 121

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DVD&BD FEATURE
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From monsters in Cloverfield and vampires in Let Me In, to the DAWN OFTHE PLANET
OFTHEAPES. Director MATT REEVES’s first big franchise film is still all
about the story and emotions amidst the spectacle.
about the story because if you don’t, you’re in
trouble. I think a lot of these tent-pole movies end
up being driven by the spectacle itself and you can
lose your compass as to what the story is, what
the emotions are supposed to be. As a filmmaker,
the only way I know what to do is by following that
compass. So in a way, you have to push that stuff
into the background.
How does it work withAndy Serkis;
do you direct him?
Of course. He is another actor.There is such
confusion about this – and I had it as well when
I started – whereby somehow, people think that
motion capture is this really technical thing.There is
nothing technical about it.The technical part is that
the equipment is recording his motion. Dealing with
him is simply dealing with an actor, so when you
are staging a scene it is no different. I don’t stage a
scene differently because of performance capture.
I get in the room with Andy and the actors and we
look at the scene and we go, ‘Where do you think
you will stand?Where do you think you are coming
from?What did you do in the previous scene?’
You are doing it just like with any other scene.
One of the exciting things for me was discovering
that Andy was one of the best actors I have ever
worked with, and what was cool was that the
performance capture enables all the other actors
to relate to each other. I directed Andy in the way I
directed any other actor that I have worked with.
What preparation did your ape actors
have to go through?
We had a movement specialist,Terry Notary,
a former Cirque du Soleil performer – he plays
Rocket, actually. He is a wonderful actor as well,
and a great artist in terms of body movement. He
trained all of the actors to move like they were
apes. We had an ape camp where everybody had
to learn to be quadruped, and everybody had to
learn to let go of all of their human movements.
He was like our Zen ape master. In the last movie,
whenever there were stunts that became
impossible, they started doing what
we call key-frame animation instead
NOVEMBER 2014 JB Hi-Fi
I knew he was an actor and I also knew he
was legendary for the motion capture
work that he had done. I knew that I
had been moved by his performances,
especially by his performance in
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but I
didn’t understand if there was some
technical thing he was doing. And when
we began, I learned very quickly that there
was nothing technical that he was doing. It was
just about him wearing a device that recorded his
performance and the big secret as to why Caesar
is so powerful is that Andy is a powerful actor.
So I was like, ‘Oh, it is all performance driven!’
You push the technology to the back and think
We had an ape camp
where [the actors] had
to learn to be quadruped,
and learn to let go of their
human movements.
How did you become involved
with Dawn of the Planet of
theApes?
MATT REEVES: It is a
very interesting thing. I did
Cloverfield and that brought
me to a lot of people’s
attention, but strangely it was
my last film [Let Me In] that got
me the most attention in Hollywood.
So I think it was a combination of the fact that I had
done something that was rooted in special effects
with Cloverfield and we did that on a budget, and
then my next film was more performance driven
even though, of course, it also had effects and
was a genre piece.That combination of someone
who cared about the interior life of the characters
but could also do special effects created a lot of
opportunities for me. I was approached by a lot of
studios with tent-pole movies for the first time, and
I had never done anything on that scale. I never
found any that had been offered to me where I
felt like I had the way in.To me, unless I have an
emotional way into something, I feel like I don’t
have the compass to tell me where to put the
camera or how to talk to the actors, or what the
story is really about. I always look for the personal.
So when they came to me with this one, it was the
first time that someone had approached me about
a big tent-pole movie where I felt I really
had something personal to say. So it was
exciting to me. I was thrilled.
How challenging was it working on a big
budget franchise film?
I’d never made a movie on this scale, but the job
is exactly the same, which is you are telling a
story and you are trying to find the emotional
reality of the scenes with the
actors. I thought maybe
the technology would
be an obstacle to
doing these things
and I didn’t really
know what Andy
Serkis did.