'Wicked' director Jon M. Chu breaks down Jonathan Bailey's 'Dancing Through Life' scene alongside cinematographer Alice Brooks. Jon and Alice provide an elaborate explanation of the specific color plays throughout the scene, building in windows in the "tornado wheel" to get the perfect lighting, careful coordination to find the right timing with all of Jonathan's tricks and so much more.WICKED is in theaters now, https://www.wickedmovie.comDirector: Funmi SunmonuEditor: Philip Anderson; Matthew ColbyTalent: Jon M. Chu and Alice BrooksCoordinating Producer: Emebeit Beyene and Sydney MaloneLine Producer: Romeeka PowellProduction Manager: Andressa PelachiProduction Coordinator: Elizabeth HymesAssociate Director, Talent : Meredith JudkinsProduction Assistant: Lily StarckPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Ian BryantSupervising Editor: Doug LarsenAssistant Editor: Justin SymondsSpecial Thanks: Glass Engine
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00He jumps down here, and he slides on a boat.
00:02And this again, all in one.
00:05If he trips on this, he had to be so smooth on that.
00:08Freaking amazing.
00:09I love this guy.
00:10And of course, she had to dance it all.
00:11She had to be as good as all the dancers around her
00:14who were all professional dancers.
00:15And you forget that Ariana Grande is an amazing dancer.
00:21Hello, I am Alice Brooks, ASC,
00:23and I am the Director of Photography for Wicked.
00:26And I am Jon M. Chu, the Director of Wicked.
00:29And this is Notes on a Scene.
00:34So the scene we're about to see is Prince Fierro
00:36singing Dancing Through Life.
00:37And this is a moment where he's just come
00:39into the new school.
00:40He's been kicked out of other schools,
00:41but today he's here to say, hey guys, loosen up.
00:44You got to cause a little trouble here.
00:47So in the beginning, the dancing is very stiff,
00:50but he's gonna loosen their joints up.
00:51And this is where he sort of starts that craziness.
00:56So that's a fake, that's a fake thing
00:59that doesn't actually work.
01:00But this thing, we call this the tornado wheel.
01:03And I don't know if you remember
01:04the nuttiness of the tornado.
01:05We had to convince a lot of people
01:07that it was worth spending this money on a set that spun.
01:11So all these things spin in different directions
01:13and that it wouldn't be dangerous.
01:15Because the weird thing about this one is
01:17these things are locked in.
01:19So if you get caught in between,
01:21your head could get chopped off.
01:22So try having that conversation with the insurance company.
01:26And it was so much choreography to just figure out
01:29how can the camera move through these ladders
01:33and how can we get dynamic shots?
01:34And we didn't have the entire tornado wheel
01:37for a really long time.
01:38We had to do a lot of research and development
01:40to figure out how we were gonna make this work.
01:41And shout out to many departments
01:43that had to make this happen.
01:44You had engineers in the back here behind these walls
01:46trying to make sure that this thing worked right
01:48and that they weren't going too fast or too slow
01:51because gravity plays such a big role
01:53on how these dancers could work on it.
01:55Credit to costume designer, Paul Taswell,
01:58of creating outfits and shoes
01:59that they could actually work in this space
02:01because he had to be able to move and that's not easy.
02:04And they're walking on all these books and stuff.
02:06So these shoes had to be just right.
02:09And they're doing literally flips on this.
02:11Credit to Christopher Scott, our choreographer,
02:13who had to figure all this out.
02:14My job's easy.
02:15I just get to take the ideas and he figures it out.
02:17And then Nathan Crowley designed this wheel
02:20and electric team and I had to actually work with Nathan
02:24to build in lighting all around here and here and here.
02:27We built in actual windows
02:28so that we would be able to see our dancers
02:31in up here and up here.
02:32And then we decided to throw two huge lights,
02:35two 24 light dinos back there to illuminate the space.
02:39The Johnny Bailey.
02:40Look at that hair.
02:41♪ Dancing through life, swaying and sweeping ♪
02:44He's actually doing all of this.
02:46♪ I keep being cool ♪
02:48And this was one of the trickiest shots to get.
02:51Just to get the timing of him landing.
02:52And we had all these wheels spinning
02:55and we had to very carefully coordinate it.
02:58So we worked over and over and over again
03:00with Chris Scott to find the timing of the camera
03:03with what Jonathan Bailey was gonna be doing.
03:05And this is all, I mean, you can see
03:07how coordinated this has to be.
03:08You can see those things moving.
03:09This guy has to slide all the way down.
03:11The camera's moving in coordination
03:12so you don't know where the center of gravity is.
03:14That's something that we always played in the beginning
03:16was this relationship with gravity
03:18that Elphaba had a very specific relation with gravity.
03:22So we wanted to sort of physicalize it in this,
03:24that he was sort of playing with that idea,
03:26just not in a magical power way.
03:28And of course, these are moving
03:30and Chris Scott had to have dancers,
03:32but also parkourists who could actually do this
03:34in the tornado wheel itself.
03:36At some point they called this the hamster wheel.
03:39That's right, the hamster wheel.
03:40And I hated that name.
03:42Can we not call it a hamster wheel?
03:43So I changed it to the tornado wheel,
03:45but people keep calling it the hamster wheel.
03:47And then these colors, these blue colors,
03:49Alice worked very closely with Paul
03:51to figure out is this blue or is this green?
03:55Or is this sea green?
03:56Or what the heck is it?
03:56So these were very delicacy.
03:58We didn't want to step on Jonathan's blue.
04:01It couldn't be green because I would step on Elphaba.
04:03So all the color play is very specific in here.
04:05And color is a huge theme
04:08throughout the original Wizard of Oz books.
04:10And we made sure we infused that beautiful richness
04:13in throughout our movie
04:15and made our own version of what Technicolor was.
04:18And you think these are real books,
04:18but they're actually not.
04:19It's just a facade.
04:20Now that said, we did have some slots that were real books
04:23so they could grab them and do things like that.
04:25And of course, Nathan Crowley,
04:27production designer, built this beautiful,
04:28now everything in Shiz we wanted to be circular
04:32and very flowy in that
04:33because Elphaba will give the edges to the circles.
04:36So he designed this library in this beautiful way
04:39that let a lot of natural light.
04:41And that's what I love about Alice
04:42is that it's all about natural light
04:44and things that people would be scared of
04:46like backlighting is actually what I love about her stuff,
04:49that it feels like we're in a place, we're not on a set.
04:52And this set was actually fire lane to fire lane
04:54or wall to wall of our soundstage
04:56and from floor to ceiling,
04:5845 feet tall to the top of the domes.
05:00The center dome is the highest,
05:02that was almost 45 feet high.
05:03The set is 185 feet long by 145 feet wide
05:08and we lit it with 495 lights.
05:10So it is an incredibly large space
05:14and it was really, really, really fun to do.
05:16And I have no idea that that was happening.
05:19I just show up and like, cool, hamster wheel.
05:22I mean, tornado wheel.
05:25One shot, the whole thing,
05:26everyone had to be right on for this.
05:28Chris Scott was there this day
05:30because I think I was having a baby at that moment.
05:32You were having a baby.
05:33♪ Those who don't try never look foolish ♪
05:37This is one of the reasons I worked so closely
05:39with Paul Taswell, figuring out the color of everything
05:42because originally there were a couple of other
05:44of our characters, Fanny and Shen Shen were also in pink.
05:48And John and I realized we wanted Glinda
05:51just to be in this sort of beautiful butterfly
05:53of blue around her.
05:54And she was the center of that butterfly
05:56and she was in pink.
05:57And look at this costume.
05:58I mean, it's so fun, so great.
06:01These oranges pop and these things
06:03and even the logo itself.
06:04I mean, how many logos that we went through
06:06to end up on this shiz logo that I love so much.
06:09All these buttons.
06:10And all the buttons.
06:11Buttons were a thing on this.
06:12And knitting.
06:13Every detail.
06:14Every detail on this movie.
06:16There's a line in The Heights that actually says
06:20it's the little details that tell the world who we are.
06:22In this movie, we were creating the world of Oz
06:25and every single little detail by every single craftsperson
06:28is so incredibly specific.
06:30And all those details created the world of Oz.
06:33And look at this hair and makeup.
06:34Oh yeah, of course, Francis and hair and makeup.
06:36Come on, come on.
06:37Everyone had to be individual.
06:38No one could just come in and you just roll
06:41into something.
06:42Everything had to have individual personality.
06:44And so, yeah, it takes an army again to do this.
06:46And every book had very specific Ozian titles
06:50that was incredible.
06:53We actually played a lot with this scene
06:54with an iPhone to figure out how to move the camera.
06:57It was probably one of the hardest shots
06:59to get in the whole movie.
07:00And right here, you'll see a parkour artist
07:03doing flips and things like that.
07:04Of course, John and Bailey had to get in there.
07:06And I love this part.
07:07This was a moment that Chris and his team came up with,
07:10but I love that moment.
07:11Just feels so like what it feels like
07:13to be young and cool in Oz.
07:16And I couldn't dictate that.
07:18That just happened from the dancers.
07:19Every dancer has their own personality.
07:21So when they did that, I was like, yes.
07:22And we shot this so many times
07:24because I kind of just liked the moment
07:26and I just wanted to live it over and over.
07:28It was so joyous, that moment.
07:30Everyone on set, the whole crew,
07:32we were all like, oh, this is gonna be so good.
07:34Everyone on set, the whole crew was just,
07:37we were charmed by Jonathan Bailey.
07:39It was, he was charming not only the shiz students,
07:43but everyone behind the camera as well.
07:45And you can see their chemistry right there.
07:46They're like having so much fun.
07:47I mean, here, there's a real laugh from Ari in a second
07:50when he lifts her up.
07:51She's really scared.
07:52Like, where is he gonna put her?
07:53Cause he's sort of all over the place too
07:55when he was lifting her.
07:57These, again, parkour, beautiful artists.
08:00And then this moment, of course,
08:02everyone's on fire here.
08:04This is one of our hardest shots we'll see here.
08:06This one was incredibly hard.
08:08So that is one single take that pushes all the way in here.
08:11If you go back and this dancer could do it four times.
08:17It's an incredibly hard move.
08:19And Chris Scott came up to me.
08:20He's like, we have four shots at this.
08:22We had an amazing, amazing Steadicam operator
08:25who was with us all through prep,
08:26who went to the dance rehearsals,
08:28learned every piece of choreography,
08:30just incredibly dedicated to telling this story.
08:33And this, he knew he had four takes
08:35because the dancer could do this four times
08:38without injuring themselves.
08:39Yeah, it's such a huge thing.
08:40I mean, the camera doesn't cut when he does that flip.
08:42So he's jumping at extreme heights.
08:45And he's moving through this wheel that is spinning.
08:47The dancer has to land his flip.
08:49It's a Steadicam shot where we rotate the camera fully.
08:52This is not a cut.
08:53He's actually going into a whole bunch of dances
08:55on the other side over there.
08:57Again, that lighting from here,
08:58this back lighting is just so beautiful.
09:00You get to see the tornado wheel here.
09:02And I love when people, when they're sitting on here,
09:03because their silhouettes actually feel like,
09:06you know, an old Broadway musical or something,
09:08whether it's like a Newsies or something like that.
09:10This is actually our first set that we built.
09:13So I remember going into this in prep
09:15and Nathan was already building.
09:17And we walked in there like, holy crap,
09:19this is just the library we're building this for?
09:22John is just so charming.
09:24And Bach played by Ethan Slater.
09:27Ari is so cute there.
09:29So we have this very theatrical show
09:31that we want to make sure we honor,
09:33which is the stage show of Wicked.
09:35And throughout this movie,
09:36I had this idea to incorporate the sun as our spotlight.
09:41And so the sun becomes our lighting cues
09:43throughout the movie.
09:43We've got the sun coming through here
09:46and we've got the sun coming from back here
09:48that creates this beautiful light
09:50that just fills the space.
09:52This whole space was very challenging to light
09:54because it was so huge.
09:56But luckily we had the Unreal Engine.
09:59So we lit everything in the computer first
10:01and then we lit it in reality.
10:02But that Unreal Engine got to show me certain lights
10:06that we were about to hang weren't gonna work
10:08for this sort of beautiful sunlit glow.
10:11But what I love about this shot is it keeps going
10:13and you're gonna see it grow bigger and bigger and bigger.
10:15And you'll get the sense of why building
10:17was something we really needed to do.
10:19We needed to build and keep these sets physical.
10:21Otherwise we couldn't riff and find moments like this.
10:24You'll see him in a second.
10:25He jumps down here and he slides on a book.
10:28Maybe I'll just slide right in the front.
10:29And this again, all in one.
10:31If he trips on this, he had to be so smooth on that.
10:34This guy, freaking amazing.
10:36I love this guy.
10:37And of course she had to dance at all.
10:39She had to be as good as all the dancers around her
10:42who were all professional dancers.
10:43And you forget that Ariana Grande is an amazing dancer
10:46and she has such good muscle memory.
10:48So all of this together was just one of those shots
10:50that you're like, oh, this is gonna be fun to shoot.
10:52♪ All is just for you ♪
10:55♪ Come on, follow me ♪
10:58♪ You'll be happy to be there ♪
11:01Okay, so before we get back into it,
11:03I just wanna draw your attention to this one dancer.
11:05I mean, they're all amazing,
11:06but this one I'm just like fascinated by.
11:08In the edit, I couldn't stop watching.
11:10But if you watch over here,
11:12this guy, he has to juggle three books.
11:14So he can't mess up.
11:15Everyone can be doing their job,
11:16but if he messes up, we're all screwed.
11:18So there he is, he's juggling books, real books.
11:21That is not CG.
11:22He's really juggling.
11:22Do you see that?
11:23Right over there.
11:24And watch, his next move, he has to run this way.
11:29Here he goes.
11:30He has to run this way, jump on here.
11:32He has to hit this area.
11:34This is the only way we're gonna see him.
11:35And he has to do this over and over again.
11:37Let's see if he does it.
11:40Whoa, oh my goodness.
11:41Amazing.
11:42I mean, that space, that's insane.
11:45He's so high in the air.
11:46This guy doesn't have,
11:47there's no like springboard back there.
11:49There's no trampoline.
11:50He's just doing it.
11:51And he had to do that over and over again.
11:53He could never mess up
11:54because if he messed up, then the whole shot was done.
11:57This scene, I can't believe we started Wicked
11:59three and a half years ago.
12:00And now we are here about to see our movie premiere.
12:03It's crazy.
12:04I'm about to have my fifth child,
12:06but the third one just during Wicked.
12:08I've had three kids just working on Wicked.
12:11So that's a whole thing.
12:12It's a lot of babies.
12:13And here's Bo and Yang, and he's awesome in this.
12:15And Bronwyn here, you can't see her here,
12:17but there she is.
12:18They all had to learn,
12:19because he was going back and forth from New York,
12:21that they had to learn this choreography on video.
12:24And then we had to just throw them in.
12:26They kill it.
12:30I hope that when people come see Wicked,
12:32they get this giant cinematic experience.
12:34Something when I used to watch movies as a kid
12:36that I felt.
12:37Something at the level of Cleopatra and Ben-Hur
12:40where things are physical and real,
12:41and we have big musical numbers.
12:42But at the end of the day, that it's intimate,
12:44that you fall in love with these girls.
12:45Because in the end of the day, it is about these girls,
12:47stupid is what we always said on the day.
12:49And that you fall in love with this relationship,
12:52and you get encouraged that hard things aren't a bad thing.
12:56That we're all good, we're all wicked,
12:58and we all have to forgive each other
12:59and give each other grace.
13:00But the only way out is through.
13:02I think that's a theme of our time,
13:04and a moment that I think that this movie shows.
13:07John asked me very early on in prep
13:09what my goal was for the movie.
13:10And I said that it would be the greatest,
13:12most beautiful love story between these two best friends.
13:15And you watch the movie,
13:17and the two women just fill the space with joy,
13:21and love, and laughter, and emotion, and friendship.
13:24And I am so excited for people to get to see this.
13:28♪ It's just life ♪
13:31♪ So keep dancing through it ♪