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Hi, my name is Jay Roach.
I'm the director of the movie "Meet the Parents."
"- Are you a pothead, Focker? - No! "
"The Austin Powers" franchise.
"- Yeah, baby, yeah."
"Bombshell."
And today we're going to talk about the opening sequence
in "Austin Powers 3: Goldmember."
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This is a study in tone contrast.
And I thought it would be good idea to talk about this scene
because it's such a good exercise and pure preparation.
Because you don't want to be directing Steven Spielberg
and not know what you're doing.
"- Uh, my friend here thinks it's fine the way it is."
I had about eight hours to do the whole scene
and there are a lot of complicated elements
that went into it.
So let's go through it
and I can get at some of the specific choices.
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When you're shooting a scene that involves so many stunts
and visual effect component,
it's super important to have it all storyboarded down to a tee.
Every time Austin is seen in any sort of close shot,
this is a guy hanging in a green screen on a soundstage.
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The ambitious version of it actually was
that Austin was going to jump out of an airliner.
But we ended up just simplifying.
We found these incredible stunt parachute guys
who had done these videos
where they were running upside down in midair
and filming each other with helmet cams,
and we said, we just have to get those guys.
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This stunt actually was a really dangerous stunt
where this guy cut himself loose from this parachute
and drops into car.
That actually happened on that day.
We had to come up
with a way to have it seem remote controlled
but actually, be driven by a stunt guy.
In this case, this seat is the stunt guy.
He's basically a guy dressed as a seat.
In certain parts of the frame,
you might sneak up and see his hand touching the bottom
of the steering wheel because that's how he's driving.
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One of the other really important aspects of the design of this scene
was to exaggerate the action so much
that it seemed ridiculous.
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The idea of Austin Powers hitting an ejector seat,
which is an old-fashioned spy movie technique.
Launching up into the sky,
flipping over and shooting the helicopter down from above
while he's flipping through the air.
It's just seemed like a big exaggerated joke.
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This is a person on wires in a soundstage.
And again Dave Johnson put in the fire and the sky
and visual effects.
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"- Yeah, baby."
This reveal was a big deal.
People went crazy in the audience.
"- Hi, I'm Dixie. Dixie Normous."
An important part of the design of the sequence
was this idea of contrasting the sort of primitive fun
lower-budget style of Austin Powers
with a very high-tech big-budget feel.
I think we had been watching "Mission: Impossible"
probably why we thought about Tom Cruise to play Austin.
So we had to attract celebrities.
"- Hey, Powers.
You better watch your friggin self
because this is one doctor who does make house calls.
Right, Mini-Me?
- Hey, assholes.
I'm right over here. I'm Mini-Me. Come and get me."
Once we've gotten through this big-budget version of Austin Powers,
we wanted to shout "Cut."
"- And cut.
That's a cut, everybody.
Moving on. Check the gate, please."
And reveal that,
oh, that's what you would do if you were Steven Spielberg.
"- So, Austin, what'd you think of the opening credits?
- Well, l can't believe Sir Steven Spielberg
the grooviest filmmaker in the history of cinema
is making a movie about my life.
Very shagadelic, baby. Yeah.
Having said that, I do have some thoughts.
- Really?
Uh, my friend here thinks it's fine the way it is."
But Austin says, hold on a second
I kind of wish there was a little more mojo Austin style mojo.
"- Well, no offense, Sir Stevie
but you've got to have mojo, baby. Yeah.
Hit it."
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And then you see the contrast kick in
in the way Austin would go out.
Mike Myers version of Austin Powers.
And you get a sense of
this is what Austin Powers is all about.
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Which is just pure fun.
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Then we go through this whole longer journey
through the backlot in his own style.
And it's so much about color.
You could just do an essay about color in this sequence.
We did the homage to "Singing in the Rain."
There's also a nice homage within an homage.
There "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"
as part of what inspired the spinning colorful umbrellas.
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"- Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Quincy Jones.
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This is where the movie gets its mojo, baby."
We reveal, of course,
that the soul of our whole thing is "Soul Bossa Nova."
Quincy Jones song from 1962
which we didn't even know what the film was going to be in the first movie
until we found that song,
I said, this is Austin Powers.
Such a great opportunity to credit Quincy for his inspiration in the movie.
"- Quiet, everybody. Music video, take two.
- It's Britney Spears."
And then we have Austin face-off his style
versus the style of something else
that was going on in the backlog,
which is Britney Spears shooting a video for her song "Boys."
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This is a tone contrast.
The whole Britny world is all black and white.
It's almost no color.
There's a huge amount of pyrotechnics.
Of course, Austin gets to use dance and movement to destroy the fembot
that is Britney Spears.
In the case of the way the fembots heads explode,
it's such a primitive technique.
You just under crank the camera to two frames.
They move their heads around at normal speed,
but because it's under cranked it looks like they're just jerking around
and short-circuiting.
That, of course, their heads explode.
"- Oops, l did it again, baby. Yeah."
And so than the last big closer of the sequence
is pretty much have everything you could possibly get into the shot
including even floating peace signs
and man and woman symbols.
But Mike said,
you know, would it kill you to have a guy in the bottom of the frame
juggling kittens with sparks coming out of his ass.
If you pay close attention to the very end of that shot.
You'll see me juggling stuffed kittens with sparks actually coming out of my ass
and then my director's credit comes up right at the bottom.
So that's how we pulled off the introduction sequence to "Austin Powers 3."
I hope it was interesting to you
and I want to ask you
what are some of your favorite introduction sequences?
Tell us about it in the comments below.
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