♪ ♪
My name is Catherine Hardwicke.
I'm the director of "Twilight."
"Lords of Dogtown."
"- We're surfing, we skate every day."
"Thirteen."
And today we're going to break down
a big action sequence from "Twilight."
It's our first day of shooting.
We pick the most difficult set ever.
Not one shot is easy.
Welcome to Twilight.
And my challenge was to keep it very emotional...
...in the middle of all the action.
I was at the Sundance Film Festival
and somebody said
hey Katherine, we liked your movie "Thirteen."
Would you like to direct a movie for our company Summit?
And they handed me like a stack of five scripts.
In the next day, I thought what was that Twilight one?
I wonder maybe it's based on a book or something,
so I looked at the book, read the book
and I felt like there was something there.
"- I'm Edward Cullen. You're Bella?
- Yes."
"Twilight" is a story of a young girl
that moves to a different town,
a small town in Forks, Washington.
And falls in love with this kid
that's like the hottest kid in the school.
And turns out that he is a vampire.
"- I've never wanted a human's blood so much in my life."
And he also has to protect her
from other vampires out in the world.
"- For Twilight cast, the vampire flick
catapulted them to instant Superstar status."
There is no action sequence in the book
and I wanted to accept the challenge of having this intimacy,
yet give you something
stimulating and cinematic.
So at this point in the film,
we are in the height of conflict.
So a whole point was to create a beautiful action sequence
that is emotional and tied to the characters.
So this is where the preparation comes in handy.
Now, my shot list was actually about five or six pages
for this whole sequence,
but I'm only showing you one page right now.
And before I shoot any scenes for a film,
I always go and do a shooting diagram for every scene.
So let's take a look at the action sequence
in the ballet studio from "Twilight."
"- I can't bring myself to regret the decisions
that brought me face-to-face with death.
They also brought me to Edward."
You see Bella coming in.
She thinks that her mother is there.
"- Bella? Bella? Bella, where are you?
- Mom? - Bella?
- Mom? - There you are.
What are you doing in here?
- Everyone makes fun of me.
- Come on, you're a wonderful dancer.
- Mom, I suck."
This shot you can see
the bad vampire James reflected in three different mirrors in this shot.
And there's really great things about working with mirrors.
In one, of course, it's our own self-reflection
and you know thinking about ourselves contemplation,
but it's also... you can create a much more dynamic visual scene.
Maybe you can do something in one shot
that would've normally taken five shots.
"- That's my favorite part.
You were a stubborn child, weren't you?
- She's not even here."
This shot, it's kind of this epic, intimacy idea
where you have very close in the foreground.
You see Bella, you see James right there in the foreground.
But you also do see depth in the background
and you see how she's trapped in this space.
So you have it both in this cool frame.
"- Sorry.
You know, but you really made it too easy."
Bella has gotten knocked into this column.
"- Beautiful."
We use the dutch angles
because it was about conveying a sense of unsettled nature
where you are losing blood in a way.
You're disoriented.
The world is turning on its side.
The camera is trying to reflect the feeling of the character.
"- Beautiful. Very visually dynamic.
I chose my stage well.
It's cruel, really.
Tell Edward how much it hurts.
Tell him to avenge you.
Tell him. Tell him!"
Rob is now trying to say Bell's life.
So again, we're trying with the camera to be in close,
to really feel his emotions and what he feels
and what she feels by intimate moments.
And now it's all about the blood as we have close-up shots
where it gets him agitated,
but he's got to control himself enough to be able to save her.
We always try to think as a director.
How can the camera express what the characters feeling inside?
So Bella is feeling woozy, dizzy,
losing blood, losing consciousness.
And I chose to do it
where the camera is kind of tilty and woozy
and I tried to say to the cameraman,
you know, you are woozy, you are losing blood.
It's like method camera work.
"- Bella, Bella, it's okay.
Oh, God.
Carlisle? Her blood.
- Your brothers will take care of him.
- I got him. - Carlisle.
- Start the fire. Get the floorboards."
That was a challenge for me.
It's not really spelled out in the book.
How do you kill a vampire in our universe?
So we use the floorboards that we ripped up earlier...
...as the prop to build the fire.
So you're trying to build an organic action sequence
something that you had earlier on becomes a tool
for the destruction of the bad vampire later on.
"- I got him. - Carlisle.
- Start the fire. Get the floorboards.
We could try to suck the venom out.
- You know I won't be able to stop.
- Then find the will to stop.
But choose."
In this frame, we have an example of having layers of depth
because you have in the foreground.
Dr. Cullen, Edward, trying to save Bella's life
and the background
the other three vampire brothers and sister
are trying to distinguish the life of the bad vampire.
Composing it that way makes a richer story
instead of having to have a cutting pattern
where you're cutting from A, cutting to B.
"- Then find the will to stop.
But choose.
She only has minutes left.
- I'm gonna make it go away, Bella.
I'm gonna make it go away."
And in this case,
there was something happening on the soundtrack.
When our composer just feels that it need to go to one more level,
like one more instrument.
That one more instrument became Rob's voice.
♪ Robert Pattinson - Let Me Sign ♪
I don't think that you are aware
that it's him singing it
but you're aware on some deep subliminal level.
So it just adds another level
of kind of like resonance to the scene.
"- Edward, stop.
Her blood is clean. You're killing her.
Edward.
Stop.
Find the will."
And we transition through all her memories as she's dying.
Real-time, past, present, future.
♪ Robert Pattinson - Let Me Sign ♪
Now I'm going to talk about these shots that are in here.
I saw Rob and Kristen just lying on this grassy field.
I said to the camera,
just run over there and just shoot it,
grab the steadicam and just move around it.
But it's not a scene.
It might be later.
You never know.
How often as a director you going to have two actors
dressed, ready with a camera there?
So maybe do go steal it
and then later on in the editing room
with that magic of editing.
I need something.
I need something special for this transition
and you grab that moment and used it.
♪ Robert Pattinson - Let Me Sign ♪
"- Death is peaceful, easy.
Life is harder."
And then we find her back in the hospital room
that she survived this.
"- Bella?
Baby?
Bella."
So again, you know,
we're always just trying to think
how do we push the envelope?
How do we create new images
that we haven't seen?
And something that's compelling and emotional.
And how can you make that active and visual and cinematic?
Make sure that everything you're planning is connected to emotion
and try to be as creative as you can.
You'll analyze other action sequences.
Learn about their angles.
Analyze, how did they make that feel so dynamic
but what can I do a little bit different?
What is another way to convey this
that we haven't seen too many times on screen before.
And then prepare for it,
you know doing your shot list, do your diagrams.
You know, everything you can so that you're ready for that day
when you have just a few minutes to shoot it.
So that's how we shot the fight scene
at the ballet studio in "Twilight."
I hope you guys found something useful.
Little tool you can put in your toolbox
for when you're working on an action sequence.
And send us your comments
like what are your favorite action sequences
that really blend emotion and action in them.
See you guys.
Good luck, kick butt.