- It's about so many layers to make everything work
and make it feel like it's this gigantic production.
It's very fun.
(upbeat music)
Hi, my name is Robert Rodriguez,
the director of "We Can Be Heroes"
and the story is about a group
of superkids with super powers,
where the kids have to break out of the safe-house bunker
that they're in to protect them and keep them safe
because they know aliens are coming.
- Oof! Then we're definitely getting out of here.
And so we're gonna need your access cards, like now.
- I do a lot of my own visual effects, supervising,
coming up with how the effects gonna be done.
I'm also the editor.
I'm also the cinematographer.
You have to kind of do all those different jobs
in order to have everything come together
and work to where you don't break the illusion
and you make it feel believable
that the characters are doing everything.
- Climb as fast as you can.
(upbeat music continues)
(lively music)
- I needed a tall building.
So that bottom area was actually at my studios in Austin.
And then this was in city hall
because it has this great tall ceiling
that could go all the way up for them to float.
There they're on wires.
And now we can only take them as high
as the first three people you see floating here.
So those top two people you saw floating,
that's just a repeat of the first two.
And I just put them up
and changed their hair color digitally.
Now, for this part here with the kids climb,
I have a safety wire to help lift them up.
For a wide shot like this,
this was shot against the green screen,
and I only filmed three kids at a time.
I shot them separately and added them in.
The bottom few kids that you see, that was a different pass.
They just climb up a couple of steps
and I put it all together.
Kids love filming this.
They love doing action, but when they see the effect,
they are totally on the same page and realize, "Oh wow."
I know that it gives them a tremendous confidence
and they go at it with a lot of gusto.
- Why don't you get back in line.
(girl grunts)
(man exhales loudly)
- Oh no!
(girl grunts)
(man thumps)
- She's got shark strength!
(kick thumps)
(man grunts)
(upbeat music)
I do it in pieces so all she has to do is flip that guy
and put up her fists and then I cut.
I don't make them go through the whole choreography.
That's where you can misstep or slip or trip.
And I'll make it in slow motion to make it look
like you have just tremendous shark power.
And then we put the stunt guy on a wire and pull him
all the way towards that basket.
He doesn't have to land in the basket
'cause I know I can cut, move the camera closer,
and then just have him jump into it and sit down.
(arm whip cracks)
(arm whip swooshes)
When Noodles whips his arm around the guard,
it's all about just physical acting.
So I just worked with him on pretending his arm is long
and extending it a certain way,
so that when I add the extension,
it really looks like he's really whipping it.
And then when we extend it with visual effects,
it looks like he really wrapped his arm around the guy.
- Noodles, stretch, make yourself tall.
(arm creaking)
- Greetings fellow grownups.
- I had this idea that he's gonna grow tall.
So all he's doing is right there,
when he pushes his hand through the jacket,
he's literally just, we have an oversized jacket
and he's just pushing his hand through it.
In editing if I just show
the hand coming through the sleeve,
it makes you feel, with sound effects,
like his arm is growing longer, but it's not.
And then for this,
we had an inflatable balloon in his chest
to kind of stretch out his chest.
He had his jacket up over his head
and then he just straightens his body up
and we pull the jacket down.
Gonna make it look like he's growing
and he's not really growing.
Simple $2 trick.
And then in post we visually effects,
make his face look like it's filling out.
As if he's turned into an adult.
And then I take his real voice and with sound
I pitch his voice down really low
as if his voice has gotten deeper.
When I edit, I always put sound effects in
to see how the sound effect is actually telling you
more than you're seeing.
You're actually hearing something
that you're not really seeing.
(glass shattering)
(arm stretching)
(upbeat music)
(airborne bus swishes)
You tell the actor,
get them in on it so they can do the right physicality
to match otherwise that's where you
run into problems later when you don't have the right action
to really sell it.
Lot of times I would show them the drawings
that showed what action they would have to make
and what the effect was gonna be later.
So I said, "Just look at your fists.
If you just look at your fist
it's gonna create a knot around your arm.
You don't have to try and imagine where that is.
If you just look at your fist
it's gonna look like you're looking at the knot for me.
And then you have to swing your arm back and throw it
out with a lot of power and stretch it completely out
because I'm gonna extend it.
And if you do that body language
that'll really help sell."
Then as soon as he steps out, he's now on green screen
we put wires on him to make him look
like he's hanging from his long arms
on a telephone pole and swinging his arms around.
And we put wind in his hair
to make it look like he's going really fast.
That's why I love making these kinds of films.
Movies is like a big magic trick.
It actually's just being really kind of clever.
It's very fun.
That's just why I love making these films
(arms humming)
(hands thump)
Thank you for watching.
And please check out "We Can Be Heroes" on Netflix.