(gentle music)
- Run!
(dramatic music)
- Welcome to this edition of "What It Takes".
I'm Ritu Arya, aka Lila, aka the new character
in Season 2 of "The Umbrella Academy".
We haven't officially met. I'm Lila.
- It is so nice to meet you.
(punch thumps)
- [Ritu] Right now, we are going to show you what it takes
to create the mind-melting action and stunts
in this season of "Umbrella Academy".
(Luther grunts)
- In this episode, you really see the climax
of Season 2's action scenes and fight scenes.
(energy whooshes)
- I did a bunch of green-screen, which was a blast.
(energy hums)
Harnessed up and with Justin, who plays Harlan,
so we were facing each other.
(energy whooshes)
(Allison and Lila breathing heavily)
- I heard a rumor--
- You stopped breathing.
I try and do as many of the stunts as I can.
(Lila and Five grunt)
(Lila yells)
The stuntwomen are just incredible.
They're making Lila look really badass.
- We have a great stunt guy who goes for me.
His name is Jonny.
I'd have to do a lot of training to be able to do that.
(roof crashes)
- It's fairly action-heavy,
so there's lots of elements to this.
(glass shatters)
Fortunately, Simon, my lovely stuntman, was able to do,
because they don't let me do things like that.
(guns firing) (glass shatters)
- [Ritu] Some people hear the term "special FX"
and think all the crazy stuff you see on the screen
is made by a person sitting at a computer.
Well, let me set the record straight.
Special effects can also include mounting real explosives
all over set, and setting them off
for a glorious moment of destruction.
- We're very proud to have worked on this show,
and we did last season as well,
but this is my first year coordinating.
I got told when I first got into special effects
I belong in the kitchen, not in effects.
Well, here I am in the kitchen, doing effects.
We've loaded this set with approximately 400 squibs,
and all these parts are to tell the story
of the Commission arriving in the back forty
and shooting at the house.
(agents shouting) (guns firing)
Through here we've got the trunnions.
They're gonna fire through the breakaway
that we're gonna put in here.
We've set this up that the curtains will fall.
And then in this area,
we're just sending debris out through here.
So, he starts his shot here, he's looking out,
he's thinking, "Diego's doing an excellent job."
And then he goes, "Shit!" as the bullets come towards him.
He dives under the table
and then we just absolutely let loose.
I'm excited.
We've been working hard on this
with about 600 elements, which is a lot.
The sequence should last somewhere
between seven and 10 seconds.
There's gonna be a lot of fun.
Rolling! - Rolling!
- Cameras are rolling. Stand by.
Three, two, one, action!
(guns firing)
(glass shatters)
(people shouting)
(guns firing)
(glass shatters)
(dramatic music builds)
- And cut!
- Great job.
- We've been planning that sequence for three months.
Everything blew up great.
(fingers snap)
(energy whooshes)
- So, what do we do now?
We have a huge battle with thousands of other agents
that come in, and they try to destroy us.
- Action!
- [Ritu] No, sometimes it's just not possible
to shoot a scene with thousands of time-traveling assassins,
so you have to multiply your actors
to make sure the scene feels massive.
- The whole of the outside of this space will be full of
computer-generated agents who are attacking Sissy's ranch,
so it'll have a huge scale.
- And we don't have 10,000 agents,
so we have to take the 40 extras we have and replicate them.
So, we line them up in quadrants, we shoot 40,
move them to the right, shoot the next 40,
move them to the left and shoot the next 40.
And then we duplicate that in the (indistinct) programs,
and that carries our crowd out to 10,000 people.
(agents yelling)
(bullets zipping)
(Five yelps)
(Lila gasps)
- Firing, firing! Bullets!
Bullet, bullet, bullet!
- It's just running around in the snow,
being chased by bad guys.
They're all invisible.
- Definitely harder than running on a track
or a treadmill (laughs).
(guns firing)
(director shouting indistinctly on megaphone)
- I suppose the challenge is to try and bridge the gap
between not caring about a big green X on something
and caring ever so much about the fact
that there's lots of men who are gonna kill me
with lots of guns.
- But I think it'll be beautiful.
It's gonna be, cinematically, very interesting.
I'm excited. It's just freezing. (laughs)
(Luther pants) (bullets impact)
- [Allison] Get down!
(bullets zipping)
(Diego grunts)
(bullet zipping distorts)
(Diego pants)
- So, we have a scene here
where of Diego deflects some bullets
to protect Number Five from running to the house.
(Diego groans) (explosion booms)
And fire them off to create a massive fireball.
It was rather beautiful.
Wow, look at that. Look how amazing that is.
(suspenseful music)
- [Ritu] Okay. Massive spoiler alert.
In Episode 10, we have this big battle of energy forces
between Vanya and Lila.
That's me.
(energy whooshes)
(energy whooshing distorts)
- What the hell?
- How are they doing that?
- We're just kind of pretending
like we're looking at them floating in the sky,
and we're in shock and amaze and awe.
"I've never seen anyone do that before."
- I loved that stuff.
There was a lot of pullback from explosions,
so I was getting to do a lot of flying in the air,
which I really enjoy.
(energy booms) (dramatic music builds)
(energy whooshes)
(energy explosion booms)
(characters grunting)
(upbeat music)
- [Ritu] I think that about wraps things up.
You've see explosions,
Commission agents flying through the air,
and "The Umbrella Academy" actors having a laugh.
So, we really hope you enjoy watching this season
as much as we enjoyed making it.
Bye-bye.
- Guys, I got to go. It's my close-up, okay?
- Bye, guys.