hi I'm Todd Phillips director of Joker
and today we're going to do a couple
scene breakdown from the opening of the
movie the main job of a director even
all this stuff we talked about cameras
in depth of field and sets and wardrobe
I think really what a director is is a
purveyor of tone and I think the thing
I'm most proud about this film is that
unsettling tone that sort of slow
ramp-up into insanity so I always obsess
over the opening shots of movies my
movies the movies I watch I think it's
um it's a great way it's a great
storytelling device the very opening of
a film we have the benefit in this scene
of the local news playing underneath it
and we meet Arthur there alone at the
mirror as he's putting on his makeup so
this scene was shot pretty early in our
schedule and it's a practical location
meaning it's not a build we're in a real
second floor of storage facility up in
Harlem on the far west side of Manhattan
there's a beautiful space with this very
sparse view of the underside of the West
Side Highway this sort of structure that
holds up the West Side Highway these
things were seeing out the window there
and we thought it was a great place for
haha' which represents the agency that
kind of rents out clowns and strippers
and magicians and it's where Arthur
works and we find him at the beginning
of the film everything in the movie is
meant to be unsettling so anytime we
kind of moved the camera intentionally
like this it was always to give off this
kind of unsettling vibe of this guy
who's pretty much separated from
everybody else even in this locker room
space you hear the voices of four or
five guys over here playing
and talking about whatever and Arthur's
here alone kind of not part of the group
figuring out how to keep a smile on his
face
you know one of the themes in the film
is smile and the the idea of putting on
a happy face his mother told him that he
was born to bring joy and laughter into
the world and is something that Arthur
wrestles with throughout the movie so in
this scene we find him as he's literally
pulling up his mouth and putting down
his mouth sort of fighting the comedy
tragedy that is his life
I was really important to me and
Lauren's share my cinematographer that
the movie had a handmade feel we wanted
it to feel we thought that would lend
itself to the intimacy that we're trying
to get with this character study of
Arthur so you'll see in this scene you
can feel there's an operator there and
that's all really intentionally we also
love these kind of extreme close-ups
that by the way right there that tear
that just happened and one-take walking
is a really interesting process he it's
not as a lot of people always assume
walking would be a method actor and that
people use that term loosely but where
he's lost in the part the beautiful
thing about Joaquin is we we were
shooting this movie and we spent half
the time just laughing off set having a
good time but he's so amazing that he's
able to then sit down action gets called
and we do this slow push in and if I
think I remember it right in this
particular scene I was playing the score
for him in the room because we had
Hildur good and Natur who was our
composer I had her write music before we
shot the movie which isn't done very
often and um she wrote it based on the
screenplay and I wanted that because I
wanted the music to really affect and
infect the set in a way really kind of
even the camera operators the set
dressers the Wardrobe everybody to feel
this music and if I remember correctly
we were playing her score when we were
shooting this and
all of a sudden as Joaquin is struggling
with Arthur's smile and his frown and
figuring out again if his life is a
comedy or a tragedy this little tear
appears and we just had the scene and we
moved on we called this set Gotham
Square and this is sort of our version
of Times Square the busy kind of market
of Gotham in 1981 and this is
interesting because we shot this in
Newark New Jersey and here's
Arthur down there this little clown in
this big imposing world I would say
pretty much everything from here back
here is CG world building the only real
stuff is what you see here in the
foreground we put up you know things
like that you know we built this theater
changed into a porn theater of this time
practically we did all that but yeah all
this deep background stuff even those
cars and the buildings that's all put in
later and post I always think this shot
is particularly beautiful and helps in
just setting the stage of Arthur's world
[Music]
and this is really where Arthur is at
home he's got a mask on he's pretending
to be somebody else and he gets lost in
his work it's also where we learned that
Arthur has music in him something I
conveyed to Joaquin was that Arthur is a
guy that has music in his soul and that
will continue when he transforms into
Joker and this is one of the visual
representations of him having that music
walking probably practiced with this
sign
for about two or three days it was more
complicated than it looks and then the
other complicated thing is running in
these giant clown shoes like every movie
you know we spoke a lot about every
element of the movie and Marc Bridges is
a fantastic costume designer designed
all the Wardrobe in the movie and we
spoke about this particular outfit for
Arthur a lot and also these shoes and
how big can these shoes be for him to
run through the streets of Gotham and
how big can this sign be for him to
actually pull off being able to do this
like one of those sign guys you see on
the street and his costume is inspired a
little bit by Charlie Chaplin there's a
grace to Arthur that if he would just
let go and take off the mask he could he
would find and that's kind of what
happens when he becomes Joker ironically
it's Arthur taking off the mask even
though he's putting on white white face
paint and a dyeing his hair green
one of the complicated things about
doing a period film is actually all
these picture cars all these cars have
to be of the time we've a said to take
over this whole street in Newark
so this is what I mean this is a big
shot actually with a ton of real
practical picture cars and it goes
pretty deep and again I would say
probably all that is CG back there it's
world-building a lot of our visual
references were movies that were late
70s early 80s films Larry and I really
chose to shoot a ton of this really long
lens so you have that real shallow depth
of field that you see in some of those
old school movies so some of this shot
is a perfect example of how blurry
everything is back here in the
background and really the only focus is
one two three four with the guys you
really want and focus everything else is
kind of blurry and that's one of those
things that those old films they used to
basically steal shots on live streets
right French Connection you know their
cameras over here and they're just
following a car and in real time and we
tried to give it that look and that
gives it a visceral feel working is a
great stunt double named Steve is he we
call him Izzy and is he did Olive
Joaquin's kind of near misses and things
like that like the scope of this shot
again this is all live done by Marc
Freiburg except weirdly because I'm
obsessive I didn't like the blank space
so this buildings back here that's all
put in because I wanted it to feel
really oppressive and Gotham is always
over Arthur and we just didn't love any
kind of blank spaces in the skyline so
to speak
I remember when I was making a movie
called Starsky and Hutch with Ben
Stiller I wanted Ben running in this
opening thing I forget what it was and
that and then kept saying why is he
running so much weight and I said I feel
like you never really know somebody
until you see them run I think there's
something about Arthur running in the
opening that really the way Joaquin runs
because 99% of this running is Arthur
the only thing really that is he did
there was that slip and it's funny
because when we tried takes with Izzi
running it just never worked because he
just didn't have Arthur's run while Kane
is so specific in the way Arthur's run
looked I thought it was really um
something so the slide which is tough to
do and impossible for what kinda pulled
off is he came in and did but everything
else is really walking this shot is very
particular because Larry and I felt
early on and we don't do this a lot in
the movie we wanted the frame to feel
out of a graphic novel and we don't do
this framing a ton but this felt like a
frame of any kind of graphic novel you
know you would read and it's it's not a
normal necessarily movie angle to me it
feels very graphic novel that was an
important shot for us to get
[Music]
so this is one of my favorite shots in
the whole movie and it obviously depicts
his loneliness and his pain but really
the important part of this shot so first
he's trying to reach for the sign like
maybe I could still fix this many rolls
over and he pushes that little button
and the water comes out of the flower
because what we're saying there with the
water coming out of the flower flower is
he's still Joker he's still there to
make people laugh he's still seeing
comedy in this moment of pain
we shut these titles on film and then
filmed them out and put them back onto
the digital negative you see this little
bleed you get on the edges of the
letters and though you see the grain and
the letters as the film moves you see
the grain because again we wanted this
movie to feel like it could have come
out in the summer of 1979 so little
details like that like going back and
shooting it on an animation stand the
way they shot film titles in the old
days was really important to us and all
the titles were filmed out that way
Joaquin's performance is so nuanced so
as he shifts from Arthur to Joker it's
not like our Ken walking into a phone
booth and it comes out a Superman this
is something that happens over two hours
and when Yuri watched the film I think
you really get an appreciation for the
work that Joaquim did to slowly turn
that dial up the whole movie and I just
tried to match it with our directing
style so Joker is that sort of wild
stallion running without a rider that
makes sense