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"My name is Max.My world is fire and blood."
Action is arguably the defining characteristic of cinema, the one thing no other medium of
art can replicate.
Even throughout the Silent Film Era, with innovators like Charlie Chaplin and Buster
Keaton, action was the tool for storytelling that was completely unique to film.
"Cinema, the Silent Era I'm talking- you were able to do things that you could see nowhere
else.
It wasn't a recording device, it was actually creating a language.
Most of this new language, we call film language, it's only about 120 years old, it's an acquired
language and it's always evolving and most of it was defined pre-sound."
Before there was dialogue or sound effects, the strength of a film rested entirely on
the strength of its visual action.
Its ability to convey meaning with a moving image, and to create an effective illusion
through use of forced perspective, matte paintings, or through editing tricks.
Often depicting seemingly death-defying stunts that captivated audiences all over the world.
The same is true of today, where action is one of the key ingredients for a successful
blockbuster.
Every major movie franchise boasts a healthy amount of action, and regardless of genre
or target audience action seems to be the one component to a film that offers something
for everyone, across all ages and cultures.
But somehow, even with action appearing virtually everywhere, Mad Max: Fury Road managed to
stand taller than any of its counterparts by a mile.
Most films start with a script, but George Miller decided from the very beginning that
this film needed to work visually before anything else.
"So one of my notions was, if I make the action sequences as a silent movie and it reads a
silent movie, then it can only get better with sound."
"I definitely had the Hitchcock dictum in my head.
He said 'I try to make movies where they don't have to read the subtitles in Japan.'"
The film was conceived as one long chase sequence, told through very little dialogue or exposition.
So Miller, in collaboration with Brendan McCarthy opted out of a traditional script and instead
drafted storyboards for the entire film, that ended up totallying over 3,500 separate images
representing a comprehensive shotlist for every planned sequence to be filmed.
Using what he had learned on Happy Feet, a 3D animated film that allowed for complete
freedom of camera movement, he took that same sense of freedom into Mad Max; where advancements
in filmmaking techonolgy or special effects would allow him to do things he never could
imagine doing back in the 1970's.
But just like with the original trilogy, the entire design behind the film is grounded
in reality by establishing a clear set of storytelling rules.
"The kind of rules were that everything was basically found objects repurposed.
So if you notice that the mask that Max wears is made from a garden fork.
The vehicles had to be vehicles which didn't have the most modern technology with microprocessors
and [?] technology and so on, so everything had to work from that logic.
Found objects repurposed and that also applied to costume, and language.
And the other thing we said was just because it's the Wasteland, it doesn't mean that people
can't make beautiful things.
So all of that sort of unified the film to some degree, we were quite rigorous about
those sorts of things.
Everything came out of story, and that would lead to the stunt.
The guys on the poles, you know it's like pirates have to board a well defended War
Rig.
You can't approach it from the ground so let's see if they can approach it from above."
Even in what's essentially a non-stop action film, storytelling comes before anything else.
Every moment of action comes from the choices of its characters in extreme circumstances,
those trying to survive, or those trying to die historic on the Fury Road.
"Witnessed!"
Its mythology is so effectively established, its imagery so immediately evocative that
we instantly understand what these characters are after, and why.
"Everyone in this story is one way or the other a commodity.
Max is a blood bag, the girls are breeders, the war boys are cannon fodder, and everyone
has brand on them.
So you didn't have to get too much exposition, you knew that people were just running away.
With this foundation of storytelling in place, they designed every piece of clothing, every
weapon and every vehicle to fit in the Wasteland.
Within the world of Mad Max, cars have essentially become religous artifacts, and as such every
component of every vehicle is designed to fit the specific character, from the hundreds
of unique steering wheels to the intricate detailing of the War Lords moving thrones.
Every single vehicle was fully-customized, and fully functional.
Because Miller never intended to make a "green screen" movie, he wanted everything to be
done practically if it could, and that meant creating over a hundred unique vehicles that
could drive at full speed across the desert.
With everything rooted in logic and physics, even when the action feels larger-than-life
it never feels impossible.
Everything we're seeing could theoretically happen within the fictional universe that
Miller created and I think that believability is crucial to its success.
But its believability is earned.
Over 80% of the stunts and effects seen on screen were practical in-camera effects.
Including the Doof Wagon, completely with fully functional flame throwing guitar, or
the Blood Bag sequence, and even the infamous Pole-cat scene was done on location, in camera.
With stunt performers being filmed while swinging on a giant pendulum on a moving vehicle.
Nearly everything you see in the finished film was done for real, every chase, every
crash, every explosion.
And it's impossible not to feel the sheer visceral energy pumping throughout as a result.
But while the film uses practical effects whenever possible and is better for it, it's
a film that could not and would not exist without extensive use of CGI, and Miller uses
it subtle ways throughout most of the film.
Usually to erase stunt-rigging, or tire tracks from multiple takes filmed in the same location,
there's some digital face replacing to better hide stunt doubles, and most frequently to
composite different shots together when it would be too dangerous to do it any other
way.
"Our principle was, let's do it old school and then augment it should we need to with
digital."
"I'm kind of averse to 100% CG shots if it can be avoided, I always love to have some
practical live-action element in there to ground the shot.
Even if you end up virtually replacing everything, it still inherets something from the original
live-action that is a valuable thing."
All in all, I think Fury Road is one of the great examples to study for understanding
when and how to use CGI vs when to use practical effects.
It's a tool like anything else, and when used properly can elevate a film beyond what would
ever be possible with practical effects alone, but I think Fury Road makes the utlimate case
for why filmmakers should resist using too much CGI when it could be done practically
instead.
Because CGI is great for certain things, like removing something from a shot like wires
or dolly track, it's great for seamlessly combining shots together, but I doubt CGI
could ever pull of a shot like this as convincingly as Miller did with practical effects.
All films are asking us to suspend our disbelief and to go on a journey, but there's a limit
to what feels plausible and all too often when overusing CGI or using it in the wrong
ways, it starts to feel less like human beings in life threatening situations and more like
action figures being thrown around with no real stakes.
There's a limit to what CG can believably accomplish, and what human beings can believably
do, even superheroes; and when the scope of action in movies continually gets stretched
further and further past the point of believability, it loses all sense of tension.
And granted, these can still be fun movies to watch but they lack the same visceral gut
punch that I believe all great action movies should have.
With the acclaim rightfully directed at films like Mad Max: Fury Road, Mission Impossible:
Fallout, or Dunkirk, it seems that most people feel the same way.
There's a yearning for larger than life action spectacle that gives us a reason to see something
on the big screen, and both critics and audiences alike seem to appreciate the films that strike
the right balance between practical and digital effects and I hope with the success of these
films, that more filmmakers will take on that challenge.
Because there's no doubt that it's harder, Fury Road required seven months of shooting
in the Namibian desert, with so much dust they had to use leaf blowers and special fit
pipes to keep it all from obscuring the lens.
Working in harsh conditions doing incredibly dangerous stunts where there was constant
risk of equipment getting destroyed or worse, severe injury to the stunt teams.
Directing a film of this magnitude is like going to war.
"I was talking to Peter Weir, who's a wonderful Australian director and I just said 'ah, it's
so difficult.
It was like walking a really big dog, I wanted to go that way-the dog dragged me this way.
And he said 'But George, all movies are like that.'
He said 'you've got to go into a movie as if you're on patrol in the jungle with a platoon.
You don't know where the snipers are, you don't know where the landmines are, and they're
gonna come but you've to complete the job.'
You try to bring it all together, into that camera and capture it all, all the ingredients
together in that moment, but there's a certain flexibility or flow that you have to have
and be alert to those things."
But I think that hardship, that element of danger is felt in the finished film, and it
pays off.
Mad Max: Fury Road is action filmmaking at its absolute finest, and raises the bar for
what blockbuster cinema can be.
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