Film Courage: How do you direct a great scene?
What are you looking for?
What has to happen?
Frank Coraci, Writer/Director: How do I direct a great scene?
That’s not a fair question [laughs].
You’ve got to direct a scene as best you can and then sometimes there are moments where
you’re like wow this could be the best scene in the movie.
You just try to service the story the best you can.
So some movies I feel like you want the hand of the director to push it around and push
the camera and move the camera and other movies like a romantic comedy like THE WEDDING SINGER
I wanted to just step back and not feel the director’s hand so on that movie I used
colors to tell the story.
Adam goes from when he’s happy to blue.
When he gets his heart broken he camera dollies and you see red brick behind him from that
point on he is in all maroons and reds and his heart is broken.
At one point he goes to a red wedding this Italian/silver/black garish and he has the
Love Stinks scene and he freaks out and he still has the broken heart of this ex and
starting to see Julia’s happiness again.
At the Bar mitzvah he still has the red jacket, they bond over the little girl and he takes
off the red jacket because he finally looses the other girl (the broken heart).
So that was done in a way where you didn’t feel the director doing it but subconsciously
it’s there.
Other movies I like flying the camera around, different angles and you just try to service
every scene the best you can.
In HOT AIR the indie I just did I had broken the fourth wall and part of the goal of the
movie was to not pick sides and then at some point, we’re not picking right being wrong
or left being wrong but I wanted everyone in the audience to feel guilty for where we
are at and there’s a speech toward the end of the movie where Steve has almost that NETWORK
moment where he breaks down and snaps on everyone and the writer I said make sure we hit everyone
and Facebook and Instagram and phones and he writes this brilliant speech and when I
shot it it was just sort of happening and this is going to be great and jump cuts and
I’m like we’ve got to break to the fourth wall and the very end of the movie Steve [Coogan]
looks down the lens and says “The American Dream is dead and buried and you’re dancing
on its grave.”
And this was one of my…I’ve never broke the fourth wall and I waited for the right
moment and it’s like you just try to direct every scene the best you can and then it just
sort of happens sometimes where you feel like that was pretty darn good!
Film Courage: Do you storyboard?
Frank: I shot listed and then if there are visual effects or it gets complicated I storyboard.
It’s time constraints but I literally shotlist and my goal is literally you shotlist the
movie in order because you read it and you shotlist it because you read it and shotlist
it so you can evolve lens and do stuff.
Whenever I hear the director shows up that day and decides what lenses unless you’re
shooting in order you’re not telling a real story.
To me a movie is a vision from beginning to end so I will in the beginning let’s start
on wide lenses so it’s close and intimate but in the end…things like that you need
to progressively do so you need to plan it ahead of time so you know you shoot day 31
- we are on the tight lenses, we’re not on the wide or the color or the shirt should
be red not…so you have to plan all of that stuff out in order.
That’s just discipline and sometimes I think only 10 percent of the directors really do
the job like that and I think it shows.
People that are great are great for a reason.
It takes work.
The color thing came into play…my first movie MURDERED INNOCENCE I literally had like
this guy had to be this guy and that guy, the guy was just like a construction guy so
I didn’t have like a like a designer.
We were just using locations and I had seen BILLY MADISON with Sandler and was like “Man,
the production design is amazing!”
And I’m like “I want that guy.”
And Perry Blake who has done almost all of my movies because I was like that guy is great
we hit it off because the first movie we did was WEDDING CRASHERS and I’m like “I want
to tell a story with colors not camera movements.”
So on every movie it’s all about like in CLICK - he talked me into doing the movie
- he’s like “You get to create the future.”
And I’m like “Oh, yeah…wait the story is great.”
One part of the future everything is angular and next because we have a bunch of time jumps
the later part everything is rounding.
Even in just like storytelling color is in HERE COMES THE BOOM with Kevin James he starts
as a horrible person who is just selfish, it’s the winter and we made the color - we
pulled all the saturation and made it look really cool.
It felt like THE FIGHTER and then as he blossoms as a human being and then as a teacher and
starts teaching his kids and we get more and more colorful and I start adding color, adding
color to the set and then we actually did it so the seasons change too.
We timed the movie out so we’re shooting an outdoor scene when the trees were blossoming
and then it ends in Vegas which was like full spectacle.
So if you see reel one, it looks like THE FIGHTER and you see the last reel you’re
like how are those the same movie but if you progressively change your movie as you go
it will just happen without you being jarred but yeah I love using color to tell a story
but that was from getting a production designer and wardrobe too you start to realize in THE
WEDDING SINGER everybody is like color coded (the same thing in The Ridiculous 6 each town
had a color palette.
It really gets tricky when there gets to be hundreds of extras you really need a good
costume designer and you need a DP, costume designer and producer designer all on the
same page.
That’s the thing that I love about doing bigger budget movies you have just more control
over everything and it’s funny after I did the indie I had the best time because I had
no one telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.
It was literally my final cut and then I was like man I’m really itching to do a big
movie again and I’m back now.
My next movie is going to be THE LEGEND OF SINBAD but then I’m like but with that comes
all the politics too so it’s always a give and take.
Film Courage: And the 1980’s was so colorful.
Even thinking back to [the TV show] DESIGNING WOMEN and they all had the great outfits and
shoulder pads and it was so colorful.
Frank: And you know what is was for me - the color palette in that movie - I think in the
eighties I think felt manmade (it was like the 1950’s too).
I was like no 1970’s colors - no browns, no green.
Everything was like fuchsia and purple and electric blue because that’s my image of
the 1980’s.
All the sudden we’re making everything and everybody’s haircuts were cut.
People didn’t have beards.
If they did it would be more trimmed.
Film Courage: There were colored stonewashed jeans.
I had purple and turquoise.
Frank: Everything felt like people did stuff to everything.
It didn’t just grow out of the ground.
Question for the viewers: What are the big lessons you learned from this video?