What's up? I'm Rel.
I'm Henry, this is power.
Project Power. This is our mood board. This is
how we came up with everything you see and feel and hear.
Nothing against any superhero movies,
but it was important to us to say,
"You know the Human Torch? Let's do it differently."
It came out of a place that was like,
"I don't get how that works."
Like at one point, we're talking about,
"How can somebody actually create like, an energetic explosion?"
As opposed to just,
energy force from the palms of my hand.
And we came across this video of two grapes exploding
in a microwave because they were
creating super hot plasma and we're like,
"What, that's possible in a
microwave in less than two minutes?"
And it was stuff like that where we were like,
"These are the references for our film."
We knew we were making our first big action movie,
sci-fi action movie, and so we watched, you know,
a lot of our favorites like The Professional,
which had a really great relationship
with a young, a younger girl and an older sort of assassin.
We watched Die Hard and Mad Max.
But the weirdest answer is that
it might be another Jamie Foxx movie.
If I had to pick one thing, and it's Collateral,
the Micheal Mann film with him and Tom Cruise.
That's the only movie that we
screened for the crew before shooting.
We liked the kind of graininess and
the way that you see the light pollution in the skies.
That was something we really tried to emulate.
We tried to make this look realer and still very
photographic and we were inspired by a kind of filmic look.
So we did a pass of live grain
which sort of mimics what film looks like.
I think that's where a couple of those
Micheal Mann movies come in, Miami Vice and Collateral.
And sometimes it's like making the wrong decisions
and letting Tom Poole, who's the colorist,
just kind of turn up a lot of bright colors
that a lot of movies would otherwise have subdued.
But we really were so inspired
by the city of New Orleans, and just tried to capture it.
Cause it's a place where you can drop yourself
anywhere in the city and turn around
and 360 degrees and take ten great pictures.
We tried to surround ourselves with photography
and we'd print up pictures while we were in prep
and put them all over the walls in your office,
our walls have like hundreds of images on them so when
people come into our office for a meeting we can say like,
"What are we talking about? Like that picture!"
And often those photos that we take become really
influential for some reason about the look of the movie
and often they're just like one or two photos that one of us
took becomes like, "The movie should look like this."
Our job is basically like, managing a group's imagination.
The more visual references we have, the better the chance
that the thing we shoot is what we're looking for.
We just kind of like, inundate everybody with imagery
and hopefully it's really concise
as to what we're trying to create.
And we share it with the actors too.
I think they really feel comfortable when they know what the
environment looks like and sounds like, send them music,
build a playlist for every actor.
Even had Joe Gordon-Levitt build his own playlist.
He made a "Frank playlist" of what
Frank listens to when he's in his car by himself.
We have a little Leroy Dallas, some Creedence,
Ike and Tina, The Meters, Pearl Jam,
Rage Against The Machine, Johnny Cash.
There's one song that was on a very early playlist
that is in the movie, and it's a Curtis Mayfield song.
♪ Add a little sugar, honeysuckle and ♪
♪ A great, big expression of happiness ♪
For me it's like,
"What do I listen to on my drive to set?"
And those are really important moments, when the two of us
hear something we're like, "That's the movie!"
And somehow that sound can translate to a performance or to
a lighting choice and the whole thing
becomes, like, way less overwhelming.
You know, when you try to be realistic about
super powers, it leads to a lot of nudity.
So the first thing we did was find a costume director
who was amazing, who made great looking movies with
Jamie already, and that's Sharen Davis.
It came from wanting to understand the characters
backstories and we talked with Sharen a lot about that,
like, "What would an undercover detective in New Orleans
wear on game day? He'd probably wear a jersey."
We both had a vision that Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
if he was so in love with New Orleans,
he should just wear a Saints jersey the whole time.
And we kind of asked around like,
to our local crew, and we were like,
"Would that feel appropriate and respectful?"
And everybody said, "Yes, that'd be awesome."
We reached out, we got permission
and got in touch with Steve Gleason and he ended up
visiting the set a couple times. That was
one of the most magical moments of making the movie.
Anything that can help you give the audience a window into
who this person is, you gotta take that opportunity.
I don't know if it worked. I don't know if we accomplished
it with every costume but you take all the help you can get.
I knew that I was visual and I knew that that's how I
express myself and I could never find one thing.
I was like, "This drawing needs music.
This comic strip needs voice-over".
And I just needed a summer job one time and I was
a bike messenger and my father called me and he was like,
"I will pay you double what you're making right now
if you make a documentary about this ballet company."
And I was like, "Did you say double? Say no more!"
And I was there the next day and I realized,
"Oh, making movies is the combination of all the things
I want. It's like every medium you can imagine in one."
You know what's funny is my dad also made a very big
gesture when I was in high school,
and he came into my room one day and he was like,
"What's something that would really just
change the game for you? What would really help you out?"
And I said, "Well, there's this new computer
that just came out, the G4 Mac."
And he was like, "I'm going to get you one."
I got one in high school and it was just,
like, the most extravagant gift I could possibly imagine.
And having that computer totally changed my life.
Having someone who really encourages you
and pushes you when you're younger is so helpful.
And that was our mood board!
Project Power, now on Netflix.