"Everything Everywhere All At Once" was a surprise hit.
The film had an extremely low budget
and yet managed to depict an expansive multiverse
filled with complex visuals
"- Pay attention."
How did the directing duo 'The Daniels' and their team
stretch their dollars and their creativity
to make the sci-fi insanity that is 'Everything Everywhere All At Once'?
This is 'How They Shot It?'
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As we run through the film, we'll be using StudioBinder shot list feature
to populate the shot specs.
Writer directors Daniel Kwan and Danie Scheinert
known simply as 'Daniels'
began their career doing off-the-wall music videos.
And a truly original debut feature 'Swiss Army Man.'
In doing so they learned how to make the most out of a budget
and utilize these low-budget tricks for 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'.
Let's look at how they pulled it off.
Starting with a highly strategic way they used locations and sets.
The script includes a multitude of locations.
The goal then was to find one place to shoot
that could be used for multiple locations.
"- We knew we had to find one location for this film.
That was the only way it was going to get made
because it's there's too much going on for us to even
consider moving production to a different location."
- And so they used an empty office building complex for multiple sets.
All of the IRs scenes were shot here
along with the interiors for the Wong family apartment.
And the alphaverse motorhome.
They were also able to utilize the entire
facility for various aspects of the production.
In essence, the production was able to create their own makeshift studio
allowing them to shoot five out of seven weeks without a company move.
When shooting on location, however,
'The Daniels' also had to be extremely efficient.
For example, using a single alley in Downtown L.A.
Standing in as Hong Kong to capture a number of shots
from various moments in the script.
"-If we're gonna go to an alleyway that's in Hong Kong
how many vignettes can we get there?
Rewrote to be like okay while we're there we'll get her running as a kid.
Her running as a kid and poking her eyes out.
Will get Waymond and Evelyn leaving then her deciding not to leave.
Then her in the taxi and then her not in the taxi.
And like that was all within like about 20 feet of each other.
So we were able to be like oh we're gonna use this in six different places
but we're gonna shoot it in like an hour and a half."
- This economical approach allowed them to shoot everything they needed quickly
while keeping costs low.
"- You know this only cost like 300 dollars this conversation."
- The next step was a monumental task visualizing the multiverse.
A crucial element that makes 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' feels so huge
is its multiple universes which are all designed to have a distinct feel.
To do this 'The Daniels' relied on a diverse approach to the film's cinematography.
Including lens choice,
aspect ratios,
and color palettes.
Cinematographer Larkin Seiple
had clear film references for how color
separates each layer of the multiverse.
"- For the universes we wanted them to be like pretty darn different
so we'd make big swings of color.
So that when you jump between different universes
you could hopefully tell where you were."
- According to a Seiple the Rakakuni Universe
emulates the colors of Paul Thomas Anderson.
"- Oh, my god, Chad. I told you she couldn't be trusted."
- The hot dog fingers universe was inspired by 'Carol'.
And the movie star sequence used green as a nod to Wong Kar-Wai "In the Mood for Love".
Beyond color, the camera and lenses used also played a role.
Seiple shot on an Alexa Mini.
And primarily used Zeiss Super Speeds lenses for the normal verse.
For action scenes, however, he shifted over to Hawk Anamorphics.
The hot dog hand scenes utilized Baltar lenses.
The Wong Kar-Wai scenes were shot with Canon K35s.
And the ode to Kubrick's "2001" used Todd-AO vintage lenses.
Another way they mark these jumps through time and space
is by changing aspect ratios.
An early shift happens here when Evelyn's normal world
which is presented as 1.85 : 1
suddenly shifts into an action film and a wider 2.39 : 1 frame.
"- All the flashbacks are actually 4:3 in the film.
We wanted every time you saw a flashback to know that.
If it's 4 : 3 it means it's happened in the past.
Or it's different. Something's different than that.
It should feel kind of more vintage in a way."
- Thus 'The Daniels' were able to create a wide variety of universes
by simply adhering to different visual languages.
And even though the imagery is full of spectacle
the team actually relied heavily on a number of practical effects.
From the beginning 'The Daniels' understood that they had their work cut out for them.
The script called for a plethora of diverse visual effects.
And they couldn't afford to have it all done as CGI.
This meant using a lot of practicals
including a talking raccoon.
And those wonderful hot dog hands.
But 'The Daniels' didn't see their reliance on practicals as a handicap.
"- There's something about things like that being 100 practical
that just makes shooting it so fun
and makes it so much easier because you the
actors know exactly what they're reacting to."
- The preference for doing it for real carried over to the fight scenes.
Whenever possible, 'The Daniels' had their actors perform all of their own stunts.
Even during the complex martial arts scenes.
To choreograph the action the daniels brought in YouTubers "The Marshall Club"
who trained the actors through fights that were both exciting and amusing.
They also relied on wireworm.
Another mainstay in Hong Kong martial arts films.
Using wires allowed 'The Daniels' to create epic movements
with minimal post-production work to simply remove the wires.
These tricks allowed 'The Daniels' to wow the audience without bloating their budget.
Sometimes however they needed a little help from post-production
and with their limited budget, they relied on DIY VFX.
"Everything Everywhere All at Once" has hundreds of VFX shots.
But to keep their budget low and to retain creative control,
they decided to hire a small group of filmmaker friends to handle the job.
Their team consisted of just seven people.
A group that learned VFX through YouTube
and had been enhancing their skills over the past decade.
Together this skeleton crew handled the bulk of over 500 VFX shots.
According to VFX Supervisor Zack Stoltz,
the aesthetic was more akin to effects
that could have been done in the 80s.
As 'The Daniels' put it 'Less Marvel. More Ghostbusters.'
One such low-tech effect can be seen in this shot.
Everything above the first floor of the IRS building is a matte painting.
What normally would have been done expensively as a 3D asset
was done cheaply as a 2D Matte in Photoshop.
The most involved effect shot was the bagel as Stolz explains.
'The everything bagel was a pre-rendered element
that got composited into the shot with a bunch of 2D effects
layered over the top of it.
The main bagel we used throughout the film was just one element
we reused over and over and over again.
We just messed with it in a bunch of ways to make it feel different.
'The Daniels' themselves were very involved in the digital effects process.
Daniel Kwan shot the background footage
for when Evelyn gets sucked through a portal.
"- I actually got just like a little camera.
Like a little pocket camera that shoots 4K.
And it's like everywhere I went I would just kind of walk around and just film
streets like this this shot of New York was just me going through New York.
The camera had like shutter angle and shutter speed setting
so I just made it super blurry."
The team then displayed that footage on led panels
so that the lighting of Michelle Yeoh's face matched.
The result is a captivating moment
that looks just as good as anything that cost 10 times as much.
By maximizing their sets and locations and doing things practically
using a variety of cinematography techniques
and only using CGI when absolutely necessary
'The Daniels' were able to create a beautiful-looking sci-fi film on a budget.
What scene or film should we cover next?
Let us know in the comments.
"- Great. - There's another great."
In the description, you'll find a link to the StudioBinder blog
where we break down an early draft of the script
that would have starred Jackie Chan.
Subscribe to our channel for more filmmaking analysis.
We'll see you around the multiverse.