[Music]
the plan from the beginning was to take
on the hardest and the largest action
scenes right off the back
the freeway got the most attention
because it was my father
[Music]
it's very rare that you get a mile and a
half of free and clear road that you can
just you know whip cars around
matrix which is controlled video image
if we want to exclude trees if we needed
to build freeway that you would give us
like a bomb we had an incredibly
talented stunt coordinator on this RA
rondell he was able to craft a very
complicated car chase and bike chase and
then he was able to work with the boys
to bring the visual effects elements
into it the whole freeway was pretty
much run by the stunt department to an
extent we came up with a realistic
pattern of fifty miles an hour on the
background traffic and anywhere from
sixty to seventy miles an hour on the
chase vehicle so they're always
overtaking the traffic it wasn't ships
on the freeway paddle everybody was
exactly placed in one distance or
another for a weaving pattern we tried
to make it feel a little bit different
what do you see on the freeway people
tailgating throw in an arbitrary truck a
bus it's a teamwork between the stunt
department the precision drivers and the
background players that are here they
all think I'm crazy but hey come from my
family probably would be
in the very beginning when we're still
first doing the concepts there's a
there's a written word there's a
storyboard there's a concept and then
you've gotten the previous we designed
something on the computer that was
amazing the brothers go into a
pre-visualization mode because they can
put the camera anywhere really we try to
figure out ways to come up with that
same sort of shot in the real world part
of the choice sequence
obviously can't pursue to come through
fight on follow the truck going down a
freeway at 60 miles an hour so we
decided to shoot it inside and simulate
the travel
a lot of times you can put a wd-40 down
on the tires and when you spin the tires
and kind of cause you don't nice white
smoke
spend a lot of time getting through a
lot of rounds with my machine gun and I
wasted a lot of people in the freeway
which is fantastic
during the freeway chase sequence with
the twins we went with an H&K UMP we put
a side rail on top of it here and then
we've taken an m203 grenade launcher and
put on to the front of the weapon runs
extremely well it's just it's a
fantastic that's like 700 rounds a
minute
got a flame that she's out of that fart
fun that's just amazing to use that
one of my favorite things that I did in
the film and I got in in one take which
was very exciting for me was my sliding
90 into camera
[Music]
if any holiday juicy list it's all about
break and handbrake and sliding and
hitting your mark and starting a turn at
the right foot point I had to take a car
where I had a camera and run up
alongside or 5060 miles there and
slammed into the side of her rub fenders
where they're down the freeway and stuff
she hung right in there that was pretty
awesome
her driving ability was phenomenal but I
wanted to basically think about acting
the way we decided to do it was
partially with Carrie and Trinity and
also get a Trinity night of October the
evidence a double trinity you know she's
a three-time national trials bike
champion and I've worked with her for
over 25 years in cars motorcycles
whatever she's by far the best there is
[Music]
why are you chasing Trinity I don't know
being able to pull off what we called is
at 3:00 was a big deal for me the the
roles that are a rondelle put together
for that smash-up those those beautiful
sort of cars going like this in the
background - cannon rolls in at -
dragging pipe ramps - t-bones in a
jackknifing truck on the same 250 feet
of the freeway all at 60 miles an hour
we had that rigged with a pneumatic
cannon hood crush fender blow bumper
flew out windows blew and then it
flipped over we also had Trinity's car
rigged with a hood crush and a
suspension drop because that agent will
obviously be a virtual one they had to
get that timing down as well as the nine
accidents happening behind it with seven
cameras
[Music]
it's really about what's happening in
the foreground and the destruction and
carnage that happens beyond it and
because it's in the background all the
height that the cars had to be big
what makes it better as it's real yeah
you can tell it's real too
does anyone think the machine on his
shoe is a tiny bit hot okay fine she
sees it out this was one of the shots
where they wanted to take bullet time
one step further so they need it was
gonna be a virtual sure I think from the
beginning these trucks are real up until
this point it's got the major virtual
cinematography challenge the major
virtual background challenge and the
virtual humans been working on this
thing or you're gonna have yeah there's
probably gonna be one of the most
expensive shuts in the movie
I understand they donated the wood to
recycle for an organization that was
recycles and that really made me happy
there was a lot of lumbering
of flat edge on two sides of those three
miles of kind of flat edge really good
timber and plywood and everything like
that actually giving it to Mexico I
believe where they can use it to
actually help build they were used for
low-income family housing so I thought I
was thought that was great that they
were actually putting it to good use
[Music]
we were 60 days in 1748 of those days
were dedicated solely to the free widget
so that's is that a long time to shoot a
single sequence yeah yeah I'd have to
say
there was a sequence in the freeway
chase where Trinity picks up the the
key-maker and they've got a bike going
against traffic so what we did is had
this incredible stunt woman named ed who
we literally drove against the traffic
nine-sixes really well and that would be
what I'm known for
I started riding motorcycles when I was
six years old and I started competing
when I was nine
the first movie I worked on I had to
jump a 30-foot ravine on a motorcycle
couldn't ask for a better person to be
in charge of the bike Debbie she rides
all kinds of motorcycle she's an
extensive car driver I worked with her
for over 20 years so there's a certain
comfort level I had with her right off
the bat okay one thing to have all that
metal around you in a roll cage like
that but Debbie on the Ducati with
liliane on the back nothing around them
no helmets doing it against oncoming
traffic was hair-raising and I feared
for them all the time also that was like
part of the visual effects sequence
where we wanted to have some you know
close calls with trucks and cars that
would come too close and some very
complicated virtual camera move
the camera would actually go underneath
the truck the nature of the way the
stunts you know choreography works that
believe it or not you know Debbie would
rather have cars to aim at to help her
you know orient herself
we had some cars coming out and then we
also had some markers on the ground
which would represent down the freeway
where certain cars would be at a certain
time so that was all mapped out on
pre-visualization then ra and deb and
all the stunt drivers got out there and
they practiced with her driving against
the traffic why don't you just lighten
this up on the throws I love cutting in
and out of the traffic and just laying
the bike down sideways sometimes we were
doing 65 through traffic just cut and
making hard cuts and that was I really
enjoyed that being able to pull off what
happen in the previous was a big deal
for me the motorcycle rig with Debbie
was amazing
I mean in and out of traffic with the
key-maker double on the back
holy amazing blew everybody's mind
reversal I must admit seeing someone
drive it you know 40 mile an hour into
cars coming at you as a pretty scary
experience but she was like solid the
whole time she was an incredible driver
never seen anything like it and she
would do it over and over again come
back would you let me to go a bit closer
when you start a trace or something we
get get those butterflies same thing
happens we need these stunts
it's the adrenaline kicking in
[Music]
let's set up this bitching garage
basically gets 18 Cadillacs
pretty good condition the Cadillac Club
of New South Wales
I'm very helpful people real fanatics
and they lay their cars on pretty good
condition so and are all very keen to
get in the matrix
this one's typical hello Vince this is a
1932
Town Car it's cool it's the only one in
the world that actually is on the road
is one other in spelling or somewhere
[Music]
we cheated a bit we have faked steering
wheels we put in that we put in the
left-hand side and cover the steering on
the right-hand side and in key spots we
have left and drive vehicles another
classic El Dorado the standard 1959 we
blew the windscreen in this one we
bought it painted the designer and hew
them has their ideas about what they
want in certain scene so it's really
just coming up with what they see is the
overall idea for the film and trying to
mention something to them
what I like in the Merovingian is it
it's a certain vulgarity I love the
thing that heat lucky goes for things
that are a little too decorative his
house the Chateau is really over the top
[Music]
I've always wanted to come and check the
sets before to see how how much of a
king he was her high grind he was we
looked at all the big palaces in Europe
like actually most of this comes from
The Hermitage so it's over the top where
they had lots of money to spend and just
killed everything and make everything
shiny and glossy we have in our in our
culture in our French culture we have
the immediate memory of amazingly grand
places like you know yes I you know the
the Kings castles yeah I mean those
images are very present to our mind all
the time so that we can we can trigger
them very easily so this is the marriage
in Chateau
upper hallway the designing of this was
lots of references to old chateaus in
Europe looking at things like the vests
I Hall of Mirrors initially it didn't
seem like it needed to be very large but
these are 9 meters wide I just kept on
getting larger and larger and the
detailing of all the moldings and how we
wanted to look like marvel also we did
research on the paintings that would
look really good up on the walls and got
clearances for these fantastic paintings
and they're just a huge color
photocopies that we then got our set
finishing Department to age down to look
more realistic those little tricks of
the trade so this is a set where there's
a lot more weapons that's going back to
that idea of being warriors marriage
so it's filled with weapons that are
from every country of every era that's
the idea that we're trying to push right
through the chateau
the actual chateau that were filming it
for the front is in the Loire Valley and
it doesn't really have a nice back door
so we had to create our own they've
taped it on grout lines it's a tape here
to create all these grout lines and then
they've got a slurry of plaster which
they've pushed it across and then
probably another coat so that we can try
and get this texture into it and they've
pulled off the tape and then got in
there with extra bits to try and make it
look like it's much more aged the
flashiness of the places that he decides
to surround himself with he says a lot
about who he is
statues you'll notice that they're all
the same person and those are all the
images of the Merovingian they're all
his own likeness sort they're identical
so that's another sign of his
egomaniacal control no Venus's no no
Mars it's all him he has quite strong
vulgar tastes flesh you know he likes
everything that shines he's he's very
much a Leo somehow which I am too this
is a symbol of the matrix but in sort of
a Renaissance or medieval theme this
medieval times and there's the rest of
us to sell us humans on earth battling
it out and then above that we've got
heaven with the Angels
but the angels aren't really just angels
the angels are actually manipulating
what's going on on earth and who's at
the center of heaven but were of himself
so it's it's all about him again he's
controlling everything is going on in
heaven and everything that's happening
on earth so this is another analogy for
the matrix where we all think that we're
in control of what's going on here on
earth but actually there's a whole other
system in place or being manipulated if
you looked at a lot of marble floors a
lot of floors and floors and Venice and
again just throughout the classic
palaces of Europe because that's the
imagery that we as Westerners you know
that's where we our heritage comes from
to think those are the people who've
been ruling us out this time and that's
what we're working on now is designing a
rubber floor so that the stunt guys can
fall on that but that it still looks
like marble so we're about to unroll the
marble on top of the river the vinyl
marble on top of the rubber on top of
the wood marble
and we're gonna shoot it in sequence
because as they go through and they
damage everything I can't really put it
all back together so it's gonna be
interesting to see what it looks like in
the end if I had imagined where he would
be raining I would have I would have
completely agreed with the places that I
found
surprised that we made I don't know like
hundreds of rubber weapons we just like
had to keep on churning them out because
every time someone would pick up a sword
they'd smash them and all these things
were molded painted they were quite
complicated shapes and Chinese so we
don't have those cutbacks so it's
different changes weapon and Western
weapons most of these weapons I just
found out of books and copy there are
books I had to pick medieval books and
history books these things actually
placed exactly in accordance of the
choreography of the fight we make a lot
of mistakes in this fight we end up
killing each other what we call
photobucket attitude commonly referred
to as tigers
now uses this towards the end of the
fight and sort of sticks into some guys
here this is one of the first weapons to
get broke and Brad actually leaps over
the railing Kiana kicks him right in the
chest here snap to play knocks him out
head gets bolted on this in such so and
so and take the head off on to the next
breakaway Pole and so on and so forth
till they get the shot one particular
part of the fight never grabs this
particular sword and this ends up going
through their glass he comes tumbling
through the spells thread and hits the
floor some swords don't quite go the
distance as you can see this one here
the Brad where's they wear under their
costume it's got a remain light but yet
still be fully retractable for Keanu -
you see this one's actually gone through
set so it's getting a bit three prong
sword probably the most fixed weapon
that I have fake rubber size but Marcus
uses these are genuine steel ones which
are what the other ones are molded off
this is actually quite heavy very
dangerous we take a copy of that put a
carbon fiber centering or a steel Center
and rubber mold which the painters then
do up and make it look beautiful the
soft shields been surprisingly durable
what's the shield in front of him hits
him with a side through there there's a
plug that you would put back into it
painters would touch it back up again
take it back on the set a standard
Trident which they used to fight with
more rubber tipped I can't have people
too much one of the boys get stabbed
this one I rigged like such which is one
around the Billy go on to it Paul goes
on the end actually the pipe is actually
stuck in me that's how we do it on the
matrix nothing nothing
Tiger was eight years old
study on my father 20 years almost like
all my life
[Music]
[Applause]
into the country entire hiding dragon
and Charterhouse I'm fine especially
Charlie Andrews yeah you're working
about this with the pretty girls out at
a time it's fun Tigers on the first
matrix we listen he's actually part of
our wire team and puts us down and stuff
he doesn't do anything wrong he's like
the fastest the strongest the quickest
it jumps the highest that's the
choreography's just do the man tiger
Man X this X tanning weapons for many
many years
over ten years Starlite Moustakas
dumbass good job
they're to shoot everything in slow
motion just to see your moves first
shots of reaction a punch in the face I
just teach channel we've been training
together for like it was like two years
I teach a lot of movie stars can you
ease is the one work the most hotter you
can go lower with the sword it's good we
have a good connection
we have six guys yeah I'm the last one
to die and all the dialer is acting it
was like if they want me okay acting I
do it I think it's for fun I don't have
a name
my name's fieger's to number 1 Tiger
Chen is the best martial artist man
there's a lot of love around
[Music]
the first wire photography fight we did
was with our Colin chair who is a
martial artist and has been it like a
series of like Hong Kong films matched
against Keanu this teahouse is very
important for me Neil
when I read my script and then I will
sing canary traditional tea house in
China or in Hong Kong
it's totally different when I saw this
scene is very Kazakh beginning until the
end we are very clean and then very
precise streaky stuff the fight scenes
the moves are fast and it's tricky for
sometimes for operators just to follow
direction for me it's really exciting
with master where me is fantastic guard
to watch him choreograph all those moves
and they really can move around swiftly
through us said even attached to the
wire so for us it's to move the camera
in those same movements it's exciting
warping me is the first action
coordinator have every scene always very
nice marriage endo always smiling the
more polar material similar to come from
Yoshi fallen upon Chantal leg
hello Donghae thank you i talk of adding
yet so all the Papas con gracia so since
in tengo que no cotton cotton Amalia the
coal person who succeed marshal academia
singleton DoDEA that are hello kingdoms
volatile whole gamut top in your paper
Illinois Otto :
Oh chi-su regards to dr. Pollard
ultimate for the whole time hakim el
Hoyo cuidado
/ - pika / / be multi-tone bomba coca
leaf and Buddha Buddha Martin Jalla WA
ala Chancellor ovata jingle silly little
remarkable mature they call a
multiple acapella cannot search on jump
are similar potential attacker a level
Sam well I'll check who defend the whole
pie terracotta from cause I'll get
somewhat of an otaku Sala fusa Hong Kong
dollar homes in seen some sahaja yoga
UNCP kyani's improve a lot from the
first one because he pay a lot of time
to practice towards the end of the cake
your fade you getting sort of soft it
feels like wow it's going open coming
over all just smooth for someone who is
in a designated martial artists kennels
you know he's pretty incredible an
incredible Ottawa actually yeah Indian
Larry very intelligent that used martial
arts that older audience who have new
vision for the martial arts from
the olden day confirm movie is totally
different
[Applause]
sir and action hello who are you
I am the architect I created the matrix
basically it's a scene in which neo
meets the architect of the matrix it is
a place that we've actually seen once
before in the first movie but only a
little glimpse of it it's implied that
perhaps he was the one watching neo
during that interrogation so here we are
back in that place well originally I
went for a different part I went I was
told they wanted somebody to play there
I don't know who it was was a counselor
I think I suddenly got a different
script and was asked to read for this
completely other part which completely
bamboozled me because of course I hadn't
read the whole script I only read the
scenes that I was in and I thought what
the hell is this
God slash devil the father of the matrix
he says and I thought wow this is good
yeah I can do that I can do my cheap
Orson Welles imitation and get pay for
it
this will be the sixth time destroyed
it's malevolent not in a not in the
moral sense it's it's malevolent you
know I was formula doesn't work let's
scrub it out and try something else
it's mathematical malevolence we shot it
over a three-day period it was mainly
because I sort of spoke virtually
non-stop and count every now and then
it's a a reaction that I had to kind of
carry the scene in terms the dialogue it
was Keanu who sort of translated for me
what the brothers were trying to say for
which I will remain eternally grateful
so between the brothers and Keanu
they've taught me how to act in a way
that I didn't understand
before the key was to kind of just wipe
everything clean and just imagine that I
was like a blank blackboard and then it
made sense I expected the center of the
matrix to be a mathematical formula some
sort of mathematical construct not
humanized I was very surprised that it
turned out to be a person the whole
belief system of being the one is check
because I'm not the one I'm the sixth so
I learned that I don't know as much as I
thought I did
and then I'm there I'm given the choice
of humanity or Trinity it's funny when
he just goes from trendy representing
this fundamental volition choice
decision purpose mission fighting
against all odds but he's now confronted
with the embodiment of having to make
that choice love one but it's that
whole thing of choice and that whole
thing of you know I don't I don't
believe everything I hear and I don't
think that what everyone says to me is
the truth or has to that was a
complicated scene which was completely
shot surrounded by blue screen and then
he has a bunch of monitors all around
him like hundreds and hundreds of
monitors the images inside the monitors
of course we're going to shoot but
they'll be shot you know fairly unique
way so that we can do tricks of
perspective on neo the Neos in the
monitors some basic camera feedback
loops where we can travel from the
center of the environment here through
monitors back into the environment and
out again if you choose it's really like
a limitless number of possibilities how
you could actually go in and out of the
space particularly when everything that
surrounds you is computer graphics to
start with so
to do interesting things the assignments
we had for littering the screens in the
background really had to do with the
folly of man we just figured it was the
short history of recorded images so we
took him from newsreel World War 1 or 2
through you know contemporary time the
sort of leaders and events that the
audience that was watching the matrix
would be familiar with we had leaders of
all different sorts not necessarily
always evil just those that seem to have
an effect in the world order through the
20th century and it was just a hyper
informational delivery that really
didn't matter if you really saw
everything it was really just about the
architects access to an infinity of
information related to Neos
you know consciousness of who he was
Trinity first was the folly of man and
then it became Neos folly and his
preoccupation with Trinity and saving
her and the folly of an unreal life a
constructed life that he never led and
the fact that every moment of his life
was a construction of the architect or
the machinery of the matrix and so he
was demonstrating I supposed to neo that
it was all an elaborate fabrication
to break his will I suppose when neo has
problems with deciding which way he will
choose as a certain level of you know
multiple personalities and responses
from multiple personalities reacting to
the architect's questions so that one
way of visualizing that might be with
just a more individualized use the one
entity is being splintered so that his
internal world is becoming externalized
so it's all about oh I couldn't believe
it did you see how happy the key honored
the actor guys I'll do with my the
Merovingian is a lineage of kings in
France the story has it that the mere
avenging kings descending from King
called me Harvey hence the name our
descendants of Christ himself the blood
of Christ was in fact his his lineage is
his child carried by Mary Magdalene and
who came to France the people who are
still nowadays in real life society
descending from those Merovingian
families do believe that they can't be
more aristocratic because they descend
from Christ bring me the eyes of the
Oracle
when I would give you back your savior
he's very very old program he's one of
the oldest and meanest programs in the
matrix he's really sort of one of the
kings of the underworld a
personification of all forms of
indulgence and that reveals obviously a
lot about him in his philosophy and his
philosophy his causality and basically
that is the philosophy of the entire and
machine world the entire matrix
basically I think he's born he is so
much inside the system he has understood
the system completely and like his wife
he feeds on human emotions and action
you can either run to the restaurant and
tell my husband what I have done or you
just stay there and die my character in
the film is Persephone she's very
elegant very sophisticated Persephone in
the Greek mythology was the daughter of
the king of the gods Zeus and the
goddess of fertility Demeter and she was
kidnapped by the king of the underworld
ladies to be his queen I mean Persephone
is not human but she wants to feel human
emotions
she's like a vampire instead of sucking
blood she sucks emotions and feelings
from human beings in English you say we
should say clothes to make the man for
Persephone is a control because the way
how she dresses reveals a lot about who
she is and about her person
for me matrix is much more than an
actual movie it's a story about love is
a philosophy of life now you know why
this man looked like he does because he
sniffs with us through his nose which
must be very uncomfortable they simple
characters are so strong but you don't
you don't need to have that many words
it's all visual with these guards doing
yourself miss Glasson just hold effect
you can't help but be back and be cool
do what our characters do we killed yeah
we can't just have a damn good time
within the matrix we maim murder he'll
remember Jim he's the brain where the
bronze so if he wants someone wasted or
go and waste them with efficiency yes
and pleasure
oh yeah we enjoyed the same time
I think the beginning of this is on
getting the part was our martial arts
capabilities we've both got a extension
experience in martial arts and we both
enjoy
this is a madly physical filming I mean
it hats off to the guys you know like er
no carry on and not having span Lawrence
you know they put his report is Eagle
held to get the ability and the martial
arts experience they happen we've been
doing for 16 years so it's and we find
it hard
[Music]
we've been lazing around within the
matrix frame for god knows how long
enjoying ourselves and then you know
this big moment comes up the ones
they're more pieces are images they're
the key-maker this is what we've been
waiting for this is this is our ultimate
goal is to have this confrontation
honestly obviously well one of us is
gonna be the intelligent yeah you do as
a matter of fact records if you don't
you're a matter of fact you know we will
make a good can you make her an ancient
joke I'm Randall do Kim and I play the
key-maker
I help the heroes well I flew out to Los
Angeles and audition for the brothers
and
I guess they liked what they saw it was
thoroughly exciting I was jumping around
the apartment it's a brilliant set made
my character many respects made my
character gave him a history I mean the
imagination the craftsmanship that went
into the making of this this little cell
the minute I saw it I felt I felt at
home I wanted to go and play in my
little bedding over there turn on the
faucet wash my hands you know work this
machine and it's brilliantly brilliantly
conceived back
every time uh I've had to do that so you
meditate on the mortality the question
about this one is how is an old program
die what makes any different Thank You
die
it's so much fun I wish everybody could
do it I can't express the joy I never
dreamed that in my latter years I would
be doing this I felt like a little a
little kid having a big big huge
adventure it's a great honor and
privilege to be a part of this modern
epic
[Music]
my name is tanveer a I'm playing
sati I was in the scene where Colin was
opening the door and bad guys were
coming both ways the line that I'm
supposed to say it's but I'm scared to
rap I'm in the change station I hope and
I help this boy find the matrix
his name is Anu good morning he wants to
go to the matrix but the train run
doesn't let him get on the train cause
you have to take contain to go to the
matrix and just change station I guess
for the central characters especially
neo for him to get from one world to
this other world he has to go through
the train man down here
down here I think he's kind of like the
ferryman crossing the River Styx but the
train man is not necessarily a very
cooperative person the stakes in this
world are quite hard his drama all the
time
[Music]
I love this sort of the the abstract
nature of these fields
I love the fantasy nature of themselves
they deal with our psyche and the fears
etc that we have in the real world and I
think that the Matrix films expressed
that just as the Mad Max films did just
as even I guess the Star Wars films in
order to make certain psychological
journeys we need these films
a chance to hell ski has so much
experience with wirework who is a
professional kung-fu fighter has been
you know an exceptional stuntman for
eight ten years he's really been through
all of the elements that this picture
asks first and foremost canneries stunt
double
also in charge of the training facility
make sure the Hong Kong guys get with
any other kind of liaison between them
and stunt Department also kind of in
charge of the martial arts come work
like setting up a rigging making sure
that the stunt aspect of the fight
scenes go well none of the assistants
done foreign aid alright alright
rondelle's he's like the head guy chad
is the head of this fight department as
far as I'm concerned I'm not a balance
I'm a guest on his set
Chad seriously made a lot of people a
lot of people here have a lot of good
things to say about him but he really
we've all had a few knee problems like
two knee surgeries two shoulder
surgeries busted my ankle busted my hand
a lot of bruises mostly on the show it's
a lot of bruises dad works harder than
anybody I know he was the first one in
the morning is the last one training at
night he's the one traded on the weekend
the one he's the motivator my guys are
tired this guy's asleep this one still
doesn't know what job he's on this
weekend remember his name
he's his crew working day in and day out
and it shows in his work I just want you
know pay attention on the text
Department is a most rich Stan man in
America the tax department pay attention
is it all good hands the answer yeah you
couldn't be in better hands
there were more movements in this one
particular fight than there are in the
whole of the first matrix it might
actually be double so that's a good
place to stop it's jano fighting 100
versions of hugo but the boys have
created and choreographed a sequence
that is so intricate and so involved in
the burly brawl you see neo being more
and more challenged so that he has to
raise his level of skill to combat the
hood opposite Will Smith my character
has no resolution cannot conquer the
opposite will because in that moment
there is no understanding of that of how
to do it physically so he escapes what's
really cool is that the scene in itself
has three axis first act has about 8
Smith's versus neo and second act is up
around 25 and then the third act is up
to 80 Smith's in the park at once
along the way we start with Sun Devils
and somewhat conservative Hong Kong
style lock offs and quick cuts
everywhere then we get to the second act
where there's 25 men they'll be like a
mixture of cg smith's and head
replacements and and doubles going on
all at the same time in the third act
where there's up to 80 men these this
will be all virtual all computer
graphics including neo John came to us
with storyboards for the burly ball
concept at the time and goes through it
with us and says look so we've got these
shots in Matrix Reloaded that are gonna
have a piano or doing kung foo against
Agent Smith and John goes so yeah
there's a couple of them well maybe more
than a couple five six seven so we still
going well I guess we'll have to like
shoot you know lock up the camera and
shoot multiple passes because no no
you're not quite getting at this it
seems more than six or seven it's it's
kind of hunger maybe 200 maybe maybe 300
in one shot oh okay yeah so yeah and
kind of bullet time as well just like
the last film the brothers have got the
support to push for very difficult
things you don't want to expose the
directors to too much waste it's kind of
different we Larry and Andy but Hannity
will take risks instead of let's go in
what we really want to do this it was
more you guys gotta do this you've got
to work it out we don't care if you say
it's really hard we you know we want to
support you but you've got to be able to
do it just happen the creativity in
doing something like that isn't planning
the fight so Larry and Andy and wu-tang
worked out the fight when we Whoopi and
choreographed it ran it through Larry
and Andy they gave their additions to it
and then looping and his guys recorded
themselves doing all the moves
and then I cut the fight together
we didn't pre-planned the photography
and the procedure for that was to figure
out by way of loopings guys what amazing
feats neo was going to do figure out
what percentage of that was actually
capturable and/or a percentage of
capture Plus animation extensions and
some was just pure animation John nice
to get some research funding from Marion
Andy in the studio and we set off doing
a test we're doing this test
August 14th 15th and 16th year 2000 is
our first proof of concept on this idea
we've been running the universal capture
tests to create the synthetic face and
form of Keano for the last month and a
half our big goal is by October November
to start having a representation of all
these pieces in a virtual environment
obviously mind blowing martial arts team
they're wearing all these highly
reflective balls and these balls are
being read by these cameras up here in a
procedure known as motion capture 120
times a second they are flashing light
it looks like they're constant but
they're not they're really strobing and
the balls being super reflective kick
back every time they're being flashed we
take the data and we begin to calculate
where all of the little markers on their
bodies are we have taken the motion of a
one of the best martial artists in the
world and we have put it inside the form
of Neill so now we have a very capable
Keanu Reeves kicking the living out
of many dudes at once
[Music]
we thing in the frame is a 100%
computer-generated the background all
the characters
our methods completely surround
three-dimensionally recording
performance and and then editing a lot
of performances together into a longer
performance
all we're really after is extending very
difficult actions and viewing that from
any angle in a way that just keeps the
camera running longer instead of all
these three little cuts
the park set had to accommodate a large
fight when they were going to be several
hundred people I suppose
it's the sort of place where people once
had lived and played and kids grew up in
the playground there and had a great
time and then kind of the world had
moved on and just left this this void if
you can imagine maybe like a twenty
twenty-five story tenement Park it was
like probably twice the size of an
average soundstage one of the wonderful
things is they put so much detail into
every city build but it can only make
off visual effects look better it's just
really great and we came in and we took
2,000 stills of the set as the initial
pass to help us digitize every little
thing from every window to every 22 the
playgrounds that pretty much the only
way to capture something as lush and
detailed as or insert and we were able
to use those same photographs with all
the same painting and texture and detail
and variation and Owen has put in there
bring it into the digital world create
this completely virtual camera moves
that you never even think that wasn't
real because it was sourced from the
real set it is definitely one of our
favorite sets we go above it around it
and we travel a lot it is definitely one
of the sets that demanded the most work
I'm sister fury and this is fists off
here
[Music]
every afternoon for nine weeks noon 12
stuntmen on the floor went through a
five and a half minutes
I believe I had over 500 moves
[Music]
each Smith will attack me oh and perhaps
lay three punches or two punches on a
kick on earth kneel and then be just
dispatched with they figured ultimately
it was easier for me to just learn each
move on the day I actually got to know
the first ten or fifteen Smith's moves
but ultimately on the day they've
changed anyway so I really was learning
the fight as they would in Hong Kong
which was just on the day all the agent
Smith's doubles were pretty much
auditioned we auditioned about 50 guys
acrobats gymnast martial art guys
regular stunt guys put them through
about four months of training to mimic
the actor Hugo Weaving as well as learn
fight choreography and develop the
skills are gonna need for this we have
expertise in different areas some are
acrobats summer martial artists
and do performances you know that you
would only get in a circus many tough
guys they're tough guys with soft carts
how's that there was Smith lessons where
I watched them run and I'd watch them
walk and you know so I kind of gave him
a few pointers but it wasn't it wasn't
more than a couple of lessons around
when you see the scenes you gotta
remember that's too real Hugo mixed in
with like 12 of the best martial artists
some guys around and he's holding his
own pretty well no computers no
computers real deal stuff John Gaeta
takes over and does some multi passes
and composite shots to really amplify
the amount of people he had it's being
inflicted upon me by the very well
written prose of Charles Koch brothers
remember it's the writers that invite
the technological onslaught that you may
see
so right now what we've got here is a
mosh control and set up it allows us to
put multiple slits into the scene
without having to use the computer
graphics technology so this rig is
completely repeatable every time the
camera goes in class we can get it to do
the same move time and time again we put
one Hugo there film him and then take
the camera back and then we put another
Hugo there and we'd film him again so it
looked initially like you would see
everyone where Peter was Hugo agent
Smith's the complicated thing was
working at how we were gonna shoot that
many Smith's fighting Keanu all at once
there are certain parts of the sequences
that we had to create that that we had a
map pianos face or Hugo's face and we
had to do things with their bodies and
their look that are not real so the
challenge was how do you generate
synthetic humors and we thought hardest
thing would be generating a human face
that have the right expressions so we
build a system that we use multiple high
def cameras use them to shoot an actor
and then we can reconstruct that actors
facial performance every little muscle
movement every mouth movement and eye
movement teeth movement all of that can
be reconstructed so that we can then fly
around that it with a virtual camera so
we can then stick them onto a life
person's body or onto a synthetic body
the problem with working on actually
humans is they're so recognizable you
look at humans every day or you're very
unforgiving when you see CG hair or a CG
face or any of those things it would
take an animator who was basically the
Picasso of his time to actually
completely freehand a performance like
that we basically use those facial
performances and we've assigned
different performance on every Smits we
had this whole process of assigning
different performances to the to the
different Smiths so they all do
different things
the bolt time shot in the first movie
was a little more practical you had the
actual shot from a bunch of still
cameras this is we're sort of recreating
you know Keanu and recreating Hugo so
that we can basically put the camera
anywhere and do anything the idea was
that the camera is always traveling at
the same speed as just a motion and
slowed down no frozen motion that was
the mid-90s we wore different clothes
back then it's sort of this blend
between you smoke app where where the
mocap works and where the mocap doesn't
work where it's just in something that's
just not capturable or just like
superhuman and that's where the hand
animation has to pick up dynamic
simulation is a virtual fresh test
dummies that you can just smack around
and they'll react similar to how a human
would react if it was smacked by a bowl
you can give it an animation and then
hit it with a ball and it'll react to
the ball but try and maintain the
existing animation that should have on
it in this case basically everyone who
gets hit by a pole was a dynamic
simulation as the shots get more
developed we had more and more smiths
and what's that animations final that
can get passed to the cloth department
we worked very closely with modeling
with rigging the animators because we
took inputs from all of those and class
was essentially sort of a hub all the
clothings that you see is the way we
actually get it to look so real is it
again sample each one of the characters
you know whether it's a piece of the
Sudanese Neos whatever and we basically
put it to this device the shooting for
many different angles and it gives us an
approximation of how the particular
material reacts to light and different
camera angles then we put that into the
computer system and bingo we get a
realistic looking piece of cloth the
brothers they wanted to really have a
lot of interaction with Neos cassock
with his personality or sort of have a
sort of a connection with that once they
were done with shooting they clean them
up and then they sent it to us so that
we would be able to look get a look and
feel of the weight of it as well as how
it wrinkled and Bend and as well as try
to see how well it fit and little
details like you know how many snaps
we're on there and and you know how far
away the buttons are from the collar so
there was a lot of a lot of attention
paid to this and and agent Smith's
outfit both the animation and the cloth
get passed up color in lighting
department and there are the guys that
you know render render and make it look
so real we spend a lot of time
developing new image based lighting
techniques we have the ability of
extracting every single light in itself
that it looks complete completely
mathematically represented in our
computer graphic scenes
one of the big things that makes any
computer-generated object look the way
it looks is the way in which the light
in an environment plays on it if we ever
had in a computer-generated component we
have to be able to know exactly how
built set is light so we use the chrome
ball that's all for that to tell us
where everything was and how bright it
was because it's a sphere and because
it's chromed or mirrored it actually
reflects the entire environment so by
taking a picture of a chrome ball you've
actually taken a picture of effectively
the entire environment and what it's
letting us do in one image is measure
the color of the environment as seen
from any given point we now have a
record a measurement of the light of the
color and the intensity of the light
coming in to the point where the chrome
ball is I would think that the
methodology of creating a master content
through all those means and then post
photographing it and editing it and all
of that stuff yeah I think that will
become common animation is a difficult
thing
we had a great animation team working on
the Burleigh ball and we had a ton of
motion capture but it's still hard to
get the nuances in I think it's gonna be
with quite a while before people can
truly truly see character animation has
been completely perfect we're so
accustomed to seeing fights made
editorially where you you see a cut to a
guy throw a punch and cut the reaction
and cut back a wide shot and over the
shoulder be it's all done to editorial
process and this these sequences are not
done that way they're all there are no
cuts the camera is showing you what they
want you to see while it keeps on moving
and it's just a whole new way of seeing
something occur
hi this is John Gaeta what we're gonna
be looking at now is the anatomy of a
burly brawl shot we like to call it a
drop-down shot in year 2000 Steve's
grossed drew these boards to illustrate
at the beginning of what we would
consider the final act in this three act
fight we begin in the gods eye view and
we spiraled down to something that
graphically emulated a hurricane
originally the hurricane idea was not as
evident looping and us on stage realized
that the fight could potentially be
interesting if it had the master
revolving sort of circle around neo and
what you see here is the capture for
Neil and his immediate adversaries these
would be sophisticated choreographed
pieces that will ping in the Hong Kong
team would work out there would be like
hundreds of these captures to choose
from creating a vast library which could
be erector set if you will by the layout
team with the computer graphics side of
this the you cap process is incredible
when it's being fully realized as we'll
see later on the super punch the part of
the process that involves getting the
expression performance is perhaps the
most complex in which the actor needs to
in a somewhat restrained situation
provide an emotional sort of facial
expression which is captured in
processed and assigned on an individual
basis for some time we were speculating
whether we wanted to try any scenes with
articulate speech in close-up shots with
CG humans and there were discussions
that I was having with Larry and Andy
about possibly taking the shot where
Smith says more and making that fully
virtual but you know as as applied
strictly for action beats it was not
necessary to apply articulate speech
however the technology is there so layer
one primary action would be Keanu Reeves
and at times Chad confronting the eight
stunt men there is a circle around this
circle which will contain many more men
that will be attempting to gain access
to the fight with the virtual depiction
of a fight like this there is no reason
why not to have absolute contact in the
case of this scene the whole point is
that you can actually show the impact
and its full effect so we have the
fellas dressed in body armor underneath
their mocap suit so that Keanu or Chad
can smash them with full force ok so
here we are beginning to create the
preliminary versions of the virtual set
we're doing this so that we have a much
better idea of scale if we take a look
at this scene we can see how men are
coming into and out of this fight from a
layer just beyond the immediate
foreground circle some hits could be the
product of a Hugo Weaving running entry
a stuntman hit and collision and then an
animated extension because the Smith
needed to travel quite a distance there
was a whole slew of terms from home runs
to grounders and line drives that the
bros would would apply so we would
understand the sort of severity of the
hit and the distance of the hit at this
point you can see the design of the
vortex and starting to come into play it
was considered many ways almost a
yin-yang type of graphic in that there
would be equal numbers coming from
either side and creating the type of
symmetry that which housekey brothers
love and apply so much and many of their
frames based on our original test in
2000 we were gonna have guys jumping
from windows and going through windows
the other attribute about the test which
is fascinating which we do not pursue as
much was a much more hyperactive camera
that was at times quite more attached to
Neos periphery here is the final version
at long last
this is a good shot for illustrating the
whole process in terms of a wide - macro
view of the process this this one pretty
much shows you