THE SECOND | Animatic vs. Final (Bonus Video)

0:01 If you've watched enough behind-the-scenes,

0:03 you're probably familiar with storyboards.

0:05 In animation, this tradition goes back to Disney

0:08 where artists pitched their boards in story sessions.

0:11 –They look out, and they see him flying in beautifully,

0:14 but he dives down behind the building.

0:15 Bernard warns him, the albatross comes in...

0:19 Eventually, they became story reels and then

0:21 this: the animatic where we take storyboards,

0:24 time them out and add temp dialog, sound effects and music.

0:27 –You have a fox taser?

0:29 –Dad, he’s with me.

0:30 It’s okay.

0:31 –You brought a fox to your home?

0:32 –He’s more than a fox...

0:34 Animatics are standard in animation but a bit less common in live-action.

0:39 Although some people, like Wes Anderson, have adopted them.

0:42 –It was off-season and by that time, decidedly out of fashion,

0:45 and it had already begun its descent into shabbiness and eventual demolition.

0:50 We've been working in animation for about a decade.

0:53 So when we jumped over to live-action we brought this process along with us.

0:58 There are many ways to prototype a film.

1:01 This just happens to be ours.

1:03 Please enjoy this bonus video.

1:09 –Hi.

1:09 My name is Tony.

1:11 –And my name is Taylor.

1:12 –And this is the commentary track for “The Second”

1:15 a short film we wrote and directed together.

1:18 –Yeah, this is the first time Tony and I have worked in live-action narrative.

1:23 Well, this is the first time we've worked together in live-action narrative.

1:27 –Previously, you know,

1:28 we've done sort of semi-documentary video essay stuff like VOIR

1:32 and we've worked in animation for the last ten years.

1:37 –So the first thing you've probably noticed is that the introduction

1:40 is a bit different than what it ended up being.

1:44 That is mostly because drawings are not real life –Yeah,

1:48 and we could not get a lot of those bathroom shots in this location.

1:51 Physically couldn't get the camera anywhere near it.

1:54 –Yeah if we talk about the realities of production,

1:56 the thing you find out very quickly is

1:58 that you never have enough time, money or resources.

2:01 –Oh God, no.

2:09 And here is Paul Sun-Hyung Lee,

2:11 our star whose presence was absolutely crucial to getting this made.

2:15 –So, as mentioned, we wrote this short film.

2:18 Originally, it came about because we happened to be watching Barry

2:21 Lyndon And the two things that we walked away with that was...

2:26 This movie is very pretty.

2:27 And duels are weird.

2:29 –Very strange.

2:30 –They're super weird.

2:31 –We went down a rabbit hole figuring out, uh, learning about duels.

2:34 –So after the script was done and finalized I started storyboarding it.

2:40 –Taylor drew 450 drawings of this.

2:44 –Was it 450?

2:45 –It was 450.

2:47 And then you gave it to me, and then I cut it into an animatic.

2:50 And that was what we sent to everyone in addition to the script,

2:53 to bring them on board.

2:57 –This little tyke is Tyrus Hwang, who plays eight-year-old Danny and his brother

3:01 Ethan [Hwang] plays 16- and 24-year-old

3:04 Danny –I was trained as an animator and I've been working as an animator,

3:11 so animatics and storyboards are just something I'm extremely comfortable

3:15 with and I really like using as a tool for communication.

3:20 That being said, knowing when to adapt and when to be

3:24 malleable is a skill –Our working process is to have this animatic,

3:28 show up every day, and then use

3:30 that as a starting point and try to improve on it.

3:33 If we can't get it, we just reference it as this is our intention, how we...

3:37 how can we accomplish that with different angles?

3:50 –These were green screen shots shot on the fourth day of production

3:53 in the garage area of the house where we did basically the opening sequence.

3:59 We considered at one point doing one of those Mandalorian volumes,

4:03 but it felt like a bit of overkill.

4:05 –Yeah, shout out to A52 and Primary for their amazing work,

4:10 especially when it comes to the green screen replacements.

4:14 –I get sad every time I see Paul's face there.

4:20 –This is all 2nd unit reshoots from Vancouver because all the weather was bad,

4:23 so none of the original shots cut with our actual footage

4:27 –One of the things from going from animation to live action,

4:30 is just how much the weather is going to screw with your plans.

4:35 –And the sun.

4:36 –And the sun.

4:37 –And this is our first time meeting the bros.

4:40 Richard Wes...

4:40 Martin Ortega in the middle, and Colton Royce on the right.

4:47 –Aaron Schwartz plays the Officiant with the hat.

4:49 He of the great eyebrows and the hat.

4:52 One of the major changes was that in the drawings they have Zorro masks.

4:55 We did think it would be really funny to have guys in top hats,

4:58 capes and Zorro masks.

4:59 But in pre-production, Asoomii Jay, our costume designer,

5:03 showed us the Zorro masks on people, and we said...

5:05 –Well, that's not going to work.

5:08 Masks are kind of a drawn conceit.

5:11 They work well in illustrations and animation

5:14 but they don't really pan out in live-action

5:17 because covering up people's eyes in live-action

5:20 is very detrimental to being able to emote.

5:28 –One thing I definitely want to talk about is lenses.

5:30 You actually liked longer lenses than we expected.

5:33 –Well, that's just something we discovered while

5:34 we were working, is that I have a...

5:37 I just in general seem to like longer lenses

5:39 than this but we couldn't really use longer lenses anyway.

5:44 –Yeah.

5:44 So the field, not this shot with Danny, but other shots,

5:47 you'll see there's kind of a wall of green behind people.

5:50 And what we discovered is...

5:51 if you shoot with a longer lens with that background

5:54 the actors look like they're standing in front of a green screen.

5:56 It actually looks wrong to the eye.

6:07 So this is a perfect example of production compressing shots,

6:10 multiple shots into one.

6:12 The original animatic,

6:13 this entire sequence was 12 set-ups and it was basically exposition

6:18 from the Officiant while we showed Phillip looking at the bros.

6:21 On the day...

6:22 we could not shoot 12 setups,

6:24 I think we had like less than an hour and Alfonso [Chin], our DP, said,

6:28 "I have 12 feet of dolly track." So we kind

6:31 of sat there and problem solved it and came up

6:33 with the idea that we would just do it as two

6:34 push-ins one going towards the Officiant and then one following Sam,

6:38 the medic –It is also one of those questions of “What is

6:41 the scene about?” Like what is it really about and how many...

6:44 how many shots do we actually need to convey that?

6:59 –So originally the plan was to shoot the buffet table, the duel...

7:04 All of it was supposed to just happen on the field.

7:07 and when we got to the location...

7:09 –It was a wall of green.

7:11 –Yeah, for a very long time.

7:12 So in order to break up sections of the movie visually,

7:16 we decided to take the buffet sequence and put it

7:20 into a different area which had a different color space and...

7:24 –It was like yellower grass and is on the bottom of frame.

7:27 –Just to help break things up.

7:31 –So as part of our research,

7:32 we looked into negotiations and usually what happened was...

7:35 obviously, negotiations happened before the sides even get to the field.

7:38 So for dramatic purposes,

7:39 we decided they were going to negotiate on the field –What?

7:43 Movies aren't real life?

7:43 Who knew?

7:44 –I know.

7:46 –But as you can tell...

7:47 –I feel like there was still always a way for you to back down...

7:50 ...one last time So while negotiations wouldn't have happened...

7:54 –There was always an out.

7:56 –There's always an out because the goal of a duel

7:58 is to not get people to shoot guns at each other.

8:02 –It seems weird to say that.

8:03 The goal of the duel is to not have the duel.

8:05 Like the Hamilton thing.

8:07 “Most disputes die and no one shoots.” So everyone in the...

8:10 –Oh my God, that's copyright.

8:11 You can’t say that –Oh my God, I can’t say that –We’re gonna get sued –Scrub it.

8:14 Scrub it.

8:14 Sorry, Lin-Manuel.

8:15 (RECORDING SHUTS OFF) –And here it comes.

8:23 Everyone's favorite shot.

8:25 This again, was a production solve.

8:27 We could not physically get Ethan to lean against the tree.

8:29 It was not physically possible,

8:31 so we needed to re-block the entire thing on the day.

8:33 We didn't have stand-ins.

8:34 So I stood in as Paul and Shikher, our 1st AD stood in as Ethan,

8:38 and we more or less moved around until

8:40 I accidentally stood in this pose and Taylor said,

8:43 “Stop, that's really interesting” –It is like a lot of two-shots,

8:47 a bit on the more theatrical side.

8:49 And it is forced perspective.

8:50 They are actually very far away from each other

8:52 to try and get the effect that we were going for.

9:01 –If you look at the behind-the-scenes footage in some of the video essays...

9:04 you will notice that Taylor has plexiglass on the monitor.

9:08 She then has little markers and she...

9:10 she does drawovers directly on the monitor.

9:12 I don't know any other live-action filmmakers who do that.

9:15 –There must be somebody else who does this.

9:17 –I imagine maybe like VFX people who have a monitor would do it.

9:21 But we always are amused when people show up on set and they

9:24 see a monitor covered with cat doodles and they wonder what the hell happened.

9:33 –And Paul and Ethan did this argument first thing in the morning,

9:38 and they both did a great job.

9:39 Every take, they got riled up in different little subtle nuances.

9:44 And then when we went through and were just picking

9:46 our favorite bits and trying to create a through line of it.

9:50 Here it comes.

9:51 Your favorite panels– It’s this one.

9:54 I don't know why, every time I see them,

9:57 it just makes, they always make me laugh.

9:58 –We never got this wide shot of the two of them under a tree from a distance.

10:02 Because I know you really, really wanted that.

10:04 Where they were, like, far away.

10:05 And you heard, nyah nyah nyah –Like, squabbling.

10:07 –Yeah.

10:09 If you go back through the film, take a good look at Aaron and Sam,

10:12 who are the Officiant and the medic, they have lots of little bits together.

10:16 –I hope Paul appreciates the fact that he gets to say,

10:18 “I am your father” –Did we ever talk to him about that?

10:21 –No.

10:22 –Dang it.

10:24 –Paul got who Philip was so quickly.

10:27 –Yeah.

10:28 –And I feel like Ethan did as well.

10:30 I know they they spoke to each other

10:33 a lot about how this relationship was going to come

10:36 across on screen I do want to give

10:40 a quick shout out to Sean William, our composer.

10:42 From this point onwards till the end...

10:44 this is a long four minute cue of music and he had

10:47 to compose it in like little suites to get it to work.

10:49 We actually sent him the animatic before we shot anything,

10:52 so he started noodling around before we even had footage.

10:55 And then really started composing Once he saw the cut.

11:10 –Oh yeah, here we go.

11:11 The worst composition in the film That one.

11:13 I did that.

11:14 –That's my fault.

11:15 –I don't think it's that bad.

11:16 –Taylor walked away from the monitor for 2 minutes and I was like,

11:20 Oh I got to line up a shot.

11:21 So I quickly lined that up and she came back and looked at it.

11:24 We did a couple of takes and she was like,

11:25 “I think we should reshoot that after lunch.” –I mean,

11:29 we still used it, so it's not that bad.

11:31 –And some people have asked, this is a real cloud passing Aaron's face.

11:35 Complete accident on the day.

11:37 And we saw it and were like, put it in.

11:39 –That's one of the fun things about

11:41 shooting live-action is all the little happy accidents.

11:47 –This is Taylor's recomposed shot.

11:49 You can see how much better it is.

12:00 –I love the way this sequence turned out.

12:02 Very dreamlike and painterly.

12:05 Ale [Amato] from Primary did such a great job with the color.

12:10 And as you can probably tell, this montage of the guns is much more involved

12:14 in the animatic with a lot of very, very special...

12:17 like one-off shots that we could not get.

12:19 Storm came in and we had to get all of these in I think like 12 minutes.

12:26 –To many people’s surprise...

12:27 there are a lot of sky replacements in the short.

12:31 Basically, anything from medium-close to closer a lot of those skies

12:35 are replaced to match the blue But the wider shots,

12:37 the blue of the sky is real and they use those as the reference

12:42 –Yeah the interesting thing about modern

12:43 filmmaking is how malleable the frame is.

12:46 VFX, post-production.

12:48 Everything has become so powerful that you can change almost anything.

13:01 –When people ask the difference between the animatic and the final...

13:03 I generally tell them I think the animatic is about 20% more subjective.

13:09 There's just a couple of extra angles that show

13:11 Phillip looking at something and then what he sees.

13:24 –I do want to say one of the challenges or tasks we set for ourselves

13:27 on this short was to make something that had no dialogue on either end.

13:32 So the opening 90 seconds and the last 2 minutes

13:35 have no dialogue and all the dialogue’s in the middle.

13:50 –So these guys are staring at tennis balls on stands

13:53 and it's just me off to the side saying,

13:55 “Okay, now you're angry, you really hate this guy.

13:57 You want to get him.

13:58 Alright now, you're going to shoot.

14:00 Now you're scared, etc.” And then I discovered later

14:02 that Taylor had given them each direction, which was...

14:05 I told Colton something along the lines of “You

14:08 want to go home” And I think for Ethan,

14:12 I told him it was just realizing how scared everyone was.

14:18 I like the idea that I thought I was giving them really effective direction.

14:21 And it turns out you told them something

14:23 better and they were probably just ignoring me, shouting.

14:41 –These dolly shots here...

14:42 are Alfonso [Chin, director of photography] I

14:45 think he was literally checking his dolly.

14:46 So he quickly rolled on them and we saw them.

14:49 –At one point we were discussing “moments of ma”

14:51 [the Miyazaki concept] and having just reset, like shots.

14:55 And that hand is backwards and it drives

14:57 me nuts –In the drawing –In the drawing.

14:59 –The real hand is fine.

15:00 –Yeah, the real, no.

15:01 He's fine.

15:04 –This is the first shot Taylor ever drew, she thumbnailed a version of it.

15:07 It was the very first thing that happened,

15:09 and it was very helpful because we always knew what we were pointing towards.

15:15 One of the things that I like doing in storyboards,

15:17 I don't always follow this, but one of the things

15:19 I like doing is having the the last shot and the first shot in mind so that I

15:25 have where we are and then where we're going.

15:27 –Yeah –At least in theory.

15:32 –So these are the deleted shots from the animatic.

15:36 A lot of them are car things because we did not have a picture car.

15:41 We had a real car, so we couldn't take out windshields and therefore

15:44 couldn't do a lot of special shots that we wanted to do.

15:47 Just to show the car traveling and passage of time and things like that.

15:51 –There is...

15:51 –There are some interesting...

15:52 I miss some of these scenes, but they just didn't make the cut.

15:58 I will admit that I did overboard the animatic just for choice reasons.

16:03 Just so we had, a couple avenues You know,

16:07 plan A, go to plan B Plan B, go to plan C.

16:10 And if plan C doesn’t work, well, we'll figure it out on the day.

16:14 –Thanks to everybody who came on the journey with us.

16:17 –Yeah, thank you all.

16:19 –We really couldn't have done it without

16:21 our amazing cast and crew and everyone who was

16:24 willing to put up with us during these past

16:29 couple of years while this was being made.

16:32 –Anyway.

16:32 –So, yeah, thank you everyone, for...

16:34 –Thanks for watching–...

16:35 coming along.

16:35 Thanks for watching and we will see you for the next project.

16:39 –It's going to be a feature, right?

16:41 –Who knows?