Infinity War's Directors Break Down the Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy Scene

Hi, I'm Joe Russo.

And I'm Anthony Russo.

We're the Russo brothers.

And this is Notes on a Scene for Avengers: Infinity War.

(heavy breathing)

This scene is the scene where

Thor meets the Guardians of the Galaxy.

How the hell is this dude still alive?

This film, we chose a style that could accommodate

all of the different tones of the Marvel universe.

Sometimes we make the choice

to go handheld in this film when we felt like it

added a level of energy that we wanted from the scene

and when absurdist characters are

interacting with each other, like Thor and the Guardians,

sometimes handheld camera work can allow it

to feel more grounded.

There was something that was very appealing to us

on a comedy level about the contrast between

the Avengers and the Guardians.

So when we laid Thor on this table here,

we lit him from the bottom so he would glow

and have a very sort of god-like appearance.

The Guardians are all sort of surrounding him.

He's like the big mystery.

And this is sort of our jumping off point

for them sizing up who is this creature.

It's like a pirate had a baby with an angel.

We desaturated Civil War and Winter Soldier,

and we talked a little bit here

about the use of color in the film.

You're going to get a different palette.

We lit more neutral, sort of a cooler light,

there's a white light coming from the table,

but our fill is cool.

It was very important to us in all of the sequences

that the frames we dementionalised

we worked very hard with Charlie Wood,

our production designer, to put practical lights in,

on every set, and we wanted different

color temperatures for that lighting.

We have orange security lights, red security lights,

the beams are picking up blue here,

so it becomes a very colorful frame,

but what we wanted it to do was just

ground the Guardians' appearance in the film.

He is not a dude. You're a dude.

This, this is a man.

A handsome, muscular man.

I'm muscular.

Who're you kidding Quill?

You're one sandwich away from fat.

Yeah, right.

[Drax] It's true, you have put on weight.

What?

We've had a long history in comedy

with Arrested Development, Community,

Happy Endings, our first film, Welcome to Collinwood.

An important part of comedy is framing.

It's best to shoot someone like Chris Pratt

in at least a waist shot.

You want to get all of the hand movements

that add to the comedy.

The hand movements interacting with his facial expressions,

is where you get the biggest laughs from him.

And then, by surrounding him with all the other characters,

he's about to feel very isolated in the scene.

You know, we do do touch ups, by the way,

on every character, that's not all make up on Gamora,

we do a lot of finishing work on her.

Same on Drax, there's a lot of seams in his make up

that we have to fix.

Obviously, with Mantis.

These antennae only extend about here in her make up.

So, this is all CG after this.

A lot of times also, we have to light on set

for digital lights that are going to be put in later.

The glow that this light is casting

is often provided by our cinematographer.

[Joe] You can see that area

and then you can see where it reflects in to her face,

especially on her nose here, it's on her forehead here.

There might be a light just off camera here,

that is supplying that.

Also, from a framing standpoint,

when you're dealing with CG antennae,

we will have stand-in antennae

that the prop department can walk in,

so that our camera department can accurately frame Mantis

where they're not cutting off the antennae,

because when you're shooting CG characters,

sometimes you tend to forget what their height is,

or if they have additional appendages

that need to be accounted for in the framing.

This is another homage to a style

we developed on Arrested Development,

which is a character makes a statement

and then you pan to another character for their reaction.

And typically, when you're coming in to the reaction

off of the comedic statement, it accentuates the response.

It helps keep the tension alive

between the two characters.

You sort of feel the space between them.

You see here, as Pratt comes to a realization,

you're not manufacturing the comedic moment,

it's playing out in real time for you,

you instinctually understand it as funnier

than if it were cut together.

Let's talk about Rocket for a second here.

It's very important, when you're working with CG characters,

that someone be on set to actually execute the performance.

Sean Gunn, who is the brother of James, plays Rocket on set.

Typically, how we shoot a scene with Rocket is,

Sean will come in and do one or two takes,

and define what Rocket's behaviors going to be.

The other actors will then remember what that behavior is,

we then take Sean out and run

two or three more takes without him,

with just an empty space where Rocket should be

and that allows for the other actors to know

what they're interacting with.

Sean will be off camera,

still supplying a voice so that they're responding.

Wake.

(Thor cries out)

(gasping)

(heavy breathing)

The fun thing about this moment is,

since the Guardians were introduced,

they've seemed sort of casual, non-serious,

and the second a threat appears

where Thor suddenly jumps off the table

in a way that could possibly be threatening,

they immediately assume a very serious

and effective defensive position.

Thor's separated off to the left of the frame,

I think that it's probably a 50 lens that we're on here,

because we do have him out of focus in the foreground.

Compressed lenses tend to add

a little bit more realism to a frame,

it makes it slightly more impressionistic

because things go out of focus, they fall off faster,

and I think, if there's one constant,

in all of our Marvel films, it's emotional realism.

I think that's the glue that binds

Winter Soldier, Civil War and Infinity War,

is a level of emotional realism.

(heavy breathing)

Who the hell are you guys.

No matter how absurd characters are behaving,

we still try to tie it back to

an emotional core or pathos,

so they stay connected to the stakes of the story.