Skyscraper’s Director Breaks Down an Action Scene with Dwayne Johnson

Hi, I'm Rawson Marshall Thurber and this is my

Notes on a Scene for Skyscraper.

(ominous music)

[Sarah] How do I get across the bridge?

[Will] Let's figure this out.

It's gonna be okay, baby.

So Skyscraper is a movie about a family in peril.

Super-tall building, the tallest building in the world

called The Pearl is on fire at about the 100th floor.

Dwayne Johnson's family is trapped above the fire line.

This bridge is supposed to be at the very top

of Jade Park, which is a 30-story vertical park

at the center of The Pearl, an open-air vertical park.

How do we get across the bridge?

Let's figure this out.

It's gonna be okay, baby.

Here we have the Sawyer family faced with a

pretty scary problem.

This bridge has been broken in half and Noah Cottrell

who plays Henry Sawyer's on one side,

Neve Campbell, Dwayne Johnson who play Sarah Sawyer

and Will Sawyer on the other, and they have to

solve this puzzle together.

And one of the things I really love about this sequence

is it's everybody working together to solve the problem.

It's not just Dwayne Johnson,

biggest action star in the world, doing it on his own.

So I'm really excited to take you through it.

(breathing heavily)

How did you get in the building?

It's a long story.

Where are the kids?

Mom, Dad!

Oh God, are you okay/

Don't move!

Where's your sister?

She's at the top of the park by the waterfall.

(flames roaring)

Dad!

Honey stay right there; Daddy's coming for you.

Okay.

We have Henry here pointing up at where

his sister is, Georgia, who is at the very top of the park

by the waterfall.

Go ahead and play it.

And we pan up, and I, freeze it right there.

Okay, so this entire pan was done digitally.

So the pan off of Henry was something we created

after the fact.

None of this exists.

This water, ILM.

This little railing here that you can kind of see,

this was a plate that we shot.

And right here, Georgia, she doesn't exist.

Not real.

So when she waves her little hand,

this is a complete digi-double, and we have McKenna Roberts

who plays Georgia Sawyer record her voice after the fact.

But essentially everything that you see

in this frame doesn't exist.

It's completely created in a computer by ILM.

When I tell you to, walk it out, drop it,

and go get 'em, okay?

Okay.

What are you gonna do, Will?

I'm gonna hold the bridge steady.

[Sarah] Hold on, baby.

(grunting)

Go!

(board groaning)

[Sarah] Okay baby, here I come.

Here I come.

This is the Sawyer family working together,

Swiss Family Robinson-style.

And I guess this sequence, it was, I hope,

a little bit to Spielberg, obviously,

who essentially invented my childhood.

It's a family working together under incredible stress

and duress in a spectacular setting, I hope.

And this frame here is really interesting

for a bunch of reasons.

But one of them is how little of this actually exists.

So although this looks like we're 300 feet in the air,

we're actually only about 35 feet in the air.

And if you were actually see this shot

from the plate you would see wires coming up,

safety wires coming up from all of these actors.

So what's interesting also is this beam exists,

and this bridge exists, and this side exists,

but all of this back here

is completely created later in a computer.

Now on top of that, all these little embers right here,

this is all created later.

There were no embers, no smoke while we were shooting.

It was a completely clean plate.

One of the reasons that we shoot it 35 feet in the air

instead of three feet in the air, which does sound easier,

is because you can't get the camera low enough

to get the angles that you want if you're three feet

off the ground.

So there's a camera here on Neve,

there's a low-angle on Dwayne right here,

there's a reverse on Henry, played by Noah Cottrell,

there's a big wide shot here.

I can't get it back far enough,

and then we also have, later you'll see an overhead

technocrane shot where you can see all the way down.

The other thing you want to do when you're creating

any sequence, but especially an action sequence

is connect the space.

So what you don't really want a lot of are clean singles,

although that's important to add personal drama.

But in order to make the sequence feel alive and feel real

you want to connect the space.

You're always trying to make sure that you have

all three players connected.

It's a family working together, so the more shots

that you have with all three of them,

the more that'll come through.

(ominous music)

(board creaking)

In this bridge sequence we have Neve.

She finally makes it across to her son.

And this is one of my favorite frames of the entire film.

This is not framed by accident.

Obviously, Robert Elswit, one of the greatest

cinematographers of all time, shot our picture.

But here we have a frame that has all three of our

principals in it.

We've got Dwayne back here,

and this element of family, this theme of family

and togetherness, and struggle,

and vulnerability, and strength, is displayed,

I think, really beautifully right here.

And here's one thing that ILM can't do for you,

and that's heart.

And if you look right here, this is gonna be a little weird

because I'm gonna draw on Neve's face.

But this is why people come back to the theater:

an actor, a beautiful performance,

something that's heartfelt,

something that you connect with personally.

And as big as special effects can get,

and as much as I love my own writing, which I do,

it's not better than the right actor, in the right moment,

in the right frame.

[Will] Come back, hurry!

That's it, that's it.

Come back, come on.

(board creaking)

[Sarah] Soon as you can.

(flames roaring)

So now we have the return journey

as Sarah puts Henry on her back and walks across the plank

toward the safety side of the bridge.

So this is the end frame on a technocrane shot.

This is about a 75 foot technocrane

which is a remote-control crane arm that has

a telescopic function.

So you can extend the arm, and retract the arm,

you can move the head left and right, up and down,

and in fact, we used an Oculus head on this,

and there's only I think three of those

in the world right now.

An Oculus head can rotate 180 degrees and in all directions.

We didn't put the Oculus head to full use here,

but what we did do was we started in a closeup,

and we pulled back off a essentially a tight two-shot

on Neve and Noah, and we back up with them

and lift, and lift, and point straight down

to show what's beneath them, which in fact, is nothing.

So what you actually see here if you saw the plate

of this shot is this would all be green screen.

This is all green, all green, all green, all green,

all gree, right?

And the only stuff that's real

in this frame is this board here, these lovely actors,

and this piece right here.

That's it.

Just like that.

Everything else is created later by ILM.

So all these beautiful little embers right here,

all of these little embers, all of this stuff right here,

this tree, this fire here,

this is all created after the fact.

And as a director, it's pretty cool to have complete

control over every single ember in your frame.

And if you're not careful you can drive yourself crazy.

You have to know when to stop, but you also have to know

when you got it right.

(dramatic music)

Okay, we're almost there.

(explosion)

(screaming)

No!

Mom!

So Neve and Noah have safety cables that are removed later

to make sure that they don't fall and hurt themselves.

And later, in post, you remove these little cables,

little magic digital eraser, and then it looks like

they're doing it without any support whatsoever.

Later you'll see Neve and Noah fall, and Neve grabs hold

of the plank to keep them from continuing that fall

all the way to the ground, and that's a combination

of stunt players and your actual stars.

Close-ups you save for your actors,

and the wide shots are your stunt players.

Mom!

(fire crackling)

You can do it!

You can do it!

(board scraping)

I've wanted to make an action film

since I was about eight years old.

My mom took me to see Raiders of the Lost Ark

in this little two-screen theater in Cape Hatteras,

North Carolina, and I remember my eyes were

just about as big as saucers, and I fell in love with movies

in that moment.

I fell in love with action pictures.

And I guess that's what I wanted to make.

I wanted to make an old school film with new school tech.

(whimpering)

(board creaking)

I can't hold it anymore.