Thor: Ragnarok's Director Breaks Down a Fight Scene

Hello, my name is Taika Waititi

from New Zealand,

I know you've heard of it,

I'm going to do a one scene breakdown from Thor.

So, just before this scene,

there's a palace infiltration

where Thor and Loki team up together,

basically, trying to get into this hangar.

Loki, I thought the world of you.

[Taika] This is a scene where Thor

and Loki are basically saying their goodbyes.

At the end of the day, you're you and I'm me,

and I don't know, maybe there's still good in you,

but let's be honest, our paths diverged a long time ago.

Thing I like about this scene is

it really shows they do love each other.

It's three setups, it's just this two shot,

and then two cameras covering both characters.

It is probably the most simple way you could ever shoot,

some would call it the laziest way.

Here's the thing with these characters,

they've got a very strong

and long arc over the three movies,

and what we're trying to do here is to,

it's to try and break them apart.

This was actually really important for Thor's character

who now has given up on trying to save Loki,

and now he's letting Loki go.

This basically was one of the simpler things to shoot,

and you'll be so amazed to hear this,

but this was shot on a blue screen,

so all of the stuff here behind them isn't real.

Isn't

real.

No, it doesn't exist, doesn't exist, doesn't exist.

The only real things that we shot is this guy

and this guy.

The key to this was pace.

That's one of the few scenes that we didn't improvise,

we stuck mainly to the script

and the direction I gave to them was to stand still

and know your lines,

and say them fast.

Hey, let's do get help.

What?

Get help.

No. Come on, you'll love it.

I hate it.

It's great, it works every time.

It's humiliating.

Do you have a better plan?

No. We're doing it.

On the day, obviously, Chris' muscles were a lot bigger,

they kind of come out to about here,

but we had to shape these later on

'cause it was just too unbelievable.

What else can I say about Chris?

I mean, he's a perfect man, isn't he?

We are not doing get help.

(door chimes) Get help!

Well, the difference between doing drama and comedy is,

comedy is 50 times harder.

You need to think about pace,

you need to think about what you're seeing.

Comedy always plays better in wider shots,

like this, from a two shot.

I like having the camera be still.

Get help! Please!

My brother, he's dying!

Get help!

Help him!

Okay, well this isn't obviously not Tom,

this is a stuntman.

The shot before this is Tom

and then we cut, swoop out wider.

This is the illusion of filmmaking

and you're using your editing.

This here and that, that is not Tom.

Obviously actors are very valuable

and we do not want to damage the actor,

and so, in this shot here,

this is a guy being thrown.

Help him!

Basically, we're using wires,

so he's probably got a harness on,

got wires going up here,

they'll kind of go down around here into the background.

There's probably a couple of guys who are like,

holding on to these, they pull,

they're not this small, this is perspective,

they're back in the distance.

They pull him and that's when he gets launched

across into these guys.

Help him!

Classic.

Still hate it.

Well, now, so we have Loki popping up

from the bottom of frame.

This shot wouldn't have been as funny

if we'd just cut to Loki lying on the ground.

In this one, we just wanted to keep this momentum going

of them moving forward.

I think it's interesting that they now swap sides,

maybe there's something symbolic in there,

that now they've swapped over,

they've swapped sides and there's a sort of,

there's a crossing over emotionally.

I've sort of shot this in a very similar way

to how I shoot my other films.

With this particular scene

and with everything on Sakaar,

we really concentrated a lot on these

sort of Jack Kirby lines.

He was a huge influence on the design of the film.

This was a very different experience

for me shooting this film.

My movies usually have taken anywhere between 25

and 35 days to shoot,

this film was 85 days, so it was a lot longer.

One interesting thing is that after every setup

we would do plates,

so we shoot background plates of everything,

and we'd also do passes of the camera moves

and whatever we've done without any actors in them.

We've taken versions of clothes

and stuff that we might have

and you dance them through the set

so that you can get references for texture

and lightening on material.

Help him!

This you guys might be interested to know,

this spaceship back here, I designed this,

and it's now in a movie,

and I didn't get paid for it.

So, very big sore point for me with this movie.

One of my biggest regrets of making Thor: Ragnarok is,

I haven't been acknowledged for my amazing design,

which is, essentially, a box.

A flying box and nobody's done that before in the movies,

except for me.

Classic.

Still hate it.

Thank you for watching Notes On A Scene.

You're welcome.