93rd Oscars Backstage Interview Transcript: VISUAL EFFECTS

SPEECH BY: Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley and Scott Fisher

FILM: "TENET"

Download Video

Download Video

 

Q. Congratulations on this huge win.  How did you guys create something that, on this day and age, depresses people and lifts them enough because you've created a nation visual movie? 
A. (Scott Fisher) Well, Christopher Nolan is our director, and he writes it.  And then we try to figure out how to do it.  So he relies on us a lot as far as ‑‑ he doesn't want to do everything in CGI the way a lot of guys do.  He'd much rather do stuff practically.  So we take a practical approach from the beginning.  And then anything we ‑‑ anything we can't do, it gets hopped to CGI.  But that's the main objective from the beginning, which is to try to do it big and as in camera as we can.

Q. Hi there.  Congratulations.  Tenet was an extraordinary piece of work.  I know some of your fellow winners are on other parts of the planet, including Australia's own Andrew Jackson.  So when you are doing the visual effects for the movie, are you all together or, in this day and age, can you do them anywhere on the planet?  Do you have to be together? 
A. (Scott Fisher) Usually Andrew and I are on set and then ‑‑ Andrew Jackson.  And then Lockley and David Lee work back in (inaudible) most of the time, but they make some trips out to set to kind of do particular ‑‑ particular sets or setups, you know, as we go along.  I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you there.

Q. Was this different to every other project you've done? 
A. (Scott Fisher) All the Nolan movies are different to every other project.  They have their own kind of, you know, he has a very clear objective right from the beginning and that's, you know, we want to do things as practical as we can. 
Normally when you read a script, you think ‑‑ you kind of make assumptions about things that are going to be visual effects or that are going to be done on set. 
And with him, it's completely different because you realize that everything ‑‑ that you are going to want to do a version of it on set, and that might get augmented later on.  But he wants to do it as much as possible.  So it's very different from other projects, but very similar to his projects for sure.

Q. Thank you.  And congratulations to our winner.  Thank you. 
A. (Scott Fisher) Thank you.

Q. Tenet, it's so beautiful.  Congrats for the award. 
A. Thank you.  Thank you. 

Q. What was the hardest thing of making a movie that the big part of the story is in reverse? 
A. Thinking backwards was definitely the biggest challenge, and I think everybody would probably agree with me that's in this room right now, just trying to get our heads around what should be forward, what should be backwards, what's backwards in forwards world, what's forwards in backwards world, and how those things come together.  So it was a mental challenge from start to finish, really. 

Q. Hello.  Congratulations on winning. 
A. Thank you.  Thank you. 


Q. My question is what was the most difficult visual effect to create in this film? 
A. Well, there's a few quite tricky ones.  I think the one that probably went around the most times was the car exploding, just because that's the main time you see the reverse entropy effect and the fireball that comes out of the car with the flames going out and the smoke coming back in, and that went around a lot of times.  So that was probably the most challenging throughout the whole show, yeah.

 


These transcripts may not be reproduced except as brief quotes used in conjunction with news reporting about the 93rd Academy Awards®. All content Copyright 2021 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "Oscar®," "Oscars®," "Academy Awards®," "Academy Award®," "A.M.P.A.S.®" and "Oscar Night®" are the trademarks, and the ©Oscar® statuette is the registered design mark and copyrighted property, of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Additional information regarding the "Terms & Conditions of Use" and "Legal Regulations for Using Intellectual Properties of the Academy" may be accessed online at http://www.oscars.org/legal

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Communications Department
8949 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90211-1972
Phone (310) 247-3090
FAX (310) 271-3395
http://www.oscars.org
publicity@oscars.org