Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little insight into the world of Matt Reeves' upcoming WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, the second sequel in the surprisingly great relaunch of the Planet of the Apes franchise.
A while back I traveled to chilly Vancouver to spend a day on the set. Reeves' crew had built up a massive outdoor structure that will represent an old Military checkpoint/Simian Flu quarantine station that has since become a kind of fortified base for the bad guy humans in this story, led by Woody Harrelson's character known only as Colonel.
It's always fun to be on the ground and actually walk around a giant set, especially when it's big enough for you to almost get lost in. It doesn't take a huge imagination to feel like you've been transported to a different world and that's exactly what this set felt like.
Snow was on the ground, imposing concrete walls and blocky structures acted as the perimeter containing what can best be described as exposed cages. Not like a zoo, but more like a wartime prison camp. I'd find out that some research into Japanese Internment Camps led to the look of this section. So, yeah. Not a very happy looking place.
Like all great production design I got a feeling of history to this set. Graffiti on the walls, some wooden buildings burned out (insides were completely designed as well) and broken fences. Stuff has gone down here.
Most interestingly there was some vintage Planet of the Apes imagery that immediately grabbed my attention, specifically an x-shaped crucifix right in the middle of the set. This would play into one of the scenes we saw shot on this day.
Before we talked to some of the key players we got a look at a giant model of this particular set, which even incorporated some of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which this bunker-looking compound was built into the side of. On the rocky slopes surrounding the set were more X-shaped crucifixes with apes tied to them as perhaps some kind of example to the imprisoned apes.
We were told that the apes are being used as labor to rebuild some of the fortifications at the front of this base. The Apes don't work in stone and steel. That's not how they know how to build, which means you have an interesting duality in this complex... the cold human and the natural ape architecture clashing with each other. You can get an idea of this juxtaposition in this shot provided by Fox:
War for the Planet of the Apes takes place 2 years after the events of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. You'll remember that film ended with Caesar taking back control of the group from Koba, but not before Koba killed Rocket's son and sparked conflict with the surviving humans. Last we heard there was a military presence up north that was alerted to the Ape's hostility and intelligence.
It seems that message was received loud and clear (thanks, Gary Oldman) and we're in full on conflict at the beginning of this one. The producers and actors we talked to didn't want to tread too much into plot specifics, but it seems that something happens that causes Caesar to leave the tribe. I heard two reasons for this. One is that he doesn't feel like he's in a position to be the leader they need and secondly he feels compelled to go off on his own mission of revenge, his sights set on Harrelson's character.
Harrelson is also gunning for Caesar, feeling like if Caesar is captured or killed the whole Ape army will fold.
I know that Maurice goes with Caesar, as does Rocket and Luca, a Gorilla. This is the most exciting development for me because I flat out adore Maurice. He's my favorite sci-fi character in the last quarter century. His quiet wisdom, unwavering loyalty and fierce intelligence all wrapped up in a big fluffy orange-haired sign-language-using orangutan just about stole both previous Apes films.
The idea of these Apes on a kind of post-apocalyptic road movie through the snow (and on horseback, by the way) has me a little giddy, to be honest. Especially since at some point we're introduced to a couple new characters.
One is a little human girl, too young to care for herself. We had a pretty great-sounding scene surrounding this girl described to us by producer Dylan Clark. Caesar doesn't want to bring her along, but Maurice, forever his conscience, refuses to abandon her to the elements and takes her under his big, shaggy wing.
The other big new character is played by Steve Zahn. He's a chimp and his inclusion is supposed to open up the world for both Caesar and the audience. He's not part of Caesar's tribe, which means that there's other groups of intelligent primates out there. Clark, Terry Notary and Andy Serkis never referred to this character's name, which was odd. Makes me think it's a name Apes fans might recognize. His character was described as “a sprite of goodness” in a movie that is pretty heavy and emotionally dark.
There were two scenes we saw filmed. One was one we only saw via monitor while we were between interviews in a big tent and the other a giant establishing shot involving a massive crane shot. When I say massive I mean like mini-skyscraper tall crane.
There were 30-40 armed military types in this exterior shot and a few apes were being escorted through the camp grounds, shackled together, one pushing a wheel barrel. Of course, I say “apes” and that's what they'll be when you see this shot finalized, but when I was there it was Terry Notary's group of performers in grey P.J.s covered with dots.
The crane was big and so was the camera. Matt Reeves is shooting 65mm, going for a very wide frame on this particular picture.
This big, wide frame was capturing the above action from a bit of a height, following the Apes as they make their way through the grounds before tilting to a soldier standing on a rusty tanker who turns and looks up toward camera and shouts something I couldn't make out. I'm pretty sure he opens fire at some point in this scene, but don't quote me on that.
Andy Serkis played into the other scene we saw via monitor. This might be a little spoilery, so if you're sensitive to that kinda stuff you might want to avert your gaze for this part.
Remember that X-shaped crucifix I mentioned being in the center of the courtyard? Guess who's tied to it? Caesar seems to be in some trouble. The shot was a medium close up looking up at Andy, with his trademark spotted performance capture face complete with the camera rig set up to capture his facial expressions.
Another gray-suited performance capture ape is pulling on a rope, finishing tying Caesar to the cross. A concerned looking human soldier (played by Gabriel Chavarria) with a militarized crossbow tries talking to Caesar in hushed tones. I hurriedly tried to get all his dialogue down. This is the general gist of the conversation:
”Look, I owe you one, so let me set you straight. I think he respects you. He does. That's why you're still alive. Believe me, he can do a lot worse than this. I've seen it.You do not want to agitate the man, understand?”
It's pretty clear he's referring to Harrelson's character. Serkis was killing it with his facial expressions, as usual. He conveyed defiance, sadness and determination without opening his mouth.
Our interviews were with producers Dylan Clark and Ryan Stafford and actors Andy Serkis, Terry Notary (Rocket) and Karin Konoval (Maurice). One of the coolest parts of the trip was when Karin broke out her arm extensions and gave us an in-person demonstration on how a small, skinny woman performs a large, chubby male orangutan.
The extensions were little crutches with a rubber ball on the ends, more sophisticated than the modified crutches used in previous films and designed by Terry Notary himself.
If you read my Hobbit reports you might remember me talking a bit about Terry. He was the movement coach and did his best to tell me how to walk like a Halfling for my 15 minutes of fame as “Fredegar Chubb, Fish Monger of Hobbiton.” The dude puts a ton of thought into movement and is a crucial member of the Apes franchise apart from his nuanced performance of Rocket.
Instead of making you read a bunch of roundtable transcripts I figured I'd pull some of the more interesting info gleaned from these interviews and bullet-point them for you. Let's hit it, shall we?
-Clark worked with Tom Cruise on Oblivion and said he's a huge fan of these films and keeps pestering him to come in at some point and play an Ape. Don't think it happened on this one, but how cool would it be if he Daniel Craig Stormtrooper'd something under the radar?
-There was fan speculation that Koba survived his fall because of some sound cue. Sadly, Koba is for real dead. Dylan Clark said there were conversations in post on Dawn about whether or not they made a mistake killing Koba because he was such a great, multi-layered character, but it was decided that it would be too unrealistic to say he survived that fall.
-The decision to shoot 65mm is due, in some part, to David Lean being a big influence on the tone of this film. Reeves really wanted to shoot a wide frame and with post-converting 3D being pretty godo these days they decided to shoot in 65mm and post-convert for the 3D instead of shooting native 3D.
-Will the humans of the last movie be acknowledged? Clark didn't want to give anything away and didn't want to answer that, which leads me to believe there will be some kind of nod or mention.
-Made a point to say this was probably the first time performance capture has been done in the snow, meaning the technology was able to be taken out to snowy locations.
-I jokingly asked what highly inappropriate graphic novel Maurice will be reading in this movie, referring to the inclusion of Black Hole in Dawn. Dylan Clark: “Is it inappropriate, (Kodi Smit-McPhee) was 15 or 16. You read that and worse at 15, did you not?”
-After I mentioned that Maurice is one of my favorite sci-fi characters in recent memory, Clark implored all the movie blogger folks there to write more about that. “The LA Times ain't going to write a Maurice article, you guys need to do it.” So, what do you guys think? You up for a “Maurice is awesome” article at some point?
-The working title of the film was The Hidden Fortress, a direct reference not only to Akira Kurosawa, another huge influence on Reeves, but also to a kind of sanctuary for the apes which is behind a waterfall in this one. I saw a production art piece and it was gorgeous, almost fantasy film pretty.
-The original Simian Flu virus still plays a part in this story. Like famous epic disaster viruses in real life, it is mutating. Clark wouldn't say more than that, but Serkis mentioned that this change isn't good news for the humans.
-Caesar is now a wartime leader. Physically he's more upright and linguistically he's more fluid, per Serkis.
-Karin gave us an insight into her physical prep for playing Maurice. Training for the physical exertion needed for a short, 54 year old, 120 pound woman to play a 300 pound orangutan – Karin read on the internet another Apes film was coming, so took it upon herself to get ready in case they called her back. In May she started going to the gym 3 times a week, 2 hours a day. In July she was there every second day solidly and cycling 100km a week. By August she was in the gym over 2 hours a day. Elliptical warm up, 2 hours of weights and a half hour of Yoga to strengthen her core. She was called back 3 weeks before rehearsal in mid-September 2015.
-Terry on where Rocket is at the beginning of War, after his arc from alpha male beat down by Caesar to having his son killed by another ape in Dawn: “Well, Caesar was there for me. The space between the last film and this one you feel the friendship between Caesar and Rocket having grown through that experience, through that loss. That gives Rocket the maturity and ability to help Caesar with his own plight and to push him where he needs to go. It's a little bit of a role reversal from what happened in the last one.”
-Five performance capture performers will pretty much play all the apes, which number in the thousands. Nine at the most will be in a shot, including the 5 regulars.
-There's a new fur pipeline for those digital effects savvy. That means that the fur will look even more realistic and awesome, especially since the story requires frost, snow and ice to accumulate on our apes.
-Expect a lot of Apes in this one. In Rise Apes were about 35% of the film. Dawn was about 65%. They estimated this one is more like 95%
-There was talk of putting clothes on the Apes in this one, but they decided against it here. That doesn't mean they won't bring it to this new franchise in further films, though.
-Reeves wanted a realistic foundation for all the CG, so the vast majority of filming was all location or exteriors. They guessed about 70% of the film was shot outdoors, only around 15 production days (of 96) in a studio.
-There's more Ape speech in this one, but most of the Ape communication is still through sign language.
And that just about wraps up my visit. I didn't get to see a whole lot of shooting or see how Reeves was working with his actors, but I did get to see Maurice come to life in front of my eyes thanks to a delightfully enthusiastic demonstration from Karin Konoval, guttural utterances and all, so I can't complain!
At the time of my writing this I haven't seen the trailer, which just hit, so forgive any repeat or doubling up of info. Take a look at the poster and trailer below:
Hope you guys enjoyed the peak behind the curtain on this production. I'm a big fan of how this series is unfolding and I can't wait to see how this one turns out. What about you guys?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
