FURIOSA Director George Miller Explains How His Epic Action Scenes Are Like Music
George Miller has always delivered incredible action in his Mad Max movies, and judging from what we’ve seen from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga so far, the action sequences are going to be some of the most epic yet!
During a recent interview with io9, Miller was asked about his philosophy when creating these massive action scenes, and he went on to compare his action sequences to music.
Miller said: “Well, I think the best analogy is music. It’s kind of visual music. What it’s got in common with music is that it’s time-based and therefore rhythm-based. There’s an unfolding in it.
“So in the same way that music, the more I get to understand it, is almost mathematical in its structure. There has to be a causal relationship between one note and the next, one chord to the next. Otherwise there’s no progression or flow to it.
“It’s exactly the same with film. There has to be a causal relationship between one bit of choreography, one shot, and the next thing. So they make up, if you like, a full passage, a full sentence.”
That makes a lot of sense, and the way he creates these big scale action pieces obviously works. He does something that a lot of directors wouldn’t be able to pull off.
The filmmaker went on to discuss working with composers throughout his career and one in particular that impressed him.
He said: “I’ve been lucky enough to with some really great composers and one of the things they’re doing is picking up a kind of cadence in the performance, in the verbal performance and the rhythm in the way that dance between what’s being filmed and the camera.
“All of that has an intrinsic rhythm and there are certain beats that they pick up very quickly in order to sort of write the music.”
He went on to talk about working with John Willaims in the 80s, saying: “Way back in the ‘80s, I did a film The Witches of Eastwick which John Williams scored. Then it was celluloid on a flatbed. Now, you can see all the music digitally ... but he was picking it up just sitting there listening to it.
“And he said, ‘Oh, you know I see the beats and whatever’ very quickly. And I realize now that’s what [composers] are doing all the time. So there’s definitely a rhythm to it that’s very, very important in the way that you put it together.”
As for one of the most crucial things in the action scenes he creates: “Most of all, with action, I would say the scenes are really driven by the story, which is driven by the characters, and their wants and intentions and the way they come into conflict with each other, and it has to be a rising conflict.
“So an action scene is all about the character. It’s another way for characters to interact. And unless you have that, then it becomes sort of empty calories, watching all this movement and noise just to pass the time, rather than somehow have it have deeper meanings.”
As any smart filmmaker knows… story drives everything! It seems a lot of directors these days lack that knowledge. But, there’s a reason why George Miller continues to make great, successful films.