Who doesn’t love magic and watching magic tricks? I would
say that those people are pretty rare but a movie that is full of magic is “Now
You See Me” that was released in 2013. The scene that is pretty memorable and
took some time to execute is the Bank Robbery scene. From a production
designer’s standpoint, this scene is complex with the visual concept of how
they pulled it off.
The Production Designer behind this movie is Peter Wenham
who is responsible for some other famous work including The Bourne Supremacy
and Blood Diamond. Looking back at the trailers for both movies, The Bourne
Supremacy shines with the car scenes with Matt Damon and the people that are
after him where the camera is constantly changing perspectives and moving quite
quickly. In Blood Diamond, Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou are the leading
actors in this movie and they are trying to save Hounsou’s son and have to deal
with fire fight to battle to him. Those movies don’t use magic or anything but it
certainly shows the range and scope of different locations used in a variety of
ways. Also, both of those movies have a figure to ground relationship because
Matt Damon is the figure and he is on the run and his background is the country
of India and the people after him. Blood Diamond on the other hand has Djimon
Hounsou as the main figure and the ground relationship of South Africa and the
destruction it is taken and on the lookout for his son as well. I enjoyed “Now
You See Me” but the movie itself was nothing special although the bank robbery
scene specifically was really interesting and always kept me wondering how they
pulled the whole thing off specifically when the money was flying around and
into the air duct. Wenham’s job is to identify a design style for sets,
locations, graphics, props, lighting, camera angles and costumes, while working
closely with the director and producer.
Wenham has to deal with the physical context of the bank and
the character himself and the stack of money in the middle of the room. The
camera angles are pretty tight for this scene because it is just the character
and the money so not much else in happening within the vault. The contrast
helps the story psychologically through size, texture, orientation, etc. and
while dealing with a scene that has a lot of creativity and CGI, the contrast
is definitely present. I think it helps the viewer connect with the character in
the vault and the money flying up into the vault in the middle of the screen is
the focus.
There is a balance because the hole in which the money is
flying into is in the center of the screen which seems to pleasure the viewer
because there is equal space of the left and the right side. Wenham is in
charge of the lighting as well which compliments the harmony quite nicely
because of the brightness of lighting in the bank compared to the darkness on
the stage in the previous scene. It helps the viewer feel some sense of warmth
and by the exciting expression on the character’s face then the bright hue of
the bank fits in well.
The figure/ground relationship is present because the
character and the money are the figures and the grounds portion is the bank itself
with the vault and the whole structure of how it is created. Wenham took the
right approach to this because the scene is simple and not much is going on
around the character which makes it easier to focus on the magic that is
happening with the money.
The Gestalt Principles fit in well, starting with the law of
similarity, all the money is similar despite the different color of it being
red and blue, and they are all rectangular shaped with the same imprints on
them. Next, is the law of proximity which has to do with the objects being near
each other and grouped together and when the money is flying into the shoot,
they are all in the same general area which gives the viewer a sense of all the
individual pieces of money as one. The same aspect applies when it comes to the
law of closure, both of these terms are similar and we typically see the money
as a whole when it is being shot up through the vacuum. The law of pragnanz is
present because that is when reality is reduced to the simplest form and your
eye tends to automatically group things together which is what happens with the
tornado of money going into the vent. The viewer’s eye sees it as a cluster of
money because it is hard to spot every piece of money individually. The last
one is the law of continuity because there is a path that the money is
following and it is upward towards the top of the vault. The tornado effect
creates a cool and easy path for our eyes to decipher which adds to the overall
quality of the scene.
How the bank robbery scene was developed was that they filmed it in a vault and had the stack of money in the center of the room (just as it appears on screen) and they put up 3 different cameras. One camera was right over top of the stack of money and the second camera was a shoulder cam that someone was holding and walking around the chaos of the money flying to focus on the actor. The third camera is the camera that the audience sees and it has a handle which the camera man uses to move it up and down while the money is flying around the actor to create a sense of motion that is happening. Also, they strapped down a couple of fans to the ground so they could get the money to swirl around whenever they needed to and unbind some of the money so it was able to fly freely. One more thing, there was a guy out of the shot throwing some more money into the swirling so the effect of all the money just had a constant flow without breaking up any continuity. It is cool to see how the scene was done and it was executed very well.
This link is for the actual scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx9EOI4RyBs
This link is behind the scenes footage of how they pulled it off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXv5262Fclw
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