Edgar Wright discusses his new filmmaking course and his contribution to Top Gun: Maverick

So you pay the price by sharing your accumulated knowledge. What prompted you to do this for Courses BBC Masters?

Well, BBC Maestro asked me, and I am always asked, usually In some Q&A, “How did you get into filmmaking?” This is not a short answer. You can give a succinct short answer, usually like, “Get up and do it. There’s nothing stopping you. You have an iPhone and you can make a movie.” But actually the benefit of this is that it answers the question in detail and Answers other questions that I have never answered myself. So I had to think about what to do with my work. Another interesting thing about filmmaking is that no two directors are exactly the same. So in the course, I talked about how I make movies, but I also mentioned that it’s not the way everyone does it. There are other ways to do this, which I also touched on. So I hope it’s very comprehensive for people and hopefully inspiring.

When putting this course together, you are able to see your process from different angles. So are you aware of your previously unobvious ways of working?

Just being able to say what I do instinctively. That’s the hard thing. As far as the way I do things, I have answers to every question, but I’ve never really answered them [orally] before. So it’s fun to be a teacher and have to communicate. Both my parents were art teachers, so self-study was a nice complete cycle.

Considering you’re self-taught, that’s quite a feat.

As I said in the course, I didn’t really go to film school. I’ve been to art school and I’ve taken foundation courses, but I’ve never taken a degree in film and television. So for me, a lot of it is self-taught. When I was a teenager I had a Super 8 camera and then a camera that I won in competitions and I watched my favorite movies and just tried to replicate what they did and didn’t Don’t really know how they did it. This is an estimate of the visual effect on the screen. I don’t really know what a Steadicam is or what it looks like, but try to figure it out for yourself.

So for those who are interested in filmmaking but haven’t taken it in depth, the course talks about every aspect of it in an accessible way. Even though I’m a film director, I’ve learned a lot on my own, and I just want to pass on what I’ve learned on the job to others.

We can dedicate the entire interview to The Cornetto Trilogy(Dead Sean, Blood Detective, the end of the world), but if I had to summarize those experiences, it was the part of writing your most refined process, with Simon Pegg?

Yes, I talked a lot in the course, but I took the first Movie years old, a handful Fingers , powered by a lot of energy, but also just utterly childish. I really never thought it would not happen that way. When you’re young, you don’t necessarily think about any failure in anything you might do. Then do Shaun of the Dead Nearly ten years later, this is what Simon and I got right The craft is really serious and you’re right, a big part of it is the writing. A big part of that is how to write the right screenplay, so we read all the screenplay books. We also analyzed movies.

In addition to the videos that you can watch [on BBC Maestro], there are some hands-on lessons you can do in your own time, one of which is that Simon and I used to do The dead Sean . Watch one of your favorite movies and break it down into a performance structure. Literally take it apart like a model car and figure out how it works. So we sit down and watch our favorite movies, and then we look at them in a more analytical way to find out why they work the way they do. So it’s a very fascinating process. Even if you don’t have the actual tools to shoot a movie, you can still learn to direct a movie in a very easy way, like watching a movie with the sound turned off.

It’s fun to learn about visual storytelling by watching a movie with the sound off and seeing how much you can follow through just the composition, camera position, lighting, and mood. I remember being on a plane and watching gravity on someone’s shoulder. (laughs.) I’ve seen this movie before, but it’s amazing. A great movie and great visual storytelling can be in any form, even without sound, even if you’re not watching a [airplane seat] screen. But it’s fun to take things apart that you’ve probably seen a hundred times in order to see and hear them in a whole new way.

do baby driver Reminds you to make a A playlist that syncs with your script?

For that movie, yes. The character was actually listening to the soundtrack, but I found that I really enjoyed writing music. It also usually gets very specific. If I was writing a script, I would try to find the right mood to write it, but you have to be very picky about it. You don’t want to listen to new songs because you might be distracted by lyrics or something. You really don’t want to listen to a song with a lot of lyrics, period, unless you’ve heard that song a million times and it’s probably just in the background. But generally, it’s like finding the right pitch for something or listening to the original sound.

When Simon and I were writing Shaun of

the Dead This was before Spotify and everything was on your laptop. We compiled it on a John Carpenter sheet music and Goblin’s CD-R, and we just played it on loop to get into the area. There are inspiring exercises for many different people to get in the right writing mood, and sometimes, even The same is true when you make a movie. If you’re making a horror movie and you have a scene without dialogue, it might sometimes be a good idea to play some music on set. This is how Sergio Leone-Ennio Morricone plays the score when the actors are actually present. Obviously, if you have dialogue, that’s another story, but I’ve done it many times, even separate from the Baby Driver. You are playing a little music to summon a moon.

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Courtesy of Parisa Taghizadeh/Focus Features

for Last night in Soho, it seems that the main takeaway is that tried-and-true techniques never die, such as Texas transitions and duos, and whether it’s evening or precise choreography and coordination of club scenes or taxi sequences involving three different taxis.

Glad you know about taxis. It’s one of the most impressive shots of that movie that no one talks about. We shot the two actors at the same time [in different taxis] so the background would be exactly right, but they could also have live conversations. We actually drove in central London, which was impressive and ambitious, but also saved a lot of money on the green screen effect. For that film, in general, doing as much on-camera as possible would make it more ambitious, but this is where the magic of filmmaking feels at its purest. It’s a beautiful thing that you create something in the frame that anyone standing there can see. It builds real camaraderie on set.

When we shot that dancing scene with all the Texas switches, every crew member would be crowding around the monitor after that because you could see what the footage would be. When the movie was on the verge of some sort of green screen, and everyone on set was saying, “Ah, VFX has done it. Don’t worry. They’ll do it,” and I feel like people might get out of the process. Ewan McGregor, when it comes to making STAR WAR prequel, always very frankly it was boring, like talking to tennis. That’s not to say you can’t do amazing things with VFX, but you’ll always have more fun in the production process if you combine it with practical techniques. It will be realistic. Of course, not every movie is right for it, but the more you can do it, the more exciting it will be to make.

So over the years I’ve heard a lot of stories about filmmakers showing you early cuts of their movies to get you of two cents. For example, you tell [writer-director] Chris McQuarrie and [editor] Eddie Hamilton Mission: Impossible – Fallout used to be15 minutes are too long and they take it to heart.

(laugh.) They hate me for that!

andTop Gun: Maverick, you alsoSuggest Foghat’s “Slow Ride” is used for bar sequences. So what do you have to say about this position where a world-class filmmaker needs your input in the refinement and testing stages?

I am at Top Gun: without any [other] comments maverick . The first time I saw it was 600 . Chris McQuarrie and Tom Cruise showed it to me and it’s pretty much a released movie minus the Lady Gaga song. In the case of Foghat, they needed a song. My dream text is Chris McQuarrie saying, “Hey, we need a new song for the bar scene in Top Gun: Maverick. You Can you imagine what that was like…?” Like, “Oh, give me 15 minutes!” I think I still have that playlist on Spotify. That’s the “Maverick Bar”. So these things are interesting to me.

But yeah, if people want to show you something, it’s so flattering, and so is my movie. You usually invite people who will tell you what they think. This can sometimes be harder to hear, but you want to hear it from someone you really respect. Sometimes, people have really good solutions. On Last Night in Soho, I showed George Miller something, he’s so small, Mind you, that’s great. Speaking at the VFX conference, “One more thing, Dr. George Miller suggested, if we close that gap, it will be more successful.” No one can say no to George Miller’s statement of action. (laugh.)

I love films or series about filmmaking, especially live-action films. MANK its about

of writing citizen

Kane . This supply its aboutThis godfather. Affleck is also developing a movie about The movie that made the back story Chinatown

. So I’m curious if you want to see narrative features about the story behind a particular movie, but I had to pick George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury road because it’s too easy and too easy perfect s answer.

I wish there was a full documentary, or maybe it was about making the first Evil Dead . That would be fascinating. As far as I can tell, after a Q&A with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, one of the things that happened in that movie was that the original cast pretty much had left as the filming took longer. (laughs.) And one of the reasons for the heavy face makeup of the zombies in the second half is because some of the different actors are the same as before. In a cabin in Tennessee, they were like, “I’ve been out in the woods for six weeks. I need to get back to work.” I think the end of the movie is actually just Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell together Sam Raimi’s basement.

So I love hearing about movies where people stay away from Hollywood trying to bridge the gap between amateur and professional. Obviously, as far as that movie goes, it’s one of the most high-profile horror debuts of all time. But it just seems to be stuck together with tape. (laugh.)

Finally, people will immediately register for your BBC Maestro course based on your name and job description. Which past filmmaker would immediately prompt you to sign up for BBC Maestro?

Alfred Hitchcock. I mean, if Hitchcock were to play the BBC master from the grave, that would be impressive in itself. (laughs.) But I’ll be the first to sign up.

140466782309137 Edgar Wright’s BBC Maestro courses are now available on BBCMaestro.com. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.