Shooting Magical Sequences: DC'S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW
This scene from Legends of Tomorrow 5.04 “A Head of Her Time” has everything — stunts and CGI, wind machines and live lighting changes, wides and closeups, thrills and comedy — but is clearly shot within Legends’ restrictions making a 15-episode-season time-traveling superhero-ensemble show on a low budget.
Let’s take a look at all the pieces and how they’re assembled to be fun and impressive while using stunts and setups that are small, simple, and cost effective. You know, like you may need on an indie film set.
Quick Summary — the spirit Natalie Logue is tormenting John Constantine (Matt Ryan), as Charlie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) and Gary (Adam Tsekhman) try to intervene.
Lighting Changes
Essentially they light the hallway three ways:
warm-lit ‘normal’ nighttime
dark ‘lights out’ spooky time
cool blue ‘lights flashing’ brightness
and flick through those three in a wide, as well as closeups of Charlie and Gary
Reaction Shots
Matt, Maisie, and Adam get to break out their Big Expressions; the above samples just the beginning.
A closeup of Gary’s wide-eyed terror tells us something huge is going down; but seeing the usual cool-and-acting-collected Constantine freak out really seals the deal.
The bigger point here, though, is how using Gary as an audience surrogate limits what we see, and minimises the stuntwork needed.
Limit What We See
Gary looking through a peephole (with its motivated ‘spotlight’ of white light out into the hallway, and similar ‘cycling’ lighting within the room) excuses seeing only a small bit of Constantine’s gyrations.
This minimises Matt Ryan’s stunts in two ways.
First, instead of having to suspend Constantine from wires or a tall plank and do a lot of CGI removing the support framework in post, they can secure him on a table and/or plank which is hidden under his clothes, and let him do a lot more thrashing within the same level of safety for a lot less money.
Second, when Constantine flies through the air and hits the door, you can shoot it wide, then zero in on a smaller area for CGI work.
If you were going reaaaaaally small budget, you could easily use a fake body, or move the camera towards the actor gyrating on the ground, reverse that shot, and superimpose it onto a green screen you shoot through a door keyhole.
They really sell Constantine hitting the door with that simple reverse back on Gary, who closes his eyes and falls backwards as though he’s been impacted.
All of which saves time and money for more of the . . .
Practical and CGI effects
Pointing a bright light through a keyhole and popping a doorknob out is a really ‘simple’ one, though testing whether you use fishing wire (which may need to be erased in post, poke it from the inside (which may obscure the lighting effect), etc etc, is a bit of fuss.
And then you spend ‘whatever money we have left’ on this ghost, whose movement is augmented by the wind machine and Charlie and Gary’s reactions.
Finally . . .
A lil canted angle, shallow depth-of-field, exaggerated accent, and Matt Ryan sauce caps it all off!
Takeaways
Before post can work its magic with sound mixing, score, and the biggest bang for the minimal apparition work, you’ve got to have all the right elements in place.
When considering how to shoot a big magical / ghost / possession sequence, considering what your tone, characters, and actors allow for could be the key to unlocking how you do it for cheap! Legends is often silly and irreverent, Gary is bumbling, Adam Tsekhman gives excellent Face. This scene leans into all three of those things then builds the sequence around them.
Then the sequence can rely on super ‘basic’ techniques such as re-using shots live-lighting switches, practical props and effects such as the doorknob and wind machine, and it comes together effectively because it’s playing to its strengths.
As Gary says . . .
speaks semi-assertively in latin-ish sounding or Romanian words