The Gags of the Scene - DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS
The Doric chase / Wildshape escape sequence from Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023) is a delicious cinematic delight.
Doric (Sophia Lillis) has snuck into a castle to spy on the Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head) disguised as a literal fly on the wall. But when she’s made by Sofina, she has to escape by shape-shifting into various creatures.
Part of the reason the sequence is so great is because it’s a oner - which as, Director John Francis Daley, says: “is such a fun and immersive way to tell a story within the context of a scene”1
Technically, the shot is divided into 11 sub-shots. And we’re going to be looking at all of them, so strap in for a not-so-pithy-post on subshot design!
As MPC’s VFX Supervisor Axel Bonami explains about this sequence:
“It covers a large number of different sets and environments, as well as creature animation. It involves a complex assembly of precise principal photography across multiple plates, expert layout stitching, majestic animation skills, environment builds and digital matte painting, a plethora of lighting setups, and a large puzzle for the compositing team. It all, in the end, participates in creating tension, and hopefully keeps the audience on the edge of their seat.”
The visual effects work here is damned impressive. And it is fun to try and work out where stitches between the different subshots are. And to consider what elements they shot and how. For example, they built a removable floor so they could get the camera low enough to shoot the plates for the CGI mouse. Cool!
But the comedic genius of this sequence is how it constantly finds new visual ways to surprise and delight us over its nearly 150 second running time.
It feels like every subshot has at least one, if not more, visual gags, and the layout/staging of the subshot is designed to maximise the impact of those gags.
Let us break those gags down!
(Note: All embedded GIFS are running at 50% speed for clarity)
GAG 1: Popcorn!
After Doric (in fly form) has been made by Sofina, she makes her escape through a hole-in-the-wall and Sofina shoots some kind of magic after her.
The magic brings down the grain storage, forcing the fly into the ground — suddenly there’s pop-pop-POPCORN! (a fun surprise)— and Doric transforms into a mouse to continue her escape.
This subshot establishes the pattern for the whole sequence:
→ Doric transforms
→ THEREFORE gets further in her escape
→ BUT something stops her escape
→ THEREFORE Doric transforms
And the whole thing loops. Because this is, effectively, is A GAME LOOP!
And a lot of the joy comes from the filmmakers finding new angles (boom tish) to show us during the game loop.
GAGS 2→4: Knight!
The next subshot features three gags.
The first gag is when the mouse scampers into the suit-of-armour.
The camera cranes up as we wait in anticipation to see what Doric is going to do. Through this sequence, we are always behind Doric — never knowing what she is going to do or become — and that makes her seem smart and keeps us guessing.
The camera move here BUILDS suspense. And just as we start to get ‘bored’ by the shot, guards break the frame, running left-to-right - ie visually away - from Doric.
VICTORY! She’s gonna make it —
A classic beat as she nods to another guard - the misfitting helmet rocking on her head. A few steps more and — oh, no —
In the background, unseen by Doric, the guard clocks what’s going on. He unsheathes his sword. We’re now worried for her, because we can see what is happening and she can’t: Will he catch her before she realises what’s going on? Great dramatic irony enhanced by simple, effective, foreground/background staging.
The guard increases his pace and there’s a long beat before she, too, walks faster. That beat creates a great ‘sinking feeling’ in the audience. And then she breaks into a run!
He reaches her! HE SWINGS — OH NO!!!
The helmet goes flying (towards us) and — WAIT! Where has she gone? —
As the suit stumbles hilariously forward, the camera continues tracking back. Again, this camera move creates suspense — where is she? — by visually show us this shot isn’t finished.
A perfectly timed beat and then SURPRISE!!! the mouse emerges, quickly followed by a guard breaking into the top-of-frame and trying to land on the Doric-mouse.
We’re at the start of the loop again —
GAG 5: Stacks on!
A new subshot. Suddenly there are guards everywhere (who cares from where!). The camera cranes back into an overhead wide to emphasise the absurdity of these huge guards trying to catch this tiny mouse in a game of stacks on!
Love the guard on right who is overpowered by Doric. The business with this failing hands is absolutely hilarious. Besides being slapstick gold, the guard’s falling helps motivate the crane up and the continued track back.
The mouse slips through the fingers of the guards and leaps through a cell door.
And that the door is a reveal. It ‘swooshes’ into frame, visually surprising us, but it’s also a narrative surprise - Doric has been heading there the whole time. We just couldn’t see her plan. She sure is a clever druid!
The camera’s rotation from the overhead angle to the front-on angle, now frames the Doric-mouse in a hero shot. VICTORY!!! For now.
GAG 6: Skulls!
As the mouse is scampering away, the filmmakers have her leap onto a skull —
This is less a gag and more a moment of visual interest that helps sustains the unbroken shot before we get to the next section.
GAG 7 and 8: Leap of Faith!
There are a few elements that make this part of the subshot really fun:
There’s the mouse having to run up the chained prisoner (and not just a wall).
There’s the quick tilt-up- tilt-down to shows the guards making it through the cell door, which creates a ticking clock!
There’s the change in perspective - from a horizontal composition to a briefly vertical one - when the camera pans 90° left to follow the mouse climbing the wall
There’s the animation of the mouse crawling across the ledge like she’s Lara Croft
And then there’s the sword POPPING into frame. It just *appears*.
in fact, the sword ‘snapping’ into frame is almost a jump scare. We feel the fear with Doric. Which is important because when Doric jumps —
We watch her in free-fall. The camera tilts down so we can see the ground racing towards her. Danger. And another ticking clock. We almost shout “transform! transform!” at the screen, worried she’s been hurt.
And we watch in horror as the flag pole rapidly approaches— hits her. Spinning out of control, Doric only manages to transform into the hawk at the very last moment.
The ‘near miss’ of the hawk transformation is emphasised by the camerawork. The operator is late in reframing: the hawk almost leaves the frame entirely before finding her.
This approach to camerawork is used throughout the movie. As ILM compositing supervisor (and industry legend) Todd Vaziri explains2:
You’ll notice that the camera is a little bit behind, as if… the camera operator–I’m saying camera operator, whereas it’s usually a virtual camera or the augmentation of real physical photography–but the idea is that the camera operator will have rehearsed the shot but they don’t know exactly when the stunt performer or creature’s going to hit that beat […]
Those types of things really sell it to the audience if you’re trying to give the movie a sense of tangibility, as if this was filmed in front of real cameras.
GAG 9: I’m free!
The game loop reset. We follow the hawk as it flies away. A moment of peace…
… broken by arrows.
The camera pivots AROUND the hawk so we can see the incoming arrows. Feel the danger. I mean, they fly RIGHT at the camera, at us! Its tense.
But this camera move also obscures what is in hawk’s flightpath. We don’t know what is coming. Nor does Doric, cause she’s busy dodging arrows.
That makes this moment come as a shock for both us and her —
The flag enters screen left just before it hits Doric. Enough for us to feel it, so it plays as a ‘what’s tha--whack!’ rather than a moment of sustained suspense.
We follow with the flag as it plummets. The virtual camera operator managing to find and frame the chimney a little early so we get a sense of the hawk’s trajectory before it accelerates and dive-bombs down.
GAG 10: The Shadow!
Doric falls through the chimney and is obscured by darkness. We can’t see what she’s transforming into, we just sense that is happening. And are delighted to find it’s —
A CAT!
But the real visual gag of this scene is when the camera pans left to find the family. The growing shadow and their stunned reactions making us ask “what beast has Doric transformed into now?“ In answer, the camera pans back to reveal that its… Doric.
GAG 11: The Axe-Beak
It looks like Doric has made it! She’s out of the castle and in human form. But then she (NOT US) spots something. The camera and her stop. A beat. A beat long enough for to register her fear and make us ask the question: what has she seen?
The camera whip-pans to show us the answer. And it’s an axe-beak?
This is a wonderful bit of visual misdirection. Doric’s eyeline leads directly to the eye of the axe-beak. So that’s where we look. It’s only when the axe-beak on screenLeft moves its head does our eye trace shift leftwards and we find the Red Wizard in the background.
The camera lingers on the Red Wizard as she approaches. We don’t whip pan back to Doric. Once again, the filmmakers withhold Doric’s “plan”.
An Axe Beak drifts into frame screenLeft. Enough to tickle our eye so we know it’s there but it’s out-of-focus and the framing seems throwaway. But the Red Wizard notices. When she clocks the Axe Beak the shift in her eyeline draws our attention to it - reinforced by the line that’s visually drawn by the spell.
We know it’s Doric just as she spins on her feet. By this point we didn’t need to see her transform in front of us to know it is her. The staging tells us that. And the moment we (and the Red Wizard) work it out is a fun reveal.
The Axe Beak coping the spell to the head is a nice bit of slapstick, too.
And we are at the next part of the loop.
Gag 12: The Deer
As the Doric runs away, the camera draws closer to her in order to obscure her transformation. Only when it is complete does the camera pull out again to reveal a deer! A delightful payoff to an earlier setup, where Hola (Michelle Rodriguez) insists that Doric should become a deer to infiltrate the castle.
The deer seems to be gaining some distance so, of course, there’s an explosion which blows her out of frame. Oh no!
By now we are expecting the camera to tilt down and reveal that Doric has transformed into yet another animal —
But she hasn’t. She’s remained a deer! A nice reversal of our expectations. A reversal that also suggests we are coming towards the end. Which, of course, we are.
We end with an awesome action-movie-esque slide.
And, more importantly, with the camera on this side of the gate. Doric just hasn’t escaped the castle, she’s escaped our camera.
The end of a expertly choreographed sequence that was the product of a hugely collaborative effort.
IMDB
How Dungeons & Dragons pulled off the Wild Shape escape: 'It was a lofty endeavor' — https://ew.com/movies/dungeons-and-dragons-wild-shape-escape-doric-sophia-lillis/
‘You never know what the most complicated shot is going to be in your movie’ — https://beforesandafters.com/2023/06/15/you-never-know-what-the-most-complicated-shot-is-going-to-be-in-your-movie/