Wiseman, Len (Underworld Evolution)
Hopefully the new year will
hold good things for the horror fan. With the release of Underworld Evolution one thing is for certain — It’s starting out with a bang. The whole
gang is back, and once again the war between Lycan and Vampire is in full swing. Myself and a few other journalists had some time to catch up with director
Len Wiseman at a recent junket for the film, so let’s get right to the goods!
Q: In past interviews regarding the first
Underworld you stated that you thought it had some flaws and that you wished the werewolves could have looked a little bit better. It seems that
you pulled it off this time around.
Len Wiseman: Thank you. We had a little more money and time for this one and more time to
define the suits and work on the action sequences. A lot of Underworld One was how to make an ambitious sixty million dollar script into a
twenty million dollar movie. A lot of that came down to the action scenes where you cut away and let the sound design do its job.
You hear a battle going on, but you actually can’t see it. With Underworld it was a lot of trial and error. On the first one we were not able to get
in there and fine-tune and tweak things. This time we did.
Q: Was it a conscious
decision to make it more gory this time around?
LW: No, it wasn’t a conscious decision to make it more gory this time around.
It’s funny, I used to read fan boards and reviews and many people felt that it wasn’t gory enough for a vampire vs. werewolf movie. It was no moral
decision on my part whatsoever; again, it’s just time. Things like blood rigs and squirts and all that shit, that stuff actually takes a lot of time
to set up. And when you’re running on a schedule and you have to do X amount of shots within a day, a lot of those little effects just get dumped in
the trash.
Q: On the set of this film were you given more space than the last one due to its success or less space because your budget
went up?
LW: More space this time. The first time around it was my first film, and for Lakeshore it was their first genre film.
So there was really a lot of tension around what it was going to be, but they were really behind me on this one.
Q: Is there a lot of debate
within you about who you like more: the vampires or the werewolves? Have you come down to one side personally?
LW: Personally I
like vampires better. Our lead is a vampire so that sort of runs the show a little bit more. Personally I’m a bit more on the vampire
side.
Q: When you’re shooting this, how do you get it out of your head long enough to go home and actually have a life?
LW: I’ve got to say it’s difficult. Especially when the movie is a
family affair as well. As a director you really get no time off. I’m actually still trying to figure it out. If you have to do everything that is
required of a director in this day, it’s about a twenty-seven-hour day when all is said and done. Going home and doing your shot list and
doing your storyboards and then the dailies, while all the time prepping for the next day.
Q: Do you think it’s harder because
you actually created the piece instead of adapting a book or just being handed a written screenplay?
LW: I would say there
is a lot more responsibility because you’re the guy who has to figure out all the problems. And I think it’s just a little more pressure and
you’re involved more in every aspect.
Q: The medieval scene in the beginning — how was it doing that scene? it seemed fun. Fun may
not really be the right word, but it seemed really wild.
LW: Fun is definitely not the right word, but it’s a version of fun. I
was completely excited to do it, but it was a pain in the ass because I’d never worked with horses before. We had guys in real armor because real
armor is cheaper than rubber armor. So it was actually a really difficult shoot. Then we had snowstorms come in and that sort of wiped us out.
The weather conditions were awful.
The horses don’t respond the way you
want them too. I mean, they don’t hit their cues like actors do, and another thing I realized is that when these horses do these stunts, you
have to clear such a wide radius for them. I wanted a very busy congested battle to go on, and I didn’t find out until the day of shooting that
the horses needed a sixteen-foot radius for their stunts. Well, that clears out my entire battle. So I would have a really cool horse
fall but nobody would be around.
Q: So did you have to do some stunts digitally?
LW: I don’t like to do that too much.
I’m just not a huge fan of digital work. In the whole opening battle there are maybe four shots that are digital and the rest are in shots.
Digital stuff is reserved for shots that I just can’t pull off practically, like jumping off a roof onto the side of a horse to take it down.
I mean there’s just no way, believe me I tried!
Q: There’s been talk of a third movie. How do you know whether or not you’re going to
get to do one?
LW: There’s definite interest from the studio and Lakeshore. I’m just interested in seeing how people respond to
this one. If people want to see more, there’s definitely more story to be told. But I really just want to see if there’s a level of
interest to go into that because there’s a lot of the origin story that still hasn’t been told.
Q: But if this one is a hit,
do you really think that Lakeshore would let you make a third without Kate in it?
LW: I don’t know if I would let myself make a
movie without the lead as well. But there’s a way to do a prequel that involves the creation of Selene’s character and you could jump
through a time line. When we were writing the first film, Selene is just a character on a page like any other. But then the
character becomes Kate, and then Kate becomes the lead of the franchise. It twists everything, and I honestly couldn’t even perceive that.
Q: How much did Kate help you develop the character?
LW: She was a huge part of the creation of it. I would bring her a scene and ask her, “Does this sound right to you, and how you would see the character?” She would change things up and say, “You know this sounds better to me”. A lot of the opening sequence with the village, that was a great deal of her idea and concept when I was hitting a wall asking, “How do we open this?” There were actually many scenes that she was heavily involved in. It helps me to know how the actress sees things, instead of a week before shooting having an actress come into your office and tell you that they have some issues.
Q: Did you always plan on having your kid in it?
LW: No, not at all. When we got to the point that we needed a five-year-old Selene, my daughter actually jumped up and said, “No one’s playing Mommy but me!” And then asked if she could do it. She had never been in a movie before. Being that she’s a first-time actor, when I asked her to do the same thing again for a second take, she said to me, “Umm, I’ve already done that” and I was like, “Okay, we’ve got a long day”.
Q: Are you ready to jump into another movie now, or would you rather take time off?
LW: There is so much that I want to do now. I’m now writing a sci-fi movie which is a whole different world for me with different elements. I must say I’m ready to do a movie without guys in rubber suits that you gotta hook up on wires. So I would like to do something without creatures because as a director you get those things out of your system.
Q: How difficult was it to direct the sex scene?
LW: The thought of going into it was horrifying. I used any excuse in the schedule to put it off. If Kate got a scratch on her leg, I was like, “You know that scratch? For the nude scene it’s not going to work, so we need to push that way further back, maybe even to the re-shoots”. But when it came down to it, there was this weird tension, especially around me. My crew became quiet and proper. It became a bit more torturous on Speedman than anyone else because he was like, “Okay, Wiseman, how do you want to direct me today? Am I making love to your wife the right way? Are you happy with what I’m doing?” But actually honestly the hardest thing about that became just to get the two of them to stop laughing.
Q: The action scenes in this film were more intense than in the last movie. How involved were you in the direction and execution of the action scenes? When you have people fighting on trucks, hanging onto chains, or flying around, are you right there in it or do you delegate certain scenes to certain people?
LW: I am heavily involved in all of it. Coming from a storyboard background, I draw every frame of the film. I know I don’t have the time to make everything look really pretty and nice, but I sketch every frame of the movie and hand it of to my storyboard artist. So whether it’s a second unit director that’s shooting it or if I’m shooting it, it’s always coming from a planned place.
Q: I ask because I have talked to other directors (who shall remain nameless) who, when asked that same question, more or less told me that they simply trust their actors and their crew to do a good job. Sort of hands of.
LW: Oh hell no, that would drive me crazy. I find that delegating is one of the most difficult things for a director to do. Not because I’m a control freak, I mean I am a control freak but I’m not an asshole. And that’s what I tell my crew! I’m a fairly calm director as directors go, and I love to collaborate and get different ideas, but I do like to have my input and my design on everything that is happening. And I do love action movies! When you actually get to direct these films, you come to realize that if for instance I did a “Bond” film, the way that “Bond” films are set up, I wouldn’t get to direct any of the action. I mean the second unit director is onboard before you even get in and they have all the action mapped out and you do the close-ups and whatever. I couldn’t handle that.
Big thanks to everyone at Sony for helping to set this up. Make sure you visit Underworld Evolution‘s official website right here.
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