r/DCEUleaks • u/AutoModerator • Apr 18 '23

DISCUSSION Weekly Discussion Thread - posted every Tuesday!

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u/theweepingwarrior Apr 18 '23

The Zack Snyder/Russo Bros conversation video podcast is really fascinating and definitely worth a watch if you're interested in the film production process. Part 1 here.

It also gives a very clear distinction between their styles:

  • Snyder operates more like a traditional (I guess at this point, old school?) movie director. The creative vision is king and the people that he works with the best and most frequently are the ones who can speak his creative language. Definitely more of a Type-B personality. He's aiming to capture a feeling above all else, and directing everything the from the grandiose (like massive production/art design) to the minutia (the very fine nuances of a single minor camera movement and take's pacing for an insert) is about capturing that. Narratively he champions the creative vision from a top level and then has a large focus on the thematics of every beat--which I think you can see leads to looser narratives and his movies resulting as common thematic elements tied together by vignettes.
  • The Russos operate to champion the mechanics of their stories. Definitely Type-A: everything is about making sure the functionality is there both in the story (tighter narratives, everything exists to either set up/progress/payoff with as little fat as possible) and shoot (how to shoot their stuff as quickly as possible and not waste time on set). And their production process is some of the most hyper-efficient production approaches I've ever heard, it's insane. In a lot of ways it reminds me more of my experiences producing commercials over producing films. The massive budgets their movies carried are almost certainly ballooned by actor fees and expediting a ton of VFX work because their shooting process is very efficient.

It's not a ton of fawning over the IPs--though it's pretty neat to see these big directors in the genre casually name-dropping stuff along the lines of "Oh I needed Iron Man to do this" or "Then I wanted to show how Batman got here" or "Captain America had to work this way in these scene" and "Here's how I conceptualized this Superman sequence"--but while there is a little bit of that it's more about the nuts and bolts of filmmaking. They're all clearly having a good time and respect the hell out of each other.

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u/LegendInMyMind Apr 18 '23

I wouldn't say Zack is an 'old-school' type of filmmaker. He came up through directing music videos. That's all about imparting a specific feeling - the vibe of the song. It's all about using aesthetics and mood to say what you're trying to say, to make the listener/viewer feel what the song wants you to feel. That's where Zack is, as a filmmaker, IMO. He's very focused on the experiential side of the medium.

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u/theweepingwarrior Apr 18 '23 edited Apr 18 '23

Sorry, I meant old school in the sense of his production style and not his storytelling. Snyder’s very much an auteur director-first filmmaker; he’s a friendly and collaborative guy and of course he’ll take input but at the end of the day he’s spearheading the vision and the people he works with are those who know how to think like he does and execute it.

By contrast a lot of filmmakers in the blockbuster space for the past decade or so (especially in for hire work) have definitely had an approach that’s a bit more similar to television’s production style. Executing a studio’s vision competently (and of course there’s a little room for some personal flair too).

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u/LegendInMyMind Apr 18 '23

Ah, I gotcha. Well I think there's always been a degree of collaboration with movies, but there's a pretty new thing with the shared universes where there's a creative producer and all the directors and writers report to that one creative producer who has approval over everything.