In the immediate aftermath of the Insurrection, Don’t Look Up’s cast and crew must rally… to shoot a riot scene of their own. When the dust settles, our team faces the biggest technical challenge of production: it’s time to film the Riley Bina concert, and Ariana Grande (and her Valentino dress) must fly.
In the immediate aftermath of the Insurrection, Don’t Look Up’s cast and crew must rally… to shoot a riot scene of their own. When the dust settles, our team faces the biggest technical challenge of production: it’s time to film the Riley Bina concert, and Ariana Grande (and her Valentino dress) must fly.
Jeff Waxman:
I was just on the phone with the film commissioner and we're shooting a riot after the Capitol, had a riot yesterday. So I'm a little anxious. People are going to come by and join in and think it's a real riot.
Narrator:
It's January 7th, 2021, the capitol riot in D.C may have ended, but on the Don't Look Up set in Boston, there's more rioting to be done. Producers, Jeff Waxman and Kevin Messick, must keep the production on schedule. Only today, the world feels different.
Kevin Messick:
Everybody was on edge. Everybody was nervous. There was the chance of civil unrest in major cities and we were shooting in a major city.
Narrator:
The plan is to continue filming the scene they started yesterday. When Jennifer Lawrence as astronomer Kate Dibiasky, triggered a riot by screaming the truth, that a comet is about to destroy the planet and the government, will not save the day.
Jennifer Lawrence:
A lot of this experience on this film has been, life imitating art, accidentally. That was just a really wild experience to be watching, US citizens attacking our own Capitol, because of misinformation. And then we're making this movie where these characters are frustrated at misinformation and not being able to get this point across.
Narrator:
For months now on this movie, it's felt as a fiction and truth have been devouring each other. Now it's reached a whole other level and it's got Adam McKay. Who's worked hard to turn dark realities into comic relief, more than a bit worried.
Adam McKay:
And we had a lot of questions we had to answer. We had to go through a big checklist of, are we making the right decision as everything safe?
Narrator:
This is The Last Movie Ever Made. Episode five. The day after the earth caught fire.
Adam McKay:
We're in fact shooting a full scale attack on a seafood restaurant where people lose their shit.
Jeff Waxman:
We're going to throw things through broken glass, little fires going on.
Narrator:
If they shot this, just two days ago, the riot scene could have been fun, cathartic even, but not today. Boston is the state capital of Massachusetts and the FBI has alerted the local police of every state capital to be on guard.
News Clip:
Roads closed by law enforcement and riot gear for much of this afternoon. This coming as threats were made at the national level for armed protests at all 50 state capitols. Boston police telling us there was no specific threat here at the Massachusetts State House, but they were prepared out of an abundance of caution.
Narrator:
Adam has made contingency plans.
Adam McKay:
We may have to shut this down, instantly. I'll just yell, shut it down. I told my AD, she had the authority to shut it down. Stunt coordinator. Everyone had the authority to just say cut, and shut it down and go back to neutral places if anything, uncomfortable felt it was going to happen.
Jennifer Lawrence:
It was terrifying and just really heavy and dark. And you could kind of, we could see out on the streets, there was people getting kind of excited just on the streets of Boston and just, bad excited, a lot of bad electricity in the air.
Narrator:
For Jennifer Lawrence and the rest of the casting crew. The challenge will be to take this bad electricity and channel it into their work. This was where the COVID lockdowns actually helped.
Adam McKay:
What we had going for us with it was that, the streets were empty. Places were closed. There was really no one out there, if that hadn't been the case, if stores had been open, bars had been open. If the streets had been full, we... There's no way we would've done it. I think I would've had to sit down and write a different version.
Narrator:
It's moments before cameras roll on this fake riot. Co-producer Staci Roberts-Steele, surveys the scene.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Were at Bojo Mambo's, we're about to film a riot, a rehearsal of a riot. We're watching Jeremy Fry, who is our stunt guy.
Narrator:
Jeremy's in charge of the moment. When all hell breaks loose.
Jeremy Fry:
You have your lead actors in there. They're having a dialogue and some people kind of, over here and then at least at this point, the plan is to then cut, right to mid riot. Which I think is great. I think is going to tie together splendidly.
Narrator:
Jeremy Fry has been in the stunt business for 20 years. At the beginning of his career, Jeremy was a willing meat sack. The guy who'd agreed to throw himself to the ground, get hit in the head with a rifle butt or crash a car.
Narrator:
He then hone himself into an athlete, able to stunt double for Keanu Reeves in John Wick. He's choreographed this riot to appear loose and chaotic. Producers may be afraid, passersby will think this is a real riot, but Jeremy wants it to be realistic.
Jeremy Fry:
What I really hope for is that, when they're watching the Bojo Mambo's scene, I hope that they are watching it and feeling like they're watching a riot.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
We've got two different fake car accidents. Two cars ran up against each other. There's a bunch of, background cops that I keep thinking a real cops. Oh, and there's also a car and there a guy on top of the car, just ready to riot.
Danielle Waxman:
Does he do a back flip off of the car?
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Yes.
Narrator:
Okay. Realistic, plus back flips.
Jeremy Fry:
I asked Adam, what do you want to see? Do you want to see guys really getting worked over? Guys getting choked out kind of stuff and he said, "Yeah, it should be." If 10 is just all out nuclear war and one is kind of like a slapping party. This is kind of like a seven or an eight.
On set speaker:
And special effects let's go ahead and bring up the fire. All right guys, we are hot here. We are hot.
Narrator:
On the street, flames burst out of cars.
Cory Candrilli:
Smoke fire, water, and blood are four things that are just tough to fake. When you see real fire, like it's beautiful, it's unpredictable. It dances, it does its own thing.
Narrator:
The man in charge of this controlled chaos, is special effects coordinator, Cory Candrilli.
Cory Candrilli:
And it really does give just some, great life to the shot. When you really see those scenes of people, running back and forth and they're passing that fire. Like it... That's really on fire right there? So it's a cool little thing to see, and it really does give a lot of life to a shot that just is just pandemonium.
Jeremy Fry:
We had a girl getting kind of thrown off a table through an open window and onto the ground. We had a couple of people throwing a table through a window that was rig to pop. We really only did two, takes of the high level rioting. It was very refreshing not to beat guys up and girls up unnecessarily.
Speaker 5:
And cut!
Adam McKay:
Oh my God. Good job everyone. Everyone is safe.
Narrator:
Yes. Everyone on set is safe. The shots are in the can and their fake riot didn't trigger a real one. There's little time to rest. There's another challenge ahead. And feathers, will fly. More on that, after the break.
Fake ad:
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine, because Riley Bina's final album is out now, featuring your favorite hits like Just Look Up.
Fake ad:
And other instant, never before heard classics like TTYN, We're Dunzo, Later Haters, Sing It To My Face, Ever Have I Never, Seek Me Found You, Metro Heartbeat In Five Eighth Time, Crypto Mama, Enemies With Benefits, Sunshine Queen, and Just Look Up, DJ the freak remix. The world may be ending but there's plenty of time to dance. Thanks to Riley Bina's final album. Available now. Get it while supplies and planet earth last.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
What's the next thing we're doing that's keeping you up at night. So I know everything, is stressful.
Kevin Messick:
Right we say... Whatever. One, two, three, the concert.
Narrator:
It's Monday morning, January 11th, with the riot behind them. Producers Kevin Messick and Jeff Waxman, are mustering their powers of movie magic, to stage a stadium concert to save humanity. Only, they don't have a stadium or thousands of screaming fans. So for the last 10 days, they've been scrambling to put the pieces together. Adam was outside this zone of pressure, but he could still feel its ripple effects.
Adam McKay:
I think the lead up to it, was a ton of logistics and stress. So I think a lot of department heads were freaking out.
Narrator:
One of the reasons for all this freaking out, was that the plan for this big scene was still up in the air. Mere days before Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi, would step into the frame.
Kevin Messick:
The concert sequence was a big question mark, up until the 11th hour, it was a struggle, to figure out what were the pieces that we needed, from a practical point of view. How does Ariana come in? What does the band look like? What does the stage look like? What's it going to look like with our visual effects? Just a million challenges, that we just honestly, with all the other issues that we were tackling on the film, we hadn't been able to kind of wrangle it all.
Narrator:
The concert is not a long sequence, but it plays a key role in the movie. And for it to work, it has to feel real in the midst of the unreal.
Kevin Messick:
Filming, what will probably be, two, three minutes of the movie, as the most amazing rock concert as the comets hurling towards the earth. And they're asking for the world to rise up. Yeah, just the pressure.
Narrator:
The world has seen rock concerts try to mobilize humanity, to take collective action in the past. Kevin and Adam were teenagers in 1985, when the biggest concert ever was so big, it took place on two continents at once.
News Clip:
It's 12 noon in London, 7:00 AM in Philadelphia and around the world it's time for Live Aid! 16 hours of live music and aid of famine relief in Africa.
Narrator:
Over those 16 hours, 1.5 billion people. Yes, billion, tuned in to watch Elton John, Queen, Madonna, Run DMC, Sade, the Beach Boys, the Who, David Bowie and 67 other acts, draw attention to the food crisis in Africa. The simultaneous concerts ended with, Do They Know It's Christmas and We Are The World. Super [inaudible] that together reportedly raised millions. But Adam McKay is skeptical about this kind of thing.
Adam McKay:
I think we know that these fundraising concerts very, very rarely, relate to any kind of like systemic, change. And I still think they should keep happening, but that's kind of what this concert is.
Adam McKay:
It's the concert to save all of mankind, but it's still just a concert. So yeah, it's supposed to be kind of breathtaking and inspiring and exciting. And at the same time, a little bit lame.
Narrator:
Because of the pandemic, shooting in London at Wembley Stadium, wasn't an option. And because of the Boston winter, shooting outdoors in Fenway Park was also not an option. So they'll have to fake it, movie stuff.
Narrator:
The producer scout for a location, that they can transform into a packed outdoor stadium, using visual effects. After some searching, they find a suitable warehouse, crisis averted or so they thought. Turns out the warehouse was overrun by a flock of pigeons.
Kevin Messick:
How do you film a concert sequence that's supposed to be in Wembley Stadium? The character that Ariana Grande plays, Riley Bina, singing the song to save the planet. How do you pull that off with a hundred extras in a musty warehouse, with birds in the rafters and nobody really, but her on stage.
Narrator:
Executive producer, Jeff Waxman must get the birds out.
Jeff Waxman:
What we did is we hired a trapper and I paid the guy to build a bird's nest, a coop for pigeons, because he said, if, even if he, sent them to California, they would fly back there. After three or four weeks, we caught all of them. He is now holding and charging us $60 a day to board these pigeons. And at the end of the shoot, we're going to let them free.
Narrator:
Another crisis averted. Now to choreograph the show. Producer, Kevin Messick is on the hunt for someone who can think Live Aid big, Super Bowl, big.
Kevin Messick:
This concert director, designer who does Super Bowl halftime shows, we'd asked Ariana's team like who's a guy that brings it all together. What happens minute to minute, beat for beat, over three minutes of the song.
Narrator:
Kevin found his way to Jamie King.
Jamie King:
I'm Jamie King. And I am the concert designer.
Narrator:
As a child in Verona, Wisconsin. Jamie King was obsessed with the Holy Trinity of 80s pop stars, Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna. By 21, he was hired to tour with one of his idols.
Jamie King:
I danced with Michael Jackson on the Dangerous Tour, that led me to choreographing and being creative director for Prince for three and a half years. That led to many years with Madonna.
Narrator:
Holy Trinity, complete. Amen. It was Jamie King who had the idea that Madonna should kiss Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at the MTV movie awards in 2003.
Narrator:
And it was Jamie who directed two Super Bowl halftime spectaculars, including the one where Madonna entered the stadium dressed as a golden goddess on a chariot pulled by 150 shirtless gladiators. So yes, Jamie can handle the job.
Jamie King:
Adam had a vision about, finding Ariana floating in space, suspended if you will. So I followed that form and when we find Ariana, she suspended, we don't really know where she is, but it feels like she's in space.
Jamie King:
Also, with lighting and projections, onto her beautiful white flowing dress. It's really extending that environment of like, it feels like she's in the middle of nowhere.
Narrator:
From her space void Ariana, or to be exact her character, the pop star Riley Bina, descends down to earth in her long flowing dress and glides across the stage onto a moving runway. Jamie is imagining, a graceful angel. Touching his angel down on stage however is complicated.
Jamie King:
It's a big dress, lots of mechanics with the dress, feathers, Ariana singing live. We have Kid Cudi rapping. She's suspended and she's flying down. Now she's being, transported from one part of the stage to another.
Narrator:
Now, it's time to rehearse. Adam is in his plexiglass box, 20 feet in front of him. There are a hundred extras spread out, getting into position and in front of them, is the stage.
Narrator:
The stage itself is 65 feet wide, with a massive video screen, curving around the back with a giant image of the comet and the earth, poised as though they're about to kiss.
Narrator:
Jamie has arranged a stark dramatic production, no gladiators, no backup dancers, just a few musicians and this giant image of space for Ariana the star, to inhabit.
Narrator:
A pop star is a fantastical creation, a person who does things and wears things the ordinary person cannot. To be real they must be so real. Ariana knows this well. And she's asked the hair department to give her hairstyle that's out of this world.
Ariana Grande:
I wanted Riley to kind of have a consistent space blend, space braid theme. I don't know why. I think it was just because of the comet and the kind of spacey vibe and her being like, I have a tattoo of a shooting star on my back. I was like, okay, maybe she likes space things.
Narrator:
The space themed hair was easy, compared to the other part of Ariana's look, the dress. Her character Riley Bina is wearing a couture creation by Valentino, that looks like a lollipop, for cat. That headache, weighed heavily on producer Kevin Messick.
Kevin Messick:
That one choice, of that costume started to drive every other decision on the stage, where she is, is she coming in from above? How does that work? Which was the source of more than a little frustration?
Narrator:
Her torso is a ball of feathers, her legs and another 10 feet past her legs are veiled in a long white train, that is itself a part of Jamie's choreography and part of costume designer, Susan Matheson's original vision.
Jamie King:
I requested fans, some even kind of wire, that could be used to lift the dress and move the dress as Ariana was being transported from the main stage down the runway, just to give it a flow and to make it feel really fluid and very heavenly, heavenly, not earthly right? I think that's actually a good way to describe this performance. It needed to be ethereal, heavenly, not earthly in any way. So keeping that kind of fairytale idea alive.
Susan Matheson:
So we started off testing it in my department with regular Home Depot style fans. And we had people in my department holding the dress and the fans and seeing what the wind did. Then we tested it on the stage and I kept saying to special effects, we need more wind, more wind. And I think I drove them a little bit mad, but ultimately I think it's my job to make sure that it's fantastic.
Narrator:
Special effects coordinator, Cory Candrilli safely created fire and pandemonium for the riot scene. Now he's in charge of the fans to pull off Susan's vision. The issue is that the Valentino dress is a fragile object, not intended to be purchased or really even worn. In fact, it never even landed on runway. It's only ever been suspended in air.
Cory Candrilli:
So the dress that we got was a double, that wasn't the same fabric. So every time we would test it, we put a guy, in the dress as our test dummy, he was our Ariana Grande test dummy and it looked great. Everybody approved on it, but the problem was, it wasn't the dress that we, needed.
Narrator:
So on the day of the actual concert shoot, Cory's unable to swear to Adam McKay that his fans can make the dress work. This is the sort of anxious situation that has, in the past, driven Adam to chain smoke. However today, he's remarkably calm. From his plexiglass box, he gives his cast and crew to go ahead, it's time for the concert to start.
Adam McKay:
It's a big moment, weeks and weeks of preparation, all for this incredible live performance, with the biggest pop star in the world. One of the biggest rappers in the world, this incredible set, all these award nominated people and first take.
Ariana Grande:
We were on stage, ready to sing, ready to go and holding our mics, which were hot.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
And then all of a sudden, there's this loud, crackling.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Crackling, papery, aluminum foil sound.
Dia Donnelly:
Like I hear this like [inaudible].
Ariana Grande:
We all of a sudden heard this, like [inaudible].
Staci Roberts-Steele:
And then you see Ariana looked at Cudi like that wasn't me, what? Cause she's holding a mic. She was like, did you hear that? She was like, that was weird. And there's silence for probably 10 seconds.
Adam McKay:
I forgot to turn my mic off. I opened my little pack of Nicorette lozenges and everything stops.
Ariana Grande:
And the all of a sudden Adam was like, oh, sorry, I'm opening a lozenger. And I guess he was like, and crackling and crinkling the paper into the mic.
Dia Donnelly:
The [inaudible] sorry about that, Ariana. That was me and my Nicorette gum.
Jennifer Lawrence:
And then everyone broke into laughter.
Adam McKay:
I said, "Sorry, I'm trying to quit smoking." And I just hear Kid Cudi go, I got a great hypnotist on the westside of LA if you want him. I, like I said, is his name Kerry Gaynor? And he goes, "Yeah, how'd you know him?" I was like, "I've been to him three times."
Narrator:
The effect of this break in the action was something like allowing laughter in a church, a release of tension when you didn't realize quite how tense you were.
Narrator:
And now the show can go on. As Ariana lowers from the sky, a nervous Cory Candrilli cues the fans. But the dress, doesn't, move. Turns out he was right to be worried. The test fabric, he'd been force to use, prove to be all wrong.
Cory Candrilli:
On the day it just did things differently than the test. And we really had the on the fly, figure it out. So there in my ear, what happened with the dress? How come this didn't happen? How come it didn't move? How come it... I'm like, we're trying everything. We puppeteer it at one point, we had strings and mono on cables above the stage, where people were pulling it to lift it. There was a lot going into it.
Narrator:
At last. Cory makes the dress fly.
Cory Candrilli:
That dress is like the bane of our existence. Oh my God. Somebody just brought it up. I was talking about a day I had on set and it was a little stress when he goes, "Was it as worse as the dress?" I'm like, "Nothing was as worse as that dress."
Narrator:
Jamie's vision is vindicated.
Jamie King:
Now did any issues come up? Sure! It's production I mean, it kind of always happens. So does it always work the first time? No, I'm not going to tell you how many times we had to try it before we got it right. Just know that it took a few times, but in the end, I thought it looked beautiful.
Narrator:
The concert, is a wrap. And despite the snow outside, the weeks of stress melt away as producer Kevin Messick, breathe a sigh of relief.
Kevin Messick:
On January 1st, we had a big meeting trying to pull all the pieces together. And on January 11th, we rehearsed it and on January 13th we shot it, and it turned out fucking great.
Jeff Waxman:
It was so nice to hear a singing all day.
Kevin Messick:
Made every take except the wides at the end and Kid Cudi was equally amazing.
Ariana Grande:
I think we both were really excited to perform and kind of missed it. It had been a year at that point, then of course, being hung in the air for half of the day was so much fun. The harness was a part of me.
Kid Cudi:
Man that was, it was really crazy. She was hoisted up, 30 feet in the air and was just up there waiting, for each take, watching her I was just like, yo, she's such a pro, she's such a trooper. Watching her sing it over and over and just do it flawlessly was just, was crazy to see. And it just looked super effortless for her.
Ariana Grande:
It was definitely fun and then it was really fun to go to bed after.
Narrator:
With two of the film's most difficult scenes in the can. The cast and crew can rest a little easier. The finish line is in sight, after hardship, comes hope.
Narrator:
Next week, Don't Look Up will finally wrap.
Susan Matheson:
How many times have I already cried today Elaine?
Elaine:
About three times.
Narrator:
But not before a kiss.
Jennifer Lawrence:
Blows my mind that I'm going to be like open mouth, kissing somebody in the next week. I'm just like, how does that work? I haven't even shared a water bottle with somebody.
Narrator:
That's next time, on The Last Movie Ever Made. When our story ends with a literal bang.
Credits:
The last movie ever made is a production of Netflix film, Hyperobject Industries and Pineapple Street Studios.
Credits:
It's produced by Emmanuel Hapsis, Gabrielle Lewis, Staci Roberts-Steele, Daniel Waxman, Sophie Bridges and Alexis Moore. Our editor is Darby Maloney. The show's narrated by Emmanuel Hapsis. Our theme song is by Nicholas Britell, mixing sound design and original music by Hannah Brown with additional music from Epidemic Sound.
Credits:
The show is written by R Roosevelt, fact checking by Charlotte Goddu. Executive producers at Hyperobject Industries are Adam McKay, Harry Nelson and Clare Slaughter.
Credits:
Executive producers at Pineapple Street Studios are Bari Finkel, Jena Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky. Don't Look Up is streaming now on Netflix, follow @NetflixFilm on Instagram and Twitter.