By Iain Blair
Director Louis Leterrier has been behind the wheel of some monster productions (Clash of the Titans, The Incredible Hulk), so he was well-prepared to take over the reins of Fast X, the 10th film in the Fast & Furious franchise, from longtime director Justin Lin. Even so, he says that “these films are on such a massive scale, with so many moving parts and huge visual effects, that nothing can really prepare you for it. Each time, they’re even bigger and even more complex than the last one.”
Vin Diesel and director Louis Leterrier on the set of Fast X
The latest installment of this action saga reunites stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jason Statham and John Cena for another testosterone-fueled adventure. Co-written by Lin, it takes viewers to locales such as Los Angeles, London, Rome, Portugal, Rio de Janeiro and Antarctica.
The set-up? Diesel’s Dom Toretto is leading a quiet family life when his past comes back to haunt him in the shape of Dante (Jason Momoa), the son of crime lord Hernan Reyes, whose final confrontation on a bridge with the crew in Fast Five sealed his fate. Now, Dante is out for revenge.
The behind-the-scenes team included longtime Fast cinematographer Stephen F. Windon (ASC, ACS); editors Dylan Highsmith and Kelly Matsumoto (ACE); DNeg VFX supervisor Peter Chiang and second unit director and stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos, who has worked on every Fast film since 2011’s Fast Five.
Director Louis Leterrier and Jason Momoa on the set of Fast X.
I spoke with Leterrier about making the global phenom and dealing with post and all the visual effects.
This seems even faster and more furious than the other nine films. What were the main challenges of pulling all this together?
(Laughs) For a start, we had 25 weeks of post. That was just crazy…a huge challenge. But initially, the big challenge was that I came onto the project very late. When I was offered the chance to direct it, I only had two days before I had to get on a plane to London, and then I was there directing this huge production. But that also gave me the opportunity to go on instinct and not second-guess my decisions. I could just go for what I really felt was right for the film.
That was quite refreshing in a job like this, where you’re always told what to do, and you’re guided and getting all the notes from the studio and different people all the time. On this I was my own compass, and it was my vision, as there was no time to do anything else anyway.
(from left) Vin Diesel, director Louis Leterrier and Rita Moreno on the set of Fast X.
The story and theme were strong. It’s the beginning of the end of the road, and I focused on this theme and made some changes to the story, adding new characters and a new villain with real stakes. I love the entire Fast franchise but wanted to give this film my own creative stamp rather than just pay homage to the previous ones.
What was the biggest surprise when you first got on-set?
The enormous scale of it all. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s quite different directing one of these films from any other big film. You’re kind of like the conductor of this enormous orchestra, but another big challenge is that while you have this 100-piece orchestra in front of you, you also have this heavy metal band behind you, and a techno band over there and so on, and they are all playing at the same time.
So I had this army of monitors to deal with it all — a huge video village that literally looked like the SpaceX or NASA mission control because I had four or five cameras running on the main unit plus another 12 cameras on a second unit and on other units all around the world. Dealing with all that is kind of a 24/7 thing, and I’m directing all of this, but it’s so different because I’m not physically there on all the different sets and locations. It’s very interesting directing like that. Between my TV experience and then all the remote work we all did during the pandemic, it wasn’t a foreign concept or that strange for me. It was the same way of working, just on a massive scale.
Let’s talk about how crucial post is to these films, and integrating the VFX and post?
It’s so crucial, and you have to start post and all the VFX work right away. There’s a lot of VFX that you can see, but there’s also a lot that we couldn’t start doing very early because there were a lot of real elements that we had to put together. I love shooting stuff that we can do practically on-set, so we had to do a ton of that while I was shooting. And as I mentioned, with 25 weeks of post, it was huge. We had so many VFX, and I knew that it was going to be so long. Had I given them my director’s cut after the usual 10 weeks, I would not have been able to finish the movie on time. So I really hit the ground running when we got back to LA to start post after shooting all over the world, and I gave them my director’s cut just four or five weeks into post.
Luckily for me and the film, everyone was very high on the cut, so then it was just a matter of tweaking and fine-tuning it and getting to the optimal version. So yes, there were multiple challenges, but frankly it’s just par for the course on these movies – or any big movies now.
You must have done a lot of previz and postviz for all the big set pieces?
Yes, tons, but I think there’s a way to do it better now — uprez and incorporate it into the shots. That’s what we’ll do next time. Typically with previz, it’s this great tool but one that you ultimately throw away. Currently, using different types of engines, you can uprez it into full thematic worlds. You can take your location photos and do a print production shoot that becomes part of the previz, and then uprez and uprez. I think you’ll save time and money doing it that way.
Where did you do the post?
We did it here in LA where I live, and our cutting room was next to the Universal lot. Then we recorded the score and mixed at Abbey Road, so it was like the regular LA-London type of post you have these days.
The film was edited by the series’ regulars — Dylan Highsmith, Kelly Matsumoto and Dylan Thomas. How did it work? Were they on-set?
(Laughs) Yes, I forced them to be in this little truck on-set for the whole shoot because on top of just keeping up with picture and all the usual stuff — like doing turnovers while we were shooting and precuts on scenes — I also had to catch up and grab some stuff on second unit so we could track it and do motion control shots.
So we were really working day and night on it, and I had them on-set cutting picture as we were shooting live, but also cutting trailers. I had a very clear idea of what the tone was going to be, and it’s very different from any of the other films. What I wanted was for you to feel that the stakes are real and that all the characters really pop.
You can add a lot of humor with Jason Momoa’s character and really add contrast. But to do all that, you need to show the cast and crew what is possible, so that’s why we needed trailers. So every three weeks, the two Dylans were cutting trailers, on top of all the other editing so we could screen them for everyone. That helped us all understand exactly what we were doing, and it also helped the studio when they visited the set every month.
So much of it was practical and didn’t rely on VFX. I had great set pieces intercut with great emotional and action set pieces, and being able to see the actors doing their stunts really helped. It was amazing to have the same editing team.
Justin gave me the greatest gift in allowing me to keep his whole team. Having his cast and the whole production and shooting team, along with the editors and post team, made it far easier for me. And not only did we work very hard, but we all had the best time making it. It’s the greatest time I’ve ever had on any movie.
There’s a huge number of visual effects shots in the film. What was your approach to dealing with the two big set pieces — the rolling bomb and dam sequences?
The rolling bomb was Justin’s amazing concept, and it had to be prepped for months because that ball is real. It’s a one-ton metal ball that we rolled down the streets of Rome, and we’d prepped it all and cabled it and put in protection. Then I had to add a kind of story behind the story, and we optimized all of it in post. DNeg did all the VFX for the ball. The whole dam scene was a brand-new thing I added. It wasn’t in the original script.
Frankly, it’s a fantasy I’ve had since I was a boy — driving down the side of a dam — and ILM did that and all the fluid-motion VFX work. These days the vendors are all over the world, and the main ones were ILM and DNeg. [Ghost, Outpost, BlueBolt, Proof, Freefolk, Lola, Lidar Lounge and Territory also did work.]
I know all the visual effects supervisors, like Peter Chiang at DNeg, really well, and when I came on, I decided to switch stuff around a bit. I had ILM do all the Rio stuff, the race, and the dam water stuff, and DNeg did VFX for the whole end sequence with the helicopters in the lake and so on.
Tell us about the DI.
We did it at Company 3 with colorist Andre Rivas, who did the last Fast movie. Company 3 also handled the dailies. It’s hard with these kinds of movies, as you’re literally still looking at blue- and greenscreens right until the end, and then you have to pull it all together.
I hear you’re also coming back to direct the 11th film?
Yes, and we already began prepping it as we were shooting this.
Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.
