A tale of violence and revenge starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. Miller reflects on humble beginnings of Mad Max, working in a cramped apartment with crew members, and embracing new digital techniques. Plans for more from the Mad Max universe may depend on Furiosa’s success, revealing a prequel story of Furiosa and Max before Fury Road.
In 1979, Miller’s feature directorial debut unwittingly launched an iconic cinematic universe with Mad Max. Far removed from the game-changing CGI and big-screen spectacle that is Fury Road, Miller talks about humble beginnings, working for a year in a cramped apartment with co-writer and producer Byron Kennedy and exhausting their post-production funds. From there, the filmmaker would go on to cement his place in Hollywood history, but the world of Mad Max would never be far behind him.
Miller’s resume is incredible, but there are those who have never seen any of his work before. If someone has never seen any of his films, what would he like them to watch and why? According to Miller, viewers should start with Furiosa because it’s probably got the best of his skills or whatever knowledge he has in them. Additionally, this film is a prequel to Fury Road, so viewers could start with this film and then go backwards with all the films he made.
The movie that changed the most in the editing room in ways he didn’t expect going in is the first one – the first Mad Max. The first film he made was made at a time when he didn’t know much about films. He was very interested in film. We really prepared that film in great detail. It was such a low budget that even though he storyboarded, he couldn’t photocopy the storyboard to show the rest of the crew, so he had to write it out in words. Someone showed him the screenplay of the first Mad Max, which is, I think, only 93 minutes long. The screenplay was 274 pages long because it described every single shot, every crane shot, or whatever. That’s the one that changed most in editing.
George Miller (Via IMDB)
As he progressed making films, particularly when he came across the digital dispensation, first with Babe and then with films like Happy Feet, he really got to understand that it’s much more plastic. The frame is much more plastic. Now you can do a lot more. You can shoot live-action animals and make them talk, you can use motion capture to make penguins stand when you do a Fury Road, you can just take all the rigging that you use on the stunts and stuff and erase them – much, much safer.
George Miller and any other filmmaker would like to make more from the Mad Max universe. Miller confirms that yes, there are more in the works. Mainly because to tell the story of Fury Road, which happens over a very compressed amount of time, you could argue that the first act of Fury Road and the last act are almost playing in real-time over three days in order to tell that story on the run. Picking up all the backstory, all the exposition on the way, everybody working on the film – not only the cars, but all the designers, all the prop makers, everybody – had to understand the backstory very intimately in order for it to be coherent. So, we had to write the story of Furiosa and the 18 years, as it turns out, before we meet her in Fury Road. We also had to write the story of the year of Max in the year before we encounter him in Fury Road. So, we have that story ready to go because we know it so well.
As far as the editing process, Miller is always fascinated by it because it’s where it really all comes together. For something like Furiosa, did the film change a lot in the editing room? Did he end up with a lot of deleted scenes? According to Miller, the more he makes films, the less deleted scenes he has. Most of it should be thought out and prepared beforehand. There’s no question about that. So, this was pretty tightly shot. The other thing that they did on this film that he’s never really done before, or only partially done before, he picked it up from Bong Joon-ho. They started to do that on this film. What you do is you’re basically getting a really decent cut as you’re going along. As you’re shooting, you can do that. Technology allows you to do it nowadays, and you learn two things. One is when you’ve got what you need and what you don’t need to shoot. So, that process allows you not to go ahead and shoot things just to explore them, if you like, on the most expensive part of the film, that is during the shooting state.
The future of the Mad Max universe is uncertain, but Miller confirms that yes, there are more in the works. The story of Furiosa and the 18 years before we meet her in Fury Road is ready to go because we know it so well.
