Monarch's Mari Yamamoto & Anders Holm Break Down Acting With Titans While Shooting
Mari Yamamoto & Anders Holm sat down with Comicbook.com to talk Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
The stars of Apple TV+'s Monarch: A Legacy of Monsters got to see early pre-visualization shots of the scenes they were about to film. It's a way of giving them a sense for the blocking and pacing of the scene, which works better than just filming the actors looking at a tennis ball on a stick. But it also means that when you see the final, finished product, it's almost more impressive because you got to see the dollar-store version first.
Speaking with ComicBook.com, star Mari Yamamoto seemed fascinated by the technology, suggesting it was a huge help to see the scene "play out" in advance, while her co-star Anders Holm had a...very specific...gripe about the pre-vis.
"In the process of shooting, they really try to make it easy for us because they prepare a whole animation clip of what the scene is going t look like in its finished form," Yamamoto said. "We see ourselves in it, we see the monsters that we were reacting to. Each cut is sort of done so we're all on the same page about what we're making. But nothing compares to seeing the finished product with the sound and the music. Everything is so epic and amped up, so it's like a revelation of 'Oh, that's what I was doing?'"
"We get to watch the pre-vis but it's a very rough rendering," Holm added. "It's almost like storyboards that move a little bit, and I was always like, 'Why is the guy you guys drew for me so handsome? We're going to need hair and makeup to get in here and like...he was jacked, and I was like, 'Now I gotta work out. Okay."
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Synopsis
Here's a new breakdown of the upcoming Apple TV+ series, "In this epic journey, which follows the thunderous battle between Godzilla and the Titans that leveled San Francisco and the shocking revelation that monsters are real, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters tracks two siblings following their father's footsteps to uncover their family's connection to the secretive organization known as Monarch. Clues lead them into the world of monsters and ultimately down the rabbit hole to Army Officer Lee Shaw, taking place in the 1950s and a half a century later where Monarch is threatened by what Shaw knows. The dramatic saga, spanning three generations, reveals buried secrets and the ways that epic, earth-shattering events can reverberate through our lives."
