Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 Cinematographer On How Chris Pratt Saved Its Emotional Ending
SPOILERS for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 follow.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 caught many fans off guard with its emotional, bittersweet ending, and that ending may have been the most challenging scene to film in the entire movie.
Yondu's death scene was especially difficult because both Michael Rooker and Chris Pratt needed to be hanging from strings. That wasn't an easy setup for cinematographer Henry Braham to work with.
"It's very moving. We all knew it was going to be a very difficult scene for them to shoot. Not least, because they are hanging on wires, which aren't particularly comfortable," Barham recalls while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter. "So no matter however brilliant the stunt team is in rigging them, hanging on the wire is uncomfortable. And we had to think carefully about how do we make it the least intrusive for those two actors to perform. How do we make it the least intrusive, and yet get the audience right inside the circle — in with them. It takes respect for what they have to do. In reality, the scene was shot very, very quickly. I think it took a morning to shoot. But it took many days thinking about how are we going to make this a day that it's about shooting the performance and not about shooting all the other stuff."
Yondu's funeral proved to be uniquely challenging. The scene was filmed, but Pratt and director James Gunn returned the next day with some ideas on how to fix Peter Quill's eulogy.
"Chris' speech; we shot it on the set and the next day James came to work — and he and Chris had thought of something that they'd missed — so they wanted to reshoot it," Braham says. "And actually Chris is inserted into that scene. He shot against bluescreen, and we had to match the lighting, match absolutely everything perfectly from the shot we did before. We have to match the timing of the camera's moves in and around the scene, perfectly with his dialogue and everything else. It's complex. But of course hopefully, for the audience, it should be absolutely seamless. It's the bits you don't see are sometimes the most complex."
Sometimes the most difficult parts of making a film are the ones that, if done right, go entirely unnoticed.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 currently has an 87.79 ComicBook.com Composite Score, the third-highest ComicBook.com Composite Score for a comic book movie of all time. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 also has a 4.65 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Rating, giving it the highest ComicBook.com user rating among all comic book movies. Let us know what you thought of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 by giving it your own ComicBook.com user rating below.
Set to the backdrop of 'Awesome Mixtape #2,' Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continues the team's adventures as they traverse the outer reaches of the cosmos. The Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mysteries of Peter Quill's true parentage. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes' aid as the Marvel cinematic universe continues to expand.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is written and directed by James Gunn and stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Sean Gunn, Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is now playing in theaters.
MORE: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 Reveals Why Nebula Is A Cyborg / Dave Bautista Explains Drax's Relationship With Mantis / Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 Reveals How Peter's Mom Really Died
