It’s created by the backgrounds (which were separately shot on location) moving by virtue of greenscreen,” Seale explained. “In the shots with actors, the trucks are not moving at all. In particular, that meant a lot of greenscreen work. They are real cars and amazing stunts, but done very safely,” Seale said. All of the stunts are live-action stunts (not CG stunt doubles). “The visual effects helped enhance our frames, rather than create them.

“It was used to shoot 95 percent of the action unit’s material - amazing stuff and very safely.”įor the thrilling stunts, Seale related that they shot as much as possible in camera. And tracking with it at 80 kilometers an hour gave us a very awesome result,” he added. “The crane could also get the action on the top of the tanker and still be able to see the other vehicle in the backgrounds. He really knew what we were going to do,” Seale said, noting that everything was meticulously storyboarded and choreographed - it was “pretty well gospel.” We knew George was going to cut the film very fast, so a lot of shots were quite short. “All the cameras were on the move: Steadicam, handheld, bungee work on the rigs.

It was lensed primarily with ARRI Alexa Plus and compact Alexa M digital cameras, plus various still cameras for crash cams, including Canon 5Ds and Blackmagic models. The high-octane “road war” was shot in the deserts of Namibia, across multiple units for 120 days. George wanted to increase the grain, which I loved. “He went for a scorched look, a dried-out look but with color. He didn’t want to follow that pattern, which I liked a lot,” Seale says. very desaturated blues, grays, the ‘life of the planet is coming to an end and it’s miserable’ look.

“George’s initial instinct was to not go with the standard look of a postapocalyptic film, i.e. It didn’t take me long, as he says, to come out of retirement to make the film.”Īnd so the duo went to work to make what is arguably the most visually dazzling action film of the year. He’s a very interesting director, and we got on well. “I worked with George on Lorenzo’s Oil and he made that an exciting picture. “It was Mad Max and it was George Miller it had to be exciting,” Seale said. With an enthusiastic laugh, Seale tells The Hollywood Reporter that he didn’t need much convincing to take on the postapocalyptic thriller. To create the striking look of Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller, 70, rang up an old friend - Aussie cinematographer John Seale, 73, who won an Oscar in 1997 for a very different desert-set film, The English Patient.

Mad max fury road explained