Warning! Below contains spoilers for 65. Do not proceed if you don’t want to know scene specifics.
Now that 65 is out in the world, we saved some of our conversation with writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods to dive into some specific sequences of meaning that the two agree helped elevate the final film, and the emotional story they were trying to tell. First up, there’s the topic of the long period between production and release, which ended up being two full years.
65 was shot on location in late 2020 and early 2021, and was initially due out for release in May 2022. However, Beck and Woods say the delays allowed them the luxury of a particularly expanded post-production period. When asked what that time afforded them in terms of shaping the film, Beck says it gave them a necessary runway for the VFX.
"There was a world where this movie could come out earlier, but the visual effects would be 60% of what they are. And Sony and us were like, 'No,'" Beck says. "That can never be the end goal. And then the other thing that we constantly are trying to build in is schedules where you shoot the movie, and then you react to it. Then you're in the luxury of, 'Okay, we need this emotional beat here, or this suspense beat there.'" They were able to evaluate and call the actors back in for additional photography shot in Ireland. "Some of those scenes are our personal favorites in the film now," Beck admits.
He cites a specific scene in the second act where Mills and Koa are still at odds and she just suffers a traumatic dinosaur attack. "He's trying a tactic to break her out of the shell-shocked nature that she's in and he starts to whistle, which is an echo back to what he was teaching his daughter before he had to leave on this trip. And the last time that he ever saw her," Beck details. "That's a scene where you almost could just set up the cameras and let Adam and Ariana just perform. It was really incredible to see their dynamic there because they had lived in the characters for so long by the time we had shot that scene, that it was second nature to them."
Close bonds
Beck is equally effusive about young actress Chloe Coleman who plays Mills’ daughter Nevine. He says she and Adam also formed a bond that really sold their father-daughter relationship. "Almost every scene that you see with Chloe, Adam was usually on set, even if he's not on camera. The dynamic between the two felt incredibly genuine. And it was incredibly generous to see each of them giving almost a piece of themselves in real life, in order to feel that father-daughter bond in an authentic way."
Woods continues, "There's a scene at the end of the movie in the escape pod that was a very emotional scene for him. He needs to go to a very emotional place and Chloe was like, 'I have to be on set to be there for him.' It was very sweet, as Scott said, to watch how much they wanted to be there for each other and help each other out to get the best performances."
The whole film ends on a rather graceful note with the flaming destruction of an asteroid that instigated the extinction of the dinosaur era on Earth. Via VFX time lapse we see then become now. Asked if that was always their dream visual to end 65, Beck says it was an idea that came to them in the very early days of writing. However, it wasn’t made real until the 11th hour of post-production when they finally got approval.
"It was a way that we felt we wanted to communicate how the theme of the movie is in essence about rebirth," Beck explains. "There's rebirth for Mills and Koa in the face of loss. They found each other in the same way that the asteroid destroyed all life on Earth. But it wasn't the end for Earth. There was a rebirth there that gave way to us speaking right here on Zoom. And so that that sequence solidified for us, at least semantically, what that movie is. But we also just felt it was a fun evolution to see how Earth evolved over those millions and millions of years."
For more exclusive post-release intel from Beck and Woods on 65, check out our discussion on what Driver brought to the movie and grab a copy of SFX Magazine Issue #364 on stands March 22.
