Wolf Pack: The Making of The Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed) is based on the memoir of high living stockbroker Jordan Belfort who was sent to prison for stock manipulation.  “It’s interesting that Scorsese told his casting director, Ellen Lewis, right from the beginning that the film would be filled with humour,” states Thelma Schoonmaker who has edited every Martin Scorsese movie since winning an Oscar for Raging Bull (1980).  “But most members of the crew were surprised by how funny the scenes were as they watched them being shot.   So Scorsese knew what he was doing right from the beginning, by letting the actors bring original humour into their improvisations on what was already funny dialogue written by Terry Winter [Boardwalk Empire].   Marty told me he wanted the film to be ‘ferocious’ – unstinting in its portrayal of the unbelievable excess in which the character’s wallow; he wanted the audience to experience it the way the actors did and let the audience make up their minds about what they thought of it.   Marty was interested in getting under the skin of the audience, by making them feel that they too could have bought into this lifestyle.  Moralizing he doesn’t feel works – people don’t listen – you have to let them experience something and decide for themselves whether it is right or wrong.”

“They never went anywhere besides New York,” reveals another long-time collaborator of Martin Scorsese, Rob Legato who has been the visual effects supervisor for the native of Flushing, New York since The Aviator (2004).  400 visual effects shots had to be created on a budget of $4.1 million which required creating the illusion of being in Switzerland, Bahamas and Italy as well as an enormous yacht which sinks during a storm at sea.   “To lift up a 170 foot boat can you image how big that wave would have to be?  It’s beyond how big waves really are.  Certainly with Marty and I if it looks plausible then it’s plausible as suppose to following real world physics.  We shot a day and a half of the yacht scene. There was no big shooting for 30 days where you have all these different looks that you have to get.  A lot of it was an economic decision more than anything else.”  Legato also served as the second unit director for the project.   “I had a tremendous amount of conversations with Thelma because the cut is always changing.   A lot of times what I end up doing is bridging shots and things they’ve truncated.  ‘What if we did this? Marty wants cuts to a close-up of a Forbes article and an insert of that.’  I talked to her almost all the time but Rodrigo Prieto [cinematographer] not as much because he and Marty talked more about the look of the film.”

Background plates were shot for the sequences involving the yacht.  “If you were to shoot those scenes for real you would move the boat to get the background to look good,” remarks Rob Legato.  “My belief system is every time I would see a background it’s an opportunity.  I shot it for real and over the course of several hour.  Whatever the sun looked the best at that particular point that’s when I shot it and that’s the plate I delivered.”  Legato states, “My biggest struggle in the movie was not enough imperfection detail.  Nothing is all one shade of colour. If you paint a three inch wall it’s all one texture but if you paint a 40 foot wall you see some of the primer underneath, you see things where the paint didn’t quite cover and your brain filters that out and says, ‘I’m seeing a white wall.’  But it doesn’t when you see a fake one.  You have to put in a lot of extra work that seems counterintuitive.  ‘I’ve a chance to make it perfect but I don’t want it perfect.  I want it to like you’ve went a real location and shot it.’  You would be amazed how funky real life is when you try to imitate it and make it perfect.”

“I don’t know any other company that can do water like Scanline,” remarks Rob Legato.  “Even though the mandate was to do everything in New York for the tax rebate issues I couldn’t reproduce that.  You can talk yourself into it but I know from experience you’re not going to get there if somebody doesn’t know how to do that.  You want to put the rest of the material into the hands of the people in New York.   I found Brainstorm and the supervisor was terrific; he had a real sense how to make something look believable with matte paintings.  I steered anything that was a matte painting oriented location enhancing set extension type of thing into their hands.  When Marko [Forker] came on board for Method I had worked with him on Titanic [1997] and Apollo 13 [1995]; he’s a spectacular compositor. The stuff that I needed to make as real as I can which was the Italy Boat Sequence where they’re talking on the dock at Portofino I gave to him to honcho.  I did a couple of the shots myself and another company called Crazy Horse founded by Paul and Christina Graff does great work.  I ran into them at a function and was impressed with the work they did for HBO and I’ve worked with them before on Aviator as well.   I found out that they have an office in New York and said, ‘Now I have my entire companies that can produce the 400 shots we had to do for the movie.’  I have a shorthand with Paul and Christina. Paul is one of those guys who is like what I’m doing with Marty where he would anticipate and guess what I was going for and deliver that as suppose for what I asked for.  It makes that much better sooner.”

“Rob Legato was in pre-production and approached us about a ship sinking at sea sequence that needed to be pre-visualized,” states Scanline VFX Supervisor Joe Farrell.  “In his words, he, ‘want[ed] it to look realistic in favour of too much of an action scene.’  Rob suggested we animate and simulate the sequence first and then film it on the virtual stage to tell the story. I was not yet on board, and at that time, Scanline VP and VFX Supervisor Danielle Plantec worked with Rob in order to execute that initial virtual shoot.”  Farrell observes, “Both Martin Scorsese and Rob strive for story as the driving force to the visual effects; That process started with animating the ship and its various story beats and then creatively using virtual filming as you would a real set. If we needed to be wide to see the action, then the camera needed to be on another virtual platform moving on the same ocean surface as the ship we were photographing.”  Legato supplied the much needed reference material.  “During main production photography Rob and VFX producer Mark Russell took care of all on-set data capture. Rob was the film’s second unit director, so he captured all the plates and performances needed to put the pieces together to tell the story. We did a small pick-up shoot later once we knew exactly what the missing parts of the puzzle were.”

“Pre-visualizing all of the sequences was important to be able to define the story beats,” remarks Joe Farrell.  “Once the virtual stage shoot had been cut together and agreed upon it became the backbone of our work on the sequences. We had a lot of fun on our virtual stage here at Scanline, designing interesting ways of filming each shot to tell the story on the Sinking Sequence. Initial yacht virtual camera work went so well, in fact, that Rob later awarded us the two helicopter sequences that really needed to be approached in the same way.”  Fluid simulations needed to be incorporated into the scene.  “We started in 3D with a very stormy ocean surface and created custom key frame animated rogue waves crashing over the boat. That would then drive the animation of the helicopter or jet skis, which would in turn drive how the boat would react to these forces. A combination of thinking particle simulations combined with carefully hand modelled morphing break away pieces and particle passes worked well for our needs.”

Live-action gimbal footage had to be mixed with the CG environment.  “Once we had tracked the gimbal set piece and skinned our hybrid ‘Naomi’ yacht to the live-action, we realized it felt a little stiff,” notes Joe Farrell.  “Taking the 3D camera position and attaching our virtual camera we did not break the rules of the original photography but we were able to re-film the shots as if at sea in the storm. The camera moves became natural.”   Farrell explains, “Of the sequences that Scanline completed, most of our exterior shots became all CG.  Digital doubles where either motion captured or key frame animated for any wide shots. There was a small amount of background augmentation for either enhancement or to modify for period 1990’s look.”  A balance needed to be achieved between being photorealistic and cinematic.  “Lighting on Wolf was important to Rob; he strives to create cinematic lighting that tells a story. I found myself rethinking the way I would normally approach lighting a digital environment. We needed to match to Rodrigo Prieto’s established look and highlight key moments. We lit certain areas that we’re telling the story and let other areas fall off. It was more of an art directed approach to lighting rather than real world lighting.”

The Wolf of Wall Street features two helicopter crash landings.  “Scanline is well known for our ability to crash a helicopter in a spectacular way,” states Joe Farrell.   “My experience on A Good Day to Die Hard[2013] came in handy and we have a great deal of in-house reference that’s been collected over the years.”  The storm at sea had to be produced.  “We found this amazing real footage of huge navel ships struggling to push over these 25 to 40 foot waves. It turned out to be invaluable reference for how much the vessel of that size displaces the water under extreme pressures.”  A rescue scene needed to be orchestrated.  “We fed off the results of the pick-up shoot we did at New Deal Studios. Rob filming with a handheld camera 100 feet up on a partial helicopter set with literally truck loads of water raining down on stunt actors holding on to an ascending cable. We animated the Naomi yacht on its side and simulated its movements to a water simulation that was being affected by the forces of our CG helicopter down wash. That shot just fell naturally into place.

“I would say for me the biggest challenge was learning the aesthetics’ of Rob and Scorsese’s sense of lighting and mood for the sequences,” reveals Joe Farrell.  “Rob approaches shots in a different manner than what I had done on previous films. I had Jordan’s mansion printed out on our 3D printer here at work so that we could hold it in our hand and by quickly moving a torch with the other, see how much the mood would change depending on the light’s position.”  There was extensive research and development on the Naomi yacht in the storm scene.  “The look of such a large vessel in the pouring rain being lit within the storm to look cinematic was challenging.”  Some assets were shared with other visual effects vendors.  “We did end up sharing some painted backgrounds for a party sequence that takes place on the top of Jordan Belfort’s yacht. We created a long wide establishing shot with a boat ocean wake simulation that then cut directly to shots completed by Method Studios in New York.”

“We worked on a shot that started close on Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie [Tarzan] and pulled back to reveal them on their new boat enjoying the Caribbean sun,” recalls Joe Farrell.  “Rob had filmed various plates from a helicopter that we used for both reference and texturing our digtal environment. We needed to blend the on-set camera’s limited space restrictions into a digital camera that pulls back wide enough for the audience to see distant islands. It was a hard shot to refine the caustic lighting coming from the boat wake simulation but I really enjoyed how well the shot came out in the end.”  Farrell adds, “Working with these guys was a real honour for me. Things ran smoothly in part because Rob and Marty have a strong working relationship. I also had an amazing team on the project here at Scanline which made my days so much fun.”

Marko Forker

During an office party a midget gets tossed.  “That was another bizarre thing,” admits Rob Legato.    “They did a wide shot where he is already on the target and peel him off.  When Marty looked at it he said, ‘I need to see him hit the target.’”  New footage had to be captured long after principle photography was completed.   “I condensed that shoot into a bunch of other things.  The same day I shot all of the tennis players and the rescue at sea live-action shot where the guys are being pulled up on the wrench.  I did the shot against the green screen.  I had 20 extras.  They asked, ‘How are going to get the guy on the thing?  Is it a wire?’  I said, ‘No.  I’m going to throw the guy, and he’s going to land on the target and is going to stick.’  This isn’t made up for the movie.  As politically incorrect as it is it’s dwarf tossing.  I showed Marty my first good take which was take three and he said, ‘That’s it.  Great.’  I didn’t have enough people to make it look like it fitted into the rest of the office.  If you notice carefully I put my son in there and a bunch of other extras.  I repeated them three times so there are triplets of my son.  I had Crazy Horse put the ceiling in and made it look like it was part of the original photography but it wasn’t.  Two of the actors P.J. Byrne [The Campaign] and Brian Sacca [The Kings of Summer] even though they were mostly cut out got the crowd going the same way they were going the day we shot it in the real office.”

“It’s a stunning thing what one does even with the career I’ve had doing all of these big things,” observes Rob Legato who had to insert a chair during an orgy scene.  “At the end of the day you do whatever you can pull in to get the job done.  They had a NC-17 rating unless we blocked the gay orgy, a particular egregious visual moment there.  We were in the DI, the last two days before the movie gets sent on its way.  We called the Art Department; they brought a chair in and we shot it with a still camera, brought Paul and Christina Graff in who literally setup their Macintosh in the kitchen at Deluxe in New York.  We had a handheld light to match the rim light on the chair and covered up the four or five shots that we needed to get the rating.  There a couple more that we did.  The list you get for the MPPA is absurd when you read it.  The reverse cowgirl is okay but you need to cut three seconds out of this particular girl giving a blowjob. The verbiage as you read it sounds like the National Lampoon.  Have three less thrusts when he is in bed with his wife.  ‘Three?  Where did you come up with three?’  We morphed a shot at the last minute to get rid of three thrusts.  If you look at the shot you’re not going to even sense it was different from the original.  That’s what we ended up doing for the last two days.  Because of the way we work you bring it in, we have all the files there, we shoot the chair, put up the plate, stick it in AfterEffects, track it, and look at it.  ‘That looks pretty good.’  You do it a couple of times and say, ‘That’s it.’  Now you make DPX frames, send it up stairs where it goes right into the DI, its cut in and looks just like the other shot except there’s a chair in front of it.  In this day and age there’s no big formality to that.”

Joining the inner circle of Martin Scorsese for the first time was Adam Somner who has frequently worked as the first assistant director for Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), Ridley Scott (Gladiator) and Steven Spielberg (Lincoln).   “One thing I enjoyed working with Marty as I do with Steven and Paul is that they’re all film buffs and my father was a film buff.”  Working with Scorsese was an interesting experience.  “I found Marty’s preparation to be meticulous; he was very shot oriented.”  The extras whether they were to be strippers or stockbrokers had to know exactly what they were suppose to be doing.   “My part was to energize the background to get all of those elements going for him so when he arrived the canvas was stretched.  We worked as quickly as possible with the actors and made sure everything was technically correct.”   Somner remarks, “I’m always by the camera. There’s a guy named Josh who worked with Marty before and he would be my man by the monitor.  I was by the camera leading the charge in the front.  With my guys I would divide the room up.”  Casting for the extras was not easy.  “It’s amazing even in New York you’d think you could everything you wanted just like that but you don’t.  One of the challenges was the continuing search and not accepting the first person we were given by our agency of extras to get the right look.  Also the amount of women that we needed to be in the movie to be naked and doing certain sex acts.  [We had] to find the right people, make sure they were cool with it, and rehearse them.   It needed planning and thought.”

“The sequence where he throws the big party and it all turns into chaos, on a Sunday I got a video camera,” explains Adam Somner.  “We got the band, dancers and some of the strippers in.  We ended up roughing up a sequence.   Marty would say, ‘The camera would have to be here.’  I’d say, ‘Absolutely, Governor.’  We would do enough to show him the mechanics.  He’d say, ‘I’d like this to come here.  I’d like that to go there.  Change this.  This is okay.  The camera would never be there.’  When we turned up on the day it happened.  Marty was pleased with that.”  Somner observes, “It’s funny.  You do a big scene like that and think that’s going to be the hardest scene in the movie and the energy drives you forward and you get it.  Then you have one scene where a guy walks up and drops a cup of coffee.  ‘Why is he walking that way?’  ‘Don’t walk like that!  Walk like this.’  Each shot has a different challenge.  Four people in a room can be more complicated than having 500 because of it being more specific.  You have to make those guys really correct and specific and trained.  There’s a scene where there is one guy in an elevator.  ‘What are you doing?  Don’t do that!’  There are moments where one person could derail you easier than 400 depending what it is.”

“I had lot of dealings with Rob Legato,” states Adam Somner.  “When Rob does a visual effects shot he becomes as important as the director and cameraman; he directed a lot of second unit stuff which we helped him with.  The scene I was most involved with physical action was the cabin which was on a gimbal set where the waves are smashing in.  Rob was involved with the design of what we needed to do.  What was and wasn’t possible for the camera to go.” Legato was pragmatic with his requests.   “I found him to be quite low-key in his way of doing business.     Rob would explain certain things that he needed and would get clear to the point.  Some visual effects people can make a big scene; they needed it to be done like this and then change their minds.  Whereas Rob has worked on big films with auteurs so was able to assess was and wasn’t needed.  Some can be more user-friendly for a film crew and some can be more user friendly for what a visual effects company wants.  Rob was able to navigate that in a middle area.”  The British filmmaker enjoyed his dealings with Rodrigo Prieto. “He operates with a fantastic and optimistic energy.  I would always try to accommodate him where I could.  Sometimes I would say, ‘Rodrigo, there isn’t much I can do because that’s the reality of our day.’  He was always understanding of that.”  Somner remarks, “With Bob Shaw [production designer] I would talk to him about what was and wasn’t practical about a set as well as the feel and look.  With Sandy Powell [costume designer] I’d talk about the correct look of the people so the costumes and faces were in sync; she is talented and has a great eye.”

“I deal with the casting director a lot,” states Adam Somner.  “You have a 100 actors and 80 days of filming and they all have different availability issues. The coordination of that makes your eyes water sometimes but you do it.  If you read the script you would see there are 50 actors who speak.  When we read the script again I said, ‘There are 50 actors who speak but there are another 35 people going to be cast because they’re next to the actors and will be interacting with them.’”  Somner remarks, “I would help Leo and Jonah [Hill] and be with them on the set.  With the other actors I would help them to know what was going on.  I’ll keep them in the loop because there was a huge amount of secondary cast. Leo is a charmer and a prince.  I found Jonah to be wonderful and charming.  I don’t start off wanting to be everyone’s mate.  I want to be as helpful as possible.  You want to have a good time and enjoy yourself.  Ultimately, you have a mission to get the film made.”

Thelma Schoonmaker

“We never use temp music when editing,” remarks Thelma Schoonmaker.  “Scorsese has such a phenomenal gift for putting music to film that it isn’t necessary.  As soon as we have a first cut of a scene he starts thinking of music for it [in the case where he is doing the score from pre-recorded music and there is no composer].    Sometimes Scorsese already knows what piece he will use in a scene [for example Hey Leroy after Leo has rallied the troops during an IPO launch].    I think music is so critical to a film that I wouldn’t want to use a piece that isn’t going to be part of the film in the end.  It seems to me that you make so many cuts to the music that you would have to do that all over again if a different piece goes in.”  Schoonmaker notes, “The scene where Jordan is training his brokers to sell to rich people was originally very long and detailed.  But we felt the film didn’t need all that detail.  The disrespect Jordan shows his client on the phone and the montage of brokers mouthing the phrases Jordan has taught them was more entertaining and ample to show how he shaped his firm.   We cut it down and down and screened it and then cut it down again.   It took a while.”

“I had a ball personally because my son just got out of film school and this became his first film experience,” remarks Rob Legato.  “He was my assistant and we travelled all over the world.  I had one moment where it used to be a joke where you’d say, ‘I dreamed about this day in film school.’  Usually you’re doing something horrible in the mud somewhere.  But I reshot the scene where the girls board the yacht in Portofino. We stayed in a hotel that was in the square.  In the morning when the sunlight was the best I woke up, went down stairs, had an espresso, walked over to where the camera was already setup, [I had everybody setup the night before], got behind the camera, did two takes in beautiful sunshine in this fabulous looking place and I said, ‘Today I really did dream about this in film school.’  I finally got to say that without being sarcastic.”   Adam Somner observes, “You’re never finished or satisfied.  You’re constantly trying to make it better for every shot.  I’m like, ‘Ahh, that guy was a bit late!  That wasn’t as good as I wanted it.  Let me adjust it.’  Then you see the movie and go, ‘Wow!  That actually worked out well.’  Somner adds, “It was great to do a Martin Scorsese film and great to do a good one.”

VFX shots and video courtesy of Method Studios and Scanline VFX.