- 5 weeks ago
Pop superstar Billie Eilish and legendary director James Cameron discuss their unique collaboration on the concert film 'Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour Live in 3D.' They reveal what they learned from each other's expertise, from understanding the artist-fan connection to the art of translating a live show to the big screen.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I have to ask you guys, what's something each of you learned from each other while making this?
00:05Mm-hmm.
00:07All right, I'll go.
00:08Get in there.
00:08I can't wait to see this.
00:10You want to have some fun?
00:19I learned how Billie perceives her art and her relationship with her fans and what it means to them.
00:28You know, I could be a neutral witness to the show and realize how beautiful and spectacular it is and
00:34what an amazing performer you are.
00:37And obviously songwriter and, you know, creator of the music and all that, but also a physical performer in real
00:42time.
00:44I can see all that for myself.
00:46What I learned was what the emotional connection is and how these kids have grown up with you.
00:53They started with you when you were 13.
00:55They've grown up with you for over a decade.
00:58You got, in their minds, you've got them through the hard teenage years, the angsty years, the anxiety, because they
01:05went through it with you and they saw you go through it.
01:08And that gave them agency.
01:10It gave them hope.
01:12You know, there's a whole layer to it that I didn't understand when I started.
01:16I want to feel like it's me and them.
01:20You love that.
01:22I love that.
01:22I learned so much.
01:24I feel like I learned kind of in the same realm, like almost we both learned that same thing opposite,
01:31you know, somehow.
01:33Which is that having been on tour doing that show for over a year, I was, I was very much
01:39like, you know, super, super deep in how the show looked from the audience and from my point of view
01:46and from the people in the bleachers and the people in the front and more just like the live experience.
01:51And I think I learned so much about how, like portraying it on camera, you do actually need to do
01:59it a little bit differently than you do it live.
02:01And I think that showed me so much where like a shot that I might be like, no, that's not
02:06right for the, you know, in person thing.
02:08That's actually a beautiful shot in the movie and makes it come to life in this different way that I
02:14hadn't thought of before.
02:15And also like, I think it was pretty amazing to be able to be people with such different backgrounds and
02:24such different skill sets.
02:28And not skill sets, but different things that we're hyper fixated on.
02:32And like hearing the way you saw certain shots where I was like, oh, I didn't even think of that.
02:38And then me say some stuff about the music that you were like, oh, I didn't think of that.
02:42And those two things combined really just made a wonderful, amazing collaborative experience.
02:48It's your show.
02:50It's your creative vision.
02:51This is going to blow people's minds.
02:53Yeah.
02:53I got airdropped into the middle of, you know, a moving thing that had been moving for a year.
02:59Yes.
03:00And I was really reliant on you and we, the best part of the day was soundcheck, which was a
03:06few hours before the show.
03:07And we'd go around and we'd choreograph what we were going to try to do that night because we shot
03:11it over four different nights.
03:13And to get the cameras where we needed them, we had to keep moving them around to get all the
03:18coverage.
03:18How hard would it be to get a camera on the inside of this box screen?
03:22We want to do it.
03:23Okay, good.
03:24That was the first part of the collaboration.
03:25But I think the deepest part of the collaboration was in post when we were editing.
03:29And we'd sit in the, you know, I'd take a pass at a song or a group of songs and
03:34then Billy'd come in and we'd spend five, six, seven hours, whatever it took going through shot by shot by
03:39shot.
03:40And this is where I really started to get Billy's perception of her relationship with the audience and how meaningful
03:46that was.
03:48And, you know, so that was the, I think that was the true collaboration.
03:52And then later it started all over again with the mix because we had to get the mix right because
03:57there was the music and then there was the fans singing and their presence.
04:02And we had to get that kind of ebb and flow between the fan energy and Billy's incredible performance.
04:10I got to see this live.
04:12So, and my favorite, my favorite part was your acapella part.
04:16So I can't wait to find something new out of it.
04:19And party's over.
04:20Yeah.
04:20Yeah.
04:21That's great.
04:21Isn't it?
04:21Thank you so much.
04:23That's so cool.
04:24Which show did you come to?
04:25Forum.
04:26One of the.
04:26Oh, hell yeah.
04:27Yeah.
04:27So much fun.
04:28I loved those shows too.