The Last Night in Soho dance trick, explained by Matt Smith and Edgar Wright

People keep asking Edgar Wright when he will direct a musical, and it’s no wonder, given that he has integrated music with action throughout his film career. Some of his most memorable scenes are inspired by his soundtracks, the jukebox zombie fight on Shaun of the dead (set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”) to the musical battles in Scott Pilgrim vs. the world to almost everything Baby driver.

But in his last movie, Last night in Soho, a musical sequence underscores more than ever what a complete Edgar Wright musical would look like, and includes a striking dance scene that shifts rapidly between two actors. Looks like a series of split-second digital effects, just like before Doctor who Star Matt Smith dances with the film’s co-star, Anya Taylor-Joy, and she repeatedly swaps bodies with the lead, played by Thomasin McKenzie. Wright explains to Polygon how the sequence worked, mainly as a single take, with a single edit on the entire scene.

[Ed. note: Warning: spoilers ahead for the story setup of Last Night in Soho.]

In the film, shy fashion school student Ellie (McKenzie) moves to London, where she begins to have visions of the past. In a dreamy state, she wakes up and wanders around sixties London, experiencing it as herself and as Sandie (Taylor-Joy), a promising performer looking for a chance to take the stage. Wright flips back and forth between his perspectives: When Ellie first looks at herself in a mirror in the 1960s, she sees Sandie. When Sandie stands near a reflective surface, she is unaware of Ellie’s presence, but Ellie is looking at her.

“You’re getting into a fantastic perspective where Thomasin is sometimes a voyeur and sometimes he switches bodies with Anya,” Wright tells Polygon. “When Anya’s emotions escalate, Thomasin is suddenly in the moment too. That came from the kinds of dreams I have. I have many dreams in which I know it is me, but I am in someone else’s body. Or I look at myself, I’m having an out-of-body experience, that ever-changing perspective thing. “

Most of the mirror scenes were done without digital effects. “They’re actually right next to each other, for the most part,” says Wright. “When they are very close to each other, what you are seeing on the screen is actually what is happening. The really important thing about that was that he knew it was going to be better for Thomasin to be on the scene with the other actors. It wouldn’t have been fun, challenging, and ultimately probably boring for her to do all the scenes on her own, so we designed the shots so that she could be there. And what it creates, I hope, is a very strange frame of mind. “

Photo: Focus functions

The same principle of trying to do the effects practically applied to the large dance number. “We rehearsed with the choreographer, Jen White, thoroughly,” actor Matt Smith tells Polygon. “We worked really hard to break free and swing into that sixties style. A lot of the visual tricks were done with us running around the back of the camera, hiding and jumping, trying to run and not be in the shot, and then going out again and making things work. “

Wright says that there is a single digital effect at the beginning of the sequence, when Smith pushes Taylor-Joy to his side and she turns into McKenzie. “The first exchange was a repeat move where we did the take with Anya and Matt, and then we just did it again with Thomasin,” he says. “Even when we were doing it, I didn’t know we were going to be able to do it. And the reason it’s so good is because the continuity of Matt Smith, Anya and Thomasin is so precise. “

Smith says that the mechanics of the sequence was primarily a matter of repetition. “It’s like anything, the more you practice, the better you get, really,” he says. “I really enjoyed it, because I enjoyed working with Anya every day. She is a good dancer and we laugh, trying to do it right and to make her look as cool as possible. “

According to Wright, the scripted version of the scene was much simpler. But in addition to that planned first edit between the two dancing actors, choreographer Jennifer White offered him six alternate body-swapping moves, all using Texas Switches – On-camera moments when one artist leaves and another enters, with clever camera work that hides the transition.

“And I was like, ‘Why don’t we shoot everyone?’ Wright laughs. “‘How long can we continue with this?’ Because it’s intoxicating to watch. That’s supposed to be the idea of ​​the scene. The first sequence of dreams is seductive and glamorous and intoxicating, seductive. So that’s how it happened. Other than that shot, you’re watching an uninterrupted shot. “

Wright says getting the shot to work took a split-second time, with Smith knocking one of his teammates off the screen and the other intervening with split-second timing. “The three actors are doing a do-si-do around the camera. It’s just old-fashioned choreography. In a weird way, throughout the movie, we’re doing all the tricks in the book. Most of them have complicated 21st century ways of doing things, but with some of them, what you’re seeing is exactly what’s happening. “

The eventual home video release of Last night in Soho it can include full footage of the sequence from an eyewitness camera perspective, far enough away from the action to show exactly what everyone is doing, says Wright. “Seeing that is like an amazing dance in itself, because actually, a take like that is a collaboration between the three players, and also the fourth player on the scene, Chris Bain, the Steadicam operator. The shot remains and falls on him being in the right place at all times ”.

Wright says this kind of one-shot sequence, what people in the industry call an “oner,” can be “presumable, like ‘let’s do it because we can.’ But he felt that working without cuts would set a breathless tone for the sequence. “The idea was that the longer we can hold these shots, the more immersive it will be. You feel that you are living indirectly through it. It’s about not breaking the spell. It is as if we are showing you a reality of somethingEven if what we show them is very fantastic. “

Understand that people may find it hard to believe that the sequence was handled without elaborate digital actor replacement effects. “In this day and age, people always think, ‘Oh, there must be points, there must be cuts,'” he says. But there are none. We did a question and answer session the other day to BAFTA, and someone said to the editor, Paul Machliss, ‘Can you tell us about the edits in the dance sequence?’ And he said, ‘No, because there isn’t.’

Last night in Soho it’s in theaters now.