DGA Monthly

6 I D G A M O N T H L Y SCREENPULLS: WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT This is the one epic frame that tells the whole story: Wonder Woman, on her own, willing to take on the world. The color timing of the whole film was very important to me. The entire balance was pivotal to the film, and I was lucky to have [Senior Colorist] Stefan Sonnenfeld to punctuate what we didn't achieve on set. I landed on John Singer Sargent's paintings as our solution to the look of the film. His work is period correct, but was so bold, modern, graphic, and poppy. I would sit with my keys and design how to reference his aesthetic in each scene. We stayed with a very controlled color palette — mostly primary — used deep blacks and let things be dark; but then carefully picked which colors to pop so that her costume could emerge beautifully yet be baked into the overall world. 7 My favorite thing about this moment and shot is how moving the story point is. We have witnessed how powerful and formidable Diana is. But is there anyone of us who does not need others? That is just as intrinsic to the mythology at the core of superhero stories — the moment the world almost takes you down; the moments that no one, no matter how badass they are, can face alone. Here, Diana is down to the ground and it's clear that she won't be able to hold this danger off for much longer. It becomes the moment for Steve and the team's blaze of glory. Ultimately, it is this communion of faith that turns the tide. I tried to make it the feminism 3.0 I would like to see in the future, where you can be a woman — beautiful, kind, loving, badass — and yes, still have love and companionship despite it, and treat the partner well who is willing to do it with you. 8 This gratifying moment is the button that punctuates final victory, while defining who Wonder Woman is and will be going forward. When she makes it to the German trench, she doesn't start attacking people and getting into hand-to-hand combat. Besting or hurting others is not what she is here for. In this case, she simply shuts down the artillery and disables their abilities to do more harm, as if to say, "We won't be doing this to each other anymore. Sorry." I love that as simplistically as one might want to see Wonder Woman's character trait of hating guns, in this moment, is she not making a good point? Without the machine gun that she smashes in this shot — a recently invented tool that created the stalemate and slaughter of WWI and No Man's Land — the damage and death across the field could not happen. Period. It's a hard observation and wisdom to argue. 9 Through this scene, our hero is born as Wonder Woman. She decided, transformed, put her powers to use, and was ultimately victorious. She believes in what she can do and launches off into the future with purpose. I love this shot emotionally, but I struggled with the VFX jump. Gravity is a persnickety thing to render realistically. It's why many Directors have their superhero characters slam down with unnatural speed and impact, thus avoiding the middle ground. But that would have been out of tone with our film. So, we struggled with making it look natural and it's why I did almost all the stunts of WW84 on wires. Luckily, our great VFX team was able to get pretty damn close. To me, this shot symbolizes all the great artists who came together to make this scene all it could be, jumping away from something very challenging yet epically important. We felt victorious — and in art, what other barometer do we have? 10 SHOT TO REMEMBER Continued from page 5 — Director Patty Jenkins on Wonder Woman. See more images and text from this article online at www.dga.org.

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