Chapter 711: Various Accidents

In the scene currently rolling, the boss of Bullet Town—having just been blinded by Furiosa—sprayed the area with his twin guns while spouting impromptu poetry.

The first two lines carried an epic, beautiful grandeur.

"I am the scales of justice, the conductor of the choir of death!"

His final line was, "Roar, Koch Brothers!"

The Koch Brothers was clearly his affectionate nickname for his twin guns.

So who exactly were the Koch Brothers? They were David Koch and Charles Koch, two contemporary American billionaires famous for their political activism. They were known as conservative hawks and fanatical supporters of the Republican Party.

It was an American election year. The Koch Brothers had pledged 500 million dollars to the Republican campaign, and many believed they had the power to dictate the party's presidential nominee.

The American left also considered them warmongers whose policies would inevitably spark a global nuclear war.

Hollywood had never been isolated from politics. Duke had only written the script's basic framework; the screenwriters who fleshed it out had clearly injected their own political leanings into the dialogue. As the director, Duke had initially overlooked this.

The moment he noticed, he scrubbed those lines. He had no reason to mock real-world politicians in his film.

As Christmas steadily approached, the shoot inevitably hit bumps in the road, some of which were entirely beyond Duke's control—like the weather.

New Mexico boasted a typical desert climate: warm, dry, sunny, and incredibly low in humidity. While some parts of the state received up to a thousand millimeters of rain a year, the region home to the gypsum desert was definitely not one of them.

However, just days before Christmas, an unexpected drizzle arrived and simply refused to stop. This was absolutely not the climate for a parched, post-apocalyptic wasteland. Duke had no choice but to halt production. Fortunately, they were slightly ahead of schedule on location, so this wouldn't cause significant delays.

With Duke suddenly free, Sarah, the deputy editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times, came knocking for an exclusive interview about the film.

Factoring in the need for publicity, Duke agreed. They set up several large parasols in the drizzle, chatting about the movie while admiring the rare sight of rain over the wasteland.

Fine raindrops pattered against the umbrellas. The air was a bit chilly, so Sarah pulled her coat tighter and clicked on her Voice Recorder.

"You didn't hold any auditions for the leading man and woman of this film," she began. "Why did you choose Tom Cruise and Charlize Theron?"

"I like looking for those moments when sparks fly and minds connect."

Duke paused for a moment to organize his thoughts. "That jolt you feel the second someone walks into a room—it's entirely intuitive. It's like meeting a specific person in your life. You just know. You think, 'Yes, they're the one.' It's that special feeling people get when they fall in love. You always carry an ideal type within yourself, in your inner world. Then you meet someone who somehow matches that ideal perfectly. Casting a film works much the same way."

"It's a well-known fact that you discovered Charlize Theron." Sarah shifted the topic to his leading lady. "She consistently delivers incredible performances in your productions. Her absolute best roles are all in your films. Why do you think that is?"

"I still remember my first meeting with Sally."

For the sake of marketing, Duke never minded running his mouth. "We just sat down and talked. My very first impression was that she was brilliant, quick-witted, and harbored this restless energy. Sally is incredibly vibrant, unpredictable, and so much fun. It always reminds me of working with children—you never know what the kid is going to do next. It's truly wonderful."

Sarah was smart. Instead of digging any deeper, she asked, "What do you fear most during a shoot?"

"Disaster. The unpredictable kind."

Duke pointed at the raindrops dripping from the edge of the parasol. "Like the weather changing. Like the rain. We get everything built, rehearsals start, we pave the roads for all the setups, and then—it rains."

"We've known each other for a long time. I've seen all your films, and I've interviewed you on almost every one of your sets or Premieres." Sarah picked up her mug of hot tea. "With the exception of Chicago, all of your films fall squarely into the action genre. Do you have a special affection for action movies? Furthermore, how do you approach the action sequences in Fury Road and your other films?"

"For me, action cinema is a distinct, elevated form of film art."

Every genre had its merits. Duke pondered for a moment before continuing, "When shooting action sequences, you can't just think, 'Oh, let's just smash a bunch of stuff together.' You can't treat it that way. You have to try and build a very clear visual syntax, rather than relying on sheer violent collisions."

Compared to his earlier PR fluff, his answer to this question reflected his genuine thoughts. "This is an era of rapid advancement. Cinematography technology is evolving every single day. In the past, everything had to be captured practically in real time. We couldn't manipulate the image at will like we can today."

"I remember when we filmed Speed and The Rock, we did as much practical shooting as humanly possible. Today, if we need to, we can shoot multiple plates and effortlessly composite them with CGI. On top of that, if you go back and watch footage and action films from over a decade ago, you'll notice the pacing is incredibly slow. Our entire society is accelerating, and I have to accelerate the pacing of Fury Road to match it."

The rain not only forced the production to shut down temporarily, but it also drove away the press. With their exclusive interviews wrapped up, reporters—Sarah included—began leaving New Mexico.

However, the drizzle only lasted a little over a day. When the sun reclaimed the sky, its blistering rays made quick work of drying out the already arid earth, allowing Duke to get the crew rolling again.

Perhaps the crew had conserved enough energy during their day off, because once cameras rolled again, the shoot went incredibly smoothly. Still, Duke made a point to emphasize a few key details, specifically to his art director, Hannah Serena.

He drove home two main priorities. First, the color palette needed to be as rich as possible to set it apart from the murky, desaturated tones typical of the post-apocalyptic genre. Second, the art direction had to strive for beauty. He argued that in a resource-starved wasteland, the survivors would scavenge for anything that offered even a glimmer of aesthetic beauty.

Fury Road, much like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, gave Hannah Serena ample room to flex her creative muscles. She masterfully blended her sets into the sprawling, majestic natural environments, unifying the entire world into a cohesive visual tableau. Miles of endless yellow sand and vast blue skies served as her canvas, with blue and yellow anchoring the foundational color palette.

The striking contrast of these primary colors carried through every cut and transition: skies shot with deep blue filters looming over rolling dunes, claustrophobic and oppressive earth-toned rock fortresses, silhouetted specters staggering beneath the blue night sky of the dead Oasis, and muddy yellow sandstorms tinged with the color of blood. These massive blocks of color, bold as splashed paint, constantly underscored the sheer desolation of the wasteland.

In Duke's mind, as long as he maintained the film's quality, if Hannah Serena failed to win the School Faction's award for Best Art Direction upon release, it would simply prove the School Faction had abandoned any pretense of fairness. It would prove that they viewed sci-fi and action films with naked, undisguised prejudice.

Of course, knowing how the industry worked, Duke wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if exactly that happened.

Filming was nearly halfway done. Under Joss William's pyrotechnics team, a third of the custom vehicles had already been blown to pieces. Shooting out in the desert wasteland was a grueling ordeal. The crew had been staring at each other for dozens of days, and whenever the wind picked up, the sand that wormed its way into every crevice was enough to drive a person mad.

Then there was the desert wildlife. The production had hired a dedicated snake wrangler, but they couldn't be everywhere at once.

A lizard had somehow sneaked into Anna Printz's trailer. Fortunately, it wasn't venomous, but the scare was enough that she refused to sleep alone anymore, promptly moving into Tina Fey's trailer.

Next to that, mosquito bites were just a minor nuisance.

After all, this was the desert, not the fully-equipped lots of Warner Studios. All Duke could do was push to finish filming as quickly as possible so they could escape this hellish landscape.

Truth be told, he hated the climate just as much as anyone else.

When he shot Independence Day and Transformers in the past, Duke had filmed at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. But back then, they were only on location for a week at most, and they'd had the military backing up their logistics. It didn't even come close to what they were doing now.

Another accident struck during the next leg of filming. To heighten the visual impact of a shot, Duke and John Schwartzman mounted an IMAX Camera to the hood of one of the vehicles again. Unfortunately, the desert terrain was simply too unpredictable. When the custom vehicle braked, it slid out of control and slammed straight into Furiosa's War Machine.

Because both vehicles were heavily reinforced and traveling at low speeds, neither the cars nor the actors suffered any real damage. The fragile, bulky IMAX Camera, however, was smashed to pieces.

The IMAX Company representative stationed on set nearly lost his mind. There were fewer than ten IMAX Cameras in existence; their immense value was obvious.

The production would definitely have to pay for it, racking up an entirely unexpected expense. Furthermore, Duke's shot list strictly required two IMAX Cameras operating simultaneously for cross-coverage. Production ground to a halt as they waited for the IMAX Company to ship a replacement out to New Mexico as quickly as possible.

With filming halted again and Christmas right around the corner, Duke decided to just give the entire crew time off for the holidays. By the time they returned from the break, the replacement IMAX Camera had arrived, and the production crew assembled in New Mexico once more.