Exclusive: Interview with “The Karate Kid” director Harald Zwart

Harald Zwart recently sat down with MakingOf to discuss his approach in remaking “The Karate Kid.” Zwart was motivated to make the movie more about the relationship between blah and blah and less about the actual fighting.  ”I kind of wanted to make it almost as if it were an independent film, very handheld, very reality based, very emotional; I talk more about that than the fights.”

But for those who are interested in the fighting side of the story, don’t be dissapointed: ”From the beginning wanted the fighting as-in-your-face dangerous and emotionally tough as The Bourne Identity and all those fights, which I thought are great fight scenes.”

Zwart discusses Kung Fu (which is what the kids in the movie actually do), scouting for the right locations in China with minimal crew, and also pointed out “Stand By Me” as an inspiration for what he envisioned — a movie for grown-ups with children in it.

MakingOf.com Exclusive — “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” filmmakers share their favorite scenes.

They seemed to like more toned down scenes that were more human (like the engagement scene,) and less supernatural. Guess there’s more to Twilight than vampires and werewolves.

MakingOf.com Exclusive: The cast of “Winter’s Bone” discusses what it was like to film in the Ozarks. 

“If anything’s going to get you into character, it’s that. You prepare as much as you think you can and then when you get there, it just brings in a whole new league to everything. There’s no set. There was houses and woods and everything’s real; you can’t not be in character.” — Jennifer Lawrence

“Cyrus” directors Jay and Mark Duplass talk their trademark shooting | MakingOf.com

“We’re almost like a documentary team in a lot of ways… Jay was on the camera, and I was on the microphone and we would just allow our actors to flow freely around our set… and we’d just capture it,” said Mark Duplass, one of the directors of “Cyrus.”

Jay Duplass spoke about their unique brand of improv, saying: “We don’t do the typical type of improv where people are creating jokes on set… We really try to get off script so that the actors have to be in the moment with each other… They know they have to accomplish that goal by the end of the scene and as long as they do that, we’re thrilled for them to do whatever dialogue or body language they need to use to accomplish it.”

Harald Zwart, director of “The Karate Kid”, talks the role of the director and his process with MakingOf.com

Director Jimmy Hayward talks “Jonah Hex” — a MakingOf Exclusive

Hayward was a big fan of the comic “Jonah Hex” back when he was a kid, but never thought he’d see it being made as a film. Hayward then heard the project was being made, and jumped at the chance to direct. While he was initially turned down (as his previous project was the family film “Horton Hears a Who”), an email to star Josh Brolin changed that.

“I wrote Josh Brolin an email… I talked about what’d I do with the character if I got it. Next day, my phone rang and it was like ‘Hello?’ ‘Horton Hears a Who, huh?’ It was Josh… we kind of became fast friends and really had the same idea on what to do with the picture.”

Annette Bening talks “The Kids Are Alright” | MakingOf.com Exclusive

Bening talks about the film, what she looks for in a director, how she chooses roles, how the role of Nic was challenging, and her time at SF State.

Director David Slade talks “Eclipse” | MakingOf.com Exclusive

Slade talks about meeting the actors one on one, and how he rehearsed ensemble scenes.

Slade’s credits include “30 Days of Night” and “Hard Candy.” It’s interesting to see the variety of directors who have contributed (or will contribute) to the Twilight series.

Wyck Godfrey discusses the production of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” | MakingOf.com Exclusive

“And sort of planning that stuff is a blast and to me those scenes are fun because all of the nitpicky painstaking technical stuff you go through gets thrown out of the window and you actually see the movie and it just looks like an action sequence. So, I’ve always of loved shooting action; that was blast.” 

Phil Tippett on the VFX of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” | MakingOf.com Exclusive

“The idea was find a dramatic situation, and it was already in Stephenie Meyer’s stuff, that these guys turn into wolves when they lose it emotionally and they kind of explode… very big, fast movements… if we can get from man to wolf in half a second, then it’s over before you know it.”