Director and cinematographer Zack Snyder has released his Rebel Moon’s on-set diary. That would be a short video describing the process of preproduction and the Principal photography of his most recent project. Explore Snyder’s takeaways below.

Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon: On-set Diary

Two days before Rebel Moon’s streaming debut on Netflix, and after a few days of 70-millimeter screening, the film director Zack Snyder has released an on-set diary. In this short vlog (for now, it was released on Twitter only), Snyder describes his principles and methods regarding storytelling, and how he sees filmmaking as a process. Unfortunately, Snyder doesn’t mention his style of cinematography which we wrote about. However, we’re pretty sure an expanded doc will be released and focused on the RED V-Raptor XL and the bespoke Zero Optik Summiscope anamorphic lenses which were utilized with maximum aperture. Check out the video below which elaborates on that: 

Nevertheless, we can find a few cool insights, as described below:

Preproduction: The balanced stage

As stated by Snyder: “We’ve been in preproduction quite a while. We built a town from scratch and that took us 4 months”. Interestingly, Snyder says that at this point, he tries to keep the actors in top shape: “What I’m trying to do when we make a movie, is to build a gym, we try to train everybody. It’s like a cathartic experience to join the cast. The gym is a space where everybody interacts with everybody, and there’s the body transformation to become athletes” he states. Furthermore, Zack says that in the preproduction there’s a feeling that everything is balancing, and then he can’t keep this balanced anymore and has strong feeling he has to “knocking things down”. Thus, this is the sign that the preproduction is in a well-done state and that’s the time to start shooting! At that point, there’s strong excitement to take the camera and shoot.

Production: Operating a cinema camera is a physical challenge

The Principal photography took 152 days (!), which is a lot for a Netflix production. “It’s really a physical thing…making movies, especially operating the camera,” says Snyder, and adds: “I try and train as hard as I can before. Our cameras are overbuilt, and the lenses I made are super heavy. The camera is substantial. The process of physically shooting is exhausting. It’s a marathon, so you don’t run too hard, but inevitably you do”. Moreover, Snyder emphasizes that the process of filmmaking is like sculpting. You create something from nothing. “That’s truly satisfying, for me!”, he says. Another interesting fact is that Snyder acts as a cinematographer as well. He likes to take the camera and shoot, mainly handheld. For that, he likes RED cameras for their compactness and high-resolution capabilities. Snyder’s cinematography style is shooting on 8K, using large sensors, and wide open aperture.

Using green screens

As opposed to many other acclaimed directors, Snyder does not hide the fact that he heavily utilized green screens. “I’ve always felt pretty comfortable working in a green screen environment. For me, communicating with the actors in the green screen environment works really well. That saves tons of time. It allows some cheats but you have to anchor the reality in, and once you do that, you can pretty much understand how it is supposed to work, and to puzzle everything in the editing process” he states.

Rebel Moon was screened at a few 70-millimeter theaters in the United States on December 15, 2023, before its streaming debut on December 21, 2023, by Netflix. A sequel, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, is set to be released on April 19, 2024.