Cinematographer turned director Ericson Core chats with us about the extreme and exotic shoot for Point Break.

As a cinematographer, Ericson Core filmed movies likeThe Fast and the Furious,Payback,andDaredevil.

When he became a director on the true sports storyInvincible, Core remained his own director of photography.

Point Breakfilmed in 11 different countries with athletes performing extreme stunts in the most extreme locations.

Luke Bracy plays Johnny Utah, an FBI agent going undercover to root out an eco-terrorist.

I got to sit down with Core to discuss the newPoint Break, which opens Christmas Day.

Thank you for filming everything clearly so we could see all the amazing stunts.

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Thats an interesting question.

Theres a couple things because I was the DP on the film as well.

Ultimately, my goal was to get it as authentically as I possibly could.

Because it was being done for real, it was wonderful.

We didnt have to hide things so much.

We could see it clearly.

For this, I wanted to bring people into the world and have them connect with it.

What was your choice to tone down the colors of the shots?

As a cinematographer I always look for inspiration.

To show that there was an underlying tension in our world.

Can you not imagine how directors let someone else be the DP?

It wasnt my original intention.

It was actually brought to me as a request in both situations.

Trailers didnt exist on our film.

So a lot of the film was shot on my shoulder.

I know Edgar and Luke appreciated that because I could feel their performance.

I was there with them.

I was no farther away than you and I when I filmed it, which is very intimate.

But the partnership is always important.

This film, the smaller the crew in some ways, the better.

Now that Im used to doing it, I dont know if I could do it another way.

As the director of photography, are you also operating a camera?

On this film, we shot in 11 countries with 11 different crews.

It gave a continuity to the way the camerawork was but we were very much a handheld movie.

As epic as the visuals are, it feels very intimate between Utah and Bodhi.

How did you create intimacy within these epic visions?

In many ways, I felt the same way about the characters.

These people dont have huge egos.

Geography is important in action scenes.

Does that follow even in a wave, that theres a geography inside that?

Bodhi became his sort of blood red.

we always tried to color code things to some degree.

Point Break opens on December 25th.