10:30
Refn directs
![The complex set piece was done in two four-day shoots – a “pre-crash,” where the kids can be seen making their own film, and a “post-crash,” after [production designer Martin] Whist re-dressed the set. Production captured many shots, both during and after the crash; for the actual impact, a total of nine cameras were used: four manned, and the remainder unmanned crash cams, such as Eyemos, placed in harm’s way (though all survived undamaged).
The sequence was planned out with Visual Effects Producer Chantal Feghali and Industrial Light Magic Visual Effects Supervisor Kim Libreri (with effects produced under direction of ILM effects legend Dennis Muren). ILM Animation Supervisor Paul Kavanagh created a simple animatic previsualization.
“It was mainly to block out basic action beats,” Libreri explains. “But J.J. had this great idea, given that it was such a large scale environment. Instead of pre-determining everything, he knew what the basic beats were, which he had drawn on little mini-boards. That was our beat sheet, to ensure we were shooting everything in the right order.”
Whist also built a 6-foot by 3-foot model, which enabled the team to envision where things such as cranes, crash cams and explosion events would be set.
“That was where we discussed the best angles for the camera, and where the kids could run,” Libreri recalls. Abrams still added cameras/moves on the actual day, insisting he didn’t want to bleed the scene of its reality through previz and storyboards. And Muren concurs, noting that a lot more was discovered on the day than VFX had anticipated. “You really want to leave directors and cameramen open to what they feel on the set,” Muren says. “Because the movie’s better that way.”
The crash, filmed on the “post-crash”-dressed set, involved capturing the “locomotive” (a green screen vehicle with a headlight, like that of the CG vehicle that would replace it) acting as a ram and smashing through the depot set. The ram was pulled through at a fairly fast clip (about 40 mph) by a cable attached to a crane.
Stationary cameras, of course, were not a part of the equation. In fact, Carr-Forster, shooting from the 50-foot Technocrane on the Maverick, was able to keep the scene’s focus on the kids, despite all the wild mayhem.
“So many other directors would use the explosion as the primary object,” Anderson says. “But J.J. is the kind of storyteller who uses the people as the primary object, and the explosion is almost secondary to the scene.” Anderson’s B-camera was on Steadicam on a dolly track, following both the train ram and the kids, and being pulled by grips moving at the ram’s speed. Libreri says it was like “a Ben Hur chariot Colin was on, to get some high speed motion, following the kids.”
(via Mystery Train : ICG Magazine / Showcasing the members of the International Cinematographers Guild)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln1r8zOFD91qztqsao1_1280.jpg)
The complex set piece was done in two four-day shoots – a “pre-crash,” where the kids can be seen making their own film, and a “post-crash,” after [production designer Martin] Whist re-dressed the set. Production captured many shots, both during and after the crash; for the actual impact, a total of nine cameras were used: four manned, and the remainder unmanned crash cams, such as Eyemos, placed in harm’s way (though all survived undamaged).
The sequence was planned out with Visual Effects Producer Chantal Feghali and Industrial Light Magic Visual Effects Supervisor Kim Libreri (with effects produced under direction of ILM effects legend Dennis Muren). ILM Animation Supervisor Paul Kavanagh created a simple animatic previsualization.
“It was mainly to block out basic action beats,” Libreri explains. “But J.J. had this great idea, given that it was such a large scale environment. Instead of pre-determining everything, he knew what the basic beats were, which he had drawn on little mini-boards. That was our beat sheet, to ensure we were shooting everything in the right order.”
Whist also built a 6-foot by 3-foot model, which enabled the team to envision where things such as cranes, crash cams and explosion events would be set.
“That was where we discussed the best angles for the camera, and where the kids could run,” Libreri recalls. Abrams still added cameras/moves on the actual day, insisting he didn’t want to bleed the scene of its reality through previz and storyboards. And Muren concurs, noting that a lot more was discovered on the day than VFX had anticipated. “You really want to leave directors and cameramen open to what they feel on the set,” Muren says. “Because the movie’s better that way.”
The crash, filmed on the “post-crash”-dressed set, involved capturing the “locomotive” (a green screen vehicle with a headlight, like that of the CG vehicle that would replace it) acting as a ram and smashing through the depot set. The ram was pulled through at a fairly fast clip (about 40 mph) by a cable attached to a crane.
Stationary cameras, of course, were not a part of the equation. In fact, Carr-Forster, shooting from the 50-foot Technocrane on the Maverick, was able to keep the scene’s focus on the kids, despite all the wild mayhem.
“So many other directors would use the explosion as the primary object,” Anderson says. “But J.J. is the kind of storyteller who uses the people as the primary object, and the explosion is almost secondary to the scene.” Anderson’s B-camera was on Steadicam on a dolly track, following both the train ram and the kids, and being pulled by grips moving at the ram’s speed. Libreri says it was like “a Ben Hur chariot Colin was on, to get some high speed motion, following the kids.”
(via Mystery Train : ICG Magazine / Showcasing the members of the International Cinematographers Guild)
“Creation is a drug I can’t do without.”
-Cecil B. DeMille
How did growing up here inform your early films?
You begin to see details pretty quick. Growing up Jewish—I lived in every borough but Staten Island—if I walked a few blocks one way or another into another neighborhood, I got beat up. So you learn to pay attention. You notice things pretty closely. That immigrant experience not only gives you a tremendous sense of time and place and limits, it also gives you a tremendous energy, because you have to pay attention. All the time.
Almost all of your films—from The Pawnbroker to your latest—have an intense level of that famous New York grit. Is being streetwise really such a difference between us and Hollywood?
In L.A., there’s no streets! No sense of a neighborhood! They talk about us not knowing who lives in the same apartment complex as us—bullshit! I know who lives in my building. In L.A., how much can you really find out about anybody else?
What do New York filmmakers get from all that?
Really, it’s just about human contact. It seems to me that our greatest problems today are coming out of the increasing isolation of people, everywhere. Look, I was even feeling isolated on the East Side. Fifteen years ago on the East Side, there were people all around at night. Now, after 8:40, nobody’s walking anymore. So I just moved back to the West Side. There are still people on the streets there.
You’re a linchpin of New York’s so-called seventies golden age. Did it feel like that then?
You know, I never really was friends with all those guys, and I don’t know why. Woody—well, he’s Woody, so you don’t expect to be hanging out with him. But Scorsese and all those guys? We didn’t hang out. I never felt like there was a school of New York filmmakers. We were all doing our own things. That stuff about a movement came later.
When people talk about that golden age, what they usually mean is that today’s films stink.
I think it’s a great time right now for New York film, actually.
So, who’s inheriting the mantle?
Oh, I can’t say names. Somebody would get bent out of shape.
Then, in the abstract, what do you imagine the next wave will look like?
Well, we were shooting out in Astoria, and one day I was watching all these kids standing outside a school near the studio. It was just marvelous: Indian girls in saris, kids from Pakistan, Korea, kids from all over. So I think you’ll see more directors from these communities, telling their stories. You know, I started out making films about Jews and Italians and Irish because I didn’t know anything else.
I don’t head out to Ain’t It Cool News all that often anymore, but gosh golly sometimes they can still bring the goods, especially in their The Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day feature.
I haven’t watched this in way too long. And I still can’t decide if my boys are too young for its more scary stuff and blood and whatnot.
I believe I started watching the scary stuff (this film, Terminator 2) around 6 or 7. Mind you, this was at home, curled up on the couch with the fam, with my Dad’s arm to hide into when the gross stuff happened. I quite enjoyed it, and it was nice to be included. And I turned out okay*!
Elijah Wood’s practice page for Frodo’s Red Book of Westmarch scene.
