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IT'S VERY EASY to put those words down on paper - just like it's easy to write "Then his head explodes" or "Then the entire planet earth turns into a tiny caterpillar." You still have to deal with the intimidating task of filming what you wrote. In this case, it was important to have at least one definite San Francisco landmark, so that when Trevor takes a much-needed break away from the chaos at the Mountain View house, the audience immediately knows where he's gone. Sometimes all you need is a single shot of something big to add "production value" to your film - nobody will think that this entire movie was shot in one room if we see the Golden Gate Bridge behind our main character. |
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IT WAS clear that, in order to shoot underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, we had to get in and out as fast as we could. For starters, it is a National Park and the restrictions are tight. Furthermore, there were bound to be hordes of tourists at all hours. So I laid out the shot on paper: one simple set-up, panning mostly across the unpopulated San Francisco Bay until the camera settles on Trevor. No other tourists need be shown.
The storyboard is "letterboxed" to indicate the entire length of the pan, right to left. |
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A SMALL CREW of 7 or 8 was all that was needed for this short "guerilla" shot. Any more people and we would attract suspicion - and, as it turned out, we attracted suspicion anyway.
Click here to see a collection of video stills documenting the two nervous hours we spent at the bridge, as well as some insight as to how to shoot "guerilla style." |
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WHEN WE finally got settled underneath the bridge, outside of Fort Point, we just went ahead and filmed the scene in two takes without recorded sound.
At the end of the clip, note the small crowd that had gathered. Nobody really knew what we were doing, and that was just fine with us. |
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HERE IS what the scene finally looks like, exactly as described in the script.
Keep in mind that this was digitized from the rough cut - before color correction, and also before sound effects and music have been added. If I can get around to digitizing the very final version, you'll see it here. Click here to play Quicktime movie of the finished scene (797k). |
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