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Jeff Balis - Co-Producer
Choo Choo
We've taken a lot of bullets about the fact that we decided to shoot under the El on the first day of principal photography. I agree that this was a suspect decision. However, I think the thing that really killed us on day one was the fact that we scheduled a scene between two kids on Pete's first day directing. It seems fairly obvious that putting such a crucial scene between the two most inexperienced actors on the first day is asking for trouble. And trouble we got.
Behind this decision was the fact that there was very little flexibility in the schedule to begin with. Since we had such a short prep (and we couldn't push back the beginning of principal photography because of money and the looming actors' strike), several of our locations weren't going to be ready until later in the shoot. Also, we had to contend with busy actors' schedules, and so several of the lead actors weren't even in Chicago yet. For instance, Bonnie Hunt had just been cast a day or so earlier and would only arrive in town the night before she began shooting. With these logistics forcing our hand, we had little choice as to what to shoot first.
While the shooting in the morning went relatively well, it was the afternoon that was the doozy. We had planned to shoot two scenes as "oners," i.e. capture the entire scene in one shot. Pete wanted a "walk and talk" dolly shot. When done well, this type of shot is great. When done poorly, it screws you in the editing room. Unfortunately, we put ourselves in the latter scenario by underestimating the time it would take the kids to nail their lines.
I think we got very lucky with our two lead kids--Adi Stein and Mike Weinberg. They were fun kids and they gave great performances. They are not like adult actors, though, and they need to be treated differently. It is hard for an 8 year old to remember a page of dialogue, and then spout it out perfectly while concentrating on walking at the proper pace as a camera and 80 people follow. That is hard for anyone. Especially when the kid has 45 minutes to get it right and there is an onslaught of rush-hour trains ruining takes and causing distractions. The kids are perceptive too, and they can tell when the crew is frustrated.
We realized after the frantic end to this first day that the kids need to be "covered" at all times. What this means is that we need to shoot their performances in close-ups (also known as singles). The reason for this is because singles are easy to cut together, and are especially useful for cutting around performance problems. Once we realized the need to completely cover all of the kids' dialogue, we adjusted accordingly on future days.
While the dolly shot we went for under the El train looks very nice, it is a two-shot (i.e. two actors in the frame together) and it dictates that we had to get the entire scene in one good take. This proved to be elusive, especially with the kids' truncated working schedules (damn those child labor laws). We did get one decent take, but you can see in the finished film how we had to work around the problem areas of the take.
From a producing standpoint, it appears to have been a bad idea to have staged the two kid actors in a dolly shot that is crucial to the movie at the end of a shortened day under the El tracks during rush hour on a first-time director's first day. In actuality, though, it was a bad idea. It was too much, and the scenes we shot that day suffered for it.
What that day did do, though, is help us gauge the feasibility of the rest of the schedule. We learned that scenes between the two kids would take a lot longer than scenes with adults or kids and adults. We learned not to shoot under an El track (or to use a beach location next to an airport). And we learned the need to simplify camera movement, such as dolly shots, especially with the kids.
If all of this sounds obvious, it is. But there constantly remains a tradeoff between the desires of the director and the producer/studio. The director wants to get complicated and original shots in exciting locations, while the producer just wants to finish the day (an over-simplification of course, but go along). From a producing standpoint, it would have been better if we shot the scene with a static camera away from all trains and possible interruptions. The problem, though, is that if we forced Pete Jones to shoot the film in the easiest and safest possible way (on a stage for instance), then Pete would have felt gypped at the end of the shoot because we never let him push the bounds of possibility. He would feel robbed by our over-cautious approach and the movie would have suffered. But if we had too many days like the first one, we wouldn't have a movie that Miramax would release.
One thing though is true. When we needed to get Pete to compromise his vision in the future, it became that much easier to rally behind the cry of "remember the El train." Now if this all sounds like we had everything under control, well, that's a bit of an exaggeration.
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