I see a lot of big budget action movies where the hero lives in a regular neighborhood, and then his/her house gets blown up, taken over by terrorists, or what ever.
I know they do the explosions, etc in the studio, but when
they are filming in the neighborhood, how does that work?
Do they rent a house? Do they pay the people next door?
And do they pay the cops to let them use cop cars, or do
they rent cars like props, and let them paint the say LAPD
logo on the side? Do they pay the city for this?
And say chase scenes, do they pay the local city to close off roads? And where do they get classic cars, and do they
really destroy them?
I have a bunch more questions about making movies, but you
get the idea.
I am curious as hell about how this movie stuff works.
Well, sometimes an entire neighborhood is constructed on-set. It’s not as hard as you might think, since it’s usually just building “shells”, consisting of the front and sometimes part of the sides. As for the cars they use in chases and explosions, the majority of the time the cars are acquired from a junkyard. Not sure about classic cars though…
They rent the house and build a facade at the studio (or wherever they are going to do the explosions. They normally don’t pay the neighbors, but may if they need their yard or are going to inconvenience them. A lot of the time the neighbors are included in a ‘crowd’ scene and are paid that way.
The cars are rentals from companies that specialize in them. They are fitted with whatever colors are required and shipped to the movie set. The local government has to be involved, usually by selling permits to make the movie and providing police security and fire protection for a price.
All of the cars you saw wrecked in “The Blues Brothers” were purchased by the studio specifically to be wrecked. Almost any vehicle you see in a movie shot is staged to be there. Of course, there are exceptions, but not too many.
I didnt think that they might create a whole street
on the back lot, but with 50 million buks why not, lol
I wish one of the esteemed Dopers would create a
“Ask the Hollywood Director” thread.
Or at least " Ask the gaffer or grip, I am sure somebody
here has worked on a production. (not that i am sure what a gaffer or grip does)Holds the mike?, or fetches lunch?
Hey there Klaatu. I don’t know if I’ll start a thread, but I can help you with your queries. Maybe: Ask The Film Student. The cars that you see drive off cliffs is now rarely an actual car. they quite often use models. I know this sounds to easy but when you get a camera in close, speed up the film speed a little so it slows the action down when replayed (thus making object look heavier). Models are even used sometimes when making buildings explode (ie: pretty much all of the national monuments that blew up in Independence Day were large models). Movies that use models for vehicles crashing and burning off cliffs: Cliff Hanger (the helicopter), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (the tank off the cliff). Though they sometimes do use real cars off cliffs and such, this is a lot cheaper in case the camera jams. With car crashes that don’t fly off cliffs they are usually real with stunt drivers. I actually have a cousin in Toronto who owns a company that rents out vintage cars and motorcycles. Most of the ones he rents out are junk heaps that he fixes up.
Your other question was the one I get asked all the time when I say I am a film student.
Gaffer= the gaffer mainly puts up the lighting; basically the Director of Photography (Cinematographer) decides on the lighting arrangement to the shots and look the director wants and also decides on the camera motions, placement, etc.; the gaffer carries out what the DOP wants and may have a crew to do it.
Grip= what I have done a lot of: physical labour like setting up sets and moving equipment, might also move the dolly that the camera is put on.
Guy who holds the mic= depends on mic but you’re probably thinking of the boom mic operator
Guy who goes for lunch= most likely a Production Assistant
I was in DC when they filmed Mars Attacks. There was an old abandoned building on Penn Ave (?) they used for it. For several weeks, the side facing the street was gone so you could see in the rooms. One had a bed hanging halfway out. I think they just tore it down when they were done.
Sometimes you have to pay the neighbours. People tend to be “star-struck” and will usually cooperate with a film crew. Some people have had so many films shot in their neighbourhood though, that they will play their stereos loud, have exterior lights on, work on their car, and generally be disruptive unless the production company pays then – literally – “hush” money.
Permits. That’s where the city makes its money. Want to film here? ka-ching! Need this street closed down? ka-ching! Of course, city law requires you have a city fire truck there. ka-ching!
Sometimes “shells” are built (as mentioned before). Sometimes there’s a happy coincidence – like when the casino was being demolished and Tim Burton used it in Mars Attacks.
Of course, the more elaborate the shoot is, the more it’s going to cost. What “some people” do is try to do things as cheeply as possible, grabbing shots quickly without a permit, getting a permit and then “accidentally” exceeding its parameters, using a friend’s place as a set even though we don’t have permission from the owner. “Guerilla Filmmaking” doesn’t get you big sets, big stars or big FX, but with a good script you can shoot a decent 16mm film for less than $100,000. Heck, some films at Cannes were shot on digital video for four digits, then transfered to 35mm for distribution!
FWIW, I’ve been a DP, script supervisor, grip, gaffer, PA and have even been on-camera. It’s not as glamourous (especially with an ultra-low budget) as people think. It’s long hours of hot, sweaty work (try New Orleans in August on an un-air conditioned set with thousands of watts of lights!), with little or no pay (on a “no-budget” film). But dammit! I love it!
When you see a building blown up in a movie, very seldom is it a real building. A famous exception is “Lethal Weapon 3.” The producers were approached by the owners of a building that was about to be demolished via implosion, and offered it as a location shot. The explosion was made to look more dramatic by adding a couple of barrels of airplane fuel.
Obviously, there aren’t that many old buildings sitting around ready to be demolished, so most of the time you’re seeing models. All the exploding buildings in “ID4” were small models.
I read a great story once about a location scout; I hope it’s true.
He and the director were looking for an early 1900s-looking streetscape in Boston’s North End. They find a block that’s perfect except for one inconsistancy: there’s an air conditioner in one of the windows.
So they find the guy with the AC and pay him $100 to remove it for the shoot two days later. No problem. But, when the crew came back in two days, all the guy’s neighbors had air conditioners sticking out of their windows.
Hey all. Just thought of some other stuff that may interest you. If any of you have the Learning Channel or the Discovery Channel, they play a show call “Movie Magic”. Check it out. A while back they had a documentary on the pyrotechnics in Independence Day that I had mentioned in my last post. They even show them rigging and blowing up the White House model and the Empire States Building model. Oh, and about the permit/neighbour thing, here’s an interesting story for you. Some of you may remember that multi-multi-million dollar bomb Waterworld. Anyway, I heard from a guy that was working on the set that they had quite a bit of trouble of that sort. Apparently some old nut in a big boat entered their waters and got in front of the cameras so they couldn’t shoot. He wanted around $2 million to move on or he would keep pestering them. They eventually got him out of there with the help of the coast guard.
Oh, and one other thing, though I don’t know if this one is actually true. Supposedly, during the filming of Batman Forever Michael Keaton pulled a similar stunt. Except he wanted $20 million to leave (his pricetag at the time). It probably isn’t true but it’s a funny story. Oh, and here’s another interesting fact for you. If you use a minor or child actor in a film you must have their parent/guardian’s permission for them to act. I know a guy who used a someone who looked a lot older than he was. Turns out the kid was only 16 and a run-away. So the film couldn’t be used even though all the kid was doing was some standard acting. Food for thought. Later all.
I’ve seen a lot of classic and expensive cars get trashed in big-budget films, they simply can afford to do so. In low-budget movies or TV, you’ll see a brand new 750 BMW, but when bigfoot or whatever crushes it its actually an '83 700 series of the same color. Unless your watching for this kind of thing you usually miss it.
If you’re really interested in film-making, click here for a guide to making low-budget movies. Or go rent An American Movie, trust me its hilarious.
What pisses me off about the industry is that every lame stereotypical straight-to-video B-movie out there has a scene with a greasy dude firing a .50 caliber desert eagle at someone, missing, and hitting a fishtank. The floor is then covered with dying fish, I hope they have the decency to put them back into some water before they asphixiate, that is if the explosion that took out the fishtank didn’t kill them first. I know there are standards for how animals are treated, but what about fish?
Hey there HorseloverFat, I was just thinking about your fish point. While I agree that every B-action-movie does have that, I don’t know if the fish are necessarily real. Most of those movies apparently have fish that are worth in upwards of a $5000. Now, while there are animal wranglers that rent out fish, I don’t think they would let these expensive, rare fish die or suffer. Animal preservation people are even more adiment that rare, endangered animals not be mistreated. Now most of the time you only see fish fall out of the tank, so simple rubber (or whatever) fish are used. However, when the fish are wiggling around, no matter how stereotypical this may sound, the fish are of the remote control sort. This is why you only find the wiggling fish in more expensive B-movies. Since they can reuse these for different movies they aren’t as expensive as you’d think. Now, for those of you that have seen the movie “Me, Myself, and Irene” you’ve seen animantronic animals first hand. Both the cow and the chicken are animatronic. I even heard in an interview with the Farrely brothers that they decided that they were going to use the chicken only days before they used it. The guy, who also did the cow, was able to whip up a chicken in three days. Imagine how quickly he could do some fish.
Oh bull, that’s not true at all. Here’s a true story from Hollywood.
When a movie needs a crash scene, it is quite common to make a product placement deal with an auto company. The auto company makes the producers a special deal, they sell them a batch of identical cars, with a special “salvage only” sticker. The cars are sometimes “water damaged” in shipment (or so they say) but in short, the cars cannot be licensed, by contractual agreement they are to be destroyed during filming, and if unused, are crushed or returned to the vendor.
So, one day, a producer gets this idea. He orders up 5 expensive new Mazda convertibles at a price of $1000 each as salvage. Only he decides to crash just 2 of them and tells the auto company that all 5 were destroyed in filming. He keeps the other 3 cars for himself, driving one all around town and selling the other two for something like $10k. But his scam was uncovered by some accountants and he gets a stretch of hard time in prison for fraud.
Considering I’ve seen it done dozens of times I doubt its all ‘bull.’ I didn’t say thats the only way cars are crashed in movies or tv.
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Yeah, I’ve seen similar stuff to what you discussed. Also, though I’m not positive about this, I’ve heard of filmmakers using just the body of cars. Cheaper and it makes the crushing of them look more severe.
What a load of horse manure. The cost of a film permit in LA County is $15. The city’s not making any money off that.
I lived in downtown LA, in one of the most popular filming areas. I endured 25 film crews in the space of 2 years (3 of them INSIDE my building), I was arrested twice for “interfering with a film” and I can tell you every dirty trick the scumbags of the movie industry (like YOU) use to screw the locals and get whatever they want.
Here’s how a film shoot typically goes.
Film permit issued. Notice of filming goes up. No Parking/Tow Away Zone signs go up under City supervision. The natives get restless, this is the first they’ve heard that a film crew will be invading within 24 hours.
Someone from the crew goes out and rips down all the No Parking signs as soon as the supervisors leave, as a favor to the towing company. Hey, you gotta take your kickbacks wherever they come…
At 5AM the next day, the local tow company comes and tows away and impounds all the cars from the unfortunate people who didn’t see the signs during the 2 hours they were posted. Many poorer locals will not be able to afford to get their car out of impound, and lose their cars permanently. People start getting upset.
About 6AM, the trucks arrive like an invading army, taking up every space on the street for a radius of a couple blocks. Is that a diesel electric generator belching fumes into your second story apartment window? Is the Honey Wagon (toilet truck) blocking your driveway? Tough Sh*t, they have a permit.
The rent-a-cops (off duty policemen in uniform) and cast arrive. By now, the crew is setting up, and the whole neighborhood is awakened by the commotion. For example, one morning I was talking on the phone when someone on the crew started operating a metal grinder under my window, it was so loud that I couldn’t hear the phone right up at my ear. I went down to find some Teamster lardass sitting on the back of a truck, grinding metal for no particularly good reason. He was making some metal ramps, and I noticed he had a stack of about 40 identical ramps sitting in the truck, unused. I asked him what he was doing, and explained that his noise was so loud, I couldn’t even talk on the phone inside my home. His reply, “Well, in that case, I’ll just grind LOUDER.” And he proceeded to do just that. What a dick.
The local residents are getting up to leave for work. But the trucks are already positioned for the day. I got up to go to work one day, and found a large truck in front of my driveway with wardrobe racks IN my driveway in front of my car. I consult the PA and he says too bad, they’re not moving it. I told them their permit does not allow them to block access to residents driveways (I checked with the film permit office). The PA doesn’t want to move the truck because it delays the shoot, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars per hour, he walks away and ignores me. I decide to start tossing their crap out of my driveway, so I can drive over the front sidewalk to escape. A rent-a-cop comes over and arrests me for “vandalism.” Yeah right. This is the standard tactic, if there are any malcontents who can’t be paid off, arrest them on some trumped up charge, and prevent their interference by keeping them in jail and off the set until filming is done. But to their surprise, I get bailed out immediately, and come back with ON-duty cops to make them move their truck out of my driveway. I guess an on-duty cop outranks an off-duty cop. The truck is forced to move, and I finally get my car out of my driveway. I get to work only 2 hours late.
Filming goes on full bore. Explosions, gunplay, fire, car crashes, etc. In retaliation, the locals might pull various stunts (making noise during dialog, hanging banners with messages like “F*ck Disney” in a camera shot, etc). Some of them just want a payoff. Most of them really SERIOUSLY just want the movie crew to go away, or failing that (and it WILL fail) they want to make the movie as expensive as possible by forcing delays, which gives these crews a disincentive to come back to this location.
In the evening, the residents return home. If there is a night shoot, towers with arc lamps will be set up, not just to illuminate the actors, but to illuminate the background buildings. I remember one night, I was trying to go to sleep at around 11PM and I couldn’t because there was a huge arc lamp shining right at my windows, it went right through the curtains it was so bright. So I got a large floor-to-ceiling mirror, took it to my second-story window, and shone the light right back at the cameras. A rent-a-cop comes over and tells me to stop it. I tell him to go to hell. He threatens to arrest me for “interference with a film shoot.” I yell down at him, saying there is no such law. He insists that he will break down my apartment building door and arrest me. I told him to try it, and I’ll call the REAL police. He argues with me that I’m breaking the law, but I insist that once the photons crossed my property line, they became my property, and if I happened to have a mirror inside my home, and if my photons are reflected back out onto the public street, there is no law against it. Mr rent-a-cop is baffled. I insist that if the film crew wants the unwanted reflections to stop, they need only turn off the light shinging on my home. After about 30 minutes of argument like this, the movie crew decides they’re burning too much money and turn off the light. A loud cheer is heard from my neighbors, who have been at their windows, listening to all this commotion with amusement.
Filming is done, the crew leaves. Huge bags of trash are left behind, and the leftovers from the catering truck attract hordes of homeless people looking for free food. A small crime wave occurs, the crew steals anything that strikes their fancy and that isn’t nailed down. Hell, they don’t care, they’ll never come back to this neighborhood.
So there you have it. Filmmakers are the scum of the earth. Their job is to exploit locations for a profit, to make the mega-wealthy producer even wealthier. The city gives them a basically free license, they cost the local residents time and money, and the city condones it in the name of “Civic pride” or some such pathetic crap. Hell, they even want MORE location shoots, and do everything they can to promote local filmmaking. But even the city can tire of this. I recall reading one story in the LATimes critical of these sort of location abuses. One City Councillor told a story of how there was a film shoot in City Hall, they were filming in the City Council chambers during off hours, with the agreement that when the Council met at its planned hour, the crew would be gone. But they were behind schedule, and the meeting was ready to start while filming was still in progress. City Councillors found their way into their own chambers blocked by film flunkies. One prominent councillor said a PA came up to her to block her passage, failing to recognize her, and said, “EXCUSE me, we’re making a FILM here.” She said the tone was such that one might use that expression saying “EXCUSE me, we’re CURING CANCER here.” The councillor called the sherrif and had the crew removed.
This is what I call the “Producer’s Syndrome.” Producers have the power to order flunkies around and on their word, they can order millions of dollars of equipment to do something at their command. They are surrounded by movie-industry sycophants who do whatever they say and kiss their *ss while doing it. And they develop the feeling that it is PROPER behavior to abuse everyone and assert their power. They are megalomaniacs. Is anyone really surprised that movies suck so bad lately, with such megalomaniacs as producers? Even the low-level flunkies act like these producers, they think it is their RIGHT as “filmmakers.” Is it any wonder that film crews are so hated?
