| Posted by: Jim Beaver at March 17, 2008, 8:12 pm | | Topic: Interesting film making decisions Forum: groupsrv | | "No Man" <woesong@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:frmvu401n0@enews1.newsguy.com... Quote:Howard Brazee wrote: I'd like to learn more about film-making decisions that weren't made for reasons of art nor money that are interesting to know. Okay, here's an anecdote from my extremely limited perspective on filmaking. I've mentioned before the shooting day of *The Getaway*, the San Antonio River, in 1971. It was a day like all days, with pedestrians along the pretty walks on both sides of the river and the pleasure boats upon it. Except everybody in sight of the camera was a paid extra. At the end of the day, they did up establishing shots. The cinematographer set up on one of the bridges and the boats came down and it was all so nice. Steve McQueen rode the barge coming down the river. He'd step off just past the camera and hike back up. The barge would turn around and churn back and meet Steve McQueen and they'd do it all over again. Steve McQueen would give the locals, like me and my brother Reloj and any others who snuck onto the set, a thrill by striding right by us, shaking hands. Once Steve McQueen varied his route considerably. Just exiting the hotel which backed up onto the river bank, a grand Hilton or something, was a very beautiful young lady, her sister most likely and probably her brother-in-law. They were most likely Mexican, and obviously quite wealthy, and they did not know what they were seeing in front of them. It wasn't Cantinflas so it did not matter to them. Steve McQueen strode right up to the beauty and he reached out a hand and she, unenthusiastically, took it. He then walked on. It was an obvious flirtation (Ali McGraw was not on the set that day) but the beauty seemed singularly unimpressed. After that the driver of the barge, the little guy with the tommy gun who was cut down by a load of double-ought fired by Steve McQueen in an El Paso hotel in the movie, was catcalling the Beauty. "Hey, come on up tonight, we party!" She made an ironical OK sign, "Yeah, right." What I mean is, that whole day went into the toilet. Only a couple of close-ups were used. And there were some exciting moments of folks chatting and paddling boats filmed that day. Shoot, I don't know if I've ever filmed vacation moments to equal it. And I think the interesting filmaking decision was based upon the Beauty. See, I read later that Steve McQueen "had the cut" for *The Getaway*. And he wasn't treated like he was used to by the Beauty. So he just kicked the whole day to the curb. I'm reading this and I get to the part about "the whole day went into the toilet...only a couple of close-ups were used," and I'm thinking, "Yeah, and?" I've seen entire weeks of work disappear. A sequence that takes four days to shoot takes eight seconds on screen. Incredible pieces of acting or staging cut in the blink of an eye because of any number of reasons, but usually because they don't move the story fast enough. I'm not prepared to blame McQueen's pique for this. It's just too common an occurrence. Little Beaver VI |
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