After years of pitching a script or negotiating deals, actually shooting the movie is the quickest and in many ways the easiest bit of moviemaking. Compared to all the paperwork and discussions it's even the most fun, as cameras, lights, and actors are what we all think of when we imagine making a film. Shooting is the shortest part of the job and yet, because it is so expensive, it's also very pressured and intensive.
It's so expensive that every day is critical: you've fought so hard to get to this stage that every day has to be packed with work, even on the highest budget films. "The sets they did have, they were still painting," says writer Paula Parisi about James Cameron's "Titanic". "They were finishing 'to camera'."
"Titanic" still overran and "Mission: Impossible 2" was delayed by months. But these are costly exceptions and directors like Steven Spielberg know to aim for art and time: "You have to learn how to budget your time," says Spielberg. "So that you spend your 30 or 40 takes on something that must be right to make the movie work; but then economise on what isn't make or break."
You wonder why movies don't just get two crews and two directors to shoot simultaneously - some do. A second unit will shoot cars travelling or close ups of people's hands - it's Tim Robbins in the car at the start of "The Shawshank Redemption" but not his hands drawing the gun.
The best known example of a striking second unit shot is from "Bonfire of the Vanities" where an opening sequence of New York was devised and made not by Brian De Palma but by Eric Schwab, second unit director.
Every minute a film is being shot it is costing money, so studios demand the fastest practical shooting time and the quickest turnaround in editing - which means the panic does not stop when the cameras do.
Go to Factory Line - Part 5 sidebar: Don't Have a Cow - Struggling to Make "Three Kings".
Go to Factory Line - Part 6: You've Done the Filming, Now Do the Work.
Go to Factory Line - Part 4: We Were Going To Start Shooting Today.
Factory Line Introduction
Factory Line Glossary
Sources:
"Titanic and the Making of James Cameron", Paula Parisi, Orion Media, 1998, ISBN 0 75281 798 1
"Duets" production notes, 2000.
"Which Lie Did I Tell?", William Goldman, Bloomsbury, 2000, ISBN 0-7475-4977-X
"The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood", Julie Salamon, 1992, Jonathan Cape, ISBN 0-224-03347-6
"The Lost Worlds of 2001", Arthur C Clarke, ASIN 0283979038
"The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark", Derek Taylor, 1981, Ballantyne Books ISBN 0-345-29725
