Hey folks, Harry here... The wonderful folks at Universal sent me the official HULK logo to debut on the site today, and lo and behold... it's a busy Spy day on HULK.... So I actually have news to place it with. So here's the logo...
Next we have Copernicus, who is covering the San Francisco International Film Festival for us, but now he is also using his super scientist identification and security clearance to grab us shots of HULK damage. And ya know... tis pretty cool. HULK SMASH!!!! Here ya go...
Harry!
I am one busy spy! After seeing Musa the Warrior at the SFIFF last
night (which was a complete ass-kicker, totally amazing -- you'll get
my review soon), and doing my day job of astrophysics (I am crazy busy
analyzing the supernovae that the Hubble Space Telescope is observing
right now), tonight I morphed from astrogeek to movie geek to sneak
onto the set of the HULK! As you know they are filming at the lab
where I work, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (though it won't be called
that in the movie).
On Saturday they filmed many exterior shots of the lab, including the
building housing the Advanced Light Source (ALS), the X-ray machine in
the big round building you've seen in pictures. They also filmed a
scene of Lou Ferrigno as a guard! Jennifer Connelly and Eric Bana shot
scenes too. Saturday's shooting finished Sunday morning, and then the
production took Sunday off.
Today (Monday) was crazy at the lab, since the crew was taking up about
200 parking spaces. No one could find a place to park. The crew was
supposed to eat in the cafeteria today too, but I have no idea if that
happened because I know better than to eat there. If the HULK eats
there that would certainly explain the green pallor. Today they
supposedly filmed scenes inside the ALS building within the inner
regions while workers kept working on the perimeter! I didn't see any
of that though.
I knew they were filming night shots tonight because I could see the
huge set lights illuminating a parking lot. So I used my card key to
get into the building overlooking the parking lot, and walked around,
pretending like I knew what I was doing. I had to duck in a few
stairwells when I heard people coming, but no one saw me. After a
while I saw some flashing lights and a crowd through the window, but I
couldn't get over to where they were easily. I had to go out of the
building and walk around a few buildings to sneak up on the set from
the back. Just as I got there my cell phone rang and someone noticed
me! Shiiiit! I hurried down some nearby steps and answered it -- it
was my friend Megan from high school who I haven't seen in 10 years.
She is vising SF and wanted to meet up. I told her, "Dammit woman, you
are getting in the way of some crazy HULK action -- I am sneaking
around the set! Or I *was* until your call interrupted my furtive
ninja action." She totally geeked out and let me go.
After turning my cell phone *off* this time (sometimes I have no idea why they gave me that PhD) I resumed my set stalking and worked my way up behind some people and quietly blended in. They were filming some kind of a scene with a police car. After a bunch of waiting they rolled cameras and a stunt guy jumped out of the car. I think he was on a wire because he really shot out of there. Then they prepped the car, messed around inside, in the trunk, messed with the crane and wire right next to it and reset everything. When they rolled again the guy shot out of the car and the car imploded!
Hulk smash!!!! Hell yeah!!!! It was bad-ass. One second whole police car. Next second, ka-thunk, crash, crunch, totally destroyed cruiser. You know how much I hate the pigs so that was a doubly great scene!
Then they came in and used that magic sphere thing to (I assume) get references for the CGI. Then they put this huge 6 ft diameter beach ball on top of the car (no shit, I have no idea what that is for, color correction?) and took some pictures of that. After that they called it a wrap and I walked up and took some pictures of the imploded car before fading away into the crowd.
I think that is it as far as LBL scenes go, because they promised us our parking lots back tomorrow.
That's today's report. Tomorrow I cover Mira Sorvino's new movie,
Triumph of Love and after-hours party. I'll let you know how that
goes, but Mira Sorvino better be one hot mamma to beat a day of Hulk
Smash!
-Copernicus
Meanwhile the spy known as Dr Z had this to contribute... oh and his last bits turned out to be totally accurate. So he is an established spy now...
Harry,
Doctor Z here...the guy who got ILM pissed when I sent in a report about the Gangs of New York ending and an Episode II scene I saw. (I hear now that they will actually keep the original ending to GoNY)
But anyhoo-- (I am not sure if you care about this, but I saw some stuff about THE HULK on the page so I thought I'd email it to you anyway.) My ILM buddy has alerted me that they are working on all the Hulk special effects and they have JUST begun work on some stuff for the film (before this, only early test work was completed) and they apparently are currently working on some effects of The Hulk 'mutating from the insides'. I am not exactly sure what means, to be truthful, but it sounds interesting none the less.
In the "not so cool news" department: my friend told me that he wasn't satisfied with The Hulk script. He thought it was too corny and did not contain real character development. Although, he warns me that he may not have read the LATEST shooting script, and he is not a comic book fan. Right now I am eager to get my hands on the script as to supply my own opinion.
-Doctor Z.
