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Report from the Scorsese shoot of BRINGING OUT THE DEAD

Published at:  Sep 19, 1998 3:01:14 AM CDT

Here's a report about what you might have seen, had you gone to check out Scorsese's shoot yesterday. The below reporter didn't have the best of times, but perhaps I should have warned y'all. Sometimes the shoots are dead, a couple of shots, done over and over again. For me, the excitement comes from the personal knowledge that I witnessed a film being shot. In this case, it would be my place in filmic history. Imagine watching one second of TAXI DRIVER being shot. Say... just DeNiro sitting in traffic looking over at the campaign headquarters. Let's say it took all day to capture that one glance, that one look. But you know what, perhaps you saw that one look that we have all seen... but you saw it from a different angle, you saw the lights, the cameras, the gaffers, the sound crew, you saw Martin Scorsese gesturing to DeNiro. That... that reality that you could have witnessed... even if it's takes all day and into the night, if your legs cramped and the rain fell. Even if you were sick for a week after... wouldn't it had been worth it? I think so. Is this TAXI DRIVER? I don't know, probably not, but it is Scorsese, and this man heard him say ACTION, that'd be enough for me.

I love your site and when I saw on it that Scorsese would be shooting in
Manhattan, I decided to go. Seeing Scorsese direct is a once in a lifetime
opportunity so I was glad to spend a Friday night (and Saturday morning) doing
just that.

Unfortunately I didn't really get to see him direct. I hope others did but I
think everybody else was in the same boat as me. Although there weren't very
many people watching for an extended period of time, mostly people watching
for a couple of minutes and leaving. What happened was that once I got where
they were shooting I was pushed behind equipment at very bad angles to both
what was being filmed and Scorsese. I couldn't hear any of what Scorsese was
saying (I did hear him say action once) and I normally couldn't see him
because crew kept passing in front of me. Scorsese was also only on set a
third to a half of the time I was there. Mostly what I saw were half-obscured
lighting setups. I realize that the crew were just doing their job and I was
just standing around gawking. I did take your advice though; I was ninja-
like. Absolutely silent. A couple of people in the crew even thought I was a
member of the crew. I showed up at about 10:15 pm and I left at 3:15 am.
When I got there I thought I might stay until they were done (I assumed that
to be about 4) but that changed at about 1. I kept thinking that I should go
in 5 or 10 minutes unless things got better but 5 or 10 minutes would pass and
my legs would refuse to let me leave. I really wanted to enjoy the shoot.
One of the crew members who thought I was part of the crew passed by me
looking at his feet and appearing very tired said to me "Three hours to go.
What a life." I left a few minutes after that.

Now that I've said (more than) enough about what I saw on the shoot this is
what appeared to be going on. Goodman and Cage were both there dressed as
EMT's. There didn't appear to be much dialogue in what I saw shot. I saw two
shots set up. The first was a steadicam shot where Cage's ambulance pulls up
to a curve and he gets out. It might track more than that but I couldn't see
a monitor to find out exactly what was going on. The second shot was from
inside the ambulance, I'm not sure exactly what was happening but I think that
Cage was going to wheel somebody into the ambulance. I assume they will shoot
Cage putting the person on the stretcher as an interior later.

I am a huge Scorsese fan and I'm very sorry that I didn't enjoy this more but
at least I walked away from it with a good Scorsese anecdote, let me remind
everyone before I write it that Scorsese is extremely short, so much so that
he has an undersize director's chair. There was a guy snapping photos (a
professional, not somebody with a point-and-click) of Scorsese early in the
evening and at one point the guy was about to take photos of Scorsese with
Cage when Scorsese indicated for the guy to wait a minute. What Scorsese did
next was move Cage across the street from where they were shooting to the wall
of a school. Before the wall there is a minor embankment which Scorsese stood
on. Scorsese motioned for Cage to stay on the sidewalk before the embankment
so that Scorsese appeared almost as tall as Cage and then let them
photographer take the pictures.

They will be shooting again on Monday night. If anyone wants to go then some
information I observed might prove useful. They were shooting at 49th about
midway between 9th and 10th avenues. There are production people who will try
to stop you from going on the street by asking you to get to 10th Ave by using
48th or 50th street. Just tell them that you live on that street (49th) and
they will let you pass. They will even be a little falsely apologetic for
stopping you on your own block. I don't think they will ask for the number of
the building you live in but if they do give an even number 434, 436, 438,
440, 442, 444, 446. Don't give an odd number because most of the other side
of the block is a school and I don't remember if there were any residential
buildings on the odd side of the street whatsoever.

If you put this on the site call me Walker Easterling.



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    Readers Talkback

  • Sep 19, 1998 9:59:01 AM CDT

    Gawk-fest on Monday in Manhattan for everyone's favorite directo

    by azrael

    I suggest all you new yorker film geeks like myself get out there Monday night...We all swoop down on the stoop of one of those numbers, 440's good...and grab a few 40's...chill the entire night. Hell, If I'm going to live in Hell's kitchen, I deserve a few perks.

    See you there,

    Az

    Reply to Talkback

  • Sep 19, 1998 10:01:11 AM CDT

    Moment with Scorcese

    by jim rome

    So? The night would've been better spent sitting in front of the ol' PC reading no new updates about the Prequels

    Reply to Talkback

  • Sep 20, 1998 12:56:54 PM CDT

    jim jim jim

    by deadbydawn

    ug. im tired of hearing about little things happening with the whole prequel. i just wanna be totally suprised. besides, scorsese is argueabally (sp sp sp) more interesting then lucas. and his filthy trilogy (cant wait to see em though...).

    Reply to Talkback

  • Sep 20, 1998 4:16:19 PM CDT

    Reverand Chris

    by jim rome

    Look...whoever is more interesting wasn't necessarily the point...it's just that the "glory" of watching a film being shot is a bunch of film geek crap. Harry should know better than to go on and on about films being shot....as far as I can see it....he has that option anytime he wants it while the rest of us work for a living and don't have the time to be flown from coast to coast and overseas to get beind the scenes info and to savor our moment in film history. I've been on location on major projects as well as on a porno shoot. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Most of it is just girls screaming about the lighting their p***ies are getting...and steroid freaks standing around holding their d*cks. If that's momentous to somebody...feel free to shoot them. Most movie shoots are boring and tedious...and the only sets we ever really wanna be on.....well....we don't run the necessary website to have access to them. Thanx. And oh yeah....I just want to see the damn Pre's come out and be surprised as well. I'm tired of this slow trickle of misinformation Lucasfilm is obviously feeding certain "Internet Movie Sites."

    Reply to Talkback

  • Sep 21, 1998 11:01:26 AM CDT

    Scorsese

    by hollywood man

    Well, it has officially started. I am now self-hyping the next Scorsese Film. I can usually wait untill a month or two before release, but after reading this posting I am now chomping at the bit for a film from the greatest director of all time!!!

    Reply to Talkback

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