I still remember sitting at the table with Vee watching the proposed scene with Bill Murray listening to the interpreter telling him what the Japanese director wanted him to do in the scene. All those little looks. Gestures. Squints. Breaths. It had me sold – although I am a little biased due to growing up with many Murray movies.
Even though we had a script to shoot, we had to face several difficulties. Number one being location. At first, we were thinking of doing a set dressing of an apartment lounge, but when it came to figuring out the lighting with Nicholson and Ian it became clear that we needed a much larger space. Not only a larger space, but also a grander space. One that would adequately mimic the original scene – to give it that Suntory time feel.
Vee, super producer, contacted several businesses and places of interest that we thought could potentially be suitable for the kind of background needed. We eventually rented out a black box theatre [NAME of theatre]. We rented for longer than needed due to understanding the realities of shooting and also to give us more room to find a creative space, get what we needed and allow the actors to be flexible in their portrayals. After we knew where we were shooting, we could begin creating a shot list of what we needed.
Vee: “The shot list was the holy grail for us here as we wanted it to be as close to the original as possible. Therefore, we kept the framing of the scene almost identical.”
“However, because we were using Chinese instead of Japanese, there were challenges due to them being a very different kind of energy on the screen, vocally and physically. I thought it was important to approach the performance a bit differently as well.”
“A note that I gave to Eddie (who plays the director) was to be as ignorant as possible to the language barrier in the scene, as well as trying to make Sophia (playing Murray’s character) to feel as uncomfortable as possible.”
“The result was having Eddie get close to Sophia and utilizing his physicality and gestures to create a sense of awkwardness – something shared by anyone who goes travelling to a foreign country without speaking the language.”
“I was happy with the performance in the end and could not stop laughing at those little moment between the characters in the editing room.”
“A challenge for me during this shoot was to never make an assumption of things. A million things could go wrong at any second and my experience on set has taught me this. During the pre-production stage I was OCD in trying to get as organized and as prepared as possible. In my mind, if I’ve worked as hard as I can to reduce those extraneous variables, then I can have peace of mind knowing that the things that did go wrong were really out of my control – a perfect example being we had to change the prop we used in the scene due to the whiskey bottle breaking the day before the shoot.”
“Final words? Eddie’s look was inspired by Wong Kai Wa who wears sunglasses all the time on set. His performance was also largely inspired by Hong Kong director, Stephen Chou – who often gets very impatient and vocal on set. Also, Sophia was never given the English translation of the dialogue. She genuinely has no idea what was being said to her.”
The shot list was crucial in nailing down the expectations of our DP and Chief Lighting Technician. Some studios and people can go by the seat of their pants and pull gold out of those proverbial pants. We, on the other hand, like to make sure that we are running a well-oiled ship that has a plan to follow while giving room for those creative, serendipitous shots. The short of it? We don’t like to waste time and like to produce the best we can in that time. Next up – the lighting.
Ian: “Since the projects ran from one to another so quickly, it was hard to separate them. However, I feel that, as gaffer, that I was utilized enough during the pre-production stage.”
“This happens a lot and isn’t unique to Niu Studios or any one production company in general. I mean, I had the referenced material to replicate what we needed and I had the gear in place to pull the lighting off in the location that we had access to. But I feel there wasn’t enough communication between myself and the DP – a point to improve upon next time.”
“Apart from that, lighting wise there wasn’t any problems. I had reference images to show which way it was lit and we had lighting plans noting the colour temperatures, angles and kinds of lights that we needed, making it a question of just setting them up and shooting.”
“There was a lot of thinking on my toes and discussing this with the DP, as well as the usual multitude of problem solving that is expected of the gaffer and key grip.”
Ultimately, the lighting was pre-thought of due to creating a easily-understandable shot list and also creating a mood board of the original shots of that scene – allowing us to think about how to replicate the light’s softness, how to modify it with negative and positive fill, the colour temperature and whether or not we wanted to use practicals on set. Nicholson used the shot list and the information given to him by Ian in regards to the gear they were using to change how we were using the lights in the scene and how it would be “seen” by the lenses.
“The key light was a dimmable 3200K China ball lantern hung above the table on a c-stand with a 5600K LED panel behind the chair acting as a kicker. An Aputure 300D pushed through a diffuser was used to make sure we hit the right exposure for wider shots. A GH5S was used to shoot this scene in V-log to allow better leeway in post for doing the colour grading.”
Nicholson: “Recreating the look of this iconic scene was not so easy. It became a very simplified version of the scene as we could only lock down the space the day before. The location was a small performance space that was just surrounded by black curtains.”
“Creating depth and a background that was interesting was the challenge here. The warm wood-brown colours and sophisticated feel of the original scene was substituted for a sensual-red with soft-fabric materials to create a comfier environment than classy.”
Camera. Set. Ac… actually, wait a minute. We’ve got the location, the actors, the lights and camera all locked in and ready to go, but we can’t forget about audio. Think about it for a moment. Have you ever watched a beautiful video the whole way through that had terrible audio? Don’t think so? You’d be right if you said no. There’s somewhere in our gnarled adult brains that just cannot stand poor audio. Our attention starts to get antsy. Our eyes want to look away. Our ears want to… well… stop working. Now think about the reverse. Think about the old movies we’ve watched while growing up, on VHS or SD resolution. Even though the picture quality may not have been the greatest, it was the audio that kept us watching. It’s ironic, isn’t it? Many people spend thousands upon thousands on cameras and lenses and neglect the other half of the equation – professional sounding audio.
Thankfully, we had Xavier – a consummate professional when it comes to recording audio, is quick thinking on his feet and makes copious amounts of notes to make the editing phase a breeze. We used a mix of a RODE NTG2 on-boom attached to a Zoom H6, along with a couple of RODE Filmmaker kits to get better audio with wireless lavalier mics attached to each of the actors.
And Action! After having all of those pieces set in place, we were ready to roll the camera, get the shots we needed and then pack everything away to get to the new location – an apartment we were about to turn into the hotel scene from Taken.