Film Shoot

Was wandering through Chelsea around 9PM when a large crowd and bright lights were spotted. It was a movie shoot. There were screams from the people on the street surrounding the subjects.

The setup was a car scene, with a hotrod-type car mounted to a moving platform. In the earlier days of movies, there would just be a studio shot with people sitting in front of a projection of traffic behind. I guess the same thing could be done with a green screen, but this certainly ends up being more realistic, I guess. The setup is so elaborate with a camera vehicle and a lighting vehicle preceding the actual actors vehicle. It was a chaotic scene, not to mention the rubbernecking from traffic on Sixth avenue.

I snapped off a few shots, but didn't recognize the actor. He turned out to be Jay Baruchel (never heard of him but he has decent credits). He had a dog on his lap also. A tour bus came up aside of the setup. More screaming, as those up top hovered over the scene. The driving actor seemed to be enjoying the attention and snapped off a wink to the crowd.

I started to move away and then heard that Nicholas Cage was in the car, on the other side (which I couldn't see). I moved closer and saw him, but wasn't able to get a shot. In the past when I've encountered various movie shoots taking place in the City, I was annoyed by the authoritative declarations of crowd control production assistants who always seemed to be Jr. High Schoolers telling you to get out of the way. But, I kind of liked the handler below in the Yankee hat, who gave updates to the crowd, and even gave information about the film and what was happening.

By the way, the film is a Disney movie called The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It's coming out July 16th, 2010.

Waiting for Ugly Betty

I guess since the weather is warming up, there is more film production taking place in New York. Last evening there were two productions within two blocks of each other near City Hall. These events can be easily spotted by the trucks that take over the street parking. There are equipment trucks, catering trucks and trailers for actors.

Since the parking is reserved, there are signs that get posted to hold the parking. These signs mention the name of the production company and of the movie /TV Show. I guess the main draw this time was "Ugly Betty". But, as I was passing it looked like it would be some time before they would start shooting (probably when it was dark).

That meant that there would be a lot of waiting around for the crew. I noticed these two production members killing time, sitting in the truck and waiting and waiting.... looked like they had some unloading to do into the colored bins when the time came.