|
Equilibrium Commentary
Kurt Wimmer
|
|
3. The Prodigal Cleric
Transcription by Silencer
Here we are on the exterior of Hitler's olympic stadium, the
Reichsportwelt and it takes us into the interior of DuPont's office,
... which I think is the reason why my very talented
production designer Wolf Kroeger got involved with this project. It's
uh, almost identical to the way I wrote it. This gigantic minimalist
office with this gigantic glassless T window in the background. I think
that captured his imagination, for some reason, and made him want to do
the film. I have to say, I think Wolf is a genius.
For instance, there are these steps in this office here;
maybe we'll see them in just a moment when we make the cut.  Yeah, I think they're
coming up right here. See these steps behind him (DuPont), I could only
look out that window a certain number of times because it was a green
screen shot. Every time I looked out that window, it would be a
relatively expensive 2D or 3D for me, so I told the producers "listen,
I'll be a responsible director and I won't see that shot out that
window", and you'll see that the frame cuts off right at the bottom of
the window. So, had there been less steps, as Wolf had wanted, then I
would have had to crane the camera up to a really ungracious angle on
Angus MacFadyen which I really didn't want to do. So I said "there are
going to have to be more steps, Wolf" and this is the kind of thing
that drives a perfectionist like Wolf Kroeger absolutely nuts, because
he had figured out with mathematical certainty how many steps would go
into the proportions of this office, and I totally respect that ethic
of working, however, I was dealing with a much more practical universe,
and at the end of the day, fortunately I had the final say in it and we
ended up with more steps rather than less. But I don't think anybody
actually notices at the end of the day.
You know, when I cast Christian, I cast him based on his
performance in American Psycho where he did some pretty awful things,
but I found him to be imminently likable throughout the entire film,
and I thought that was a quality characteristic that this character
would need to get through the first act and have the audience stay with
him. But I never could have imagined how perfect he could have been for
this role.
This scene was shot in a garage...
...this is a great example of, you know when your on tech
scouts and everybody's always talking about "well, we'll just let the
backgrounds fade to black" and there's always a really nervous look on
their face when they say it like everybody standing around knows it's
bullshit but we don't have the money to fix it so lets pretend like we
don't have to. But this is a really great example of Dion (Beebe)
creating a set out of nothing but light, he simply painted this space
with light and created a set. And hey, what do you know? The
backgrounds do go to black and it can be done and it does work.
|
