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Equilibrium Commentary
Kurt Wimmer &
Lucas Foster
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11."He's
A Sense Offender!"
Transcription
by Libby
Lucas: Kurt shot most of the stuff in
this movie. There's some second unit stuff that was...er..this...this
episode in the movie, this piece, there's some second unit photography
here.
Kurt: Right. This is all second unit
here.
Now this actor - last name of Collabra
- he's an Italian guy...I selected him because I thought he had really
soulful eyes. I said this on the other track - this guy looks just like
Albert Durer In his self-portrait. I'm amazed every time I see it.
Lucas: That was...that was the
Director being thrown against the wall.
Kurt: Yeah. Not because of sense
offence, but they thought he looked like he deserved it.
 Lucas: Yeah, exactly, and we managed to catch it on film.
(Laughs)
Kurt: There's...
Lucas: You're such a ham!
Kurt: There's nothing funny about
that...
Lucas: I thought it was amusing. I
liked that that part.
Kurt: I know...I know you did..
One of the most valuable things that a
DP brings to the process, is making cheap sets look expensive. And a
good DP can do that. I think Dion lit some sets, if you had seen them
in the harsh light of day, you wouldn't have thought much at all and he
lit them I such a way that they became expensive looking sets.
This portion of film was done by
Harvey Harrison.
Lucas: We hate it when violence is
done to other human beings...
Kurt: Gratuitous...
Lucas That's gratuitous...
Kurt: Sometimes it's necessary to, you
know, right certain social wrongs. But I think, at the end of the day,
that's why, you know, for the people, that film, for most of us is why
it works because there is a very compelling reason for Preston to do
what he does.
Lucas: I had a debate with Kurt about
the use of slow-motion in... in the film, in the early going. I...I
think it's not over-used in this movie. We did use it in places where
it was useful to tell the story.
Kurt: Right. I don't like to use it at
all. The only place I used it actually was..er..in...I slowed down
the...er...flip - believe it or not even though it doesn't really look
like it - when he flips off the back of the motorcycle. I slowed that
down slightly, so the audience would have a little more time to process
it. I slowed down that, not so that the audience could see what was
happening, but it was strictly stylistic...stylistic purposes. And
there's one or two shots in the final fight sequence in the hallway, I
think, that have been..er...slowed down a little bit. But..ah...you
know, there's plenty of love-letters and treatises to slow motion that
have been done in cinema and they're sort of...I feel there's no reason
for me to do it. And...er...I think it's nice to see things that aren't
slowed down. I like the visceral nature of action and I think it
conveys...is conveyed much better in real time. And even though the
action in this movie is certainly fantastic, it has a more real feeling
because it's not...er...in slow motion. I love slow motion. I love all
the stuff that was done in 'The Matrix' and it suited it...the film
very well. However, if I had slowed down a lot of stuff, you would have
been able to see some of the... the flaws and wrinkles that were there,
that are not evident when you watch it at full speed.
Lucas: Here's some of that boring talk
that happens in these action movies. Sometimes people have to talk,
it's very irritating.
Kurt: We need to provide an
opportunity for people to go out and get popcorn...do what they need to
do...
Lucas: ...it's true...
Erm..these guns, you know...we had
somewhat of a lengthy process - I'm talking about what the guns were
going to be and we had them made...um...we'd spent some time designing
them and we ended up having a company in LA make them. We had several
different sets of guns:
...we had some air guns...air gun
versions of it and ...er...other Beretta and we had some...some other
variations of it that would eject the shells straight upward and we
obviously had some guns that didn't fire as well.
Kurt: That's right. At the end of the
day it was more often than not the foam guns we ended up using. That is
a foam gun right there and it looks pretty photorealistic.
 I like the way Taye is lit here.
Lucas: I guess it might be interesting
to some people, that the film was originally...when Kurt and I were,
sort of, first getting started and we decided we wanted to make the
movie and that he was going to direct it...um.. The film was gonna be
financed under a Dutch tax deal and what happened was, I got the bright
idea to hop on a plane and go looking for money so that we could get
the film made 'cos it's not so easy to get first-time Director's movie
- particularly if it's, you know, more than a couple of million bucks -
off the ground...
Kurt: ...or any movie...
Lucas: Or any movie! Er...and so I
want to Amsterdam and I met with...er... the Bank ...er...ABN-AMRO Bank
and sort of worked...started working on a Dutch tax deal whereby they
would finance the majority of the film. And Kurt kind of came over
there, shortly thereafter and we had an interesting couple of days with
them.
Kurt: Yeah, that's right. It was interesting. The Dutch are
an interesting people. Jan de Bont was also another of the producers on
this film, although Lucas was the most active one. And it was through
his residency in Holland that we would have been able to get...secure
this theoretical financing deal.
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