Spider-Man 3 Interview With Location Scout John Fedynich - page 2

21-04-2007 12:15

Q: How did you achieve that perspective? Did you find a building and go to the roof?

A: Oh yes. I’ve probably been to the top of a good number of buildings in New York City. Let’s use Times Square as an example, because that’s the most known part of New York. You don’t get on top of one building to understand what it looks like. You are going to access different parts of Times Square so you have different perspectives of how Times Square looks from above. So I had to venture to the top of many New York buildings to experience the skyline and to see the perspective from above looking down. It was great.

Q: How many locations did you use in Spider-Man 3?

A: About 30. Everything we did was big. Nothing was what we call your normal walk and talk; two actors walking down the street. It was Spider-Man flying into the location. It was having cameras fly from one rooftop to another along a wire. And in certain locations we had 200, 300 and sometimes 400 extras in the background. This is filming on a grand scale.

Q: Describe some of the locations used in the Spider-Man films.

A: The Flat Iron building is used for the Daily Bugle newspaper offices in all three films. Peter Parker’s apartment is in the east village. We spent a lot of time looking for that because we needed to find the right exterior. Not only was the right building important but the right neighbourhood was important because he doesn’t have money and we wanted to show that he was living in a neighbourhood that was a little more down trodden.

Q: Tell us about some of the obstacles you face during production.

A: We picked a location that was in the downtown area near the financial district. From August until January everything was fine and then I got a call that the location we were going to be using was scheduled to be torn up by the city to create a new transit system. So I had to scramble and try and find a new location that worked for that particular scene. We shot quite a bit down by the financial district which was logistically challenging. Since Sept 11th that whole downtown area is being redone and so there is a lot of construction. We had to coordinate with the city and all these construction companies as to where and when we were going to be filming so we could work around each other. I also had to account for parking, noise and disruption to the neighbourhood.

Q: What is the Spidey-Cam?

A: The Spidey-Cam is about getting Spider-Man’s point of view. Spidey-Cam is when we run a line from one building to another and then they run a second line that the camera actually swoops down into the canyon of the streets. It is an amazing part of the production. Once a location is set an engineer survey of a rooftop needs to take place to determine if the roof of a building will hold the weight of the Spidey-Cam system. The crew that puts this rig together is amazing to watch. They occasionally work with limited space and can engineer any location provided to them. The crew can work incredibly long hours as they have to build the rigs, practice the way the camera is going to run on the Spidey-Cam lines and then actually be around for the filming. There can be 10 to 20 crew members working on these rigs. Once the rigs are anchored on the building rooftops they run a line to each of the buildings. This happens by dropping the line off the side of the building and running it down the street to another building. We have to stop all road traffic for safety which means we need the help and support of the Mayor's Office and Police Department.

Q: What is the most interesting thing about your work on the Spider-Man films?

A: What was interesting is we how we accessed some buildings. We literally had to go through office space where people were working. We would be going through offices and looking out people’s windows so we could survey the view. I’m looking out and thinking ‘wow, this is pretty spectacular..’ and the people whose offices we invaded were saying ‘you know what? I never looked at it that way, I was just happy to have a window.’ But that’s what is exciting about my job; to be able to get up above the normal view of the city and find those views that make the movie more thrilling because people don’t get to see the city from that altitude.