10th May 2004, mid-afternoon | Comments (9)
Location: Film set, Los Angeles, early morning.
Scene: Directors pep-talk before the day’s shooting commences.
Okay, guys, everyone, gather round will you? Right, I think you’ll agree the filming has gone pretty well up to now, but today we’re doing the big car chase so it’s important we’re on top of our game right now.
Luckily for us we’ve got a great driving team in Dave and Jimmy, and one of the best chase co-ordinators out there, in Mike.
Mike, you wanna explain how this is gonna go down?
Sure thing, thanks Peter. Okay, people, today’s chase involves two vehicles. Firstly we have a Suzuki GSX-R1000 superbike, this will be our ‘runner’. It has the highest power to weight ratio of any road-legal machine on earth. It can accelerate from 0 to 60 in 2.56 seconds and has a limited top speed of 186mph. Our second vehicle, the ‘chaser’, is a 1984 Fiat Punto. This car takes about 12 minutes to hit the sixty-mark, has a top speed of 75mph and drives like a hippo.
Now, you may be thinking,Well hell, Mike, it’s not gonna be much of a chase!
But you’d be wrong. We’re gonna be using a technique we in the industry call RRRSD or Really Really Really Slow Driving. Basically it involves driving both vehicles really, really, really slowly through traffic, then — and this is the clever part — speeding the film up during playback and dubbing the sound of a much faster chase over the top!
I know, I know, it’s pretty clever, and a highly successful cinematic technique; the audience never suspect a thing, lemmie tell you. Plus, you know, it saves on petrol, so it’s more environmentally friendly.
We combine RRRSD with another classic known as ABNQ, or Almost But Not Quite. For this we wildly alternate the distance between the two vehicles, showing them almost touching in one shot, then 100m apart in the next. This glaring lack of continuity throws the audience into a state of confusion and helps facilitate the acceptance of RRRSD.
And, well, that’s about it. I’m sure things will go smoothly today; as Peter says, we have a great driving team and good weather. If we get this right it could go down as one of the really great chases, along with those in Mission Impossible 2, Paycheck, and Joy Ride To Nowhere; so focus today, okay?
Great. Then, let’s rock and roll!
Alright!*
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