By Rodney Appleyard
The stars of G.I. Joe kickstarted their worldwide publicity tour by cruising into town this week on a luxury speed boat to meet Sydney’s film press, who were leisurely basking in the sun near the Harbour Bridge.
Feeling fresh at their first press conference, they bounced onto land looking in fine spirits and full of banter. They certainly acted as if they genuinely liked each other and had a great time filming the movie.
But they still had to face tough questioning and director Stephen Sommers was keen to blow away rumours that he was fired; was not allowed final cut on the movie and the film received the worst test response in Paramount’s history.
Sommers remembers being in the editing room during post production when he received the surprise phone call that he had been replaced.
“I was rather shocked but kept on editing. It’s complete lies. That’s what’s crazy about the Internet these days. People make stuff up, it spreads around the world and then I get my nine year old coming to me and saying: ‘Daddy, did they fire you because your movie is not good?’ I definitely had final cut and they couldn’t throw me off the movie if they wanted to! It is discouraging but you have to ignore it and move on.
“I mean, you have to really screw up on a movie to get fired because once they get rid of the director, the stigma attached ends up killing the movie.” Sommers insists that the movie tested really well with audiences.
The US$170 million movie is as spectacular as the Transformer movies, thanks to the inclusion of a large number of special effects. It involved a variety of CGI effects (created by Digital Domain – winners of the Oscar for their work on Benjamin Button), physical effects, special make-up effects and elaborate costumes.
Although many fantastical CGI environments have been created, such as a huge underground bunker at the North Pole, Sommers says he prefers to film as many real effects as he can that can be integrated with the CGI.
Some of the explosions seemed dangerous at times (although they never really are because of the level of health and safety involved), but the actors, such as Wayans, were not phased and did not lose their humour during these hairy scenes.
“Stephen is like a method director. He makes you do your own stunts. He’s like: ‘Come on, it’s not believable!’ He blew up a whole building at one stage and I was behind a car. It was so hot. I was like: ‘Dude, I’m black and we have all sorts of flammable things in our hair!"
Wayans also found the CGI scenes to be challenging. “It was like ultimate acting. Stephen would be like: ‘There’s an explosion happening right there!’ but there’s nothing but a green screen and you’re like: ‘Where?’. So it definitely forces you to use all your tools."
Sommers cheekily admits that Sienna Miller actually burnt her breasts during one of the scenes, as Miller recalls.
“Well, it wasn’t on the actual breast! It was just above them. There’s always an element of risk when you are being shot at for five months with rubber bullets. You know bruises are definitely going to happen. But Rachel nearly had her face blown off,” she says with her tongue firmly in her cheek.
Nichols jokingly agrees that she had the worst deal when it came to injuries from the effects. “I think I get to win. Sienna had it intense but I lost eyelashes, eyebrows and some hair on this job. They promised they would use it in this movie but now it’s not there anymore.” The actors say Nichols looked like she was inside of a fireball when the whole set was lit on fire.
“The thing about this film is we genuinely blowed things up. I mean, all the effects that you see were actually happening and that’s what gives the film its integrity. But an element of danger also comes with that. In this movie, we blew up more cars than anybody has ever done before – 112 of them in total,” adds Miller.
Many of the effects were actually based on the technology of the future, such as nanotechnology, as Sommers explains.
“This movie takes place 10-15 years in the future and all of the gadgets, weaponary and vehicles are things that one country or another is developing. So there is a fun and realism to it, even though it’s kind of fantasy. Like the holograph stuff and the camourflage suits.
“Invisibility is science fiction, but in regards to our camourflage suits that can photograph everything behind you and then put it in front to make you invisible and blend into any background – that is something that will happen within the next 10-12 years. The technology of this movie was really fun. Anybody who is into technology is going to love this movie.”
One of the most complicated effects scenes in the movie involves a chase scene through Paris, when two of the main characters are dressed in suits that allow them to run as fast as cars.
Throwing cars down a city street
In a Stephen Sommers film, props can be anything as small as a ring or as large as a Humvee, each adaptable to being tossed around.
Such is the case in this particular film, where a vehicle can go just about anywhere, and does, with the help and expertise of special effects supervisor Daniel Sudick and his team.
In one sequence, the Hummer is tossed down a traffic-filled street in Paris. The scene was actually filmed in Prague, where a great many outdoor sequences were shot.
Sending a Humvee down a city street crashing into cars and turning it into a projectile takes precision and skill. “Dan Sudick’s challenge was that he normally does effects like this on a back lot or a soundstage,” says executive producer David Womark.
“All of a sudden, he finds himself throwing cars in front of people’s houses. You want to make sure that the car doesn’t land in somebody’s living room.”
Sudick had to hurl the Hummer 60 feet down a historic street only 30 feet wide. “We had to have a guide cable on the front,” he explains. “We had two cannons in the back that were rigged to fire at the same time, and the cable up front had to have a pretty good force on it to keep everything in line.”
(Above: Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Stephen Sommers )
The chase scene was filmed with nine cameras with cars flying everywhere, in true ‘Sommers-Size’ (a term the crew uses to describe the director’s vision for epic scope and action). “We did two takes with nine cameras rolling on each take, so there are essentially 18 individual camera shots worth of footage,” says second unit director Greg Michael. “It looks like every single car in Paris is flying!”
“I think we beat the record for buying and destroying cars, which was previously held by The Blues Brothers – it had about 102 or 104 cars wrecked,” says Womark