Walter Murch - 'The Conversation': The last ten pages to shoot (61/320)

Описание: To listen to more of Walter Murch’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Walter Murch (Film-maker)  

Walter Scott Murch (b. 1943) is widely recognised as one of the leading authorities in the field of film editing, as well as one of the few film editors equally active in both picture and sound. [Listener: Christopher Sykes; date recorded: 2016]

TRANSCRIPT: In the end, the problems of not shooting with ten days of shooting... we were able to turn one of the scenes that was partially shot into a dream sequence, where he talks to the girl in the conversation in the fog. So in the script, this was something that actually was really supposed to happen in reality, but we turned it into a dream that happens after he has been seduced by Meredith in his office. And the net result was that the ten unshot pages turned into one shot that we needed, and we had to reshoot this... We had to shoot this shot. And rather than some pieces of rolled up paper that were the plans for the microphone, we had to demonstrate that Meredith had taken the tape. And so the shot was an over-the-shoulder shot, past Gene Hackman onto the tape recorder, and he reaches out and pulls the keeper of the reel, and the reel falls apart and it's empty. And then you cut to a close-up of Gene Hackman as originally shot, and he says, 'Bitch.' But originally, he was reacting to the fact that the plans had been stolen. Now, he's reacting to the fact that his tapes have been stolen.

So we applied to Paramount to shoot this shot, and yes, we can shoot it. We want to keep the cost low, so why don't you borrow the camera? There's another film that's shooting right now, just borrow their camera in-between setups, you can build a little set over in the corner. Dean Tavoularis will... Alex and his brother... Dean and Alex will build a little set over in the corner. Gene Hackman is not available, but his brother is available, and that's enough, all you need is a shoulder. And so we went down and borrowed this camera in-between setups from this other film, shot the scene. And I regret that I didn't keep the camera rolling. Because after the last take, if we had panned the camera over here, we would have come upon Jack Nicholson and Roman Polański waiting to get their camera back because they were shooting 'Chinatown', which was the other film. So in one shot, we would've gone from 'The Conversation' to 'Chinatown'.

Anyway, that shot is in the film, and that knitted the two pieces of the film together.