Spider-Man 3: On Location

Posted by Maggie Van Ostrand (maggie@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 2, 2007

Picture this: Dawn is breaking over Spider-Man 3 on location. The set dressers have already used their inspired talent to turn key sites in Cleveland Ohio into Manhattan. The choice could have been Detroit, but it was easier to turn certain areas of Cleveland into a double for New York. The set dressers did not stop until the transformation was complete.

Every night on the local news, there was something about the shoot. It wasn’t easy for the media to get interviews for this particular shoot, since everyone had to sign Confidentiality Agreements promising not to discuss anything about the film. Everything was closely guarded. In fact, Film School Rejects learned “there’s a real kicker in the movie,” but we don’t know yet what it is. Maybe we should fly to China to find out, since Spidey 3 will be released there a day sooner than the U.S. release date of May 4th, in an effort to thwart piracy.

Make-up people had to wear special badges just to take photographs for continuity. Shots had to be matched perfectly to 1st unit action. Each bruise had to be an exact match. James Franco wanted his make up done together with his stunt double, Todd Schneider, for continuity purposes.

The Cleveland (Manhattan) location had seen some spectacular action: great car crashes, a lot of wire work with stunt guys on wires swinging through the air, great stunts with Chris O’Hara and Frank Lloyd (no relation to the director of that name). All the action in Spidey 3 is not green screen.

Spider-Man 3’s 2nd Unit Make-up Department Head, Michael F. Blake (Domino, Shackles, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Last Samurai, Seabiscuit) talked to FSR about the shoot. Blake said it “was the most fun and the best group I ever worked with.

“I’ve done a lot of 2nd unit work over the years,” continued Blake, “but I’ve never worked on a film like this. This is more than big, this is HUGE. There was real camaraderie. We did some really cool stuff: stunts and explosions, fights, crashing through windows. I put a lot of scars and cuts on Spider-Man.” Spidey’s stunt double was Colin Follenweider.

“The 1st and 2nd ADs were great guys who were always ready to fill me in. The 2nd unit director, Dan Bradley (The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Supremecy, Spider-Man 2, Seabiscuit) I knew from before when we both worked on Independence Day back in 1996.”

Blake was very impressed with something he had never seen before on any of his films, electronic story boards. “The story boards were fabulous, animated versions so the director could work off them. It was just like seeing the movie, only in animation. I had never seen this before and it was amazing.”

The Cleveland location shoot was memorable for more reasons than the excitement of planned chaos, explosions, and electronic story boards. “When we were in Cleveland,” says Blake, “we saw the full power of Spidey. All the kids came out to see him. It makes you feel so cool. there were kids who came from a school about 30 miles away, severely handicapped kids — some had to be braced into their wheelchairs. The people who ran the school decided to drive to Cleveland to see Spidey.

“When the unit manager heard about it, he told Colin, ‘Put the suit back on. There are kids out there.’

“Those kids had been non-responsive. Until they saw Spidey. Then they came to life. All these tough guys like the grips, electricians, prop guys, they all had tears in their eyes. They were overwhelmed at what they saw.

“Another time, a boy named Jacob, about 6 or 7 years old wearing a Spiderman costume, posed with the clapper board after I put a bruise on his face. We were on Euclid Boulevard and Colin came out to shoot a scene and took pictures with Jacob. I gave Jacob my baseball cap from the movie.

“Colin was great. He even had an answer ready if any of the kids asked him to shoot a web. His answer was ‘I had to promise Cleveland I wouldn’t shoot any webs because they’re very difficult to clean up.’”

At one point, the splinter unit was taking a quick shot of Spidey down the street and a crowd showed up. There was a mother running toward us with her little kid in a Spider Man mask, but his legs were too short to keep up with her. “I walked out there,” Blake recalls, “and grabbed the boy and the mother and said, ‘The stunt man needs to talk to you.’ Colin, in costume, got down and took the picture. Later, after I got back to L.A., I kept my promise and sent the picture of her little boy with Spidey.”

Mike Justice, Thomas Haden Church’s stunt double, said “We get paid a lot of money and we get to go places all over, but this kind of thing is what makes this job worthwhile.”

In Los Angeles, when supplies are needed like bald caps, hair, beards, appliances, plastic bruises, Blake just picks up the phone and it’s delivered. But in Cleveland, that wasn’t possible, so Blake shipped four big boxes of stuff across country so if he had to put a bald cap on a stunt guy, he’d be ready.

“We also worked on the MGM lot. I just can’t call it Sony, to me it will always be MGM. The 1st unit had to finish and clear the set and then we stepped in to do our mayhem. I talked at least once a day with Luisa Abel (Domino, Shackles, Catch Me If You Can). I had met her on set of The Aviator. On Spider-Man 3, she was Dept. Head, Make-up, 1st Unit, and she filled me in on what was being done around town. They were using the New York Street at MGM so we’d talk by phone or she’d send things over so I could match the faces of the stunt guys to the actors. It was a lot of work, but it was really easy because the stunt guys were the best. We were like our own film company. Everything the 1st unit had, we had.

“Working on the lot was just like the early days of sound film because the 1st unit would be there all day from 5 am to 6 pm and we’d come in from 6 pm to 5 am. that’s what they did in the old days; they’d split the company half day and half night, or they’d do foreign versions at night and English in the day.”

Blake believes “People love Spidey because he has a heart, he has to fight for a regular life, and he doesn’t always get the girl. I also think that Sam Raimi absolutely understands the Spider Man character and knows all about him. He really ‘gets it.’ Because of this, he’s made the heart and soul of Spidey. When a director knows evrything about a character who’s already known and beloved, it’s everything, just everything. This director respects his audience and gives them the hero they want and expect.”

And Blake should know. He worked on Spider-Man 3 on and off for a year, starting in November 2005, at the Disney Ranch at night, at the MGM/Sony lot, and in the key site of Cleveland, Ohio.

#####

EPILOGUE: Michael F. Blake is currently on location in Mystery Mesa, California, working on Charlie Wilson’s War, starring Tom Hanks and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Blake said they’re recreating Morocco because when the shoot was actually in Morocco, the winds got so bad they blew half the set down. He siad Tom Hanks is a very, very nice guy, and that he always comes out and stands with the extras to sign autographs and pose for pictures with them. He is very well liked, and deservedly so.

Michael Blake is the author of several books:
“Code of Honor: The Making of Three Great American Westerns”
“The Films of Lon Chaney”
“Lon Chaney: The Man Behind the Thousand Faces”
“Lon Chaney’s Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures”

All are available at Amazon.com

Read more articles by Maggie Van Ostrand