Getting Jiggy With It…
While walking through Chinatown today, I was told by someone that I couldn’t walk up a street (that I had no interest in walking up anyway) because they were shooting a Will Smith movie. So, of course, I was totally intrigued at that point and had to stick around.
Stayed there for a while just watching them film what seemed like it should have been a quick scene, but took quite a while, which goes to show you why movies take so long to make.
The scene has Will and his real-life son Jaden crossing the street in the morning and going down an alley in Chiantown together. The scene starts with extra walking up and down both sides of the street, then a old taxi cab with a Close Encounters of the Third Kind ad on top of it drives by and Will and his son cross the street after the cab and before the next 70s-era call drives by. When the get to the other side of the street, a guy is opening up the front gate to his store as Will and Jaden talk and then head down the alley.
Time will tell how important this scene is, but they weren’t even using the boom mics, so they are either going to loop it later or it doesn’t even have dialogue. First, they had Will’s stand-in and some short little lady standing in for Jaden, and they rehearsed the cameras a few times. After each "cut!" the cars have to back up the street to get back into position, the extras do the same, and then like 15 minutes later, they do it again.
After a while, Will shows up, which I knew would be happening since Jada was just sitting under a tent in a director’s chair reading a book. Actually, I was more interested in her, since I just watched part of Matrix Reloaded last night. Will shows up, and walks across the street the same way the stand-in did. A few takes are blown as people watching take digital cameras and their flash goes off, which they had warned us about, but otherwise, it was about three to five takes, and then these huge SUVs pull up and the Smith family hop in and are whisked away.
Only writing this much detail so I have some recollection about what scene it was when the movie comes out. Apparently, they are shooting in Chinatown for a while. Every so often around Stockton/Washington, you’ll see a notice posted in some business windows that certain streets on certain days will be "no parking" zones, since they have to redo the street to look like the 70s. So, the whole schedule is available if you walk around up there and find one of those sheets.
But, I already missed my chance to meet Fincher when he was up here shooting location footage for Zodiac a few weeks ago, so I’m certainly not going to be a groupie just to watch will Smith walk around some more.
