Set Visit: Nic Cage’s action thriller Drive Angry 3D!

Nicolas
Cage interview / Patrick
Lussier interview

When you
hear stories about the movie industry, you often hear about how
everyone has their own agenda and would step over their own mother to
get what they need. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly sure what to
expect when I arrived in Shreveport, Louisiana to attend my first ever
set visit for the upcoming psycho-road movie, DRIVE ANGRY 3D. This one is being
helmed by Pat Lussier of MY BLOODY VALENTINE fame and was co-written by
his partner in crime, Todd Farmer. It stars Nic Cage, Amber Heard,
William Fichtner and Billy Burke, and is shaping up to be a
badass flick.

Going back to my opening statement- I write about a lot of movies and
video games for Arrow in the Head, but this was my first set visit and
I was not completely sure what to expect. Would people just be going
through the motions? Would cast and crew be friendly? Would I survive
all of the Tex-Mex I ate during my long commute back to eastern Canada?

Luckily for me, I’m here to tell you that any negative preconceived
notions I may have had about any Hollywood portrayals of divas, macho
guys and primadonnas were completely unfounded. I learned quickly that
this group of people were truly working together as a team, and each
one was passionate and committed to delivering the best version of this
product that they possibly could.

We arrived at the
set later than originally scheduled, around 9 pm or so. The crew had
been shooting nights for about a week and half and this was their final
week of shooting.

The first place we went was actually straight to the hot set, where we
were told that they would be filming one of the final scenes of the
film. Of course, we were sworn to secrecy about not revealing what we
saw, but I can shed a little bit of light on things and let you know a
few of my thoughts. This particular scene followed a particularly
explosive one and was pretty intense. Here’s what we know. A vehicle has exploded and Nic Cage’s escapee-from-hell (literally) Milton has been struck down by Billy Burke’s cult leader character and there’s some serious nastiness going on. The scene is being monitored very closely by the Accountant, Bill Fichtner’s agent from hell. Cage is crawling along on his hands and knees, at the very end of his rope while at the mercy of Burke.

We got to see some key people in
action and getting to watch Nic Cage (and others who won’t be spoiled)
ply his craft in different takes was really cool. Getting to watch his
subtle nuances and movements change as he did each take was really
awesome to watch- the guy’s a screen legend.

All was not to go really smoothly on this evening though. Part of the
reason we were delayed getting to set was due to the weather in
Shreveport, where it was just really windy and that was affecting
things. Everyone on set was wearing goggles between takes and
originally I didn’t exactly understand why but it soon became apparent
when debris was going flying due to a few big gusts that would pick
toss stuff around. It seemed to be playing havoc with some of
the pyro effects we’d been witness to as well. On top of this, we were
also present for what had to be a major frustration for everyone. In
Shreveport, trains seem to go by every time Patrick would call for the
scene to begin. I was hanging out with Todd Farmer at this point (the
dude is awesome, which I’ll talk more about during his interview). When
I looked at him with a sort of ‘eep’ look when I heard the train
whistle blasting obnoxiously, he smiled wide, threw up his hands and
said “Welcome to Shreveport.” It would appear that
this wasn’t the first time this had happened and unfortunately every
time it would seem to die down, the train would seemingly wait for the
scene to reset and blow again. A truly terrible coincidence!

I was
fortunate enough to be ushered over to the stereographer during a take
of this scene. In case you’re not sure what this is, I’ll enlighten
you. The stereographer is the guy who basically watches over the 3d
filming in real time and makes sure everything is going smoothly. Are
you a young individual who wants to get into the movie business and
make some serious cash? Take it from me- given the current trend in
Hollywood and what I heard from filmmakers cast and crew on this set,
this is a career you might want to get into.

As I sauntered over to the monitors, I had the chance to slip on some
3d glasses and check out the 3d effects as they were filming. During a
conversation I had with Todd, he was saying that the 3D effects in this
film were so cool that when cast and crew would just walk by the camera
during downtime, it would look really impressive. He was absolutely
right- I got to see this final scene being filmed in 3D and let me tell
you, this technology is advancing faster than we realize. I was really
impressed and dazzled at the field of depth I witnessed and I can’t
describe it accurately but I am not one to exaggerate or be overly
hyperbolic so you’ll have to take my word for it.

From here, we were whisked away to a dark garage where we had the
opportunity to check out the vehicles used in the film. As you may
already know, this is a flick filled with a lot of badass vehicles. The
marquee vehicle is the Dodge Charger, and it would appear that these
vehicles are much harder to secure than one might think as a ton of
them got destroyed during the filming of the DUKES OF HAZZARD flick a
few years ago. It was really cool listening to the Erik Vonhoff chat
about this stuff, as he really was an expert and told us more about
getting the vehicles ready, crashing them, rebuilding them, modifying
them for 3D cameras (think bigger windows and matte paint which
wouldn’t reflect and ruin the effects).

I’m not really allowed to talk specifically about the other cars, and
to be honest I am certain of this fact because I was not even told who
drove them, only that they were simply
“non-descript” cars, which essentially means that
lips were sealed. I can tell you that there are a couple more awesome
vehicles that I must be vague about, but know that there is a custom
built roadster that is one of a kind, and a really neat,
Americana-inspired looking 1950s vehicle. With that said, getting to
sit in the charger and see and hear it fired up was really an
extraordinary thing. I’m not much of a car guy, but that was
undoubtedly awesome.

The next thing we got to do was hang out with FX director, Gary
Cunnicliffe. Gary is a manic and animated dude from the UK who was an
absolute blast to chat with. On the way over, I was talking with Todd
who put Gary over huge. Tunnicliffe has been an integral part of Pat
Lussier’s team, and the two won’t work without one another. Todd also
was saying he’s a blast to have around, and the scary thing about him
is that if you needed to hide a body, Gary could pull that off because
his effects are so realistic.

I’m really bummed that I can’t go more into detail about the big
set piece that we got to check out when we got there. I can tell you
that its a weapon, it’s super badass, quite fantastical and packs a
serious, serious punch. Gary went on to tell us about how he created
the weapon from scratch, the various design changes it went through,
and even showed us the different mock-ups of the weapon (light prop for
ease of use versus more realistically built). There was a point in time
when he held the thing up and deployed it right in another reporter’s
face and I’m just glad it wasn’t me because although the thing isn’t
real, I can tell you that I wouldn’t even want someone to pretend to
blast me with it. This was an awesome, energetic and exciting part of
the set visit and Tunnicliffe is really a hilarious guy whose manic
energy and friendly personality make him impossible to
dislike. Seeing his attention to detail and the way he
described certain little touches to the weapon (think specialized ammo)
had me swooning in geek heaven. Also, it was completely impossible to
tell the different versions of the weapon apart and that’s
quite a testament to Gary’s ability due to the fact that the ‘real’
version weighed a good 15 pounds, requiring two hands to lift and the
other version was feather light. A highlight of this evening
was when Gary was talking about some high-tech weaponry used in the
film, which really interested a fellow reporter. When the guy kept
asking questions about the power of the weapon and couldn’t seem to
stop, Gary playfully (and hilariously) tore him to shreds with things
like “Well, we know what to get you for Christmas!”
At this point, we had our thirst for these automatic weapon satiated
when we got to watch a video of Todd firing one of the automatic
shotguns. I won’t spoil it, but as Gary put it, “These sure
aren’t for hunting, are they?”

I’m thrilled that I had the opportunity to check out the set of Drive
Angry for an evening and would like to sincerely thank Summit pictures
for inviting me to come along. It gave me some insight into a movie
that sounds like it has a serious set of hangers and on top of that I
got to watch some awesome people working together to produce a great
product. I thought that Patrick Lussier’s previous effort, MY BLOODY VALENTINE was the best 3D I’ve seen and some of the most fun I’ve had
at the movies- it would appear that this crew has reassembled to make
an even better movie which has the potential to be even more
entertaining than the last. Stay tuned for in-depth interviews
with the cast and crew during the coming weeks leading up to release!