Tag Archives: Andy Serkis

Last night I was on the set for a small scene of John Landis’ latest, Burke and Hare.  The scene feature Andy Serkis and Simon Pegg running down an alley, chasing something, until Pegg notices a strange sound.  In the video below, they turn around and director Landis is the one describing the CGI barrel coming toward them, going over their head (“BOUNCE!”), and crashing behind camera.

Serkis, Pegg, and Landis didn’t stray into the crowd to talk much.  I was behind the crew since I was their first, but I just got a nod from the celebs as they passed by.  Didn’t seem interested in mingling.

It was interesting to see so much money/effort go into such a small scene.  They’re shooting in Sterling today and tomorrow, then returning to Edinburgh to shoot Thursday-Saturday morning.  A friend of mine already knows where they’re shooting on Friday.

I got a lot of  info from a guy on set.  He says it’s a 7 week shoot and they just got back from London.  They’re using two cameras (blurry picture below) to maximize time.

However, more interesting was his comments on Christopher Nolan (a bit chaotic in his shooting style), since he worked with him on Inception and The Dark Knight.  He showed me a video of the rig they used for a hallway scene in the film, which was larger than a semi-truck’s trailer, that completely rotated.  He went on to explain that they rubberized everything inside and painted it so the actors inside could roll around and fight.  They also locked down a camera inside the hallway and used a camera crane that could go inside the moving rig.  Evidently I’m one of the only guys outside of the film industry to see his little cell phone video of this rig.

Trucks and lighting equipment.

This is probably the angle they'll shoot the scene from, since there's a restaurant in the opposite direction.

Dressing the set to hide the new. They also installed old wooden signs.

Rustic carts and hay for that turn of the century look.

This is how you light a set when you can't get a cherry picker lighting kit in: it's a balloon with lights inside.

Waiting for dark with the balloon light rig.

Sorry about the quality. Not enough light and flash wasn't allowed.

[video courtesy of David Law]