In Paramount Pictures’ The Naked Gun, Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) tries to live up to his father’s legacy by leading Los Angeles’ Police Squad, which is at risk of being shut down. Pamela Anderson stars as the elegant and mysterious Beth Davenport, whose brother is the focus of Drebin’s investigation. Directed by Akiva Schaffer, the film also stars Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu and with Danny Huston.
According to Schaffer (pictured), whose credits include Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, as well as numerous
SNL shorts, the film was shot over 40-plus days. Brandon Trost served as director of photography, continuing his long-time collaboration with the director, which dates back to 2010’s MacGruber. Schaffer says he referenced early Tony Scott films, such as
Top Gun and
Beverly Hills Cop II, for their sunbaked LA feel, and the James Bond catalog for its film aesthetics.
“Tomorrow Never Dies hits this real sweet spot, where it looks like a modern movie,” he says of its inspiration. “It takes this leap forward, but it’s still very much shot on film and nostalgic. It looks epic and big! And so that was the one where I was like, ‘That’s the look!’ I pulled a bunch of screen grabs from that. And then, in terms of more modern movies that were shot on film that look amazing —
Casino Royale and
Mission Impossible: Fallout — those were...where I was trying to aim.”
The project was shot using Arri’s large format Alexa cameras and '90s-era Panavision anamorphic lenses.
“I really wanted to shoot in LA, as it’s an LA movie, but, what’s been so much of the conversation recently (is) about how the incentives are so hard to get,” the director reveals. “We basically went to Atlanta, shot all the interiors and every exterior we could get away with. And then we came back to LA and shot some in LA as well.”
The film’s edit enhances the many comedic lines, with well-timed cuts, sound effects and music cues amping up the humor. Schaffer once again teamed with editor Brian Scott Olds, who cut Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, for this film. Olds worked out of rented space and the Paramount lot, cutting on an Avid. During production, he’d quickly assemble cuts for Schaffer to view after shooting, and then once production wrapped, the two spent considerable time together, with Schaffer often cutting scenes together in Adobe Premiere and sharing them with Olds as a way to visualize how he saw a scene coming together.
“I am involved from frame one,” says Schaffer of the editing process. “When I worked at Saturday Night Live, we made all these shorts, and I edited — along with Jorma (Taccone) — every one of them. We never used an editor, and we made over a hundred shorts. I’m very well versed in editing myself.”
In collaborating with Olds, Schaffer says his way of putting together rough cuts helps speed the process, “as opposed to slowing him down and sitting there, nitpicking each thing…[Brian’s] still the only one that edits the movie, ever! I never touch the movie. I have a Premiere (edit) in the other room with dailies. I’m almost using Premiere as just a way to watch dailies fast and make selects, as opposed to going back into Pix or sitting with an assistant at another Avid...It’s not polished. Then it’s going in there and he’s going, ‘Okay, I got it,’ and adding music and making it into a movie.”
Ashley Bettini, who served as visual effects supervisor and producer, put together a small team of in-house effects artists to handle some of the lighter work, with studios such as Outpost handling larger needs.
“I tried to do everything practical, as much as possible, because it’s just funnier when you know we really ripped that wall out before all the prisoners come running out, or we really had a puppet of the snowman,” Schaffer reveals.
Beyond the jail break and snowman (created by The Jim Henson Company), other in-camera effects include the giant claw that fishes an overturned car out of a lake, much like an arcade game. The film’s most challenging scene mixed practical and digital effects. It’s set in what looks to be a hospital, where an interrogation is taking place. The four walls collapse, revealing that the Police Squad are actually in an office, only to have the walls collapse again, revealing a virtual setting.
“The hospital room — it was our biggest, most-expensive build on the whole movie,” Schaffer shares. “They had to build an entire hospital that could have the walls fall down, like Mission Impossible. But then, the room that surrounds them had to be huge enough that those walls can fall without hitting a second round of walls…And then the third is a visual effects, because it was a hologram wall.”
The Naked Gun opened in theaters on August 1st.