Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky has his favorite shot in his latest film, “Catch Stealing.”
The Chase Scene, held at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, New York, is a global fair location and home to the enormous globe known as the Unisphere. At one amazing moment, a drone shot flies directly through the iconic sphere to capture the action.
It has never been done before. “I don’t know if we’re fully permitted that,” Aronofsky tells Variety.
Director behind “Black Swan” and “Mother!” “Using a drone changed the filmmaking in the sense that it’s so easy to get an aerial shot.” He replied, “When we did ‘Noah’, when we needed lots of aerial shots from pigeons flying from boxes to big battles around the ark, we only had wire cams and helicopters.
And while drone use became common in filming, Aronofsky knew that when using drones, he wanted to do cool shots.
“Catch Sweeling” in the theatre set in the gritty Lower East Village in Manhattan in the 1990s features Austin Butler as Hank who blinded trouble when his neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) asked him to take care of his cat. Spirals the spiral so that Russ entanglement with the gang will put Hank in danger at the worst possible moment.
The car chase sequence appears in the third act of the film, when Russ returns and the two are running. They find themselves cornered on the Flushing Meadows site.
High-tensile sequencing was made possible in collaboration with a New York City Park and a skilled drone operator named Dexter Kennedy.
In early conversations, the sequence was taking place on FDR drives in New York. But it will be difficult to shut down. The New York City Parks Division was jointly, but Aronofsky rethinks the idea when shooting chases on the streets and on highways. Additionally, the modern aesthetics of the city were different. Aronofsky said, “The East River was re-doing and remodeling. Everything that once was there has been recently demolished.”
Uniphere, the place of the 1964 world fair, came to mind. Perfect for fast tracking around iconic locations. “We were very sychid,” Aronofsky says.
Aronofsky had his go-to collaborator, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, by his side. “Stool” marks the 10th collaboration.
It wasn’t easy to chase after him. Libertique Black Swan, who worked on “Mother!”, said: “We usually shoot in a controlled environment, but this was a four-day shoot in a very large park, where we had to travel far from the beginning of the scene to the Unisphere and eventually to Sheer Stadium.”
If the performance looked authentic, that’s because they were.
The escape car owned by Russ is a vintage Toyota Celica. Libatique explained: “We put Celica on what is called a biscuit (a platform that sits on beef tires driven by people in the cage), and in situations you can get real performance.
Aronofsky and Libatique did not use the crew of the second unit. Instead, they captured the action themselves. And yes, Butler does all the stunts, like hanging from the fire escape ladder, driving a minivan, and more.
This meant they didn’t have to separate themselves from the emotions on the actors’ faces. They stayed in performance and were able to seamlessly integrate the two. “I think that’s what makes it seem so impactful, and the fact that we’re spinning around the monocyte,” says Libatique. He continues, “Keeping it in a situation is always trying to help the actors. Rather than being on stage on a green screen or on an LED wall, it’s infectious that they’re putting them there and doing it on camera, and what they have as a performer.”
In addition to the film, it’s how Aronofsky and Libertique play a vivid role in New York City. Aronofsky said, “It really got me to dig deeper into which scenes it works best.”
Both have clear memories of what the city looked like back then. “This place rewritten parts of the film and dictated the appearance of the film. Once I saw the location, I understood the camera and understood the appearance and texture of the film,” Aronofsky says.
