INT: Why would you build a set instead of using location?

AH: Another reason for building sets instead of using the location is maybe the set is like too small but necessary. For instance, on SILVER STREAK, we had a lot in the train compartments. Well, train compartments are not very big. Where do you put the camera? How do you work it? Do you...? Yes, you can take the windows out and shoot from the outside in, but what have you got for a background, then, and how do you get the feel that you're traveling? You don't want to keep cutting out to sort of shots of the, everything train going through some district or something like that. And so something like that, you're better off to build on the set. And so we built our train compartment, and we had through the windows, we had rear screen projections. And we had scouted those when we were scouting. I scouted the Second Unit areas that I wanted, and then went over them with the Second Unit Director, you know, worked out all those things, so that we would have them. That way you get something interesting out the windows going on. Of course the other way, you're looking, as I say, it's sort of blank wall areas, and what I tried there, actually poor David Walsh [David M. Walsh], I felt sorry for him, but I got them to, on the bathroom door, when you opened it, the inside of the bathroom door, to put a full length mirror. And so a couple of times, I had that door open, so that when you're filming from the window side, looking in, you were seeing the people, and you were seeing the wall, except you were in that mirror, seeing the reflection of the rear screen, which made it so hard for the Cinematographer [Director of Photography] because he was lighting in two directions, a 180 degrees apart, but it kept the feeling of the reality of it, and obviously we placed the set on bags, that, like tires and things, and the Grips were slowly just bouncing it along, and you know, doing all that sort of thing. The rear screen can also save you locations, because suppose we were shooting in the train, suppose we could shoot in the compartment, we would have to be changing locations to like six, eight different locations that we could film on the set by just changing the rear screen. So you saved yourself a lot of money in those terms. And another thing on location, by, you sometimes find locations that you can use that you couldn't afford to build.

AH: For instance, in THE IN-LAWS, we [Arthur Hiller and his Crew] had a sequence in a hotel lobby. Well that would've been a major construction because we saw a lot of angles of it, and you'd want an exterior. You know, you would've had cars and, all the, it would've been a big problem. And while we were scouting, I saw a bicycle shop that was at a corner, and so the building was like, the windows came like that and turned, and there was a road up both ways, like a U-shape feel, and I thought, "Oh, that would be a wonderful hotel lobby," and you'd have traffic in three directions so to speak. And we spoke to them and indeed they gave up the bicycle shop. They let us take out all the bicycles, and Pato Guzman created a hotel lobby in that area, so you have, as I say, sometimes you can find these places then that you couldn't afford to build. Or, this was not a necessity or anything, but when I was scouting also on THE IN-LAWS, I bumped into a bull ring, and I just loved the look of it, and I thought, "What can we do?" And I moved what had been a sort of blank wall scene for the firing squad, and I said, "Why not have that in the bull ring?" And so we put the firing squad into the bull ring, and we, under a canopy, created at the other end of it, where they had their lunch before, so look at all the additional visual we got out of it and saved. There's almost no construction. So you have a lot of things, you know, like that, and... [INT: And then that's apartment in the, how do...?] Well, also you could, you find things, I say, find the bullring, and you get an idea. We went down on OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, we went downtown, and we were looking in the old warehouses, sort of for an artist studio, and we came across this huge room where you came in on the second floor, like almost on a balcony, and looked down into space, and what it was, had been, that's where they distilled the beer. I mean it was like forty feet square, this huge room. It was an old distillery, and we made that her bedroom, and so we got, again, into a very interesting sort of location out of that. Sometimes you get your interesting location because you have to like, with Bette [Bette Midler], this has nothing to do with construction, but the, because she was four to seven months pregnant, and you're trying to get the feel that she's, that both girls are running here and climbing there, and doing all that. We had to think up tricks. We had to build little handrails that you wouldn't see that Bette could hang onto when she was climbing up or going down. We had to put in little steps that she could be on when you wouldn't see her feet, or I started one shot. So it was just one continuous shot where you saw Shelley [Shelley Long] and Bette very close, and you're dollying with them, and then it loosens, and loosens, and they're sort of going away, and you see them, and they go behind a tree, and then suddenly they're past the tree, and they're climbing up and you, it wasn't Bette climbing up. Yes, you saw her. You knew it was her. What you didn't know was that as we passed the tree, behind the tree was a stunt girl, and Bette stopped and the stunt girl took over, but it's, you feel as you watch it that it's continuous, so it's almost like a frame cut. A frame cut is something I learned.

AH: I was watching a Hitchcock film once. I'd forgotten which one, but I became aware, I thought, "Wait a minute. He was just on the street, a real live street, and now I could tell he was on the back lot street." You know, there was a change. It was minimal, but being in film, I could tell, and there hadn't been a cut. And the next thing I knew, they were going across a huge fence and into a window and onto a set, and I thought, "Wait a minute. This is not possible." And I figured out what he was doing was a frame cut. And I think I could best explain it by telling you what we did in W.C. FIELDS AND ME. I was saying before that you save locations by using your rear screen and wonderful, but sometimes you, what should I say, add locations to get a particular effect, and a frame cut can do that. For instance, in W.C. FIELDS, there was supposed to be this elegant mansion, and I didn't, and it was, it had to have a tennis court and whatnot that we needed, and the mansion or big home that I found, that I liked so much, didn't have a tennis court, but a block and a half away was one with a wonderful tennis court but not such a great mansion. And so what I did, borrowing from Hitch, was I got a, I said, "Get me a piece of a big tree," about this big and about so big around, and put it, we put it on a stand. And I worked out a dolly shot with, I've forgotten who was the butler carrying the drinks or something, so that as the butler came along, you'd see the house in the background and everything and then he passes the little bit of tree, which just, you're close enough that it just, and there's lots of other trees around, and it… What you have to do is, and then continue, and then you stop the shot, and then you take that piece of tree, and you take it over to the other location, and you put it up, and you do the same move, sort of move, just make sure again, that you're at the same speed, same movement, same person doing the same thing, and as long as that piece of tree in both places fills a frame, one frame, once, the Editor can cut on that frame, and you don't notice it because of the fabric of a tree or something like that. It can be just a plain piece of wood or, which is what Hitch was using, or the top of a fence, and it just feels like a continuous move. And you put two locations together, but it feels like one.

AH: Or I did in MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH [THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH], and I wanted the feeling there of this man, how should I say, that he owned New York, so to speak, that you just felt that he had everything, and what the heck is his problem? And so when we found, we scouted for a location, like a balcony in New York and found one at 57th Street and 5th Avenue. And had to sort of, on a Sunday, talk to the security and got them to let us in and finally worked out a deal. It was a company, but they let us use this balcony. We used it as a home balcony, and we dressed it properly, and I said to my Production Designer, when the, it continues from there, into his beautiful home that we were building as a set, back here. I said, "Create wood frame for the doors, the double doors leading in, wide enough, or give me something that I can cut on to a frame cut." And we brought the wooden frame of the double doors leading in, we brought them to New York, or a piece of them, and held it up, and we started the shot looking off this balcony towards Central Park, so you saw all of Central Park, and all that area, swung around, panned around with Max Schell [Maximilian Schell], you know, with his narrating and storytelling, and you saw the sort of all the buildings of the east side, and then around, and he relates to his wife's ashes and things, the monument that we had on the balcony and that. He plays a little scene. It's all continuous, and then he heads back to us, so we've come around over a 180 degrees of feeling that's all part of him, and he heads inside, and we did a frame cut on this frame, so that he passed, and as he went, I'm getting this wrong 'cause he couldn't go behind the frame. We did something, though, that gave me a frame cut that was something like that. I've forgotten exactly now, but so that we went past something, he went behind and then had that item on our set and just walked him again, you know, so there was a frame cut on that, so that the shot goes from Central Park around and faces the other way, in New York, now into, and took him in on the set and around, 360 in the set to get the feeling that he owned the world sort of thing. So you do things, how should I say, like that in terms of frame cuts to set a location as something. Even in LOVE STORY, when he [Ryan O'Neal character] goes down the street and into his, into the building, into the doctor's office, and the doctor's going to tell him that his wife [Ali MacGraw character] is dying. I thought I don't want to take him in, and then cut, and it goes in and, or even just cut to him sitting there. I wanted to feel continuity and yet I didn't want to go through all the, take him in and do all the introductions and then, to each other, “How do you do, etc.” So what I did was carried him. Let him go in the door. As he went in the door, we came back along the building, to the window, except we really had done a frame cut, and we're at another building. And so we frame cut on the stone, but it was the same kind of stone, and so we dollied back, and he's already in the office, talking, and then you cut in, and they could be in mid-conversation. So you do, I'd say, when you need it dramatically, a frame cut is, you know, is very helpful that way.

AH: Sometimes the use of the frame cut isn't to put locations together. For instance, in the OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, Shelley Long is supposed to be this wonderful ballet dancer, so that at the end, the climactic visual is that she's being chased by Peter Coyote, the bad guy, and they're up in the mountains, and she makes a leap across a crevice that's impossible, but beautiful ballet leap and just lands on the other side. And of course, the villain doesn't quite make it. And so to establish how good she was as a ballet dancer, she's not a ballet person, so to speak, I said to the Production Designer, "When we, in the room, whatever room we find that we use in New York as the room at the beginning, where they're being taught ballet, give me some pillars, make it work in and then I can use one to frame cut." And what I did was, there was a contest and each of the ballet girls has to do a run and a leap and who leaps the farthest, doing it smoothly, so what I did was, start at one end of the room with the lineup of the girls, and you... Well, first you see one girl do the leap. Then you cut in and realize now it's Shelley's turn, and she starts, and she goes along, and we go along, and she leaps in this wonderful leap. Well she couldn't do that. What I had was this post, and as she ran along, we went past the post, and you go by quickly, but it filled the frame for that one beat, and you do it, and she did a jump, and then I redid it with the ballet dancer who looked like her, and same shot, and she does leap, and then the Editor cuts on the post, on that fraction of a moment and establishes that you feel it is the same person. Well, you do it for a stunt. It can be in one place or it can be in two places, like in THE IN-LAWS, Alan Arkin comes running out of the hotel, rushes to the corner, running away from the bad guys, and what they going to do? Where's he going to go? And the taxi is going by and he leaps up on top of the taxi and grabs the luggage rack and rides along. Well, I wanted them, again, to feel it was Alan doing it, not a stunt person, and I said, "Get me a newsstand, one of those little sort of cubicle news stands that you can put on the corner. It's about four feet wid..." And we designed the shot so he comes running out, and you see them chasing him, and you go with him, and around, of course, the newsstand fills the frame for actually a couple of frames, and what I had was the Stunt Person was hidden on the other side of the newsstand, and Alan stopped, and the Stunt Guy took over, but it's a continuous shot. And you feel that that's what does it. It takes... You not only have to think of things, you have to let everybody know. You have to, you and your Assistant have to let the Crew know, everybody, all the details like, all those things I was saying on OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, about where the handrails are, where the climbing is, all, or on SILVER STREAK with the, mentioned where I said, where we brought the heads of the Crew up and took them on top of the train, and I showed them every shot, you know and hanging. I need cameras hanging, all those things. The more you let the Crew know, the more they are aware of what your vision is and the more time, more prepared they are. And I think that's terribly important to do in production.

AH: Look at THE OUT OF TOWNERS, where we [Arthur Hiller and his Crew] were in constant bedlam. They [Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis] were into problems every which way they turned, and they were racing through the rain in the street. They were mugged in the streets. They were, they bumped into a whole demonstration in front of a consulate. They, a manhole cover blows up, traffic without any, no buses, and no taxis. You know, they were on strike. You have to know all ahead what you're going to do, so that your Assistant [Assistant Director], like Pete Scoppa [Peter R. Scoppa] and Larry Albucher [Larry Y. Albucher] would work with the police department and sit and lay out ahead of time, so the police could get their preparations ready to stop four blocks of traffic, so that there wouldn't be taxis and buses coming through. Or all those things, or on THE IN-LAWS, all the activities that they, police had to know. In fact in, on THE IN-LAWS, we had a sequence where the taxi and part of Manhattan goes through, I've forgotten now, about 33rd, there's a little triangle near Macy's, have a park, and I wanted to go through the park, and out, and the police turned us down. They said, "You know, that was..." They accepted everything else, but, "That," they said, "was just going to interfere too much with traffic," and we pointed out why, and it wouldn't, and they said, "Well..." we said, "we'll do it Sunday." No, they kept refusing and I though… And finally I said, "Ah. Let’s go back to them," and I switched it. I brought them in the other side and out. So instead of coming in this way, they went this way. I said, "It's no big deal for us." They said, "You're out of your mind. You know, it’s..." I said, "Go ahead," and they took it into the location. Finally, they said, "Okay." And they went in, and the police approved it. So, again you have to just keep everything going, going, going. Almost don't give up. Keep trying things.

INT: Do you want to talk about the, in LOVE STORY, walking next to the Actors? Anything like that? [AH: Which one?] In LOVE STORY. The scene shot from the doorway?

AH: The next day, we didn't have all that snow fall that we had on the, that first day of LOVE STORY's four day shoot, but we had rain, and I thought, “Well, ah!” I said, "We can do that nice, that new scene where it's, they're walking along talking. It's just walking along. We'll do that." And everybody said, "Arthur, it's raining." I said, "So we’ll give them umbrellas." And they said, "No-no, we're not talking about the Actors. We're talking about the camera." See we had no money, so we didn't have coverage for the camera, and the rain would spatter the lens. And oh, so I thought, “Well, oh.” I said, "We've got a station wagon." They said, "Yes." I said, "Put the camera in the back-end of the station wagon. Then it's covered, and it'll drive, and I'll just, the Actors can walk just towards camera. As long as there's something nicely visual. It's just a nice two-shot, and it's nothing intricate. And everybody said, "But Arthur, we're in..." It wasn't Harvard Square, but it was a square at Harvard, and they said, "But there's no, there's no road, you know." "Oh. Ah," I said, "there's an asphalt walkway, we'll sweep that, and he can drive, you know, the station wagon there." And they said, "But Arthur, how's he gonna get the station wagon over to here, there's no..." I said, "The driver will figure out something." And he did. I mean, he drove it across the snow, but someway got the station wagon there, and indeed we got, put the camera in the back-end and worked it out with the Actors and you know, we tried and everything fine and dandy. And we go ahead to do a take, and I say "Action." And the van starts driving along, and the Actors are walking and going, and about eight, 10 seconds in, the Camera Operator said, "Cut." And I thought, why is he cutting? What's...? The exhaust was coming up from the trail, the back-end of the wagon, of the station wagon in front of the lens. Oh. Well what… You know how we ended up doing it? We ended up doing it with everybody except the Sound Mixer, who was at his controls. The rest of us, I think 10 of us, became Dolly Grips. We put the van, the station wagon rather, into neutral, and we all pushed it along. And it worked. We got the shot. I mean it looks like nothing on the screen. It's two people walking along, but imagine if you had a visual of, that's what a Director does, pushes...

AH: I'm just thinking on, the following day when the weather was nicer [during filming for LOVE STORY], and the other, the third scene that Erich [Erich Segal] had written was also them [Actors Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw] sort of walking along, but it was a street scene, but I thought, “Well how could we do this when we don't have a lot of assistance, you know, and we don't have that much help to keep people away,” and that. So I worked it out that we put the camera in a doorway, not too deeply in, but so it wasn't sticking out, so to speak, on the street, and a long lens, and started with them across the street, walking along, and the camera panned them to the corner. Then they crossed the street, and then they came towards the camera, and got closer and closer. And that's the way with the lens, you know, changing accordingly. The big problem, though, again, was we couldn't afford, like, there were no earphones or how could I hear the dialogue when I was across the street? So I ended up running ahead of them, keeping out of the shot, but trying to be close enough so I could hear and also helping the Assistant [Assistant Director] keep people away, so they wouldn't get in our shot or screw up the shot, and I think I actually, I do appear for one frame. But those are, again, the silly problems one faces and that you just have to... I, other times, had to sort of go along very near the Actors to hear them, because of certain problems, but not, should we say, looking after traffic at the same time.

INT: Do you ever use screen tests, either for Actors or locations?

AH: I've rarely worked with screen tests. A lot of people I know do a lot of testing. We tested for the lead in LOVE STORY. We tested six Actors 'cause we couldn't quite decide who we wanted, and there were a half a dozen people we thought about, and so we tested them. And of the six, we felt that Ryan O'Neal was the best and yet we're not a 100 percent sure. And Bob Evans [Robert Evans] arranged for me to go over to Fox [20th Century Fox] to see some dailies that Ryan, of the film that Ryan was shooting at that time. And I watched the dailies and I thought, “I'm not sure that that's right for the scene.” But I thought, “If he can do that, then it's terrific for us.” And we went with Ryan, who was, of course, the perfect choice, that just, when you think of what he brought to that film, and I had worked with him before in television and liked him, and we got on well, and so I was leaning to somebody like that, obviously. In terms of testing locations or screening, I've never, we take a lot of pictures, sure, of things. And the closest I've come to, what should I say, screen testing was, in OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, there was a whole sequence written. They're on the baggage conveyer from, they run in from the outside, from where the planes land, from that side, and they get on it to get away from whoever's chasing them, and they ride the whole way and down out onto the, to where the luggage comes out. And I went to a few, when we were scouting both in Arizona and in Texas, so I went to, and the only place I found the conveyers, that seemed to work at all, was in Phoenix, in Arizona. And I thought, “Well, yeah, I could do this part of the dialogue. Yes, I can put a camera there, or we'll be able to put one here, you know, and they'll be able to light.” You have to think of all those things. And then I thought, “Boy, I better remember this,” and so I took the, I think it was a 8 millimeter video at that time, and I got on at the plane end of the luggage, and I rode it with, all the way. You can imagine what people who were waiting, you know, around the conv--there weren't that many 'cause, but there were a lot of people, as I came flying out of the luggage shooting down to the roundabout with this camera. I mean my guys were waiting to catch me, but I must've looked pretty silly.

INT: How do you work with budget issues?

AH: It's very difficult to work, as we say, with budget problems. First I, you know, I sit with the Production Manager and the Assistant Director, you know, and give thought to… Well, first of all, you have to say to yourself, do I think I can do this film within this framework? For instance, MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH [THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH], we only had one million dollars and 23 days to film. And you work it out. You think what are the ways then, once you've thought, I think we can do, and they will work out a schedule, and you'll go over the schedule with them and try to work out places. And you always let them know whether there's something specific you need and do you need a crane, at one time, or do you not need a crane, or do you, are you going to need a lot of dolly track or what other costly ventures you do need or what can you avoid or they'll come up with ideas. Or you do like on MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH, as I was saying, what I did was I rehearsed for 12 days, with almost the entire cast. Fortunately, I could work them without bumping into that kind of you “started me on salary,” because I knew that when we got on the set, we weren't going to have time to discuss character, so we did a lot of rehearsal. And in fact, when we were working on the lot, in the jury room or not jury room, but the trial room, and where the glass booth was and all, I would arrange with security and on Sunday's while we were filming, I arranged with security and I would go with Max [Maximilian Schell], in with Max Schell, and security would let us in on the stage, just the two of us; I wouldn't let anybody else come with us. The two of us would just work on what was the most important thing that he had to do during the rest of the, you know, the rest of the week or this, or the coming week. Or in LOVE STORY, was also, as I've told you, we had to do… well when I took it on, Paramount [Paramount Pictures] was going under, and I signed at a quarter of my normal salary, which upset my Agent, and but I liked it, and we were just making a little movie. And it's a, we'd go ahead and indeed about, the first couple of weeks that we were sort of working, just vague pre-production, not quite into pre-production, but semi pre-production, they came to me: Would I reduce my salary another 25,000 because they really, they couldn't afford it. And I knew they really didn't have the money. They'd sold off half the backlot. And they said, "And we'll give you points." And when you're on a picture, and you know they really don't have it, you just, I said, "Okay." And my Agent made a fine deal on the points, and I had to write him a thank you letter after because it took off and went into such profit. But again there, to… I rehearsed because I knew, again, I would be pressured in schedule time. I rehearsed with Ryan [Ryan O'Neal] and Ali [Ali MacGraw] for 10 days; from 10 to four, every day. I wouldn't let anybody else in. Four o'clock, hair could come in or makeup could come in, that sort of thing. Now, I say budget reasons. Yes, but the basic reason was I wanted to get them to like each other, to know each other, and to be comfortable with each other, because I felt that was so necessary for the characters. Yes, we worked on scenes, and we rehearsed and worked. But basically it was just to enjoy each other, and to like each other, and it worked. It worked well.

INT: Do you... what are your feelings about the responsibility of the filmmaker in regards to the studio and the budget and all of that?

AH: I feel very strongly. When I go to classes, and I talk to film students, and we do workshop, or we talk, or they ask questions, and I tell them various things, I always say, "I want to talk to you about two things you're not taught in school: Respect and responsibility. Respect for your craft. It's not a game. It's an art form. You have to respect what it is, and respect for the other people and their work and what they're doing. And responsibility. We all complain. We all say, ‘Oh the studio. They didn't give me this money and that.’ They put up the money. It's their money, and you agreed to it. You agreed to do it at that budget. You agreed to do it at that many days. You have a responsibility to carry through, not complain. You should've complained or not at all.” And I think that's a very, very important, and I think that that's, you do have that sort of responsibility.

INT: Can you discuss scheduling in relation to budgetary issues?

AH: I listen a lot to my Assistant Director and my Production Manager in terms of thoughts about how scheduling in terms of saving money, of what could I work in this way. Or when we're scouting, I keep in mind, can I use this location for something else while we're here? And I try to find two or three ways or what changes can we make in a room, so that you're in the same room, and it becomes a different room? Just maybe you only see two of the walls, or something and then you see the other two, or you build it in such a way that you take away one wall, and you add one, and it makes a total difference. You have to be working with your Assistant Director and Production Manager. You have to be working with your Production Designer, your costume people, props, all the set dressers, all those people. You have to… Location Managers, you explain what you're looking for, and tell them to keep in mind, if you can find me something that I can twist around… You'd be amazed how many times you use the same location for two very different kinds of locations and can save money--