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Will there be many extras on the DVD?
Wyck Godfrey: "Well, the nude scene you shot that wasn’t in the book will probably be on there. I don’t know, I think with any film you go through the process of kind of editing it down to its fighting weight, and ultimately you’re going to end up with some scenes that didn’t end up in the movie."
David Slade: "There were a number of scenes which, you know, just felt excessive in terms of beating the same story, so we took them out.
But some of them were really nice and are great little stand-alones."
Wyck Godfrey: "There was a great scene with Angela [Christian Serratos] and Kristen that is really just kind of two girls talking about guy troubles, and it’s really, really sweet. But it took place in a section of the movie that we really had to kind of propel."
David Slade: "What happens is the film has its own momentum from the script, and you start driving and you start snowballing, you start going and going and going. By the time you hit the third act, you’re just blasting along. And that scene just went — (skidding noise) stop. But it’s a beautiful scene, beautifully performed, and it’s going to be a nice, little bonus for fans of the books to know that we went and shot that stuff."
Any behind the scenes content just for the DVD?
Wyck Godfrey: "Well, I think there’s going to be a lot of classic behind the scenes stuff. You’ll get to see how we did most of the action and stunts in the movie and a lot of the CG process.
All of that stuff, I think, will flesh out the experience for audiences that do like to go behind the camera and see how it’s all done."
How did you decide to add the sly wit to this movie?
Wyck Godfrey: "There’s a comfort level that people have with each other... When you first meet someone, sometimes you’re less able to go to the comedic place than you are when you’ve known each other for a while. And I feel like, as an audience member, you want to experience the progression of the characters as well and appreciate when they are starting to be easier with each other and more casual in the face of heightened drama, which Eclipse certainly has."
David Slade: "For me as director, you look at the performances that have gone before and you look at someone like Billy Burke, and Billy can improvise. Everyone else can tell me what they want to write down and change what is on the script and we talked about it. Billy just has natural comic timing. All those expressions he does are completely 100% Billy. He’s great, so you kind of capitalize on that."
Did anything you tried not work?
David Slade; "No, I think actually the other way around. More comedy evolved. For instance, the scene at the police station, Billy’s exit was a complete improvisation that just looked great. The other stuff was funny, the stuff was written funny, but he just said, ‘Let me just try this,’ and we just chose the one that was the funniest."
How about bringing in Bryce Dallas Howard to play Victoria?
Wyck Godfrey: "It all happened really quickly. Rachelle [Lefevre] became unavailable three weeks into shooting, and we had to react very quickly. Bryce was somebody that early, early on - even from Twilight - had been on a list and unavailable. So we were kind of up against it, frankly, and had to pick quickly. We were really fortunate that we could send her the script immediately, and then she decided she wanted to do it. So that, the process of replacing Rachelle and finding the right actress, was actually smooth because Bryce was the first person we went to and she said yes."
David Slade: "One of the slight misconceptions about these films is that they’re these giant, huge-budget blockbusters. These films are made more like independent films so our schedule, not just for money but also for actor availability, was so tight. We shot this film in 50 days? 52 days? Most action movies are shot in double, triple that. And we had a schedule that basically fit together like a jigsaw puzzle — one way — so we just had no other choice."
What was the easiest and what was the most difficult thing about the adaptation process?
David Slade: "I think sticking to the emotional character arc was the most important thing, yet we had so much story to tell and it was great story. I think the hardest thing was combining those things and figuring out what the hell we were going to jettison. I think that’s across the board and that went from pre-production through shooting through editorial, was how would we get this into the movie? How can we tell Jasper’s story, which is a movie in itself, in three minutes and still have all the salient points and not detract from the main story and pay respect to the source material? It’s an obvious answer, but it’s the dichotomy between such great content and story and how you shave off without hurting. You have the story of the farmer and the pig that’s all bandaged. That’s not the way to go about getting bacon... He cuts the sides, bandages it up, keeps the pig alive. That’s not the way to do it."
?Wyck Godfrey: "It’s also the genius of Melissa Rosenberg is that she’s able to distill a book down to its essential qualities. And I think in each movie, she’s done an amazing job of that and then Stephenie [Meyer] with her can go, ‘I really think you’re going to miss this if we don’t have it.’ And then it’s a back and forth of figuring out how to accommodate some of those scenes. But what we’ve been able to do is distill the film down to its emotional essentials."
What is it about vampires and what makes your vampire films different?
David Slade: "Aren’t they fascinating? Aren’t they fascinating? In many ways, they are the worst and the best of us. I hate to use the word dichotomy twice, between this film and the last in terms of vampires, but what was so attractive to me about the Twilight film after doing the horrific film I did before, is that what Stephanie had done was so cleverly package all that is so dangerous and slightly sexy into this purity, and then surrounded it with family and made it lovable and acceptable. At the end of the day, there’s still a carnivore in that so that’s such a great bit of material to work with."
How else are you reaching out besides Twitter?
David Slade: "Oh, Twitter gets me in trouble. I don’t know...with my hands?"
Wyck Godfrey: "We haven’t told him yet but we’re sending him out on a tour of the Ozarks and Middle America."
David Slade: "They first showed me the tour of Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan, which I’ve turned down. No, my experience with fans has been fantastic. We would finish shooting at six in the morning and they’d been up all night trying to get a glimpse - and they have great tenacity. Whenever I’ve been cornered and stuck with them they’ve always been lovely and respectful. I think it’s a hallmark of this particular franchise that the fans are not overly-critical. They’re very, very accepting. And, you know, my only experience that was kind of weird was I was doing rehearsals with the actors at the hotel and the fans were camping out, and we found a way to sneak around just so we could get in and out. I came out the wrong way and suddenly there was this army there. And I looked at them and you know the thing they say about wild animals is don’t run, right? So I took a step back and they took a step forward. And then I panicked and I ran, and they ran after me. But it was all in good-nature. I ran into a shop and they ran by. It was like The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night, only with a really ugly short bald man instead of Beatles."
Can you talk about filming Jasper's flashback?
David Slade: "It was a lot of fun for sure. The schedule was the schedule was the schedule. We would shoot the Rochester Park scene like a month before we’d shoot the night scene. Actually, we shot the hotel room and the outside scene where Rosalie’s walking down the street on the same night. No, they were great fun to do. You know, to me Eclipse has these great backstories which, again, would make... I think Jasper’s story, I think the spirit warrior story would make a film on its own. The sad part was how little we could show."
"I remember early on we wanted to do a giant kind of newborn battle from the 1700s, which was just impractical. We just couldn’t do it. We were like, 'Yeah, we’re going to get 300 people flying through the air and killing each other.' Then we were like, 'How many days? We’re going to tell this part of the story.' Yeah, it was great to do a Western, a ‘30s period piece, a 1600s historical piece and a contemporary film at once. It was a dream."
Where’s the Michael Sheen character?
David Slade: "He’s in England. No he’s back in Italy. No, he’s not in the book. He’s actually playing Tony Blair."
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