Hannaford's Ranch... (the house and
the large outdoors terrace)
It must be clear that all the
"establishing shots" taken with short lenses showing the size and
surface area of Hannaford ranch have already been taken. Nothing
more is needed. We cannot rely on finding another house in Spain
that is in synch with what has been filmed. And what is more
important, we have no need to find it.
What we do need is a big building
(preferably a private house) with at least one large room. It would
require detailed, thorough decoration, but otherwise no further
characterization except the rare case, which we will deal with
elsewhere in this memorandum.
I will start by expressing my
conviction that we mustn't contemplate the possibility of using a
normal movie studio...
There are several reasons for
this:
1) Financial aspects:
In general terms, movie studios are
more expensive than private homes (this is even more true if we
manage to find, as I hope we will, a sufficiently large house
somewhere in the countryside). In that way we will save money in
transportation and in studio rental)
2) The general nature of the
movie
As soon as we find ourselves
working in a non-studio setting, we will automatically cut down on
the number of crew technicians. No matter how many control measures
are implemented, in a movie studio there are always spies. The
least they can do is inform about the apparent modesty and poverty
of what we are doing. In a real scenery, such spies (be they
benevolent or not) can be kept at bay.
3) The attitude and behavior of the secondary actors and
actresses in a natural setting is automatically different to what
one finds in a movie studio. At our location (even if the house is
near the city) we can force their shifts, work harder and longer
whenever necessary and do it our way, with more freedom than in a
studio, regardless of how relaxed the studio control might be.
The ideal solution, from my point
of view and in the interest of the overall total budget, would be
to find a sufficiently large house for me, in which I could stay
with Gary Graver and even a few foreign actors (thereby eliminating
hotel expenses) and where most of the sequence on the party could
be filmed, with the understanding that this sequence constitutes
most of what remains to be filmed of the movie.
I'd insist that absolute priority
be given to the task of looking for such a house.
If this can be done quickly, it would be possible for me to
study its possibilities as soon as I arrive in Spain to work on the
preliminary budget.
Nothing mustn't necessarily be in
synch with the house - or houses, to be more precise- that was used
for shooting the movie in America.
It is essential that absolutely
everything that remains to be filmed in that setting will be the
shots of the actors (or extras) so close-up that the decoration
itself will hardly be seen. This is even more true when bearing in
mind that, at the beginning of the party, the generator at
Hannaford's Ranch broke down and all the lights went out.
Accordingly, the general effect is gloomy, with strong contrasts
wherever spotlights are used to catch the first takes of whoever is
talking.
The size of the large room is of crucial importance not so much
because we might want it to be seen at a given moment as very big,
but because we need a lot of space for camera movements amongst the
numerous guests and to allow for considerable usage of long
objects.
ORSON WELLES