For those of you who complain that there is nothing to do in Troy, I ask, why weren’t you downtown this past weekend?
In a once in a lifetime experience, DreamWorks SKG was here on Friday and Saturday nights to film the 19th century scenes in a remake of H.G. Wells’ classic science-fiction story The Time Machine.
Steven Spiel-berg was here before winter break choosing locations to film, and Simon Wells, great grandson of H.G. Wells, is directing the film. Wells’ most recent credit is as director of Prince Of Egypt.
Recognized for its grand Victorian architecture, the Monument Square area in Troy was transformed into an 1899 New York City block.
I watched as the crew brought in trees, old gas street lamps, fire hydrants, and mailboxes throughout the week. All of the storefronts were changed to an old décor and filled with wondrous old props in the windows.
Friday night came with numerous trailers full of sets, costumes, horses, make-up rooms, bathroom facilities, food facilities, and the like, all filling Third and Broadway streets. Lighting equipment was placed on the roofs above where the filming would take place, final touches such as an old style "Hotel" sign were put up, and stop signs were taken down—along with all other evidence of the year 2001.
During Friday night’s filming I could only make out the background of the full scene, as the close-up action was farther down the street where I couldn’t go. The shooting on Friday involved 94 extras, and they kept redoing a scene where one of the central characters, Alexander (Guy Pierce), walks closer to the camera with his love, Emma (Sienna Guillory), along with horse carriages and people moving about. When they went on "lunch" break we were able to walk down the street that filming had just taken place on—however, a crewman wouldn’t let us come back the same way.
Security was a bit tight, but if you were around the right people, you could get pretty close to the action. The film crew lucked out that night since the weather was pleasant, but not so warm that their fake snow would melt. They placed sandbags under the snow to make a more realistic bumpy road.
The second night of filming was so incredibly cold it must have been terrible to work for twelve hours straight—from dusk to early dawn.
My friends and I braved the frigid temperatures—more than 10 below zero thanks to the brutal winds. During takes, we had to huddle like emperor penguins to keep warm.
We managed to get closer this time, as the crew was a little more lax (and practically frozen). They were spending time on a stunt scene where two horses are supposed to rear up and flip a cart worth $100,000, an important scene that sets up the entire movie.
The filming going on in the Hudson Valley is only for the first few but pivotal minutes of the story—the set-up before the plot moves through a few places in time to finally rest in the year 802,701.
After snapping many photos for "personal" use and watching such an interesting process first hand, I left the nights of filming feeling very lucky to have been able to catch a glimpse.
The rest of the $85 million budget will be spent in L.A., and a quarter of that will be spent on visual effects. I anxiously await December 21 to see how great this will look on the big-screen.
