On the morning of August 1st, the Venice warehouse set was bustling with activity. Nearly a hundred crew members emerged from the back door of the set, joining a dozen or so filming vehicles that had circled around the massive warehouse. Under Murphy's direction, they began methodically preparing for the final push before filming commenced.
Behind the warehouse set was an abandoned open-air material storage area. When preparations first began, Murphy had Gal Gadot contact the land's previous owner to purchase the plot. They quickly transformed it into a very flat outdoor filming area for some of the action scenes.
Several large green screens were quickly set up. Although Murphy advocated for as much on-location shooting as possible, the heavy traffic in New York, especially in Manhattan—the main filming location—made it nearly impossible to clear an entire street for an explosive car chase scene. After much deliberation, Murphy decided to film some of the major scenes against a green screen at the set, to be later replaced with real Manhattan scenery in post-production.
Today's shoot primarily involved scenes of Chris Dane speeding on an upgraded superbike. Murphy specifically checked in with the stunt team. Such scenes would definitely not involve Henry Cavill himself, as the crew couldn't afford any injuries. The stunt team had already hired three stunt doubles with physiques very similar to Cavill's.
Chris Dane was fully masked throughout, with no close-up shots, making the use of an actor unnecessary.
Murphy then went to the camera crew, where Philip LaSalle was standing on a massive Ford pickup truck converted into a mobile filming vehicle, adjusting the bulky IMAX camera.
"How's the preparation going?" Murphy asked.
Hearing Murphy's voice, LaSalle gestured an 'OK' sign. "No problem!"
After finishing his adjustments, LaSalle looked up at Murphy and said, "I had the other mini-camera installed on the motorcycle yesterday. It's all set up."
Initially, Murphy had wanted to use the forward thrust of a plane taking off to capture the first-person perspective shots of Chris Dane riding the motorcycle, enhancing the impact of the footage. However, planes are incredibly expensive, and installing the heavy IMAX camera on one would require extensive modifications that no one was willing to make, not even Gulfstream, who refused to modify the rental aircraft.
Murphy's own plane wouldn't be delivered until January of the following year, so he had to resort to the method used during the filming of "Chaos City" by installing the camera on Chris Dane's motorcycle and using professional race car drivers to mount cameras on supercars for some shots.
Although this approach didn't quite match Murphy's original vision, it was adequate to meet his requirements.
Filming is like that; unexpected situations always arise, and the director must find solutions.
The departments quickly finished their preparations. Once the stunt rider was on the motorcycle, Murphy climbed onto the filming vehicle platform. With a single command, the shoot officially began.
The motorcycle, resembling a black phantom, sped forward under the stunt rider's control. The filming vehicle was on the motorcycle's right side, keeping pace to allow Murphy and LaSalle to capture the shots from the vehicle-mounted platform.
After about 2,500 feet of filming, Murphy took his eyes off the IMAX camera lens and shouted into the microphone, "Very good! That's a wrap for this take. Move the filming vehicle to the left side and continue shooting!"
He then patted the roof of the black pickup truck. When the driver looked back, Murphy gave him a thumbs-up.
Frankly, this scene tested not the stunt rider but the driver of the filming vehicle.
Maintaining a stable drive while matching the motorcycle's high speed isn't easy and requires exceptional driving skills.
In fact, from such high-speed car chases to various luxury car commercials, observant viewers would notice that drivers of filming vehicles often possess better driving skills than stunt performers.
Of course, the specially modified, high-performance filming vehicle also played a significant role.
Given that this shoot involved many car chases, Murphy hired a professional company and team to modify nearly ten different filming vehicles based on his ideas.
Filming vehicles varied in type and size according to the different filming needs, with camera mounts and setups tailored for each. All were painted matte black to avoid light reflection, which is better for shooting.
In Hollywood, using filming vehicles has a long history.
Tracing back to their first use, a camera was mounted on a car during the filming of "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" in 1925, marking the origin of this tool.
Today, filming vehicles have evolved and are still widely used, often in conjunction with green screens, much like in Murphy's shoot today.
Murphy used a specially modified embedded filming vehicle, built on a Ford Raptor, to mount the bulky IMAX camera.
With built-in mounts, it allowed for various camera and lighting setups, such as flatbed or crane shooting. This embedded filming vehicle could also generate power for any camera and lighting equipment. Murphy could monitor from the driver's seat if not on the scene, while the camera operator worked on the platform.
The crew quickly reset, with the only change being the filming vehicle now on the motorcycle's left side.
As long as the filming vehicle remained stable and in sync with the motorcycle, the shooting posed no great difficulty. The second take also passed in one go.
Murphy then had the crew move to a specially constructed curve to shoot scenes of Chris Dane's motorcycle making high-speed turns, with the bike nearly scraping the ground.
Here, Murphy used another filming vehicle—a composite trailer!
Such trailers are typically used to capture shots at the same or lower height as the driver, hugging the ground but allowing wider shots horizontally.
This trailer required police accompaniment and special permits for use in Australia, though in North America, it was less restricted.
However, Murphy's trailer wasn't an ordinary one. For shooting Chris Dane's laterally moving motorcycle, the trailer's rear wheels were specially modified with "smart rear wheels" to allow slight lateral movement.
For capturing lateral movement, all four wheels could switch to lateral mode during a true slide. This motion had an additional feature called autorotation, enabling the camera to rotate 360 degrees around its center.
The composite trailer's stability was somewhat compromised, though. Despite being motion shots, Murphy disliked shaky footage. He wanted the resulting footage to appear smooth even in motion.
To achieve this, the curve's surface was specially prepared. During pre-production, Murphy had it covered with a layer known in the industry as a "dancing board."
To move the filming vehicle smoothly and without shaking, it needed to be done on a smooth floor. If there was no place for tracks or the track movement wasn't straight or curved, the crew had to set up a dancing board. This specialized board, made from high-quality plywood or birch wood, covered with a smooth Masonite sheet, was three to four inches thick.
Crucially, the joints had to be carefully aligned and taped to create a perfect surface for smooth filming vehicle movement.
In Murphy's view, an excellent filming vehicle could move in any direction, with various movement combinations. The only certainty was to avoid filming the dancing board itself.
When lenses other than wide-angle were mounted on the camera, the smooth board became crucial, as any bump could cause long-shot instability.
Therefore, Murphy avoided using long shots in such action scenes.
However, there were still some difficulties during filming. Murphy found that the motorcycle and stunt rider could lean very close to the ground when turning, making it hard to shoot at a horizontal angle.
After observing for a while, Murphy came up with a solution: adding an extension arm capable of supporting the IMAX camera's weight to the platform.
Murphy had two potential solutions, the other involving readjusting the mounting arm to allow the camera to get just a few inches off the ground, but this required off-site modifications, making it very inconvenient.
Adding an extension arm was relatively simpler, essentially mounting a high-strength alloy tube that could extend the IMAX camera close to the ground.
Due to the extension arm installation, Murphy only managed to shoot two scenes by noon. However, the shooting pace quickened in the afternoon, and within three days, they had mostly completed filming at this location. There were only a few scenes left, which would be shot on location in New York.
Soon after, the main actors also joined the crew.
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