My incredibly biased “review” (spoilers below)

Longlegs is the first “real” movie I’ve been fortunate enough to work on. 7 of the best weeks of my life up in beautiful Vancouver BC. Growing up I always loved watching behind the scenes/making of special features on DVDs, which inspired me to pursue some kind of career in filmmaking. It always looked like so much damn fun just to be there and help in some small way, to be a fly on the wall watching the magic happen. For those 7 weeks I was the fly on the wall.

I don’t really know if I can comment on the quality of the movie or my enjoyment of it, because it just plays like a time capsule for me. For every shot I see I remember where I was hiding off camera, often times just behind a wall, huddled together with other crew members watching the take on a monitor. I remember how goddamn cold it was most of the time, what I had for lunch, who I was hanging out with and what we talked about that day. 

I got there during the final week of prep. We spent a lot of that week doing tech scouts, giving final approvals on wardrobe, props. And the night before the big cast table read, the second to last day of prep, I stayed with Oz and Dan until after midnight working with Oz as he did some pretty significant rewrites of the script (I contributed two whole words). Lots of new lore and mystery that was added to the script that night. I want to say more, but that’s not my story to tell. It’s also pretty wild seeing the final cut of the film and comparing it to the script. The structure seems pretty damn different. Different ending too. 

The first day Nic Cage was on set was also the first day I experienced snowfall. One minute the Longlegs stand-in is there as the shot is getting set up, then all of a sudden Nic Cage is there and everything is different. This is the scene where Longlegs approaches young Harker. We had been filming for a few weeks before this and we had gotten into a nice groove of things. But when Cage showed up people stopped messing around and joking. Everything got very serious. People would look away from him when he was walking by. During his takes no one would move, we would just listen to that insane fucking voice performance. Before doing takes he would do these vocal warmups, producing some of the strangest sounds I’ve ever heard the human voice make. Not once. Not twice. But as many times as he likes. 

*In the middle of this Cage talk I should also say that Maika is also a great actor and a lovely person*

For the first few days Nic Cage was completely in character. Oz would direct him as Kobble, one his characters names. After a while he began to open up, and seemed like he was having a lot of fun. During a setup in Longlegs lair he asked what lens we were shooting on. Oz replied “18”. Cage- “I love it. So cool. Very Kubrick”. On his final day, after we finished shooting the scene with him and Maika in the interrogation room, Oz gave a great speech about how we were all incredible privileged to be in the presence of one of the last great movie stars. Afterwards Nic truly broke character, and gave a short speech of his own where he thanked us all for our hard work and told us how much fun he had. All while completely covered in blood. The story they’re promoting about how this was the first time Maika saw Nic is true, and it was incredible getting to watch that unbroken take of Maika’s reaction, and just hearing Nic’s insane voice off camera. Maybe even more powerful than how it’s cut together in the film.

I could go on rambling off different memories and anecdotes from the shoot, but I’ve probably said enough. It can’t be overstated what a beautiful time it was working on this film. The whole cast and crew were so wonderful. I wish it could have gone on forever, but like all good things, there is an end.