10 Secret Techniques Films Used To Ensure Perfection

Filming Michel Gondry’s lo-fi sci-fi masterpiece gave the cast and crew more than the usual amount of headaches, due to the director’s insistence on shooting on location with significant practical effects, coupled with the unpredictability of improvisation.

Considering the relatively modest $20m production budget, a great deal of creativity was needed to achieve the in-camera practical effects that Gondry required. These involved inspired use of established filmmaking techniques like continuity editing, forced perspective, split focus, spotlighting and hidden space. Unconventional dollies using sleds, chariots and even wheelchairs became commonplace - Gondry appreciated the uneven movement and low angle.

Nowhere is this creativity more evident than in the scenes at the beach house in Montauk. With the cameras tight on Jim Carrey’s Joel and Kate Winslet’s Clementine, the backdrop told the subtext of the story, the ocean breaking the house apart to signify Joel’s memories of their relationship fracturing and disappearing.

The house itself was a set, but one built on location on the beach so that the tide would rise and first erode, then demolish it. This proved harder than expected as the original riggers refused, citing the insanity of creating sets in the sea that were designed to be destroyed by water.

Gondry fired them on the spot and simply ordered the film’s cast and crew themselves to place the set in the water, causing the head of the union to tear strips off of him in front of everyone.