While I was writing the post today in which I told you that what many viewers pointed out as an error in ‘Do not look up’, in which several members of the technical team can be seen in a plane that reached the final assembly, was nothing more than a purposeful tribute, I couldn’t stop thinking about the hilarious ‘Shazam!’ by David F. Sandberg and in a goof that, in this case, was involuntary.
Solving problems
During one of the scenes in the DC Films movie starring Zachary Levi, in which the superhero begins to understand how the powers of flight work inside a shopping mall, There’s a shot where a bunch of crew members sneaked in. A fairly large group of people who shouldn’t be there, and who carefully observe the team of stuntmen helping the main actor float.
By the time Sandberg and his team became aware of the unwanted presences, it was too late. But, to fix a good take that couldn’t be repeated, they pulled wit and morning from the VFX division and transformed the workers into clients and cleaners of the establishment adding some bags and a cart with buckets and mops in front of the onlookers.
This anecdote, along with several others in the same vein, was picked up by the director a couple of years ago in one of the videos on his fantastic and educational YouTube channel, Ponysmasher, under the title ‘The Problem Solving of Filmmaking’. Five minutes in which David F. Sandberg makes it clear that, Beyond artistic and narrative wills, the job of the filmmaker ends up being reduced to something as mundane as solving problems.