Hi All --
I really can't comment at length about the Treasure Island brouhaha, but suffice it to say that don't believe everything you read. It's true there are problems getting worked out, but the details expressed in that article are not all true. The San Francisco Examiner is pretty much the NY Post of this city, and displays about the same amount of journalistic integrity and propensity for airing controversy just for the sake of controversy.
If we have to move out of Treasure Island, though, we will still film the majority of the movie in the Bay Area.
As much as Chris and the producers tried to find a way to do more filming in NYC, the truth is that you cannot shoot on the streets of NYC after dark and play music while doing so: there is a law that prevents productions from doing that, because of all the residents' complaints over the years from music videos doing night shoots in their neighborhoods. That fact alone makes it impossible to shoot most of Rent in NYC, sadly. There will still be some shooting in the city (including on the Brooklyn Bridge at one point), but the bulk will have to be done elsewhere.
But Chris and our cinematographer have vowed to challenge anyone to know from watching the film that it wasn't *all* shot in NYC. Hopefully they'll win that challenge.
As for other questions:
"1. Can you tell us how the sound of the updated versions of the rent music is. Is it faster, slower, more rock, less rock..?"
I've only heard rough mixes of some of the songs' basic tracks at this point, so I can't say for certain how they will all sound in their final versions, but overall I can say that the sonic experience is much fuller than on the OBC. And the drums alone on "Rent" kick some serious *ass.* But the tempi are pretty much the same, or different only by degrees. There are slight changes in a couple of the vocal arrangements, and there will be a lot more voices on some of the songs, including "Rent." Overall, I think it will sound amazing, especially in a surround sound theatre. I get chills thinking about Jonathan's beautiful cacophony washing over you as you sit there with your popcorn...
"Have the costumes changed at all?"
They will definitely change, especially for me, since I will actually get to change my clothes, since this is a film that happens over time. The costume design is all still getting figured out, and will continue to get figured out up until the time we're shooting. Oh, and about our costume designer, I was talking to her the other day, and found out she also designed Return of the Jedi! How cool is *that*?
"Any update on the release date of the movie?"
That won't all be finalized for some time yet, but it will probably not be out until mid-December at the earliest. When we did A Beautiful Mind, we shot through the middle of June, and the film was released on the 19th of December, so I would imagine our release schedule would be something similar, giving them plenty of time to cut the film together and do whatever post-production fixes that might need to happen.
Jesse gets into town today. I'm very excited to see him. It's been a while, although we've talked on the phone quite a bit. He's so happy to be doing the movie...
Talk to you all soon --
Anthony
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