Lensing in Manhattan: Locations, Design and Camerawork
Definitely, Maybe takes place almost exclusively in New York, spanning 16 years-1992 to 2008-in the lives of not only the characters, but of the metropolis itself. “It was a challenge to tell the story of how the city changed in that time period,” says Brooks. Will Hayes arrives in New York from Madison, Wisconsin, an idealistic and enthusiastic young man. “A lot of kids would come and live here then,” he comments. “Now they can’t afford it.”
For his director of photography, Brooks called upon a family friend, Florian Ballhaus. Son of the legendary cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, Florian Ballhaus and Brooks had known one another since Brooks worked on the elder Ballhaus’ films. The younger Ballhaus has subsequently become a noted cinematographer in his own right, shooting such features as Flightplan and another New York romantic comedy, The Devil Wears Prada. “Prada was spectacular-looking, but more than that, it’s a very personal thing, that collaboration [between director and cameraman],” Brooks suggests. “It’s the most like a marriage. Florian suits me because he’s incredibly rigorous, but also gracious and even-tempered.”
To capture New York City in the early 1990s, Brooks knew he would need to find a production designer who could dovetail her skills with Ballhaus’ to create an era that extended from pre-Giuliani Manhattan to the 2008 sanitized Big Apple. “The city was much grungier, dirtier and not as safe as it is today, but at the same time, it had a lot more edge and youthful energy,” adds the Canadian-born filmmaker, who moved to New York as a young man to attend NYU’s film school.
Having long admired the work of designer Stephanie Carroll, who has collaborated with Indian director Mira Nair on such films as Monsoon Wedding and Hysterical Blindness, Brooks hired the New York-based Carroll to serve as his production designer. “Stephanie puts her soul into the work,” commends the director, “and even though she has a beautiful and refined aesthetic, every set she designs feels real and lived-in.”
Another key member of Brooks’ behind-the-scenes crew was editor Peter Teschner, whose credits include the comedies Kicking & Screaming and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. “I wanted someone who was a very confident, experienced editor, who had done a lot of comedy,” says Brooks of his search. “And Peter has that résumé.”
Brooks had definite ideas of how New York of the 1990s should look, according to designer Carroll. She states, “Early on, we talked about that Adam wanted the past to be very colorful.”
While the 1990s are not the distant past, subtle changes in the city made re-creating the decade a big challenge for the crew. Not only have buildings sprung up across Midtown, where much of the story is set, but advertising has become ubiquitous-appearing in spots that would have been unheard of just a few years ago. “Cabs and buses had no ads then,” notes Carroll. In order to re-create the New York of the early ’90s, the production brought in period-appropriate cars and buses, rented old garbage cans, added graffiti and scattered trash upon the streets.
One location especially reflected the changes in the city that occur around Will in the early ’90s: the Two Guys Deli, where Will buys his daily coffee and pack of smokes. When he first visits Two Guys, it looks the part of a dirty New York City bodega, offering an odd assortment of groceries, aging fruit, cigarettes, snacks and newspapers. Carroll took an empty space on Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side and created a bodega so realistic that passersby continually entered the store, trying to make a purchase. Even a city inspector, not realizing the deli was a movie set, attempted to give one of Carroll’s team a citation for selling cigarettes without the proper tax stamps.
Emerging technology would follow the turn of the decades. When Will first arrives for work at the campaign headquarters in 1992, he is baffled when handed the most recent innovation in telecommunications: the cellular phone. The 1992 phone, of course, weighed several pounds. “The first time we see Ryan handed a cell phone, it’s one of those old bricks,” Chasin laughs.
“I remember carrying around on a film a huge suitcase with that phone,” recalls Carroll. “I think that will draw a lot of laughs when people see it.”
One of the production’s biggest challenges was the shooting schedule’s demand for many practical locations. Most did double duty, appearing in scenes that take place in different time periods. Two of the major sets built on stages include Maya’s bedroom, where Will tells his story of love and loss to his daughter, and Will’s hotel room, in which he and his roommate plot their strategies to save the world. “For a 47-day shoot, we were in over 80 locations,” explains Cohen. “Almost every day, we were in two locations in the city, but we were determined to show off as much of the real Manhattan as possible.”
Some of the film’s locations included Midtown’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, Central Park and its zoo, the Fred Leighton jewelry store on the Upper East Side, and the Upper West Side’s Jake’s Dilemma bar, as well as Nolita’s Cafe Gitane, Tribeca’s Odeon restaurant, the Wall Street firm of SS&K and P.S. 89 in Battery Park City-where Maya learns one of the more shocking lessons on the birds and the bees.
Filming in the city was well worth it, despite the difficulty of having to move the production through the congested streets of Manhattan. “The benefits of New York are endless,” offers Chasin. “Every corner you turn and everywhere you point the camera, there’s something fantastic you can capture.”
A major location in the film is that of the Democratic presidential contender’s campaign office, where Will works alongside his friend Russell during the 1992 New York presidential primary. This office is also where Will meets April-the girl who has no interest in politics, but who will become one of the loves of Will’s life.
In preparation for building the set of the Democratic presidential contender’s campaign office, Adam Brooks suggested that his production team screen Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary The War Room. “He wanted the campaign office to feel that youth and idealism,” says production designer Carroll. “Energy was a big word.”
Carroll and her team created the office in an empty space on Brooklyn’s Flatbush Avenue. Again, the designer’s set was so convincing that when people on the street saw the banners displayed, they believed that another Clinton had already begun her presidential bid. “They thought Hillary was running,” says Carroll. The junior senator from New York would, in fact, announce her candidacy only a few months later.
Costumes and Music of the Film
To design the costumes for Definitely, Maybe, Brooks called upon Academy Award-nominated Gary Jones, whose credits include such films as Spider-Man 2, The Princess Diaries and The Talented Mr. Ripley. “He’s done so much great stuff of different genres,” says Brooks. “He’s a total class act.”
The production filmed a night scene in a little park in Tribeca, with small-town boy Will and the sophisticated New Yorker Summer, whom Will begins to date upon his arrival in the city. There, in a bright red dress, Rachel Weisz as Summer serenades the Midwesterner with her version of Gershwin’s “I’ve Got a Crush on You.”
“Shooting it was one of my favorite experiences in making the movie because we were in a tiny little park in Tribeca with these huge lights,” remembers Brooks. “It really was the magical moviemaking moment.”
“It was very sweet, and I’ve never sung anywhere before, apart from in the bath,” laughs Weisz. “It was very fun to do the song-a fairy tale-like situation when you’re on a date in a red dress and you sing a love song that end ups with a kiss.”
The red dress, however, was unusual for the character of Summer, according to costume designer Jones. “That was a great performance dress,” he recalls. Normally, Summer’s clothing features more subdued hues. As her wardrobe reflects her Upper East Side background, “Summer is much more of a jewel-tone lady,” he notes. Isla Fisher’s April, on the other hand, wears oranges and reds and has a more funky, downtown style.
For Elizabeth Banks’ character of Emily, Will’s college girlfriend who comes to New York, Jones saw a development in her clothing. “Emily started out being more Midwestern, but in a way ended up being very chic,” he recalls. “I think she took on New York and fully realized herself as a woman.”
In dressing the three lead female characters for scenes set in the 1990s, Jones found he had to make adjustments.“When we put the real clothes on Rachel or Elizabeth or Isla, even though they were their size, the clothes were enormous,” he shares. “[The clothes] have huge shoulders, tiny little waists. There’s enough fabric in a blouse for six blouses. We had to take the best of that and then modify it so it wasn’t unattractive.”
The clothes worn by Ryan Reynolds, on the other hand, are generally quite classic, at first reflecting Will’s Midwestern collegiate roots and later, his line of work in advertising. “Politicians wear certain things for very obvious reasons,” says Jones. “They don’t wanted to offend; they want to appear at any given moment prepared for the job.” Derek Luke’s Russell McCormack, another aspiring politician, similarly sports conservative clothes, often wearing, naturally, red, white or blue.
While Maya only appears in scenes set in 2008, the production would often (on the same day) film scenes taking place in different time periods to capture the film’s 16-year span. One technique that Brooks used to create the feeling of the ’90s on set was to play music from the time period, culled from extensive playlists he had compiled before filming began. “This is a movie that has a lot of music in it,” Brooks says. “Because it’s a period movie, the music from the ’90s provides a great way to help tell the story. Whether it’s a song by R.E.M. or Arrested Development, or Nirvana’s “Come As You Are,”-used as a plot point in the script-it puts the audience smack back in the culture of the time, and also provides a way to help define each of the characters.”
Reynolds, who appears in almost every scene in the film, also used music to recall the time period. “Preparing for it was really just finding the touchstones for each year,” he recalls. “Fortunately I was alive for all these periods, so I have a point of reference. I know what I was wearing in 1992, and I know the music I was listening to.”
The score for the film was composed by Clint Mansell, nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2007 for his score of The Fountain, starring Rachel Weisz. Interestingly enough, last year, Mansell also composed the musical themes for a film featuring another star in Definitely, Maybe. He created the score for Universal Pictures’ Smokin’ Aces, starring Ryan Reynolds.
“I love Clint’s scores, especially the ones he’s done for Darren Aronofsky’s movies,” says Brooks, “and I was so excited about how much he likes to collaborate. One of our biggest concerns was getting the right texture and emotional palette with the instrumentation.
“There’s a classic kind of romantic comedy score,” continues the filmmaker, “in which great session players come in on the day, look at the music and do a very professional-but, at least to my ears-impersonal job. We decided to get around that by putting together our own little band, with the help of Ian Broudie, formerly of The Lightning Seeds. Most of the players had never done a movie score before. They spent a couple of days familiarizing themselves with themes and cues, and when we got down to it, they brought a wonderful and very intimate feel to the music-which is exactly what we wanted.”
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Definitely, Maybe’s cast and filmmakers share their parting thoughts on the project. Reynolds hopes that the comedy will appeal to a wide audience. “Anyone who has ever put himself out there, experienced the crushing defeats and the brilliant triumphs of love-and all that goes in between-they’re definitely going to find something in this,” he provides. “Life is unpredictable and so messy, and [Will’s] evolution is to embrace that, as opposed to running away from it.”
For the director, his project is ultimately both a story of a divorced father whose young daughter helps him reconsider choices he has made in life, and a girl who comes to terms with the difficult transition her family is going through. Concludes Brooks, “In telling the story of his life, he finds a way to come to terms with who he is and, with the unexpected help of his daughter, how he can have a second chance at love.”
Definitely, Maybe (2008)
Directed by: Adam Brooks
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher, Derek Luke, Sakina Jaffrey, Dana Eskelson, Victoria Goldsmith, Paulina Gerzon, Ashtyn Greenstein
Senaryo Adam Brooks
Screenplay by: Adam Brooks
Production Design by: Stephanie Carroll
Cinematography by: Florian Ballhaus
Film Editing by: Peter Teschner
Costume Design by: Gary Jones
Set Decoration by: Ellen Christiansen
Art Direction by: Peter Rogness
Music by: Clint Mansell
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, including some frank dialogue language and smoking.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: February 14, 2008
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