5 tricks without which there would be no “Rocky,” “The Goal” and other iconic movies

Sometimes, in order to shoot a scene exactly where it needs to be shot, movie makers have to get tricky. Some lie about the script of the movie, others arrange clandestine filming to save money. We have collected stories about famous movies, whose creators had to dodge to reproduce the intended.

Green Street Hooligans (2005)

Who could have imagined that the management of West Ham Football Club would allow a hooligan movie to be filmed in their stadium? No one, not even the makers of the movie Green Street Hooligans. In the story, the main character arrives in London, where he finds himself in an environment of soccer hooligans. At the beginning of the movie he comes to soccer for the first time in his life in the company of fans “hammerheads” for the match against “Birmingham City”, it was this scene and filmed at the stadium “Upton Park”. The scene itself may seem harmless, but immediately after the match in the movie there is a fight between fans. The management of the club up to the release of the movie was sure that it was dedicated to soccer, so did not interfere. In England since the 1980s there is a real struggle with soccer hooligans, after the tragedies that took the lives of more than a hundred people. The management of the club, which at that time claimed to return to the APL, could not afford to get caught up in such a story, so they tried to get rid of this project as quickly as possible.

Rocky (1976)

One of the main symbols of the entire Rocky series is the staircase leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sylvester Stallone’s character ran across the city, after which he overcame 72 steps, turned to face the city and threw his hands up. It is in this pose on that very staircase stands a bronze figure of the actor in the image of a boxer. Many believe that this staircase has become more popular than the museum itself, which is one of the largest in the United States. It is impossible to imagine the “Italian Stallion” movies without this staircase, but many people do not know that during the making of the first movie, the crew did not have permission to film in Philadelphia. Stallone lived in Philadelphia for many years, and the characters in his movie were residents of this very city. But the producers shot the tape in Los Angeles, and in the conditions of a small budget, to formalize permission to shoot in Philadelphia was not profitable. Then the director of the movie John Evildsen proposed to hold filming without permission in the shortest possible time. As a result, all the street scenes were shot in 10 days.

Knockdown (2005)

A movie about heavyweight boxer Jim Braddock, who is forced to leave the sport to feed his family during the Great Depression. He works wherever he can for a long time, but eventually gets a chance to get back in the ring. This leads him to a world title fight, after years of starvation.

In the scene of the last fight it was necessary to fill the hall with spectators to recreate the entourage of the world title fight. Inviting extras is expensive, firstly, because you need a large number of people, and secondly, because the filming was delayed, but more on that later. To create the appearance of a huge number of fans, the hall was filled with puppets.

Filming took longer than planned, because the creators wanted to make the movie realistic. In the rivals of the main character were real boxing professionals who had to stop the blow as close to the body of the actor, to say that they did not always succeed, nothing to say. Russell Crowe, who played the role of Braddock, was trained by the famous Russian boxer Kostya Tszyu, but it did not help him much. Concussion, dislocated shoulder, several broken teeth – this is not a complete list of injuries that the performer of the main role received.

Goal (2005)

The main character of the movie Santiago Munies dreams of playing soccer professionally. He suddenly gets such an opportunity after he is noticed by former soccer player Glen Floy. Santiago saves up money for a trip to England, where he gets to Newcastle United. Despite all the difficulties, the hero makes his way to the team and begins to play for the main squad. In the final scene of the movie Santiago scores a goal against Liverpool. Before the creators had a difficult task – to stage a full match, if the stands could be filled with puppets, how to be with the match itself? The way out was found: the authors of the movie took a record of the real match of the season-2004/05. In that match this goal was scored by Newcastle midfielder Laurent Robert.

Race (2013)

The movie tells about the confrontation between two Formula 1 pilots: Niki Lauda and James Hunt. The events of the movie take place in the 70-ies of the twentieth century, many of the tracks on which at that time were held competitions no longer exist or rebuilt. The creators of the movie required almost documentary accuracy, so they had to study archival videos, look for similar tracks, recreate the tracks with the help of computer graphics. For example, the creators managed to very accurately recreate the accident Niki Lauda, but they did not use the actual footage of the accident. The scene was filmed at that very turn, with the help of digital technology on the footage added scanned 3D-image of the real 1976 bolide. But, despite all the aspirations of the authors of the movie to documentary, without errors did not do without, for example, during the scene of the very Grand Prix on the track of Nurburgring, where the accident with Lauda, attentive viewers noticed that part of the race takes place on a section of the track, which appeared only after 1984.