SET VISIT: We Visit Gerard Butler on the Set of Hi...

"Flying rubber body parts! Be careful!"
This is yelled across the ABA BMX racetrack in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A shot is being called on the set of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's latest thrill-ride action bonanza. The two directors responsible for Crank have cooked up an all new movie starring 300's Gerard Butler, and it looks like it will be as unique and fun as their first cult outing.

The untitled project is set seven years in the future, a time when prisoners are implemented with brain microchips and played like a computer game. Mind-control is all the rage and the ultimate on-line experience finds humans being able to manipulate other humans in a first-person shooter type contest. 3:10 to Yuma's Logan Lerman is the rock star of this world, and his human avatar Kable (played by Butler) is the number one ranked warrior in a game called Slayerz. The twist of the story finds Kable attempting to regain his identity and destroy the system that has taken over his body for entertainment purposes.

In the movie, there are four games that Kable must complete and dominate. On this cold New Mexico night, we are watching them shoot game number 2. The BMX dirt track is littered with burning car wrecks and barbed wire turrets. Men in army fatigues roll down one dirt dune, and run up the next. A group of bikers blaze through the landscape, tormenting the players. The sides of the game area are covered in huge white sheets. These will later be CGI'd over with constantly moving advertisements.
Gerard Butler arrives on the scene. He stands on one of the dunes with his gun out like a rock hard cock. He surveys the landscape, and then jogs into the line of fire. He disappears from our eye line. A few seconds pass. An explosion sends a bloom of sparks and dirt our way. The ricochet is loud. It is all over within a couple of minutes. A stinky, electrical smoke fills the air. A moment passes.

Gerard runs out of the dirt track. His face is covered in grease. He looks tired, yet he will continue to go at this fast pace all night. He watches the playback on the monitor. Silent words are spoken, but he seems happy with his freshly captured action scene. A large group of people have slowly gathered around the monitors. We see previous footage of Butler running through these dirt ditches with his gun. In one quick clip, he stops to do Tai Chi. He then does the robot, kicking his tail across the landscape.

While checking out this latest batch of clips, we are told of the new cameras that are being used on the set of the film, "Jim Jannard, the guy that started the Oakley sunglass company, decided about eighteen months ago that he would build a still camera. He wanted it to be the best still camera in the world. He ended up coming up with a project that turned into a motion picture camera. The remarkable thing about this camera is that it shoots 4k. That is twice the resolution of anything out there in the world. It is a seventeen thousand dollar camera. This is a tenth of the price of most film cameras. The first thing it was used on was the Soderbergh picture that was shot in Spain this summer. But this is the first large movie that is really taking advantage of this technology. I think this is going to be the standard camera. It is digital. The really cool thing about it, is it has its own Kodak. It allows you to covert the 4k to a flashcard. Like you have in a still camera. You can put 4 minutes on an AK flashcard. I can carry the dailies with me. The dailies fit in a shirt pocket. It is a remarkable machine."

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