The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • C2

2C SUNDAY AUGUST 13 2017Carolina Living CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM Director Steven Soder- dream of coming out of retirement to bring a movie to more than 2,500 North American screens without involve- ment from any major studios is about to come true. The question is, will this potentially potentially game-changing gamble pay off? His business plan is best ex- plained in a story pub- lished by the New York Times in July, but these are the important bullet points, according to that piece: A Soderbergh raised the $29 million needed to make the film by setting his A-list cast in place, then selling off the over- seas distribution rights. A He raised the $20 million needed to market the film by selling off a portion of the non- theatrical rights (e.g. Ama- zon purchased streaming rights). Bleecker Street Media, a small independ- ent company, took less than $1 million up front (with back-end incentives) to carry out the marketing campaign.

A By subverting the mainstream process, So- derbergh retained com- plete creative control over free from the pressures of studio heads trying to exert their influence on script changes, casting choices, release dates, movie post- ers and trailers, etc. nearly everything prepaid, and no hefty distributor fees coming off the the story said, a modest $15 million opening would be a Also promising is the fact that many critics who have gotten an early look at the film have good things to say; the first 20 reviews aggregated by Rotten Tomatoes have been unanimously positive. But Soderbergh claim victory just yet. it gonna work? Is it not gonna work? Does it work enough? got other stuff of my own that I want to push through this model if it works, and got other filmmakers calling me saying, I do this, And told all, wait. You need to wait and see if this works.

I want to drag you into something that gonna be a long two and a half he told the Observer back on Aug. 1, referring to the wait till opening day (Aug. 18). Then he leaned for- ward in his seat in the lounge at the Ritz to grab his drink, and raised it high. with the power of a cucumber gimlet, make JANES Getting made took more than luck could get into these fun, lovable characters while keeping big, glossy NAS- CAR separate from that, so that on the inside of the joke, as opposed to making fun of our Soderbergh set them at ease, but also asked them to trust him.

making a he told them. not making a doc- umentary. gotta find a way to make it a And so still see wackadoo supporting characters like Dayton White (Sebastian Stan), a health-conscious ace driv- er who treats his body like a computer operating system, and Max Chilblain (Seth MacFarlane), an arrogant sponsor of with a penchant for picking on the dis- abled. But not ridiculing NASCAR; just plain ridicu- lous. Fortunately for Soder- bergh, NASCAR got the jokes, and opened its tracks to him.

Close-up race sequences were shot at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, with So- derbergh acting as his own director of photog- raphy manning cameras mounted to the body of a Porsche Cayenne doing 110 miles per hour in traf- fic on the 1.5-mile oval. Meanwhile, anything that looks like it had to have been shot during the actual race was almost certainly shot at the actual race. In May 2016, Soder- bergh brought five camera units, Tatum and co-star Riley Keough (who plays his hairdresser sister, Mellie) to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600, and spent five hours fervently shoot- ing the event and its trap- pings while trying to draw as little attention as pos- sible. spent a lot of time prepping the shoot. made the list of all the shots that I wanted, and we drew out on a map where everybody should be at what point during the Soderbergh said.

only concern was that we be low-impact and that we be safe. in the middle of a (sporting event). You want to be the thing that somebody points to and says, went wrong because these guys were in our In fact, at an event like that, there are cameras everywhere all day, so Soderbergh and his crew were able to blend in somewhat easily. The surprise was that Tatum did, too. never really looked like that in a said Soderbergh, whose A-list star gained weight and drew from a disheveled wardrobe for no, he was just walking around; people even recog- nize Soderbergh took the establishing shots from Charlotte and the action shots from Atlanta, then mashed them up with scenes he filmed in the catacombs of the Georgia World Congress Center (subbing in for the underground tunnels) and scenes he filmed in a warehouse soundstage where his effects team had built a fully function- ing pneumatic tube sys- tem.

The end result makes it look, via movie magic, like the entire heist was shot at Charlotte Motor Speed- way. In the process, Soder- bergh who was born in Atlanta and grew up in NASCAR-friendly states like Louisiana, Texas and Virginia but never took to the sport spent time getting to know some of the drivers, and eventually cast Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson in low- profile cameos. know before, like, what is the gateway for people? And I realized: the he said. get hooked by a driver, they follow a driv- er, and why they watch. I became the same way, except I have For the record, though, Soderbergh has managed to wind up in one little (friendly) dispute with NASCAR.

(Stoddard, the NASCAR VP) will give interviews where he goes: that tech- nology does not Soderbergh said. like, OK, dude, I get it, but a movie. like saying Oz And true; when asked about the pneumat- ic tubes in Stoddard said, with no hint of irony: sys- tem is not sophisticated enough for what actually happens at our tracks. So we actually wanted to lean into that and make sure that everybody knew that this was super-lo-fi and something that almost certainly actually exist. We want something that people thought, is that actually the case at Char- lotte Motor rather have some- thing where they under- stood that it was fantasti- cal and kind of crazy and not likely to be the Soderbergh laughs when quote is read back to him.

hilarious is at CMS, along the mezza- nine, there are these mul- tiple giant tubes that we shot, that look like (pneu- matic tubes). exactly the same size. I have no idea what for. saying that not for cash. And the director said, with a wry smile.

I imagine what else it would be Janes: 704-358-5897; Twitter: FROM PAGE 1C HEIST PHOTOS BY CLAUDETTE BARIUS Fingerprint Releasing Bleecker Street Actors Seth MacFarlane and Sebastian Stan face off under the watchful eye of director Steven Soderbergh. Channing Tatum, left, stars as Jimmy Logan, Riley Keough as Mellie Logan and Adam Driver as Clyde Logan in Adam Driver, left, stars as Clyde Logan and Channing Tatum as Jimmy Logan in ANYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE IT HAD TO HAVE BEEN SHOT DURING THE ACTUAL RACE WAS ALMOST CERTAINLY SHOT AT THE ACTUAL RACE..