Contagion Chicago Filming

On Monday I went in for a two to three day stint on the new Steven Soderbergh movie for Warner Bros. called Contagion.   People maybe familiar with it as it has filmed in Hong Kong for a few weeks before it came to Chicago.   I think Chicago is going to be the epicenter for most of the filming.   They shot a scene last Wed that was to match up to a scene in HK.   They also shot a London nightclub scene here too.   They is some hospital scenes that are supposed to be set in Minnesota and I know the CDC (Center for Disease Control) which is based in Atlanta was also shot in Chicago.  

I have not heard of anything about landing a small role so I went in as an extra.  Turns out Soderbergh hands out lines to people all the time so maybe being on set will improve my chances.   I went in as a CDC employee and we were in the main crisis room there discussing the virus outbreak.   That's about all I can say about it.   The only actors who were present were Laurence Fishburne and Bryan Cranston.   Laurence was hilarious, joking in between takes and talking with a Nigerian ambassador in his Nigerian accent.   The production was top notch and we were issued security badges to have while on set and holding areas.   The logo was a bio hazard one and had Chinese characters that said this:

Soderbergh shoots so damn fast, it is really something to see.   He didn't use extra lighting, he didn't use stand ins.   He used only digital RED cameras and will use their new prototype EPIC-X model but he didn't have it for yesterday's shooting.  I worked with him before on The Informant! withhim and Matt Damon and we shot about 5 location changes in under 4 hours.

On late Monday, we made so much progress that we did not need to come back on Wed.  Tues was a scene later in the script.  I was selected to be featured at my desk while working but no lines unfortunately.  They came over an upgraded me to a featured extra.  They stuck a RED camera in my face and it was a different day so I wore a face mask and headset. We shot in one take.   So I will show up as Dr. Adam Ritmiller as my CDC badge listed me.  They wrapped us around 6 PM and then we went to dinner and they went to shoot a scene in a supermarket.

They are still filming throughout Dec and I can come back as my doctor character again.  Maybe next time I can wear one of those cool suits like in the movie Outbreak!   The script has a really nice pace to it.  I really enjoy getting to shoot with some of the best directors in the business.  Soderbergh has always been one of my favourites along with Christopher Nolan.  Now if I could get on a David Fincher, Miike Takahashi, or Johnnie To movie, I would feel totally complete.   Hopefully their directing styles and abilities will rub off on me as I take a stab directing an episode or 2 of Homeless in Hong Kong when I can put the project together.

Here's a small pic from someone from the Board of Trade scene.   You can see Soderbergh in the upper left corner setting up a shot on the camera.  I did get a couple of photos but I can't post them yet.