Mission: Impossible – Fallout Had To Completely Rig One Scene Thanks To Paparazzi
I like to know as little as possible about a movie before going in. I don't like to watch trailers unless they're put in front of me in a theater. I don't read interviews or reviews before seeing a movie. I don't look at production stills or look at the track listing of a soundtrack. Walking in completely blank is my absolute favorite way to watch a movie. I didn't use to be like that though. When I was younger, I would indulge in all of those things extensively. However, the one element of the hype machine I have never been a fan of is paparazzi set photos.
For some people, this is a huge thrill, but I have never understood the appeal of seeing poorly shot, out-of-context shots of a film shoot from a great distance away at all. I don't know what I'm supposed to get out of them outside of, "Hey, this movie is shooting today." Okay. Let me know when it's done, and I can see it in a theater.
If there are famous people around, a lot of people completely lose their heads and need to document their presence in relation to the famous person. Or they just enjoy spoiling a movie. When that movie stars one of the world's most famous people — like Tom Cruise — and is the latest entry in the best film franchise — meaning "Mission: Impossible" — people need those photos.
Tom Cruise and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie understand how important preserving the classic moviegoing experience is better than almost anyone working in Hollywood today. They want to make sure that when you see a scene it is in the proper context. So, when the paparazzi come to take photos of a scene that features a possible major spoiler, precautions need to be made.
'300 feet of silk'
If you listen to interviews with Christopher McQuarrie about "Mission: Impossible – Fallout," you'll know he wanted to push Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt to his darkest place. One scene he came up with was Ethan killing some innocent cops while undercover, although he and Cruise weren't entirely sure where to place it yet as these movies are written as they make them.
But they were still going to shoot the scene, and regardless of how it fit into the final film, a scene like that would be a major shock to the audience. So, containing that shock is a problem when paparazzi show up to take photos during the shoot. On the Blu-ray audio commentary for "Fallout," McQuarrie explains how chief lighting technician Martin Smith was able to shield the shoot from unwanted cameras:
"There were paparazzi across the river, taking pictures of us shooting ... [Tom] came up to me and said, 'We're going to be killing all these cops. There's people across the street watching. What do we do?' [sic] We shot the other part of the scene first. We shot part two as part one, and the next morning, we came in, and Martin Smith put silk up along the entire side of the bridge. So everything you're looking at is actually added in post, and that's why there's this eerie light. It's the sunlight coming through 300 feet of silk."
Not only were they able to not have images leak out from the scene, but the practical solution to their paparazzi problem actually created a visual enhancement to the look of the scene, as it was decided that it would be an imagined "what if?" scenario rather than Ethan going full murderer. You never know how the stars will perfectly align.