Scene Stealer: 'Twilight's' treetop filming

That timeworn teenage vampire wooing ritual of taking your girl climbing high into the pine forests of the Pacific Northwest looks a lot simpler on screen in "Twilight" than it was in real life. To support actors Robert Pattinson and  Kristen Stewart (and their stunt doubles) as they stood on a  branch at the top of a particularly high pine in Oregon's Silver Falls  State Park, the visual effects team, led by Richard Kidd, had to install a support rig up about 100 feet and spanning three pine trees. "It was four really large pipes that created the structure like a box and they snapped together like Lego pieces," he said. The rig not only steadied the tree that high up but also housed the winches and pulleys used to get the actors and stunt people into the trees. Additionally, the camera had to be installed on its own series of cables and winches high in the trees, where it was controlled remotely. But once they got their shot, Kidd's team's work wasn't finished.  It had to go back and digitally remove the rig, the cables and even the harnesses strapped under the actor's clothes, which required weeks of digital tweaking. The results speak for themselves.

--Patrick Kevin Day

Photo: David Strick / Hollywood Backlot

Comments

[Diane]

I am a grandmother of a teenager and she and I have read all the books, and in fact, we also made it to a midnight release of the last book at Barnes and Nobles. We loved the books and have been looking forward to the release of the movie. She was in Mexico at the time of the release and my daughter and I went to the first midnight showing of the film. She had not read the books but did enjoy the movie. I loved the movie. I was so happy that they wrote the movie to follow so closely with the book. Last weekend I saw a show reviewing the movie and was so aggrivated that they tried to review the movie and didn't know a thing about the books. Their review said not to see Twilight but they were telling viewers to watch a Swedish movie about a vampire child. I felt that the whole time they were talking they didn't know what they were talking about. The dumbest thing they said was that in the Swedish movie the children were just regular children but in Twilight the kids were more movie-star like (can't remember the wording) but in Twilght the regular kids were "regular kids" and only the vampires had star-like qualities and that was the way they should have been. The vampires were supposed to stand out from the rest of the school kids. Some people will see those reviews and decide not to see the movie but don't let that stop you. Of course, the movie is not for everyone, as will always be the case, but if you like a good movie with romance, action and will leave you wanting to see more, please be sure to see this movie. If a grandmother loves the movie, there must be something to it.