Scene Stealer: Fashion in 'Eleven Minutes'

Michael Selditch and Rob Tate's documentary "Eleven Minutes" follows Jay McCarroll, the first "Project Runway" winner, as he struggles to mount his first fashion show. The filmmakers capture moments of suspense (will the shoes get there on time?), emotion (the meltdowns as the day approaches) and inspiration coming to life.

"At one point the models are trying on clothing, and one [Michelli Provensi] tries on the all-yellow, all-balloon print," Tate says. "The entire room lights up; they're saying, 'Look, it's the muse! It's the muse!'"

"Jay says to her, 'Michelli, look at the drawing -- it's you!' " says Selditch, and it's true, the model looks as if she had sprung from the page. "You can always hear the reaction at a screening."

Until then, McCarroll's creations had been ephemeral things. "The drawing suddenly comes to life in the room," Tate says. "It's a magic moment . . . . We were all getting goosebumps."

-- Michael Ordoña

Photo: Regent Releasing

'Panther 2' director inspired by 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons

Physical comedy is a huge part of Inspector Clouseau's awkward body of work. So when planning the pratfalls for Steve Martin's second turn as the clueless constable in "Pink Panther 2," whose work did director Harald Zwart build from? Peter Sellers? Buster Keaton? Charlie Chaplin?

"I'm inspired by 'Tom and Jerry' and cartoons like that. I'm inspired by the timing and the brutality," Zwart said.

Zwart said Martin, who was "a great part of writing the script and developing the project," did all but a few of his own stunts as the dunderheaded detective, including the movie's biggest wirework gag -- which appears only in the background of a scene.

"When he walks across the room, balancing on a globe, then goes through a chandelier, you just see it on a surveillance monitor," said Zwart, delighted with the detail. "That's all Steve Martin doing that."

-- Michael Ordoña

Scene stealer: 'My Bloody Valentine 3-D'

It's no exaggeration to say that among the stars of "My Bloody Valentine 3D" is the process by which the film is rendered to appear three-dimensional. For those with memories of the original "House of Wax," "Jaws 3-D" or "Comin' at Ya!" the difference is hard to believe.

Working with the company Paradise Effects and stereographer Max Penner, the filmmakers created the effect with technology that such earlier 3-D practitioners as schlockmeister William Castle could never have dreamed of. The film was shot using the digital Red camera, famously used as a prototype on Steven Soderbergh's "Che," allowing for much greater control between the two images used to create the 3-D effect. And though, yes, there are still glasses, they now look more or less like a pair of Wayfarers, and not like the cornball cardboard red-and-blue ones that have become the stuff of '50s nostalgia stereotypes. The headaches that many remember from 3-D movies is a genuine physiological response to what is needed to trick the eyes into "seeing" 3-D, and director Patrick Lussier and his team worked hard to counteract the complaint.

"We literally go through every single frame of every single shot and do all the correct alignments and correlations to make sure your left eye and your right eye are not only in sync, but vertically aligned," explained Lussier. "All the things that could give you headaches or stress are removed. It's a completely immersive experience that becomes part of the storytelling, and not just a gimmick to rip your brain open."

-- Mark Olsen

Scene Stealer: 'Yonkers Joe'

The world of "Yonkers Joe" is populated by shady gamblers, or "mechanics," who separate marks from their money with seamless sleight of hand. Writer-director Robert Celestino's father -- the real Yonkers Joe -- taught him some "moves" when the future filmmaker was a child. In one scene, Chazz Palminteri's title character and his crew run one such move, "the Cooler," in a poker game. The mark "shuffles and deals. When he puts down the cards to be cut, the mechanic comes in with the Cooler," says Celestino of the move that involves switching decks. "So afterward, when the hand goes out, he's got nothing to say. He shuffled and dealt the cards." Alert viewers can divine some of the move's secrets -- as when Palminteri subtly uses his hand to measure the distance from table's edge to his chest -- before the character goes on to reveal them to his crew of mechanics. Although Palminteri became adept at such moves as switching dice during crap games, Celestino had to perform the Cooler for the camera. "My father died in 1980, when I was a kid, and I haven't seen another person who can do it," he says, "besides me."

-- Michael Ordoña

PHOTO:  Watch your wallet — and the dice — when Joe (Chazz Palminteri) is around. The character is based on writer Robert Celestino’s late father.  Joshua Jose / Magnolia Pictures

Scene Stealer: Beating the count with 'The Wrestler's' life story

Title designer Kristyn Hume had less than two minutes to summarize the life of pro wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson for the opening title sequence of director Darren Aronofsky’s "The Wrestler." Using a basic outline of the Ram's early wrestling days leading up to the biggest match of his career in Madison Square Garden, Hume created dozens of posters, magazine covers, newspaper articles and photo spreads in Photoshop over the course of a full year to simulate a massive collage spread. "When we started, it was going to be one magazine spread per credit," she says. "Then it escalated." For many of the spreads, Hume took actual magazine articles and cleared out the info and replaced it with articles she wrote. "I grew up with my brothers watching [wrestling], but I used base ideas from other articles to get the terminology right." For the fliers, she included names of friends of loved ones and then "wrestlerized" them. Hume even used her own middle name to become the wrestler Killer Joy.

-- Patrick Kevin Day

(Photo courtesy Kristyn Hume / Fox Searchlight)

Scene Stealer: Turning Frank Langella into Richard Nixon for 'Frost/Nixon'

Though the greatest special effect of "Frost/Nixon" came from Frank Langella's haunting ability to channel the essence of disgraced former president Richard Nixon, he did have some help from hair and make-up. Hairstylist Colleen Callaghan used old pictures of Nixon and a 1977 cover of Time magazine, in particular, to work with wig-maker Favian Wigs by Natascha  in recreating the exact wave of the president's hair. The $5,000 wig, which was made from real human hair, was applied to the actor in a 45-minute process that ended with Langella transforming himself internally. "Toward the end [of the application], he would start to pull into Nixon," Callaghan says. "On the set, everyone addressed him as Mr. President."

The second key aspect to Langella's appearance was his nose, a gelatin-mold created by makeup artist David Anderson. "I created five different noses," Anderson says. "Choice 1 was basically Langella's nose with two bumps. Choice 5 was a full-blown Nixon nose, but it looked a little gross on Frank's face." The production went with Choice 4  -- something just shy of the full-size presidential schnoz. The challenge was keeping the set cool enough. "If his body temp got too high," Anderson said, "the nose would melt." Tricky indeed.

-- Patrick Kevin Day

Photo courtesy Universal Pictures

Scene Stealer: 'Transporter 3' puts an S8 5.2 Audi in overdrive

The S8 5.2 Audi at the center of "Transporter 3" takes almost as much abuse as does star Jason Statham. To accomplish the tricky stunt of having the car tilt up on two wheels to squeeze between two semitrailers, stunt coordinator Michel Julienne welded the bottom of the car to the side of one of the trailers. Inside the trailer, they set up a small engine that was used to pull the Audi along the side of  the truck. While the car's powerful four-wheel drive had to be hobbled to two-wheel drive, it was the tires that took the most abuse. "We had to change the tires very often," Julienne said. "We'd get up to speeds of 60 to 70 kilometers an hour [about 40 mph], but then we'd have to change the tires every kilometer or so." Julienne's son sat in the Audi as it was pulled along the side of the truck. The other truck was not attached but was under instructions to drive as close as possible to the car, sometimes within about half an inch. "It came very close but did not touch," Julienne said. He had no fears for his son's safety, however. "My brother was driving the truck."

--Patrick Kevin Day

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

Scene Stealer: 'Changeling's' vintage autos

Though the production crew of "Changeling" used some digital effects to make Los Angeles look like it did in 1928, one thing that didn't need faking was the traffic. According to production designer James J. Murakami, 150 vintage cars from 1918 to 1928 were gathered from collectors all over Southern California for the film. "A lot of time, the cars would be too clean or all cherried out," Murakami said. To fix that, the set painter came up with a kind of carwash in reverse, taking the pristine vehicles and giving them the look of cars used daily with a spritz. "He'd mix dust in with water and spray it on," Murakami said. "It gives a nice even coat of dirt. Or sometimes we'd run water over them to leave little streaks." To further age some cars, a washable coating was applied to simulate rust and scratches.  Much to the relief of the jittery collectors, the cars were always washed back to their original state.

--  Patrick Kevin Day

Scene Stealer: 'Synecdoche, New York's' rapid aging

Writer-director Charlie Kaufman had an entire lifetime to play with in telling the story of "Synecdoche, New York," but his crew wasn't so lucky. Prosthetic makeup designer Michael Marino and key makeup artist Naomi Donne had just one month to create the makeup to age stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton and Jennifer Jason Leigh roughly 50 years on screen. "Originally, they wanted to do Michelle Williams and a lot of other actors," Marino said. "But it was a last-minute decision, and we didn't have a lot of time." Rather than design many variations of the same makeup, Marino and Donne created three ages (55, 75 and 85) for Hoffman. And since the rushed shooting schedule required Hoffman to be three or four different ages in one day, the illusion was created almost exclusively through wigs. "We gave him a prosthetic neck, chin, cheeks, eye bags and forehead," said Marino. "But to degrade him as he aged, we just changed the wigs around. It was the same makeup with different wigs."

<i>-- Patrick Kevin Day</i>