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January 07, 2010
Lost in the Air: Jason Reitman animates the press corps
Lost In The Air: The Jason Reitman Press Tour Simulator from Jason Reitman.
Jason Reitman has said that an inspiration came to him during the production of Up in the Air: to make the story more topical, he'd include vignettes of those fired by George Clooney's itinerant Grim Reaper of employment, and he would use (mostly) actual firees. Reportedly, those people were hired and paid on the understanding that a documentary was being made, rather than a potentially Oscar-contending George Clooney-starring movie from Montecito, DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures. That choice raised hackles on some reviewers: did this constitute exploitation, the way some of the subjects of Sacha Baron Cohen's films have alleged? Reitman released another element to his multimedia campaign, accompanying volleys of tweets, pie charts and production featurettes. Here's a short depicting his recent press tour, edited together from iPhone images. When I interviewed Reitman, he expressed interest in the handwritten notes in my notebook. "Oh!" he said, Can I take a photograph of that? Click goes the iPhone sound effect. And as I got the photo below, Got your shot? Can I take a picture of you? No prob, Jason. So? I've got a cameo along with a lot of other people and objects in the video, including pizza, Starbucks and Roger Ebert. I haven't got a strong feeling about Reitman's use of real, fired people in Up in the Air, but I'm amused by the chipper feigned interest that I witnessed during our interview as he was promoting the film. Is that how he directs all "non-professionals"? "Oh!" And then his booming laugh.
Posted by Ray Pride at January 7, 2010 12:42 PM
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