Super 8 (2011)

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Overview

Kyle Chandler in "Super 8"

Super 8 is the product of a collaboration between the Writer of the film J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg. Starring Kyle Chandler (of Friday Night Lights fame), new comer Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning. Little is known about the actual story of the fill in the lead up to the realese, but what is deduced from the trailers is that back in 1979 Ohio a group of young children are making a movie and While filming they witness a catastrophic derailment and in one of the train cars, something that seems to be supernatural or inhuman tries to break out. Although the movie seems to focus on the mystery surrounding the monster, Abrams has said that the special and important part of the film, is the the love story that happens among of all of the chaos.

Unlike every other film out there today, releasing clips and entire scenes from movies to promote their product. Super 8 has taken a different approach in having a very restrained in its marketing, being that even after watching two or three trailers nobody has any idea what the film is really about, even in the days leading up to the films release. This could probably be attributed to the films director J.J. Abrams, who knows a thing or two about creating something and keeping the details well under wraps.

Since the first teaser there has been great speculation about what is in that train car especially since it was a United States Air Force train that was transporting undisclosed materials from Area 51 to a secure location in Ohio, shortly after the Air force closed a section of Area 51.

Plot Summary

From the 2010 movie Super 8

Super 8′ follows a group of friends in the summer of 1979 in a small Ohio town, that witness a catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie about zombies and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth - something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.

Production

Pre-Production/Development

Spielberg & Abrams at the "Super 8" premier

While doing press for the film, J.J. Abrams has said that the original idea for the film came out of two separate ideas that individually had something missing, but that when combining the two it became something "pretty cool". One of the ideas was a film about a group of kids making super 8 movies in the late 70’s, era. And the other was an idea of a monster movie that he had a while back. In one of the interviews Abrams said that "One was a group of characters I had loved, but without a story that I thought would compel people to go and see it. And the other was a compelling premise but with no original characters.".

Another big part of the development of the film, was the involvement of Steven Spielberg. He was deeply involved in the development of the story, and in many other aspects of the production. During the actual filming of Super 8, Spielberg was filming another movie but still found time to visit the set a number times, And when it came time for post production, he put in some hours in the edit room which came in handy when Abrams was having some problems structuring the film. "In post we had a bunch of second act things that we needed to figure out and he was really helpful in that. It was one of those things where I was amazed at how available he made himself to me and to this movie".

Casting

Joel Courtney in "Super 8"

One of the the biggest challenges of the film according to Abrams was the casting of the Film, specially when it came to the children being that they were such a big part of the film and the gateway into this story. The looked at thousands of kids because Abrams "wanted the kids in the movie to feel like genuine, real, soulful kids. Not entitled, actory kids, which is often what you get". The search took months and started to pushing production because they couldn't find the right people for the roles.

Even after finding Joel Courtney, it wasn't set in stone that he would play the character Joe Lamb. He was brought in to audition dozens of time before he was actually picked, mainly because Joel's character would under go "every emotional extreme". He had to be a combination of the funny character the brave character and everything in between and Abrams said that he needed to know that this kid who had never been on the set of anything "would not Fall apart when we would suddenly throw a scene at him".

Locations