"Pentagon Papers/Top Secret Documents" The legend of Spielberg's early shooting that makes "the movie you should watch now" possible

The reality of speedy early shooting

One of the reasons why Spielberg is able to approach this type of work is that he himself has mastered the technique of fast filming. For example, the main units of " Schindler's List " and " Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) were shot in 75 days. " Jurassic Park " took 70 days, and " Catch Me If You Can " (2002) was shot in just 58 days, covering 140 locations (the shortest was 32 days for " The Adventures of Tintin ", but this was mostly studio filming using performance capture, so it is only for reference). These numbers are hard to understand without a comparison, but if we take very recent movies as examples, " Blade Runner 2049 " (2017) took 135 days to shoot, and " Star Wars: The Last Jedi " (2017) took 110 days, and these are extremely speedy compared to Hollywood movies, which are usually shot in about six months. It may be a bit rough to compare films made under different production conditions, but it can serve as a guide to Spielberg's filming speed.

Another notable feature is that, like with "Raiders," filming of the main units was scheduled to take 88 days, but in many cases it was finished 13 days early, taking just 75 days (filming on "Jurassic Park" also finished 12 days earlier than originally planned).

“Pentagon Papers” (c)Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Storyteller Distribution Co., LLC.

In other words, what we can see from the previous case is that the director has a clear vision of what he wants to shoot. And he has excellent decision-making skills on the set. The speed of shooting does not equal "simple" or "improvised", but rather he considers what is needed on set and what needs to be eliminated. This quick shooting based on careful judgment naturally shows the good points of Spielberg as a director.

Reflection on “Jaws” and response to rapid shooting created by admiration for our predecessors