Keynote on the director's commentary for the film, The Day After Tomorrow.

1. DIRECTOR’S
COMMENT ARY:
ROLLAND EMMERICH
BY EMMADELK
Friday, June 3, 2011

2. TITLE SHOT
The title shot shows an arial view flying over an ice shelf. The
shot took two different production teams to make. The teams
worked for 6-7 months on the shot. The director said that
only in the last 6 weeks or so, he really began to see progress.
They decided that the movie had to be photo-real from the
beginning.
Friday, June 3, 2011

3. OPENING OUTSIDE SCENE
The opening shot is on the ice shelf where one man is working
with a machine. This scene was all digital, like the sky and all of
the ice. When he falls through the ice it was a mechanical
effect. They used a mechanism for this effect. The line the man
says, “I didn’t do anything,” was expected to get more of a
laugh in the theaters.
Friday, June 3, 2011

4. INDIA SCENE
During the beginning of the movie, there is a shot in the snow that
was supposed to be set in India. The set was actually in Montreal.
Many of the scenes that were set in different parts of the world,
were shot in Montreal because of its European look. In the India
set, the sky and the ground were digital. The building and
everything else were the real thing.
Friday, June 3, 2011

5. HAIL SCENE
There is one scene in the movie that is set in Japan. A storm
comes and huge hail begins to fall to the ground. Many people are
killed. A lot of the ice on the ground was real. All of the hail
falling from the sky was actually digital though.
Friday, June 3, 2011

6. CAR SCENE
One scene shows Jack and his son Sam riding in a car. The
scene was filmed with a green screen outside the windows.
When filming car scenes, this method isn’t used very often
anymore. It was a risk to use a green screen because it
usually always looks processed. They took the risk though
and were very happy with the results.
Friday, June 3, 2011

7. AIRPLANE SCENE
There is a scene in the movie where three of the main
characters are flying in an airplane. The plane experiences
turbulence because of another storm. The inside of the
plane wasn’t a real airplane. It was built by the crew. The
plane was very expensive to make.
Friday, June 3, 2011

8. LONG HALL SHOT
One part of the movie shows Jack with some of his co-workers
walking down a long hall discussing the storms. The shot was
very complicated to film because it was so long. There were
lots of windows along the hall, so there were also enormous
light changes. That was the greatest challenge. They hired a
great steady cam operator for the shot though and they rarely
had out of focus shots.
Friday, June 3, 2011

9. WOOLY MAMMOTH
There is one shot where the kids go to a museum. They stop and
look at a fake wooly mammoth behind glass. This shot was in and
out of the movie. At then end, they finally decided to keep it. The
wooly mammoth was supposed to be a foreshadowing of what
would happen in the future with all the natural disasters.
Friday, June 3, 2011

10. STORY CHANGE
Halfway through the production of the movie, Emmerich decided
to change part of the script. He thought that the story of the
movie wasn’t going anywhere. The other producers were angry
with this, but it ended up better in the end. Emmerich says that
you have to be willing to re-evaluate all through out the process
of filming. You can’t be afraid to make major changes if
something isn’t going right.
Friday, June 3, 2011

11. TEASER LINE
The line, “Save as many as you can,” Emmerich says, is one of the
most important lines in the movie. Originally the put the line in the
teaser. The director liked it, but during mixing they took it out.
Upset, the director fought to get it put back in. Now it is the one
part of the teaser that the audience remembers and says is their
favorite.
Friday, June 3, 2011