The Making of Reservoir Dogs

On Saturday 25th January 2014, at 11:00 am, filming began for our Reservoir Dogs reenactment. Our first scene was the tracking shot of the group, walking down the small gradient. This was shot on Grove Hill in Harrow.

This road resembles the one seen in the original opening and provided us with an accurate background to shoot the video. To achieve the tracking shot, the camera was positioned out of a car window. Once the car began to move, the group started walking down. Shooting the scene from the car provided a smooth gliding motion without the possible judders common with handheld tracking.

This made it possible to shoot a scene very similar to the original opening, as you can see from the final product. It took approximately 40 minutes to shoot.

The next scene, or rather scenes, we took was the individual close-ups of each persons face, walking toward the camera. The same location was used, but unlike the 18mm-55mm lens used for the tracking shot, we used a 75mm-300mm telephoto lens instead for the close-ups, as we found it more suitable for setting up the correct framing. 

The camera was set up on a tripod to maximize stability when filming and zoomed up to about 150mm. As bigger lenses take longer to auto-focus, we decided to use manual focus when filming to reduce the likelihood of out of focus and unusable footage. After each shoot we previewed the footage to ensure it was suitable. Props used included a gold chain, sunglasses and toothpicks, which can be seen in the final video. Shooting the individual shots took approximately 1 hour.

The penultimate scene we shot was the very ending of the original. In this scene, the entire group walked away from the camera towards the road ahead. We shot this further down the same road at a T-junction, despite initially having another location in mind. 

To shoot this scene, we switched back to the 18mm-55mm wider lens and set it up on the tripod. After clicking record, we all got in position and walked toward the road. Although editing was relatively time consuming. As this was the most simple shot, it only took approximately 15 minutes.

The final scene we shot was in fact the first in the original opening video. The cafe scene was shot in a bar lounge about 5 minutes away from Grove Hill. The friendly owner invited us in and allowed us to film around the round table in his bar. This gave us all the resources we needed to shoot a scene resembling the one in the film.

The scene took about 30 minutes to shoot and was a success. It took two takes and when we got the right shot, filming came to a conclusion.

After thanking all participating actors for attending, we finished filming at 1:00 pm, 3 hours after starting. We had shot all the footage we needed, to make an accurate reenactment which pays attention to detail to the original. Overall it was a very enjoyable day, and after editing, the video produced was to a high standard of which we can be proud of.