Robert Pattinson is having an Obi-Wan Kenobi moment. Inside a soundstage where "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" is shooting, the lanky English heartthrob stands in front of a tall, wide green screen murmuring a tender admonition, "You promised me nothing reckless." Motion capture cameras hurtle toward him across a length of track affixed to the stage floor, while a team of technicians studies his stance and the tilt of his head.
The plan is to digitally insert Pattinson, who plays swoony good guy vampire Edward Cullen, into a scene that was filmed much earlier -- one in which he appears as a spectral vision to his costar, Kristen Stewart, cautioning her headstrong character, Bella Swan, against hanging out with some unsavory-looking biker types. For the effect to work, Pattinson's image will need to be dropped in at exactly the right position, so despite the cast and crew nearing the end of a very long early May day, perfectionism is still the standard.
Between takes, Pattinson chats with the crew while director Chris Weitz stands several feet away, his arms folded behind his head. Visual effects, "that's not my thing," he concedes with a wry smile.
What does interest him is literature. Due in theaters Nov. 20, "New Moon" will mark his third consecutive literary adaptation after having directed "About a Boy," from the Nick Hornby novel, and "The Golden Compass," the big-budget fantasy based on the first chapter in author Philip Pullman's award-winning "His Dark Materials" series. It was his experience making that film -- which should have been a dream project really, given Weitz's reverence for the source material -- that made the idea of taking the reins on the second "Twilight" film so appealing.
During post-production on "Compass," Weitz was unable to persuade New Line Cinema to allow him to move forward with the ending he'd originally planned for the $180 million film, one that was decidedly grim but faithful to Pullman's vision. The movie was released with an alternate ending that the studio felt would be more satisfying to audiences, but something about the project failed to connect; it earned only $70 million domestically, though it did fare better overseas.
"It's one of the great sadnesses of my life that it didn't turn out the way I intended it," he says.
"New Moon," a story about surviving the ultimate heartbreak and loss, is Weitz's chance to heal his wounds and find a new creative path. It's a path that winds through the gloomy forests of the Pacific Northwest and the Italian village of Multepulciano. The last three days of the shoot will happen there, but before then, Weitz needs to complete the complicated camera maneuvers that will enable him to transform Pattinson's Edward into an apparition.
Many hours have been spent waiting for the sun to emerge from Vancouver's perpetual cloud bank. This week, Weitz and his team have been trying to film one of the few outdoor sequences that require bright natural light, but since the notoriously difficult British Columbian climate has refused to cooperate, the "New Moon" cast and crew are about to spend the better part of a 12-hour day inside the elaborate fiction of an Italianate marble hall complete with columns and engravings in Latin. Where else, after all, would the Volturi reside?
Today, that vampire ruling council is ruminating over the fate of Edward and Bella. Walking forward with his arms extended, Aro, played by British actor Michael Sheen, sporting blood-red contact lenses, offers a vaguely sinister greeting to his reluctant guests. The scene is replayed over and over, with Pattinson at one point leaving the set to consult with Weitz about a particular line of dialogue.
Standing by the monitors, the pair runs through a number of options while Stewart sits on the floor looking a little bored as she waits for the cameras to resume rolling. After several minutes, Pattinson, wearing a long, red robe and fake bruises painted beneath his eyes, returns to his mark and filming resumes.
"I promised the actors that no matter what, we would have time to discuss every single line," Weitz explains. "There was a line that he felt was repetitive and Rob wasn't feeling where he was in the scene. We worked it out and came up with some alternate dialogue. I can work on the fly a bit because I'm a writer-director, which is helpful. I don't feel stuck or panicky when an actor is not down with a particular piece of dialogue."
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