21 Grams commenced 11 weeks of principal photography in December 2002. Shooting took place primarily in Memphis, Tennessee, although no specific city is cited in the final script or the finished film. Prieto explains, "We didn't want this to be 'Memphis, Tennessee' where the story is happening, but any place in America - or in the world, even. The script is these characters and what they're living."

Salerno explains, "All these practical locations gave our actors a sense of where they were and allowed them to feel reality and presence. It was very much about creating an environment for them - and for Alejandro, who likes to feel the energy of where he's at. We could have built a set for the funeral home, for instance, but there is a vibe when you walk into the actual funeral home we shot in - which we wanted, and got."

Given the movie's Middle American setting, Memphis provided the necessary diversity of people and locale to color every frame of 21 Grams. Iñárritu found it to be "unique, and quite different from all the cities in the United States that I've known and visited. It reminds me a little bit of a Latin American city. Memphis has a strong personality and the people there still have their feet on the ground. It's the heart of America, with a nostalgic sad feeling. You can hear the blues in the air, plus the strength of the Mississippi River."

Prieto notes that the movie came to inevitably reflect "the atmosphere and the texture of the city. We show its character. I fell in love with the city, its great visuals, and also its people. There are all levels of social classes in Memphis, and in this movie. It has contemporary buildings yet it feels like an old city."

Screenwriter Arriaga cites William Faulkner as a profound influence, one whose works he has taught. While on location in Memphis, Arriaga took the time and opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the famous writer's home/shrine in Oxford, Mississippi.

For production designer Brigitte Broch, another collaborator on Amores perros who rejoined the creative team for 21 Grams, Memphis "is history, authenticity, and soul. "We wanted the environments of each character to talk for them, and Memphis had what we needed. 21 Grams gets down to the roots of human suffering and resurrection - the scenes are so intense - and that's this city."

As for the interiors, the filmmakers' mandates of research and authenticity meant that if a scene unfolded in an office, and there is a desk whose drawers would never be open on-camera, Broch and her team still filled them with objects pertinent to the officeholder's profession and personality. "There is a total base of confidence between Alejandro and myself. If there is no back story provided for the character, I create it myself," she notes. "I know - 'method actors' work the same way."

For Broch, each set's design, furniture, and props "all have to have a reason to be there. That reason translates as the reality of the person who will occupy it. Alejandro, Rodrigo, and I work closely together. I prepare a presentation, and the three of us go through the material. We talk about the colors. We talk about the moods and textures. Ours is the teamwork of three people who will ultimately agree on what the final product should look like by taking an overall view."

Prieto adds, "Brigitte incorporated colors that we talked about into the set designs. The visuals change to correspond to the emotional arc of each story and its characters - and they help you see where you are in the overall story. We divide the three stories color-wise because of the structure of the movie. There are subtle cues for the audience to know; this is Paul's world - a cooler blue; this is Jack's world - a yellow red; and this is Cristina's world - sort of in-between, with red and golden but mixed with some of the blue of Paul's world."

"The different stocks of film give different textures to the characters, depending on their emotional stage at that point in the film," notes Iñárritu.

Prieto elaborates, "When things start to get more difficult for our characters, we'd go to a grainier stock When things feel a little cleaner or better, the stock isn't as grainy. The framing and camera work reflect that, too - when things are in balance for the characters, we use more traditional framing."

But the overall visual palate is also unified by a bleach-bypass process deployed in the development of the film's negative. "It's the way I grew up seeing the colors of my country," explains Iñárritu. "Rodrigo and I discussed this before filming began. There were some still photographs that we saw which inspired us, too."

As this approach was factored in early on, notes Broch, the team made allowances that "our purples went into brown, or our reds went into black. Rodrigo is fantastic to work with, and it's obvious that it's more important that I adapt my work to his - what he needs for his lighting."

Costume designer Marlene Stewart adds that since 21 Grams required "very specific color requirements for the way the film stock was processed, that took precedence in my choices. The processing was very high contrast, so it was better to have colors in a medium range - as if for a black-and-white movie."

Stewart accommodated the shifting styles of the story's characters. Costume choices were made more along the way in the dramatic and filmmaking processes, rather than being set in pre-production. She notes, "If you come to the table with preset ideas, a lot of the time you are going to get frustrated. You need to discuss visions with the director and the actors - and, in terms of color requirements, the production designer and the cinematographer. The creative process gets everybody's ideas together.

"Alejandro stressed creating looks for the characters that didn't overwhelm the viewer, that didn't force the viewer to jump too quickly to conclusions about the characters. This helps make the story applicable to everyone."

Stewart was regularly called upon to present the actors with a variety of clothes choices as they reached each new level of dramatic character development, since their tastes evolved over the course of the portrayal. This was another benefit of the chronological shooting schedule that afforded the cast and filmmakers the creative opportunity to start at the beginning and grow together. "This was a different kind of movie for me," admits Stewart. "A lot came together at the last moment; I'd create right there on the spot. The director and I always tried to make the actors feel comfortable. That worked particularly well on 21 Grams, where everybody made suggestions and worked it out together."

Salerno says, "When shooting, Alejandro will keep working with the actor and do a bunch of takes. Together, they get to the point where he has what he wants - he doesn't settle - and the crew and the actors have gone beyond what they might normally do. Allof these actors were dynamic; I considered it a privilege to be able to watch them in their processes."

Operating the camera throughout, Prieto found the actors' respective approaches to their roles never less than fascinating. "Sean is always interested in and aware of what we're doing with the camera. He needs quiet and complete concentration for his character and the moment. He's amazing - and also very generous to everybody."

Watts comments, "Rodrigo's camera is like another character in 21 Grams. He is moving the camera the whole time, and it's incredibly liberating for an actor to not have to concentrate on focus marks."

Prieto confides, "Naomi is very sweet - and she never had any complaints about the camera. I don't know how she does it, but you don't see her working. She becomes the character - she'd step in front of the camera and it wasn't Naomi, it was Cristina." Salerno adds, "It's unbelievable what she pulls out. She's wrenching in this film."

As for Del Toro, Prieto echoes Iñárritu in praising the actor for "finding and exploring things that are not written. He's very subtle. He gives the characters he plays lives of their own. It's great to look into his eyes - lighting his eyes was something I enjoyed doing, and when we were able to put that glint into his eyes, things came out that projected incredibly. Benicio knows how to project - how to balance when the camera is further away, but when you get close enough there's an intensity that far away you wouldn't notice…"

On board early on, as a self-described "observer" during production, the film editor of 21 Grams is Stephen Mirrione - who, as an Oscar winner for his work on Traffic, was already well-versed in shaping a compelling narrative with Benicio Del Toro portraying one of the central characters. But, as Mirrione says, "21 Grams is an emotional narrative driven by what's going on within the characters - passions and emotions - rather than a plot-driven narrative.

"I'm pretty comfortable with that type of storytelling; it gives me the freedom not to be a slave to the plot, so I'm able to focus on capturing one particular emotion in a scene, to zero in on moments. I put myself into the characters' heads. That makes it interesting for me as an editor. I do watch the dailies and make sure I don't forget certain things. Alejandro doesn't want a single moment in the movie wasted; he was constantly letting me know what he was going for and what he was looking for. He puts himself into everything. Scenes were shot in every setup you could imagine, so we had a lot of options. I took my cues from what the actors and the camera were doing - Rodrigo also puts a lot of himself into it."

Mirrione notes, "The challenge to editing a movie like this is that everyone is going to watch this and initially react in a different way. But they won't have to know or be expecting this or that to happen, because this movie will pull you along. It's going toimpact everyone a little differently. You are feeling 21 Grams as it's happening. Then, at the end, when it's over, there will be the same overall emotional impact - it hits you."

Prieto says, "21 Grams is the kind of film that you think about for days after you see it. It's about subjects that we all ponder, and this movie shows them in a very immediate way."

ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ IÑARRITU (Director/Producer)
Alejandro González Iñárritu's first feature film, Amores perros, world-premiered at the 2000 Cannes International Film Festival. There, the film was honored with the Grand Prix among the Critics' Week selections that year. As director of the film, he was nominated for an Academy Award when the film became a Best Foreign-Language Film nominee the following year.
 
Among the other honors that he and the film received were a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign-Language Film; a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Foreign-Language Film; the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign-Language Film; the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director; and awards from the Bogota, Chicago, Cuba, Edinburgh, Flanders, Moscow, San Sebastian, Sao Paulo, Toronto, and Tokyo International Film Festivals. In addition, the film swept the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences' Silver Ariel Awards (Mexico's equivalent of the Oscars) with 13 wins.
 
In 2001, he produced and directed Powder Keg, a short film for the BMW series that also featured new works from Wong Kar-wai, Ang Lee, Guy Ritchie, and the late John Frankenheimer, among others. Powder Keg won three Clio Awards and ranked #2 on Time Magazine's list of best advertising films.
 
In 2002, Mr. Iñárritu directed a short film for inclusion in the multipart feature 11'09"01, which received a César Award nomination. The other filmmakers from around the world who responded to the horrific events of September 11^th, 2001 by contributing to the project were 21 Grams star Sean Penn, Youssef Chahine, Amos Gitai, Shohei Imamura, Claude Lelouch, Ken Loach, Samira Makhmalbaf, Mira Nair, Idrissa Ouedraogo, and Danis Tanovic.
 
GUILLERMO ARRIAGA (Screenwriter)
Guillermo Arriaga first collaborated with Alejandro González Iñárritu as the screenwriter of the award-winning Amores perros. They worked together again on the short film Powder Keg.
 
A genuine Renaissance man of letters, Mr. Arriaga is not only a screenwriter but also a critically praised novelist, a television documentary director, a radio and television producer, and for more than twenty years a college professor. He has also directed short films, among them Rogelio (which screened at several film festivals).