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CABIN SERVICE
Up in the Air is a movie that cruises, like its lead character, from city to city, hub to hub, airport to airport, never quite grounded, always speeding towards an uncertain destination. Jason Reitman says that, when it came to the look of the film, this proved to be an intriguing design challenge. "I think a lot of people like to think that a hard production design movie is one that takes place in 17th century England. But, realistically, the average person wouldn't know if you were off by a hundred years. A movie like this, on the other hand, needs to be completely accurate," he comments. "You look at it and right away you know whether you believe it or not. Is that really your home town, is that really your city? Is that really what your office looks like?"
He continues: "We shot in five cities but we were portraying twenty. And Steve Saklad, our production designer, was just a genius at setting up five different cities in one building sometimes. We'd literally just go from floor to floor, scene to scene, and we'd be crossing the continent. At the same time, I wanted to really feel the changes, every time Ryan lands somewhere new. One moment you're in Miami, on the water, the next moment you're in Detroit in the middle of the snow. I wanted to feel those climates, I wanted to see them breathing the air, so everything had to change from city to city: the lighting, the production design and the clothes all change."
There is also a larger visual change going on that echoes the shifting landscape inside Ryan Bingham. "As we begin the movie, everything is pristine. You walk into an airport, it's perfect and spotless and all the people are well tailored, and you can't imagine a more heavenly place," Reitman says. "But by the end of the movie, as Ryan's life changes, his point of view on airports changes, and suddenly everything is handheld and chaotic and a mess."
Adds Daniel Dubiecki: "As Ryan begins to subtly shift and alter you feel that in every element of the movie, in the colors and textures. The changes are not just happening in character and in dialogue. They're happening in the music. They're happening in the production design. They're happening in the costumes. They're happening in the lighting. The shifts are part of Jason's overall vision."
The cities where Ryan Bingham travels to do his "career transition counseling" were carefully chosen to spotlight those that have most fallen prey to downsizing, bankruptcies and foreclosures in recent months. They include Detroit (home to the auto industry), Phoenix (a health insurance hub), St. Louis (a bottling center) and Wichita (securities finance firms).
When Reitman put his production team together, he called on a team who had worked with him previously, including director of photographer Eric Steelberg, production designer Saklad and costume designer Danny Glicker. He also reunited with location manager John Latenser, whose talent for tenaciously searching out locations had been demonstrated on Thank You for Smoking. "Although it's a lot more work, I love the fact that Jason likes to shoot on practical locations," admits Latenser. "Filming in a practical location brings a realism that can't be duplicated on a stage."
Latenser first had to narrow down the primary locations. The analysis pointed to St. Louis, Missouri as the logical home base for the production, because of its wide variety of architecture. Detroit, Omaha, Miami and Las Vegas were subsequently added. Those five cities would double for locations including Phoenix, Wichita, Chicago, Houston and Waupaca, Wisconsin. Many of the St. Louis neighborhoods resembled areas in Chicago and Omaha and the production eventually shot at more than 30 different locations throughout the city. In addition, the film includes more than 50 scenes in various airports and planes. "Normally a film company would shy away from shooting any place that is noisy. But Jason decided early on that he had to shoot in actual airports," says Latenser.
Since 9/11, filming in airports has become increasingly problematic. "Everything had to be planned out including the logistics of how to get the equipment and the crew into the airport," Latenser reports. "Every member of the crew had to pass through TSA security and have had a previous background check. And we could not interfere with the normal rhythms of the airport."
Fortunately, because the production had already forged a partnership with American Airlines, the disruption was minimal and many employees and travelers were surprised and happy to find themselves face to face with George Clooney, who was always ready with a wave and a smile.
Production began at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, where the company filmed for three days in the new McNamara Terminal and the mothballed Berry Terminal, which the art department was able to use to stand in for other airports, just one of the many such transformations required for the production. Recounts Saklad: "In that one complex we were able to portray five airports that you believe are all over the Midwest."
In St. Louis, the production took over the empty, six-story GenAmerica building in downtown, which was utilized for the interior of Ryan's head office; Sun Casualty in Phoenix; the St. Louis bottling company, with the city's famous Gateway to the West arch visible out the window; and Alex making a phone call from an Atlanta conference room. The building was next door to the Ballpark Hilton, where additional scenes were filmed.
Saklad set the tone for each of the cities' offices with distinct palettes and identities. For example, Phoenix featured earthy, southwestern colors; for Wichita, it was rich burgundies and golds; while Detroit, the motor city, was done in greys, reds and cool blues. "We had to have a rigid framework so the audience would feel the movement from place to place," the designer explains.
There were also seven different hotel rooms in which action takes place. What helped Saklad was the fact that early on an agreement had been made with the Hilton Hotel chain, taking some of the guesswork out of his job. Still, Saklad and Reitman wanted something very specific. "We rejected the most current, contemporary hotel designs," notes Saklad. "What we wanted is something that feels more timeless and classic because Ryan is not a man of huge visual imagination."
There was also a psychological component to the look of the hotel rooms that played into the story's theme. "Jason felt strongly that he wanted the sense that when Ryan slides that key card in the door, he can come into the room and without turning on the lights know where the closet is, where the robes are stored, where the luggage rack is and the bathroom lights are. We made a concerted effort to have a very limited vision of Ryan's world," Saklad explains.
Throughout the first part of the film, Saklad observes, the film's locations are almost entirely prefabricated and manufactured spaces, rather than intimate or personal places. "Ryan moves through corporate spaces, hotels, airports and offices. Even his home functions like a hotel room. For the art department that was a truly unique challenge," he says.
Once the filming moves on to Waupaca, Wisconsin for the wedding, however, the design does a 180-degree turnaround. "We had a great deal of fun showing the Waupaca wedding," says Saklad. "There we have color and lots of craft projects. The set decorating department spent hours designing and making the table decorations. We even had a homemade wedding cake. It was a lot of fun."
Capturing all of these contrasts was director of photography Eric Steelberg, whose relationship with Jason Reitman dates back to high school and who previously shot Juno. "Eric very carefully alternated shimmery, beautiful, sexy shots with ones that had to be absolutely dry bones, neutral documentarian shots," says Saklad.
In their initial discussions, Steelberg recalls that Reitman "told me he wanted the film to romanticize business travel. He spoke of this journeyman who loves being on the road, loves his hotels, loves being on airplanes - all the things most people don't like about traveling. Jason wanted us to see that whole world through Ryan's eyes, and he wanted it to be very sexy and appealing. So we show travel as it was years ago, when people dressed up to get on airplanes. Even if it was not a particularly beautiful or new airport, we tried to find a way to romanticize it."
The film's real-world locations upped the challenges. "It's difficult to shoot in airports and hotel lobbies that are open for business. In fact, with the exception of one of the airplane interiors, we didn't shoot on a set. We shot one scene on a real American Airlines 757 jet inside a hangar, and even there we had restrictions," he says.
Wherever he was shooting, Steelberg's lighting followed Bingham's progress as a character. When the audience first meets the character, says Steelberg, the imagery is a little slicker but, as the story gets more real, the visual approach changes. "In the beginning we used hard, contrasting light. As we move along, it becomes softer, warmer, as does Ryan. The thing that was most important to us was to shoot and light in a way that the audience really gets sucked in."
Rounding out the design team is costume designer Danny Glicker, who was nominated for an Oscar® earlier this year for his work on Milk and previously worked with Reitman on Thank You for Smoking. "Glicker is hilarious - and a genius, too," says Reitman. "His eye for wardrobe is unparalleled. I can't imagine making a movie without him. This is a movie where the main character wears the same suit in every scene, and yet it always looks original. Also, as Ryan travels, it was so important that no matter who he meets, they really represent their city, and Glicker nailed that."
Glicker says it started with his admiration for the script and the director: "Jason has a complicated way of telling a story that is both smart and funny. It brings the audience in and challenges them. Jason is also a director who truly contains the entire film in his mind. He's always in control of what he's getting on camera."
Unlocking the logic of Ryan Binghan's wardrobe was Glicker's first and biggest challenge. In a nutshell, says Glicker, Ryan Bingham has mastered the art of living out of a suitcase. "I wanted to honor the idea that he is so completely devoid of any attachments that he travels with everything in a carry-on bag," he says. "I worked closely with George Clooney and with Jason to create a very, very carefully edited wardrobe that would fit into this small bag and take this man on his journey. We embraced an almost '60s-style, classic sensibility of dressing for Ryan. In the '60s you would almost always get one blazer and two pairs of pants, so he has two identical suits he recycles on trips."
The story also called for a change in actor George Clooney's traditional silhouette. "People are used to seeing him in Italian suits," notes Glicker. "In this case I felt that the movie was so connected to the American work force that I wanted to embrace a look that was distinctly American, a crisp, classic Brooks Brothers silhouette."
The minimalist costuming of Bingham's character relied heavily on detail. "Every shirt he wears is custom-made in the exact shade of grey that will photograph beautifully no matter what environment you put him in. His topcoat was made of the best cashmere you can buy because it reflected light in a beautiful way, staying in perfect harmony with any background. We worked very hard to always have him exude crispness and professionalism yet never be a fashion plate."
The attention to detail continued right down to Clooney's feet, says Glicker. "Ryan is obsessed with all things that are swift and efficient, and nothing is more efficient than a slip-on shoe. His shoes are absolutely airport friendly and let him go through the metal detector quickly."
Another of Ryan's most cherished objects also holds a special place in Reitman's heart: his compact, highly efficient Travelpro luggage. "I have a rollaway that I can live out of for weeks at a time," confesses the director. "I have measured the time it takes me to get in and out of security, to pack and unpack, so those scenes come straight from my real life."
For Ryan's female counterpart, Alex, as played by Vera Farmiga, Glicker chose looks with a similar sweet smell of success. "Alex is elegant, sensual and smart," he notes. "Fortunately, Vera is one of the rare performers who is at home in her body. She's able to really move and express the sensuality of clothes in a way that is still very empowering. She is a fearless actress and, in the fittings, rather than simply try on the clothes, she explored how they would inform her performance."
Glicker continues: "She wears a lot of silk charmeuse blouses and softly structured Armani suits. Even though the pinstripe on her suit is a bold fabric, it's worn in a way that is a little more playful, a little more feminine. She also has some beautiful little black dresses, including the demure, draped collar she wears in the wedding sequence. Her clothes are seductive but also absolutely correct for a business person's suitcase."
Dressing Anna Kendrick's Natalie was just the opposite from Alex for Glicker. Like most young professionals fresh out of college, she has very few clothes because she doesn't have much money. "One thing I did was to always give her three pieces. So if she had a suit, it would always have a blazer, skirt and slacks. All her shirts were perfect, crisp little business shirts. Three-piece suits were a way for her (as a young business person stretching her clothing dollar) to create an entry level professional wardrobe on a recent graduate's limited budget," he says.
As with Saklad, Glicker especially enjoyed switching to homier costuming for the wedding sequence. "The wedding represents a very poignant leg of Ryan's story, where we really begin to understand that he comes from a background of down-to-earth folk," he observes. "The first thing I did was put us on a budget like Julie's budget. We were going for the sense that you aren't just watching some strangers on a screen, but watching people you might know."
In an unusual twist, one of Glicker's most creative tasks did not involve any of the main characters, but rather the extras who populate the airport and hotel scenes - and were key to providing the flavor of multiple, diverse cities. "After reading the script, I told Jason I really wanted to embrace the notion of regionalism," the costume designer says. "So you will see little things like in Arizona, at the beginning of the movie, people are wearing turquoise. Even in the tiniest segment, we made sure there was some regional flair or local sports memorabilia visible. We didn't want to hit the audience over the head with it but we plant these little seeds throughout that keep the journey visually exciting. One of my goals was to make sure that, by the end of the movie, the audience has the sense that they, too, just like Ryan Bingham, have traveled the country, taking it all in."
LANDING
As production wound down, Jason Reitman reunited with another longtime partner he considers essential to his work: Dana Glauberman, who edited both Juno and Thank You for Smoking. Says Reitman of their close collaboration: "I can't imagine anyone I'd want to share an editing room with more than Dana. She understands how I shoot, she understands my visual language and she's able to get right at the tone and style that I want immediately."
Glauberman, who also served as an assistant editor on several of Ivan Reitman's films, has known Jason since he was in high school, developing a friendship that has led to a deep creative trust. She recognized his touches throughout the new script. "I fell in love with the script for Up in the Air immediately. There were a lot of Jason-isms, great characters and great heart. There is more drama in this one than in his other films and the emotions are on a different level."
The work of editing, Glauberman says, was like piecing together a narrative jigsaw puzzle, a process she finds especially fun with Reitman. "Jason and I have worked together so closely that there are times we actually read each other's minds and finish each other's sentences. It's a great director-editor relationship because we really understand each other and each other's styles. There were a lot of challenges on this movie, balancing all the levels of character, and I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished."
Glauberman was quite moved while sifting through the hours of footage of real people reacting to the loss of their jobs. "We would have tears rolling down our faces watching this stuff because it's just heartbreaking," she says. "It makes you feel so fortunate not only to have a job but also to have a career that you love."
Reitman put the finishing touches on Up in the Air with a soundtrack of hand-picked songs. "For me the soundtrack is a character in the film," he says. "I start thinking about the music very early on and while I'm writing the script I'm putting together an iTunes library of all the songs I want to use. I ultimately landed on ten songs that really speak to the nature of this film."
The film opens with a funky, contemporary cover of Woody Guthrie's working-class American classic "This Land Is Your Land" by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, setting the story into motion. Says Reitman: "It's a really lovely, soulful entrance to the journey of this film about the American landscape."
That journey is one that Reitman took along with Ryan Bingham. He sums up: "I've made three films and, with each film, I started with a question I was asking myself. The first film was a question about my own personal politics. My second one had to do with becoming a father and growing up. And this one has to do with the biggest question of all: how to spend your life, whether or not to spend it with people or alone, whether to escape or not. And as I made this movie it confirmed the ideas that I felt burning inside - that is that life is better with company, even if you believe you don't need anybody."
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