hi i'm ben stiller and this is my notes
on a scene or escape at Dannemora don't
do that what we got mistakes and
pretend it's on purpose don't well
that's for hacks i I wanted to direct
this because I just thought it was a
fascinating story the idea of two
prisoners escaping from a maximum
security prison for real in 2015 how
something like that happens what what
allows that to happen
what were the mechanics of it what were
the relationships that developed inside
the prison so this is a scene from the
first episode on the north yard at
Clinton Correctional which is a state
prison in upstate New York and this was
sort of the first time that we see
Richard Matt and David sweat the two
inmates who end up escaping together we
were able to film the scene in the real
prison
it's an incredible space it's on the
side of a mountain in the Adirondacks
and has this incredible view and it's
been there for over a hundred years just
a really unique environment where all
the prisoners get to go and have their
outside time so this is a dominant
cologne a great actor the person that we
follow for this big crane shot to reveal
the North Yarmouth we couldn't get in
there until right before we shot so we
didn't even know how we would shoot the
shot at one point we're talking about
doing it with a drone they wouldn't
allow us to have a drone in the prison
they don't like having drones flying
around prisons these are guard stations
and basically that's where the four or
five corrections officers who are on the
yard will stay and watch over the three
to four hundred prisoners who are out on
the yard so it's the ratio is not great
if you're a corrections officer this is
known to be the most dangerous place in
in Clinton basically these are little
courts that are subdivided with numbers
on them you'll see here a number like
120 all of these numbers refer to a
section or a court like here you'll see
it says 121 so the hierarchy is sort of
seniority in terms of what you know
where you get it because the higher up
you go
in the yard the better the view is out
to the Adirondacks and Richard Matt and
David sweat were over here and this cord
over here which we end up getting to
eventually in the shot so the idea was
to set up the environment follow one of
the inmates as he walks through the yard
and eventually got to Richard Matt and
David sweat who were out there hanging
out
[Music]
I just have to point out this this guy
that's not a real prison guard this is
Herbie Leber's who is a teamster driver
who's been driving with me for 20 years
and making movies every time I make a
movie in New York he's one of the senior
Teamsters and one of my best friends and
so I he's also in Zoolander he's the guy
who reads the magazine when at the gas
station and throws it away before
everybody blows up so it says he's been
in about five five other movies very
difficult to work with a real prima
donna
[Music]
so the idea was we wanted to show the
life on on the on the North yard as
Odell the character was walking up to
basically he's getting ingredients to
make a hot toddy for Richard Matt who is
sort of the guy he works for in prison
that Benicio del Toro plays he's walking
up here and you know he's trading things
because that's what's going on here guys
are trading cigarettes and other illicit
contraband as he's coming up here up to
their court he's got all the ingredients
to make the hot toddy and now you
finally see the the view that these guys
are looking at all day which I thought
was really interesting just the you know
just how counterintuitive it is to be
stuck in a prison but looking out at
this amazing vast landscape and freedom
which you can have also what they're
looking at over there you can see the
smokestack to the power plant that
ultimately is where the access tunnel
leads to that they came out of so that's
the smokestack and David sweat knew that
there had to be some sort of an access
to that power plant and that was where
the steam pipe was coming from that was
heating the prison that he eventually
cut a hole into that they got out
what do you think I spent a shitload of
time on the fire where's it light come
from delight yeah if you could do a shot
like this and with a wide lens and be
close-up and have the same frame but
then the background everything you know
everything behind them would be much
further away and you just see a lot more
a lot more of you focus but this sort of
like puts the focus on the actress I'm
just as a feeling you know
cinematographer is like Viktor Kemper or
Owen royzman from the 70s did this a lot
really beautifully and just sort of that
was just coming out of I think the
necessity to shoot scenes without being
able to do long setup so on a setup like
this we have the camera here there's the
two-shot and then there's the second
camera basically we would be grabbing as
much coverage as we could every time we
did the scene we just do the scene over
and over again as many times as we could
but here you can just feel like there's
just so much texture here even like the
heat ripples coming off of the the
potbelly stove behind them and then here
what's behind Benicio is you know that's
the guard tower down there and so like
so all this stuff here with a wide-angle
lens would be much sharper and you would
actually know what it was and when you
have this kind of a longer lens it just
kind of makes it more just like
everything's stacked up which just kind
of gives it this nice kind of feel which
I always enjoy now you see he kind of
goes from from Paul over to Benicio
there that was our camera operator just
basically sort of freestyling and they
had free rein to just go ahead and kind
of go okay let's just go between let's
you know follow the dialogue because we
wanted to have sort of like that kind of
roaming feel but I didn't want to have
like a super jerky kind of like handheld
you know overly noticeable feeling but
just kind of allow it to have a little
bit of that sort of found
feeling that to me you know in this
prison environment these guys are having
all these different conversations that
they don't really want anybody else to
hear so its kind of intimate but yet
it's happening in public too that's
again I think another reason why the
long lenses are cool because
sort of focus you in on the people in an
environment that isn't very that's
actually very you know very big a lot of
this scene is also showing the dynamics
between prisoners and Richard Matt was
sort of a kingpin he's kind of a top of
the food chain there this is based in
reality Richard Matt ended up painting a
Joyce Mitchell's two pugs and gave it to
her as a gift they would they would
barter paintings for favors from from
corrections officers and and it was a
definitely a commodity for them delight
oh you got two dogs sitting on a couch
in a living room you can see them I'm
gonna be like college someone okay
yes from the window
I mean you can't see it in the drawing
what do you want me to paint a
window
no you sort of see the dynamic between
these these two men who I think became
friends really just word because they
had the sole goal of escaping together
it's really interesting to hear David
sweat talk about Richard mad and and
basically he claims that he did
everything in the escape all the legwork
this was an idea that Benicio came up
with that I thought was really
interesting which was you can see here
he is that's the really bad era he's
drawing on the he's actually drawing on
the on the you know table there he's not
drawing on the paper and his idea was to
show that literally the characters
thinking out of the box like I said we
had one day to shoot the whole scene
which is was scary to me because it's
just that thing or like alright you wake
up that morning like we got to get this
whole thing and yeah it went really well
everybody knew their lines the guys were
great with the scene and we were done
with it I say we're done with like the
most most of it by one or two o'clock in
the afternoon when the light had then
not gotten as good and then we were able
to do go for the crane shot which is the
first shot this shot and the scene was
actually the last shot that we did of
the day because we're waiting for the
Sun to get low again because when the
sun's lower it's better light and and it
looks better this was I think was the
last take that we did we only had three
takes of this because the light was
going down and it was you know it was it
was tight and every time you know the
first time they did the movie they'd
never done it before and we didn't have
time to rehearse it really so it was
figuring it out on the fly
that landscape and that texture was
really a character and part of the show
having access to the prison and trying
to show the reality of this situation
was what was interesting about the show
for me that's why I wanted to do it I
was interested just to have the
experience of seeing what really went on
in there and tried to since it was a
true story try to communicate that
through this show and also hopefully
make it entertaining maybe