Ladies and gentleman,
we have ourselves a homicide. >> Hey, this is kind of depressing.
The movie, Seven, is old enough to drink.
That´s right, it turned 21 last month.
But, rather than just dwelling on bummers and contemplating our own mortality,
we also found a few things about Seven that you may be surprised to learn.
(Music) Here are seven things you didn´t know
about Seven.
Probably. (Sound)
Let's start off with this scene,
which takes place after the chase sequence with John Doe.
See, it was part of the original script that Mills would sustain
an injury during that chase.
It just wasn't supposed to be this particular injury.
>> Stupid son of a
>> The problem was,
Brad Pitt went the extra mile and
jacked up his hand for real when they were filming the chase.
He cut himself on a windshield when they were going across these cars, and
it was bad.
We're talking severed tendons and exposed bone.
Yuck. Believe it or not,
even after getting cut so badly, Pitt finished the take and
only showed his truly alarming injury to director David Fincher afterward.
Which was kind of a waste, because it's not even a take that he ended up using.
(Sound) >> Could you at least sit across from me?
I don't want people thinking we're dating. >> Sticking with Brad Pitt for a second,
they wound up writing his real injury into the film's plot for the scenes that
followed the chase, so they'd be able to justify his arm being in a cast.
But since movies are almost always shot out of sequence, they had to be creative
for any remaining scenes that took place before the chase took place.
So in this office scene from earlier in the film,
Brad Pitt's arm was actually already in the cast,
which explains why there's a lot of business with his hand in his pocket.
And if you look closely at this part, when he's on the phone,
his hand is super swollen and it's kind of turning purple.
That's because the cast was synched all the way up to his wrist, and
it was cutting off his circulation.
It was kind of a drag, but when he wakes up every day, he's still Brad Pitt.
So don't feel too bad for him.
(Sound) Brad Pitt deserves some respect for finishing that take where he cut his
hand, but Morgan Freeman deserves some respect for this knife throwing scene.
(Sound) This is all real.
For one, the knife he's using is just some crap prop knife for movies,
so it was balanced all wrong.
They'd planned to just fake the knife landing in the board using a wire,
and then they'd remove the wire in post.
But Morgan Freeman was able to get a knife that everyone said he wouldn't be able to
throw at all to go in with no help from special effects.
I can't say I'm surprised.
I feel like Morgan Freeman would be able to throw a knife by just commanding it to
move with his voice.
(Sound) It almost isn't an episode of
Things You Didn't Know if we don't talk about dick at least once.
So here we go.
In this scene in the coroner's office, the production team had a bit of an inside
joke when they were designing the glutton's carcass.
They knew that he'd be lying on a cot in there, and it would be super grotesque and
the subject of ridicule.
So they figured why not give him a huge wang at least, which they did.
So next time you watch Seven,
just remember that everything on the glutton's body is really, really big.
And I mean everything.
(Laugh) >> All right, laugh it up.
(Sound) >> You're probably familiar with
the library in Seven, and possibly not just from watching Seven, because this
library it's also the bank in the Mask. >> Smokin'.
>> And the building is,
in fact, a bank, or at least, it was.
For Seven, they had to fake the disused bank for
an old library like you'd find in New York, because they needed the balcony.
All of the books are fiberglass,
which the production design team aged to make them look more believable.
Which is, boom, a bonus thing you didn´t know.
They were shooting Seven in Los Angeles, but
all of the existing libraries in LA were too modern.
They wanted the feel of a large, old library for Somerset,
since he is, himself, a man of tradition.
And that´s why they wound up faking a bank for a library.
Next thing, can we move on to the next thing, please?
Next thing. (Sound) Even though the books on
the shelves in the library bank were fake, John Doe's notebooks weren't.
Rather than just being volume after volume of scribbles,
the books contained the actual rantings and ravings of John Doe,
as conceived by the set designers. >> What sick ridiculous puppets we are,
and what a gross little stage we dance on. >> They went as far
as researching the handwritings of various insane people, and
went with a style of very condensed small writing that left no room on the page.
They also included a lot of visuals of crime scene photos, collages, and
sexual fetish imagery.
They felt that combining these elements best conveyed obsession.
I mean, some might say it's conveying obsession to go through the time and
expense to make all those notebooks for real,
but that's the good kind of obsession.
Attention to detail.
Dedication to your craft.
The kind of obsession that makes you talk about dick in every episode.
(Sound) Right?
Yeah. Last thing.
(Sound) >> What do you
got? >> Dead
dog. >> I didn't do that.
>> Let's talk about the climactic scene at
the end of Seven,
specifically let's talk about the long shots throughout the sequence, because you
probably didn't know that those are not the film stars in any of those long shots.
They had to use doubles, because by this point in the production Brad Pitt,
Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey had all shot the maximum days they could on set,
and before they had to move on to their next films and
it's not just in the super duper long shots.
Right here, when John Doe is on his knees, and Somerset is running over and
telling Mills to put his gun down, it's actually Kevin Spacey's double there too.
Spacey was long gone directing another project.
Brad Pitt, who had left to work on Twelve Monkeys,
did come back to film some more stuff for Seven once he was available,
like in this scene. >> When a person is insane, as you clearly
are- Do you know that you're insane? >> All of his close-ups,
from point forward, were shot well after the preceeding portions of the sequence.
See?
Pre 12 monkeys. Post 12 monkeys.
Pre 12 monkeys.
Post 12 monkeys.
Okay, I think that's enough. >> Yeah.
>> We hope you guys liked our Seven deadly
things in today's episode.
Did I say deadly?
Sorry, I meant fun.
Thanks for watching and be sure to subscribe for
more true-ish things about movies, and sometimes a dead glutton's donger.
(Sound) Right here on Things You Didn't Know.
(Sound)