I think we make a real sharp couple of coconuts, I'm dumb, you're shot.
What do you think?
>> You guys want to hear something crazy?
"Rocky", you know, the first one, has its 40th anniversary this week.
40 years!
Somewhere out there, Sylvester Stallone is equal parts proud and impressed.
Anyway, here are nine things you didn't know about "Rocky", probably.
(Sound) The steady cam is now a widely used
piece of equipment in filmmaking.
But you may not have known that this shot from Rocky is one of the first
uses of the steady cam, ever in film.
And, since it was essentially the prototype, it was clunky as hell.
Even worse, it was loud.
You could hear all sorts of worrying and grinding from the bolts and watchers and
some of that noise was made into the final film if you listen really closely.
>> Maybe I'd like some!
>> Come on, nobody likes garbage!
>> And for this shot of Rocky's attempt to run the museum steps,
the steadicam battery had actually broken that day.
Possibly due to how insanely cold it was in Philly.
Luckily, Garrett Brown was not only Rocky's steadicam operator, but
he was the guy who invented the steadicam.
He figured out a way to rig it to work on two car batteries instead and
they were able to get the shot.
And that was, boom, a bonus thing you didn't know, and
a perfect segue into our next thing.
(Sound) Let's dive into another thing about what
is arguably the most memorable motif from Rocky,
running up the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The through line of seeing Rocky unable to charge up the steps earlier to
this moment where he's triumphant shows us how hard he's been working and
how long he's been training.
The thing is, these two shots were not only done on the same day,
they were shot just an hour apart from one another.
So, if you're ever in Philadelphia and decide to run the steps,
if you don't make it on the first try, give it another shot an hour later and
you might actually get there.
Or, even better just act like you can't do it on the first try and
then the second go will be extra bad ass.
(Sound) One more thing about Rocky's run up
the stairs, you know his little victory dance afterwards?
You're watching the whole thing backwards.
They had originally shot it while zooming out, but
later on the director wished he had shot it with a zoom in.
So, they just played the shot in reverse to make it work.
Once you know that,
you can kind of sense that his movements are slightly odd, right?
And thanks to us, you'll now notice it forever and ever,
every single time you watch Rocky, which I assume is two or three times a week.
(Sound) >> Like the guys says,
you're going to eat lightning, and you're going to crap thunder!
>> You know what else they shot backwards?
The fight.
But this isn't backwards in the same way as they shot at the museum.
They shot the fight with Apollo Creed starting with the end of the fight,
working backward to the start.
They did it this way because the makeup took the longest to do.
It was much more efficient to do all the special effects makeup with Rocky at his
worst, and
then just remove the makeup as they went backwards through the fight sequences.
This also allowed them to shoot out all the scenes with the paid extras in
just one day.
Which saved money.
Something that the production definitely didn't have.
Next thing. (Sound)
>> Get here man.
>> Yeah, we'll make some money real soon.
>> Yeah a million dollars.
>> A lot of people don't realize that Rocky was a very
low budget film because it's gone on to be such a huge deal.
The producers had a deal in place with the United Artists where they could make
any movie they wanted so long as it was under a $1 million.
The producers then made a deal with Sylvester Stallone which said that if he
wrote the script for nothing, he could star in the film.
I'm not even sure that's legal.
But anyway, Rocky's producers also set it up with United Artists that if they did go
over that $1 million cap, they'd have to pay any overages out of their own pocket.
>> Put this in your glove.
>> What's this? >> 500 bucks, don't worry about it.
>> Being strapped for
cash is how they ended up with this Hertz truck in the shot.
That was the production gear truck.
But, they were so broke and
pressed for time at the location they straight up forgot to move it.
Boom, bonus thing.
Mind you the studio did essentially try and bribe Stallone with an offer of
250K to just sell them the Rocky script, but that would risk the movie never
getting made, and it would more or less guarantee he'd never get to star in it.
Despite being totally broke at the time, Stallone decided to take this (Bleep)
deal, so he could star in Rocky, which clearly paid off in the long run.
>> Let us stick this face on a stamp, what do you think?
(Music)
>> Stallone could have never guessed that Rocky would go on to be the cultural icon
it became, but he had a really good reason for rolling the dice and
passing on that 250K script deal.
>> You guessed it.
Frank Stallone.
>> Well, not really.
But, Frank Stallone is in the movie.
A cameo he definitely would never have gotten if Sly had sold the script.
Here he is in this singing group on the corner.
And then here he is again being insulted by his big brother.
>> Hey, hey.
The bum from the dock.
Get a job you bum!
>> And another quick bonus thing: (Noise) That's Frank Stallone Senior,
their dad on the bell at the fight.
So many bonus things.
(Sound) >> Entering the middle of the ring.
>> Yeah he's here!
>> Moving on to the film's final scene after the fight, you probably didn't know
that a good chunk of it was shot two months after production had wrapped.
They had to reshoot these parts because the movie originally ended with
Rocky walking out of the ring.
Later, Stallone felt strongly that the end had to be changed to him still being
inside the ring with Adrian on a freeze frame.
So, all these close-up shots inside of the ring were done as pick-ups and
they only had about 30 extras available.
Everyone you see in these shots is everyone they had.
All of the extras were friends, family, pretty much anyone who was available.
The only parts from the original ending are the wide shots
where you can actually see the crowd in the arena, next thing.
(Music)
This scene with Apollo Creed was another penny-pinching opportunity.
They shot this in Irwin Winkler's office.
He was one of Rocky's producers, so
they were able to save some dough by using his real office at MGM.
>> It's very American.
>> No juries, it's very smart.
>> Initially, the team was concerned that his first floor office windows would be
a dead give away that they were on a studio lot and not in Philadelphia.
Then they realized that they were on a freaking studio lot and
had access to all the backdrops they could possibly want.
So they flipped through the backdrops and
picked the one that you see here to hang outside the window.
Sure, it totally looks like a backdrop especially now that we've drawn your
attention to it.
But come on, suspend your disbelief.
Geez you jerks.
(Music)
Okay, so we made a big thing about the stair scene earlier but this shot with
the one arm push ups and the clapping push ups is also pretty iconic.
What most people don't know is, this shot only came about because they were
running out of exercises for Rocky to do in the training montage.
They had miles upon miles of him running through the streets of Philadelphia,
shopping malls, everywhere.
They just pull up in a van with a camera and have Stallone start running.
Most of that footage didn't make it into the film, though,
because it would have been too monotonous to just watch him running for 20 minutes.
So they came up with this scene with the push-ups.
Sylvester Stallone had never done one arm or clapping push-ups before that day.
So, good job not breaking your face on your first try dude.
Although I guess we did get a good dose of that happening later on in the movie.
That's it for us today.
Hopefully you learned something from our nine things plus bonus things today.
And, good luck the Rocky theme music out of your head because
it's totally stuck in mine.
Thanks for watching and be sure to subscribe for
more true-ish things about movies and sometimes,
(Music).
Right here on Things You Didn't Know.
(Sound)