Joshua Jackson Shares Insane Story On Steven Soderbergh's Film Editing Preparation

Dan Lalonde
10 hours ago
2 min read

Joshua Jackson Steven Soderbergh Rich Eisen Ocean's 11

What is your favorite scene from the 'Ocean's' franchise?

Joshua Jackson is opening up on The Rich Eisen Show about the legendary scene from "Ocean's 11' which finds him playing poker with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, where Pitt's character Rusty is training Jackson (who is playing himself) along with other teen stars Topher Grace (Traffic), Shane West (ER), Holly Marie Combs (Charmed), and Barry Watson (7th Heaven).

"I mean, I can go into the nitty-gritty details of it. So, we're shooting this. We were on like day, let's say, 89 and 90. So, we're right towards the tail end of them shooting. And I didn't know this at the time, but Stephen Soderbergh is not only his own director, he's his own director of photography, and his own cameraman. That's everything."

"So he's just bouncing around, and he's you know, it's a poker table, so it's circle, and in the normal course of business you'd have to move all the lights around every time. He moves but all day he's just bouncing, nothing moves, and at a certain point, he sees something. He's like this, somebody runs away they come back with a binder. He puts the binder on the poker table opens it up, finds the location that we're at, looks and he goes "what's that shadow doing on the wall over there" cuz he's memorized his entire lighting schematic. Unbelievable. So that there are no unsupported lights anywhere in the room, so that he never has to move a light, so he can just capture whatever he wants as he goes around."

"And then one of the other guys at the table asks him, "Hey, you know, like we're on day 89. When are you going to have your cut of the movie done?" Which is kind of an impertinent question, but whatever. And he thinks about it. We're on like a Thursday, going to shoot on a Friday. He's like, "Well, you know, probably take the weekend. Yeah, I'll probably have my cut done on Tuesday."

"Which, for anybody who works in the industry, knows is an insane thing to say. There's usually at least 6 weeks before even the roughest of rough cut. He sends to his editor a list of the shots that he's about to do and how he would like them cut together before he shoots them. And then the editor puts his preferred take and the director's preference, and they just so they're only ever two days behind. So he has the whole movie mapped out in his head and cut as he's doing it. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen."

Do you have any stories on film preparation from set? Comment below with your thoughts.