Jason Reitman directed 'Saturday Night' as if it was a musical.
The 46-year-old filmmaker is at the helm of the biographical comedy-drama that charts the story of how 'Saturday Night Live' made it to the television screen, and admitted that he approached the project as if it was a stage show rather than a movie.
He told Collider: "You have to think of it like a musical. It’s like choreography. We have to organize where every character is at any given moment, and we shot the movie twice. We did the movie in prep, shooting it with stand-ins, camera, stills, video, figuring everything out. We built the set a month in advance so that we could actually do that. So, by the time we got to set, everything could be organized so we could have as quick a shoot as possible. Then, on the day of, we would usually spend until noon just doing choreography. The first time you watch the take, you just want to bury your head in your hands. You have to remain calm and confident that by noon, it's gonna actually look like a scene."
Jason has directed films such as 'Thank You for Smoking' and 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' over his 25 years in the business and is humbled by the fact that he still gets to make movies that are "personal" to him.
He said: "When I got into this gig, all I dreamed was that I could just make one movie after another. I mean, that was it. I just want to be on set and tell stories. So, the idea that 25 years ago, I was at this film festival with the short film and 20 years ago I was here with Thank You For Smoking? I'm just glad that I'm still standing. I'm happy I get to still make movies. I still get to make personal movies. I think that was my greatest fear when I was younger, that I would get to make a couple personal movies and that would be it. "
