Shooting Locations
From New York City…
“New York City really is one of the stars of this movie,” says Moritz. “Whatever challenges there are to shooting in New York City, it’s all worth it once you get it on film.”
“The whole movie started in New Jersey, and Atlantic City was always a character,” explains production designer Jane Musky of the original look of the film. “But I think in the early evolution, Andy and Oliver Bokelberg, the cinematographer, and I were talking, and we thought that we’d have more room to move if we got some of it into New York.”
Still, setting The Bounty Hunter in New York would require the filmmakers to feature locations far off the beaten path. “Our location scouts come back with pictures and places of things that we’ve never seen, even though we’ve spent a lot of time in New York City,” says Moritz. “We shot in Queens, in Brooklyn, the West Village, Yonkers, Rockaway, Long Island. I think these locations really lend an air of credibility to the movie.”
Musky utilized all the different locations within New York as part of the characters’ style and development: “We knew that we wanted Nicole to be a little more Manhattan; she had come up a little more in her style. As a counterpoint, we put Milo in Brooklyn. So it was almost like just giving us more choices stylistically of where these people could go and then carrying through with the way that they are as acting the parts also.”
Because Nicole is not actually in any scenes that take place in her home, it was imperative for the production design crew that Nicole’s brownstone truly represent her character. Musky chose to play into Nicole’s pretense of a together, straight-laced life, and at the same time hint at the fragility just below the surface. “Nicole is the most conservative in a way, because her charade is that ‘I have this great place now, I don’t need him anymore.’ So she’s the most straight laced in her environment.” Another reason to create a sterile look for Nicole’s apartment is to make it all the more comedic when Milo takes it upon himself to destroy it.
When she began her search for locations in Milo’s world, she stumbled across the ultimate coincidental find for the run-down headquarters of Sid’s bail bonds business. “Wink Mordaunt and I were out scouting, looking at one place, and then we turned around and – gasp! – we saw the sign. ‘Sid’s Bail Bonds!’ It was the funniest piece of architecture in Queens. This place is maybe 12 feet by 20 feet. It definitely wasn’t the most shootable place – it was all caved in, the roof had broken.”
Finding a location already dilapidated and correctly named for a character’s business in the script was too good to pass up. They immediately decided to use the space, despite the lack of practical shooting room.
“Once we got into it and cleared it out, we just made it as wild as we could for the camera,” says Musky.
Often, production design can provide visual clues for the audience: moviegoers get hints from where a character lives, if he’s neat or messy, how he’s dressed. It might seem that on The Bounty Hunter, a production designer would take the opportunity to show how far apart Milo and Nicole are. But, says Musky, though they live in opposite worlds, “I couldn’t make them so opposite that you think, ‘Why would she ever fall in love with that guy?’ It had to be right on the edge. For a designer, it’s a pretty fun idea to have to go to the high-high end for her and the low-low end for him, and somewhere the movie has to meet in between to make it all make sense.”
…on the road to Atlantic City
“The Bounty Hunter really is a road movie,” says Neal Moritz. “We spend a lot of time in a beautiful, powder blue convertible that kind of becomes the home for the two characters for quite a bit of the movie.”
Since so much of the shooting was spent in the stunt car, Moritz commented how the car itself became a character in the movie. “By the end of the movie we were all arguing about who was actually going to get to keep the car,” he says. “But unfortunately, we crashed it, so we really didn’t have to worry about whose car it ultimately was going to be.”
Musky was responsible for finding the classic convertible. Having cast a responsible Prius for Nicole’s car, they hoped to find an enormous huge gas-guzzler for Milo. With the help of Robert Griffin in props, they found the perfect model. “The one that Bobby had found in Florida happened to be that baby blue, which was perfect – you can picture Milo and Nicole in that romantic, light blue car against the crisp blue sky,” says Musky. “Though things have gone bad between them, when they got in that car they looked great. It’s romantic even though they don’t know it yet.”
The film’s central sequence takes place in Atlantic City, and from the very beginning, the filmmakers strove to film there. Though their original plan was to shoot in A.C. for only a day or two, in the end they planned an entire week. “When I saw the movie for the first time in the editor’s cut, I couldn’t believe how much of the movie is in Atlantic City,” he says.
“In that one week that we had to film, we shot everywhere we could,” Tennant continues. “I think that was the biggest reward – it was worth the fight to get to Atlantic City.”
Just as the filmmakers found the perfect New York location for Sid’s Bail Bonds by happenstance, so too did they let serendipity be their guide in Atlantic City. “Andy went to Atlantic City – not so much on a scout, but just to have a look around. And he sees this weird sign, with the name Irene and an arrow pointing to the gift shop. It was like a light going on in his head – Irene is Milo’s bookie, that’s her name, she works in the gift shop.”
“So we shot the storefront in Atlantic City with the real sign,” she continues. “When you see her, you know everything about her. She loves her souvenirs, the souvenir shop never stopped in the bookie operation… it was all in the mess of this souvenir warehouse.”
Though Irene’s character had lackeys and ran a tight, tough ship, her ridiculous surroundings inspired by a real Atlantic City establishment led to more comedy than originally intended. “It ended up being very funny, that set…because the actress was great and it sort of fed the moment,” comments Musky. “She’s a tough broad, but it’s still a light moment in the movie.”
The Bounty Hunter (2010)
Directed by: Andy Tennant
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler, Jason Sudeikis, Dorian Missick, Joel Marsh Garland, Christine Baranski, Dorian Missick, David Costabile, Lynda Gravatt, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Michelle Nagy, Caroline Overby
Screenplay by: Sarah Thorp
Production Design by: Jane Musky
Cinematography by: Oliver Bokelberg
Film Editing by: Troy Takaki
Costume Design by: Sophie De Rakoff
Set Decoration by: Ellen Christiansen
Art Direction by: Patricia Woodbridge
Music by: George Fenton
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content including suggestive comments, language and some violence.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: March 19, 2010