Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/618780
28 dga quarterly SCREENPULLS: (LEFT AND TOP) WARNER HOME VIDEO; (MIDDLE AND BOTTOM) MGM HOME ENT. SHOTS TO REMEMBER Directors have been describing iconic scenes from their films for years in these pages. In excerpts from those stories, they explain how they created some of cinema's most famous moments. Stanley Donen | Singin' in the Rain (1952) >Choreographing dry is certainly easier than choreographing for rain. But it wasn't a problem. To make the rain, there had to be big stretches of pipes with holes in them, and water pressure. [Co-director Gene Kelly and I] imag- ined all these things, and then choreographed every instant. There's almost no improvisation, no room for that in a musical sequence. You can't change it. It's fixed. It's recorded. He's got to get from A to B to C to D exactly in time. We shot this whole sequence in maybe two and a half or three days. There aren't a lot of setups. But that's generally how I like to do it. I want the viewer to believe that it's happening, and that there's nobody in charge. "There is no such thing as just another dance number. They're all agony. Three or four minutes is an eternity to entertain people and make them surprised." —STANLEY DONEN