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They made a movie about the GameStop short squeeze already?
We moved very quickly, but I actually love that, he says.
If you have to go on instinct, it gives you less time to second-guess.
Have an Intimate Knowledge of Your Subject
Gillespie didnt just follow the GameStop story on the news.
He had a first-hand view of the emotional turmoil Reddit investors went through because he was living with one.
It was one of those COVID things that happened, the alienation of everybody.
I dont think I wouldve been interested had I not been on that journey with him.
He bought GME the day before Robinhood froze trading, and the price collapsed.
Im one of the people who lost money on GameStop, he says, laughing.
(Though thanks to the film, he probably still netted out positive in the end.)
Having been burned once before, everyone knew that time was of the essence.
There was a certain momentum, and we moved very quickly throughout this whole process, Gillespie says.
Its always a house of cards that could fall at any moment.
Lock in Your Lead
A typical studio film might get 12 weeks of preproduction.Dumb Moneyhad six.
Once we had Paul, that set the tone of the film, Gillespie said.
We kept adding scenes, and they rewrote very quickly.
They found it just across the Hudson.
The tax break that you get is very appealing, Gillespie notes.
Dont Be Afraid to Improvise
Gillespie shotDumb Moneywith his longtime collaborator, cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis.
We have a rhythm where we can move very quickly, he says.
Were hyperefficient in terms of setup time; the lightings very simple.
Once were in it, we can change around and go very quickly.
Seth Rogen shot his part of the film in four days.
At the end of it, I thought,Im kind of tired.
It gives us the chance to try different things, and the actors get to improvise as well.
We were always keeping nimble and hunting for how to push scenes a little bit.
It can get very dull, very quickly, Gillespie says.
About half the film was shot with two cameras at once, which helped keep everything running on schedule.
The size of the cast complicated matters further.
This could only be done by adding a third camera.
We really blocked it out, Gillespie says.
The beauty of a scene like that is its messy and everyones talking over each other.
Pete can be very spontaneous every takes a different reaction, and everyones rolling with that.
Shooting the scene became a beautiful dance, Gillespie says.
I never felt rushed, even though we did it so quickly.
The biggest note was to cut down on the exposition.
The same went for the memes.
Theyd send us 60 options of memes, and wed start cutting them together.
Memes were fair use, but each of the TikToks had to be cleared with the individual creators.
Theres a whole world of legality.
I was happy I was not on that team, Gillespie says.
We had to come up with devices simply to see their faces, Gillespie says.
At other times, they leaned into it.
And in the scenes set in the hedge-fund palaces of Florida, masks symbolize the upstairs-downstairs divide.
Seth Rogens hedge-fund CEO never wears one, while his army of domestic servants are always masked up.
Everything was calculated through that lens of wealth disparity, Gillespie says.
You may recall that another major news event happened in January 2021.
Anchoring it is a speech from Dano about everything regular people lost over the pandemic.
