bossman is right about it being darker than it seems. i've been working on this movie as an extra for about two weeks in total (last time i worked on set was a couple of tuesdays ago). it's not suppose to appear as glorious and "funny" as it seems on the trailer. like, the first few days i worked on it, we were filming a brief scene right before kerry's character was about to get whipped for something and the guy's reading this passage from the bible while he's preparing to beat her (i can't remember exactly what because it was back in february). the last time i worked, quentin was shooting the scene where kerry's about to get sold off and the had a shyt ton of extras walking back and forth in mud (my god it was so muddy and all you could smell was horse shyt) with pretend shackles on our feet because we were at an auction. what's worse is they had some extras in a neck shackle similar to this...
i'm suppose to work some more but a scene got postponed until a later day but i actually plan to go to set today to pick up this shirt people on the staff have been making for those who've worked on the movie.
even on the first day working there, quentin talked with us and made sure we realized the seriousness of what we were doing (we were depicting slavery) and made sure we had our minds in the right place. we shot at this old plantation about an hour from new orleans for a few days, but now (or for today at least) they're shooting closed scenes at the studios close to the irish channel in NOLA (actually, like a 15 minute walk from my house).
i was going to make a thread after the last day i worked about how i hoped everyone would fully appreciate the action behind the main actors because that portion of it is highly critical. it's like he's designing the movie to tell a story within a story and not just using the slavery setting as a backdrop. plus i could see a lot of you guys being wrapped up in the entertainment portion rather than getting a whole grasp of everything that he's trying to get across. i admit, i would too if i wasn't working on the film myself but working behind the scenes helped me gain a greater appreciation for it. also, it was interesting to even see the dynamic between the extras working as slaves in the movie. there was some psychological stuff that occurred when we were working on the plantation for those couple of weeks...