Igniting Passion’s Fury: The Substance Begins

**The Challenge of Shooting "Train to Busan"

Building the Set

The thing that is quite philosophically funny is that once we finished shooting the apartment, we destroyed the set and we built this theater in the same space. So basically, it’s built on the ashes of the apartment.

Shooting in a Real Theater

The shooting took so long that we couldn’t finish everything in prep; prep was continuing while we started shooting. We had first thought about shooting in a real theater to use a real set. The theaters we visited had read the script like, “It’s going to be splattered in blood. Oh yes, that’s funny!” They wanted to welcome us with their arms open. And when everyone understood how much blood I wanted to splatter here, for real, the executive producer said, “Okay, I don’t want to finish in jail. We can’t shoot in a real theater, because there is no way we can protect it in a way that it’s not going to be destroyed.” So very soon after that, we understood that the only way to get to do this technical challenge was to build our own sets.

Bringing the Film to Life

It was a proper blood opera, wasn’t it? Everything had to be waterproof. It was going to go everywhere. All the lights were waterproof. We did design a lighting show for the beginning with little spotlights, and had [the monster] follow the spot and things like that. This is how the whole film worked, in a way, because we were constantly pushing to see what we could find and discover.

Technical Challenges

It was a massive technical challenge of how to spread the blood, how to protect the elements, how to keep everyone safe. But it was also, I must say, so much fun to be able to lose ourselves in this tsunami. I remember Ben getting into white protection gear with all the crew to protect themselves, pushing the dolly on the massive track among a tsunami of blood. The behind the scenes for this is heroic. We were navigating a volcano of blood, and we all had our hands in the thing. I was splattering it for real myself with the hose and a helmet that I had, and filming that at the same time. Ben was with another camera in the crowd, and navigating following the stunt people. We didn’t know until the end if it was going to work. Once we were on set in this massive pool, our faces totally covered in red, we hugged each other and we said, “We did it.”

Conclusion

In conclusion, "Train to Busan" presented numerous technical challenges for its filmmakers, including how to shoot in a real theater and how to protect everyone and everything from the splattering of blood. Despite these challenges, the film was a massive success, and its blood opera-style shoot remains a memorable aspect of its production.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How did you come up with the idea for "Train to Busan"?
  • (No answer available)
• What was the biggest challenge in shooting the film?
  • The biggest challenge was building the set and finding a way to shoot in a real theater.
• What was the most memorable part of the shoot for you?
  • The most memorable part was navigating a volcano of blood and filming it at the same time.

This interview has been edited and condensed. For more information, please visit www.vanityfair.com.