‘Saturday Night’ DP Eric Steelberg Explains the Choreography of That Crucial Opening Shot

variety.com:

Carolyn Giardina Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night” opens with a roughly 3 1⁄2-minute single shot in which the camera quickly weaves through Studio 8H, capturing the chaos and energy as the now-iconic NBC series “Saturday Night Live” prepared to go “live from New York” for the Oct.

11, 1975, premiere. “The accuracy of what it felt like to be there was the utmost consideration in approaching all the visuals in this film,” says cinematographer Eric Steelberg, who used a moving camera and long takes to guide the audience through the meticulously crafted set. “We thought it was the best way to make people feel like they were there, beat by beat, minute by minute, in those 90 minutes before they went live. “The reason we did that [opening] shot in particular was because it’s our first exposure and entrance into the space, and we just wanted to bombard the audience with all the sights and sounds and chaos that was happening.

We didn’t want to cut away from it, we wanted to travel through it,” he continues. “There’s so much detail and nuance. It’s like information overload, and that’s the way it’s supposed to feel.” Prep was crucial as the team created this careful choreography of the camera, the actors, extras and props moving in and out of the frame. “We kept bouncing people around, because we could only afford to have so many background actors,” Steelberg relates.