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Article Search Advanced Search Pigskin Follies By Pauline Rogers May 2, 2008, 04:37 It’s 1925 and aging star Dodge Connelly (George Clooney) struggles to keep his ragamuffin team together as they battle their opponents in cow pastures and rinky-dink stadiums across the Midwest. Dodge is determined to guide his team from bar brawls to packed stadiums. But, after the players lose their sponsor and the entire league faces certain collapse, his plans seem doomed. That is, until he convinces college football star and America’s favorite son, Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski), to join his ragtag ranks. He hopes this will finally capture the country’s attention Leatherheads is a quick-witted romantic comedy set against the early days of professional football. Although the story takes place in the Midwest, the shooting schedule meant going into, well, frozen weather. The Carolinas, on the other hand, were more temperate and offered period trains and railroads (the way the teams traveled), as well as several stadiums built in the 1920s. The trick was to populate them with fans. Thank heaven for visual effects where 200 extras, who were signed to cheer and boo, eventually became a huge crowd in —- thanks to the art department’s facades —- a rather large well attended stadium. All of which would be shot for best effect by cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC. This is his third pairing with actor/producer/director George Clooney. “Right from the start, George had a very clear idea of what he wanted to do and it was a big departure from his directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” says Sigel. “George is an avid student of film and for this project, he wanted to honor the great rollicking comedies of Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges, with a dash of George Roy Hill’s The Sting,” Sigel explains. “During prep, I had tested shooting reversal-as-reversal, which had a great faded period look, but George wanted a richer, more golden tone, like The Sting. We shot almost all the exteriors with 5201, which is an amazingly clean stock." Click icgmagazine.com for the whole story. Email this article  Printer friendly page