Paul Feig Has Finished His First Edit of Ghostbusters and Says It’s Great!

Paul Feig has just finished his first edit on his Ghostbusters reboot, and he says he feels great about it. Feig stopped in to talk to good friend Ron Bennington about the film on Monday at the SiriusXM studios in New York City.

Feig had invited Bennington to spend a day on the super secret Ghostbusters set earlier this fall at an undisclosed location in Massachusetts. Immediately following the wrap of the final day of shooting, Feig and Bennington sat down in Feig’s trailer for an hour-long interview about the movie. That interview has not yet been released– it’s still under embargo due to the hush-hush nature of the film. But we were able to catch some glimpses of what it was like on the set of the new Ghostbusters when Feig dropped by the Bennington show Monday.

News From the Ghostbusters Universe

Here’s what we know. The sets are phenomenal– there’s a hotel lobby set, and a subway set among others, and they look so realistic that Bennington couldn’t believe he wasn’t in New York. We know the four Ghostbusters have incredible chemistry on set, and were fall out funny, even in between takes. At the very least we know there’s a killer outtakes reel, which Bennington got to watch when he was on set. We know that there will be CGI but Feig shot as much of the film as possible using Practical shots, meaning not CGI. And we know Chris Gethard shot some scenes or at least a scene for the movie (more on that below) although there’s no word yet on whether he’ll make the final cut.

Feig said this was his first real blockbuster-sized film he’s ever helmed, and shared some of what it was like to run the show on such an enormous set. “It’s kind of addictive,” Feig said. “Because most of my movies have been pretty small and then Spy got a little bit bigger. But this level of– even seeing green screen. I really wanted to make sure we did so much in camera, but you still need green screens for set extensions and things like that. It’s really kind of cool.” As cool as it may be, Feig admitted it can be disorienting, because you give up some control when you can’t actually see what the final images are going to look like. “You’re standing against a green screen at certain points– asking is this going to be okay? You really are giving your power over to another bunch of people. Because the effects team are like ‘oh no this this is going to look great.’ And I hope so because in my head it could look like a Sid and Marty Krofft movie.” Feig said he’s seen some of the preliminary effects now, and he’s very happy with the results so far. “As we’re doing even the preliminary stuff some of the effects are coming in for some of the stuff that we’re putting out early, and I’m like wow this is cool, this is really cool.”

Paul Feig on Helming a Giant Movie

The pressure of helming such a giant movie can be intense, Feig admitted. “I love the people so much but the process is so terrifying because every single second of the day is a chance to screw it up,” he said to Bennington. “Anytime you let your guard down, you go, I’m going to miss jokes, I’m not going to think of something, I’m going to miss a moment that’s an iconic moment that just happens. So even though I love it and I get really sad at the end of it, there’s a part of me at the end that goes, oh thank God, we made it, we’re done. But then I miss everybody so much the minute we walked away.”

Not missing an iconic moment, however, is one thing he has some control over. That’s why he said he switched to shooting digitally instead of using film. Ron mentioned seeing Melissa McCarthy get off a line between takes that would have been a major laugh in the film. “Well that’s why I always keep the cameras rolling. I love film and I shot everything up until Spy on film but I actually switched out of it because more than I need the artistry of film, I need the long takes that I get with HD so I can just keep the camera going,” he said. “Even if I can’t use it in the movie I’ll put it on the DVD or something. Love that stuff.” Those moments, he said, are lightning in a bottle. “That’s all I’m doing is trying to catch lightning in a bottle.”

One thing that’s important to Feig is keeping the energy up on set. When you’re sitting in your trailer for hours, and you lose your energy he said, it’s much harder to work, so he tries to eliminate as much downtime as possible. One of his secrets to keeping up the energy is to do away with the lunch breaks. Feig uses “french hours” which he described a ten-hour day with no break for lunch (as opposed to 12-15 hours with a lunch break). They make up for it by having great food circulating around the set at all times. There’s a famous seafood truck parked just outside all day long, a pastrami carving station, and rotating offerings of other specialty foods in addition to regular set catering. “Everyone eats well on my set,” Feig said. “You get inundated with food, quite frankly.”

Get Ready for Leslie Jones

Now that a first edit is done, Bennington asked Feig if he knows who is going to be the breakout star of the film, but Feig said he couldn’t pick just one. “They’re all so good,” Feig stressed. He said Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy are superstars, and Kate McKinnon is just killing. And while he wouldn’t admit to a favorite, it sounded like he had some special excitement for Leslie Jones’ performance. “Leslie Jones just destroys” he said. “Leslie Jones is such a good actress. That was the big revelation to me. Cause I know she’s so funny. I give her direction and its like oh my God, she is as good as any actor I’ve ever worked with, and she’s just such a great presence on the screen….She’s going to explode on the world in this. She is shot out of a cannon in such a wonderful way.”

Chris Gethard Got Punched in the Face by a Ghostbuster

They avoided talking specifics, not wanting to give away any big surprises, but Bennington brought up that he was excited to see comedian Chris Gethard in the outtakes. Feig said that Chris was great in the movie, but couldn’t confirm or not confirm whether he’ll make it into the final edit when all is said and done.  Which means we can now confirm what we previously already knew, Gethard shot at least one scene for the Ghostbusters reboot.

Bennington spoke to Gethard last month about his experience shooting on the film. “I was on the set of a major motion picture,” Bennington said to Gethard without mentioning names, “a blockbuster, and they invited me to watch with the entire crew, the outtakes and funny things that happened and I saw Chris Gethard get punched in the face by a huge comedy star, and the room burst into laughter.”

Being careful not to mention any names, Gethard said he really did get knocked out by the unnamed huge comedy star. “I took it for real. it was a real punch. If that footage ever sees the light of day, you’ll see it. She punches me square in the face, right under the nose, glasses fly up, she catches them and I just went down,” he said, quipping, “not good, not cool.” Gethard said the one good thing about getting punched in the face on the set of a giant film is that everyone takes things pretty easy on you after that. He even got a gift from the huge comedy star when he got back to his hotel that night. “There was like a big thing of chocolates with a note. I think it said it was great working with you and even greater punching you in the face.”

And Gethard said they were very careful with the stunts, with a stunt coordinator on set, crash pads, knee pads, and elbow pads. But none of that matters when the punch goes a few inches astray. Turns out the face punch wasn’t the only hit Gethard took that day. “We’re not saying what the name of the movie is, which I don’t know if I’m allowed to, but we’ve already alluded to who the director and writer are. So I’ll just say that someone was wearing a metal backpack and I got hit in the head with that in one of the takes and that was even worse. Someone swung around and I got hit with a metal backpack that may or may not involve protons. That was like- I almost got concussed.”

Ghostbusters is in theaters July 15, 2016. Bennington’s Monday interview with Paul Feig is available on SiriusXM on demand. No word yet on when the hour-long conversation with Feig will drop, but we’ll be watching for it.

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