Released on: February 18, 2008, 3:49 am

Press Release Author: Deepak Gupta

Industry: Advertising

Press Release Summary: In Columbia Pictures' action-packed thriller Vantage Point,
eight strangers with eight different points of view try to unlock the one truth
behind an assassination attempt on the president of the United States.

Press Release Body: Columbia Pictures presents in association with Relativity Media
an Original Film production, Vantage Point. The film stars Dennis Quaid, Matthew
Fox, Forest Whitaker, Edgar Ramirez, Ayelet Zurer, with Sigourney Weaver and William
Hurt. Directed by Pete Travis. Produced by Neal H. Moritz. Written by Barry L.
Levy. Executive producers are Callum Greene, Tania Landau, and Lynwood Spinks.
Director of Photography is Amir Mokri. Production Designer is Brigitte Broch.
Editor is Stuart Baird, A.C.E. Costume Designer is Luca Mosca. Music is by Atli
Örvarsson.
In Columbia Pictures' action-packed thriller Vantage Point, eight strangers with
eight different points of view try to unlock the one truth behind an assassination
attempt on the president of the United States. Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Kent
Taylor (Matthew Fox) are two Secret Service agents assigned to protect President
Ashton (William Hurt) who is in Spain to deliver a major address on the global war
on terror. As he approaches the podium in a crowded square, shots ring out, and
pandemonium breaks loose. The president falls to the ground. When President Ashton
is shot, chaos ensues and disparate lives collide in the hunt for the assassin. In
the crowd is Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker), an American tourist who thinks he's
captured the shooter on his camcorder while videotaping the event for his kids back
home. Also there, relaying the historic event to millions of TV viewers across the
globe, is American TV news producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver). As they and
others reveal their stories, the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place - and it
will become apparent that shocking motivations lurk just beneath the surface.
This is the setting for Columbia Pictures' new film Vantage Point, an
action-thriller that, for director Pete Travis, was a chance to explore the idea of
"the truth" - and the fact that truth is in the eye of the beholder. As Vantage
Point unfolds, the film explores the period immediately before and after the
assassination attempt from the unique points of view of eight key participants -
ranging from the president himself to the secret service agents assigned to protect
him to a tourist in the square only by chance. "If you were to follow only one
story, you wouldn't find out the truth about what really happened," says Travis.
"As you see each story, you see something else that you never knew before. It's
only when you get to the end that you figure out what really went on."
Travis points out that in addition to the five well-known American stars and four
highly regarded international actors that topline Vantage Point, there is one more
star: the story. "You've got eight different people, eight ways of seeing the
world, eight pieces of a puzzle. It's a dream for a director: you can't solve the
mystery of this film without seeing the world from different people's point of view.
It's a story that you can only tell through cinema. A movie about ways of
'seeing'-how cool is that!"
For Dennis Quaid, who stars in Vantage Point, the film was a chance to subtly shade
a performance based on point of view. "There's the way we see ourselves, and
there's the way others see us," he explains. "I play my character one way when the
story is told from my point of view, but when the film's vantage point shifts to
another character's POV, I play him as that character sees him - and change again
for the other characters. A person isn't seen the same way by any two people."
Screenwriter Barry Levy adds that those multiple points of view lead to chaos - and
only through mutual understanding can the truth come out. "Everyone knows only what
they can see before their eyes, what they can figure out, which limits everyone's
understanding of what's going on," he says. "Only when the audience sees the
collective, all eight stories, all eight pieces of the puzzle, will they understand
what really went on. Ultimately, the movie is a single story, a hero's journey -
but told from eight points of view."
To bring Levy's idea to the screen, producer Neal H. Moritz tapped Travis, whose
first film as a director, Omagh, focused on a 1998 bombing in Northern Ireland.
"The way Pete captured reality, the characters, the sound, was entirely original,"
says Moritz. "Pete's fresh approach to the material made it clear to me that
Vantage Point would be in good hands."
Travis and Levy were keenly aware that the film they were making, by its nature,
required seeing the same actions over and over again, from different points of view.
"We had to keep it fresh," Travis says. "When you see something more than once, we
tried to make sure that you were seeing something different. For example, when you
first see the square, you see it as the news cameras see it - lots of cameras, but
far away and static or up close and handheld, the way a news program would shoot it.
When you see it from a secret service agent's point of view, it's like walking into
an amphitheater, and you hear a noise you didn't hear before. The crowd, which had
previously seemed friendly, looks different to a secret service man who's just
coming back a year after being shot. Every face in the crowd is a potential
assassin; every wave of the flag could be a signal to somebody. I tried to shoot
that in a way that shows what he feels, so that the story would feel different every
time."
Moritz says that the filmmakers called upon every tool available to differentiate
the stories. "Whether it was through the use of different lenses, or different film
stock, or lighting, or different ways of shooting, such as handheld cameras,
Steadicam, dollies, we used different tricks to try to make each of these stories
feel individual, to keep the audience interested in the twists and turns and
invested in each character's story."
After filming, Travis found one more way to keep the story fresh: "When we came to
cutting the film, we made sure that every story ended with a cliffhanger. Only at
the end do all the stories get wrapped up and you figure out what went on."
And all eight stories are necessary, according to Quaid. "It's a puzzle, this film,
and if you take one piece out, you can't see the whole picture," he says.
The film features a cast of award-winning actors, including Dennis Quaid, Matthew
Fox, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, and Sigourney Weaver, and rising international
stars, including Spain's Eduardo Noriega (star of Abre los ojos, the original
version of Vanilla Sky), Israel's Ayelet Zurer (Munich), France's Saïd Taghmaoui (La
Haine), and Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez (The Bourne Ultimatum).
Quaid says that he was attracted to the film by the chance to work with the
director. "I had seen Pete's previous movie, Omagh, which is about an IRA terrorist
bombing in Ireland. I like his realistic style of filmmaking; there's a lot of
action. His movies are gripping - you know you're watching actors, but they have
the immediacy of a documentary."
Fox says that the twists and turns of his character were immediately appealing.
"I'm fascinated with the concept of perspective," he says. "It's a great
opportunity to play a guy who you think is one way but turns out to be someone
completely different."
Whitaker, who just last year won the Academy Award® for Best Actor for his
performance in The Last King of Scotland, adds, "When I met Pete, he told me his
background-he was a social worker before he made movies! Talk about a different
perspective! In that first meeting, I wanted to do this movie, and fortunately, it
worked out."
Quaid adds that Vantage Point represented an opportunity to delve back into an
action film. "I didn't realize while reading this script how much action there is
in this movie, but we've got gun shots, bombs going off, terrific car chases-all
exciting stuff and fun to do. For me, it was like being a kid again to do all the
action."
Travis says that the action underscored the ideas in the film. "What's exciting
about the action is that it shows you something in a way that you didn't see it
before. It becomes part of the point of view," he says. "There's a visceral,
hand-held kinetic energy of the camera - the idea is to make it a participant in the
action. When people run, the camera runs with them; when people go into a room, the
camera goes in behind them. During the car chase, when the car is hit and the
camera is spinning around inside the car, that's our fabulous stunt coordinator,
Spiro Razatos, holding the camera and getting hit.
To bring the car chase to life, Travis and Razatos looked at their favorite car
chases for inspiration, then planned out their own in minute detail. "We sat down
with a bunch of toys and planned every single stunt and storyboarded everything to
make you feel, how does it feel to be really in a chase?
"In a way, it's a point of view thing," he continues. "When you see Dennis Quaid
driving, the camera behind him, looking over his shoulder at what he's chasing, it's
not just seeing him chasing someone; instead, you're in there with him, chasing with
him, and it's more real and more exciting."
SUGGESTED QUOTE: Moritz was excited to make the film as an homage to one of his
favorites. "Rashomon is a four-star classic, and while that movie is in a league of
its own, it's a thrill to explore some of the same themes," he says. "Even with the
best intentions, we all interpret events differently. If a movie can excite you
about an idea, and feature an awesome car chase as well, that's the best of both
worlds."


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