Director Jeff Tremaine Explains the Use of 3-D for Jackass 3D
Posted 10.13.10 by Ryan
While it's no surprise that the Jackass crew would converge for another installment of crazy stunts and pranks, it was a surprise to see that it would in 3-D. Director Jeff Tremaine told Collider that adding 3-D to Jackass 3D was simply "Hollywood 101."
Jackass needed to be in 3D. Paramount suggested it to us and I liked the idea of it, but then the idea of shooting it in 3D was really scary to us. [Johnny] Knoxville was really resistant to the idea of changing our process. We were just scared that it would slow us down too much and just kill all the spontaneity of the whole thing. So, we did two days of testing and that’s when we realized that we had found the perfect company, this company called Paradise 3D, that could keep up with us. They just made it easy on us. And, we could see the 3D. Right after we shot it, we could go look at it, and we could see right away that Jackass was made to be in 3D. It’s perfect for it. So, after we tested it, that’s when both Knoxville and I got on board.
Tremaine says he knew 3-D was "going to be more work" but didn't realize his biggest headache would be Knoxville, who kept pushing production months after they were supposed to be finished.
We started filming in February and we didn't stop shooting until August. We were supposed to stop shooting in June, but Knoxville wouldn’t let us stop, so we just kept going and kept going until finally, in August, I was like, "Motherf**ker, it’s done!" Once he starts, he doesn’t want to stop, so we had to have a little shooting intervention with him when we just told him, "Hey, come in and watch what we’ve got so far, so we can make some decisions on the movie." He came in and [producer] Spike [Jonze] and I pounced on him and said, "Look dude, sorry, but it’s done. We’re done shooting. We’ve got to put it together now." That was preposterous. We shot a couple scenes in August, and the movie is coming out October 15th. I don’t think that’s ever been done before.
As for the most difficult stunt, Tremaine says the "high five" bit, shown in the first clip from the movie, was one he didn't think would work.
Knoxville had that idea. He came to me and said, "Let’s just build a giant hand and, when a guy comes around the corner, we’ll hit them with it." First of all, our guys are super-paranoid. They know s**t is going on and they’re going to see a giant hand coming at them. I doubted that they could make a hand that would be heavy enough to knock them senseless and move fast enough to get them. I was stupid to doubt that. We got every single one of them with it. It was on garage door springs and, for Bam [Margera], we added two extra springs and torqued it really hard.
Jackass 3D is still a few days from release, so until then, enjoy our Top 10 Jackass scenes.