“Let’s shoot a Michael Bay movie on a budget!”
Those were the words I said to my wife (girlfriend at the time), Xenia Leblanc.
It was during the pandemic and it had been close to 11 months since I was let go from my job. We spent our time making short films and projects at home by ourselves.
We’d entered online contests and even won some, but as things started to wind down and people started getting vaccinated, the itch to do something a bit more ambitious began to taunt me.
With that, a small germ of an idea began to form in my mind — something bold and ridiculous.
I wanted to shoot a blockbuster-level action-movie car chase, but I had no access to blockbuster-level budgets.
So what does the woman you love say when you tell her you want to film a blockbuster-level movie, and you’re both collecting unemployment?
“Okay. Write the script.”
That was the start of our little adventure.
Writing ‘The Pickup’
I knew I wanted to shoot a car chase, but without the story, it’s just a bunch of fast-moving cars with no destination.
I started with the first image that came to mind — a badass female spy walking away in slow motion from a departing helicopter — already extremely ambitious, and that’s just the first sentence. Eventually, I stumbled upon the idea of an Uber driver picking her up, and that’s when it all came together.
Soon we had our logline: When a bumbling Uber driver unwittingly picks up a government spy who needs to deliver a top-secret package, he finds himself in the driver’s seat of a high-stakes game of cat and mouse while navigating the city streets.
SUPER ambitious, I know, but having a background in VFX, editing, and cinematography gave me confidence I could pull it off. Not to mention, I’d shot a small car-chase sequence before, so I knew what I was capable of. But that was just a small scene with one straight road. This film would involve city streets, tunnels, and a top-secret command center.
Still, I didn’t want to limit myself. So, I wrote what I felt we could do with what little resources we had, and as soon as we had a finished script, we were off to the races. (Pun intended)
Prepping ‘The Pickup’
With the pandemic still going on, our cast and crew pool was pretty limited. So Xenia and I decided to keep it to close friends we knew were comfortable with shooting.
I always envisioned Xenia for the lead role of Alpha, not just because she was available, but also because she is a talented and well-accomplished actress who has been in shows and movies like Orange Is the New Black, Black Widow and The Boys. To co-star alongside her, we called our friend Adam McArthur (Disney’s Star vs. The Forces of Evil and Jujutsu Kaisen), who’s really funny, so we knew we were in good hands with the comedy.
The rest of the cast was filled with friends who we’d worked with before and were down to not only act, but also crew the film. That’s usually what you get when you have a small budget. You don’t have the luxury of spending tons of money to hire a huge team, so you tend to have your MAIN BAD GUY also double as a grip or stunt car driver, and to sometimes be all three.
Also Read: How Vera Drew Made The People’s Joker With Her Own Money — and No Budget
To better prepare us, before principal photography even began, Xenia, Adam, and I shot a rehearsal in my parked car with an iPhone, capturing all the rough actions and angles we liked in our motionless vehicle.
I edited them together with a bunch of shots from epic car chase sequences from big Hollywood blockbusters like Bad Boys II, Six Underground and Need for Speed.
Thanks to this animatic (video storyboard), by the time we started shooting, we already had most of the film figured out in the edit and knew exactly what we needed to capture.
Filming ‘The Pickup’
Our first two days of filming were the biggest in terms of crew, stunts, and locations. The rest mainly consisted of pickup shots and inserts. We were shooting in the streets and tunnels of Downtown L.A. with no permits, so all our pre-planning came in handy.
Shooting primarily on the Blackmagic Pocket 4K, using Sirui Anamorphic Prime lenses, we chose to keep the camera system small, compact, and lightweight. Our other cameras included the Panasonic Lumix GH5, GoPro Hero 9, and a DJI drone.
We used a cheap car mount occasionally, but to help add some energy, we mainly relied on filming handheld while hanging out the car window or trunk. It sounds unsafe, but our assistant director Preston Daniel Grant, who’s into mountain climbing, ensured I was always properly strapped in. It also helped that the roads were fairly empty at the time, so we rarely had to deal with oncoming traffic.
Following the rules of the road, we never exceeded the speed limits and instead filmed at lower frame rates to make the cars seem faster. The LAPD even assisted us in a couple of scenes for absolutely free! I still can’t explain how that happened, but bless the movie gods.
Editing ‘The Pickup’
Shooting took longer than expected due to schedules, weather delays, and my proposal to Xenia, so I did most of the editing and VFX simultaneously. To save money, I did about 98% of the shots myself, though the last shot was by my talented friend Nick Shaheen.
For the car crashes, we relied less on CG and more on miniature die-cast toys. Xenia and I would film the models at high frame rates in similar lighting conditions as our pre-recorded background plates, wrapping them with fishing wire so they could roll down our makeshift road propped up on a table.
Afterward, I’d spend hours painstakingly rotoscoping, tracking, and compositing them into the background plate, adding layers of glass, dust, and spark elements to blend it all together. Even the aforementioned helicopter shot was just a toy on strings.
After nearly a year of work and a few extra miles on my car, we finally finished. What was supposed to take roughly five days over two months ended up taking 12 shooting days over nine months. So much had changed since we started. I got my job back, we’re married, and our film has grabbed quite a bit of attention in the industry.
The Pickup recently premiered at the Dances With Films festival and has been seen by some big-time filmmakers. The breakdowns of some of the shots I’ve posted online have garnered millions of views on Instagram and TikTok.
My goal has always been to democratize blockbuster filmmaking. I want to prove that anyone can make a film that can rival a Marvel movie in its scope and action. You don’t need millions of dollars to make a good film. You just need a vision and dedication.
It also helps if you have an awesome partner.
Nicholas Acosta, Xenia LeBlanc and “The Pickup” are on Instagram at @unrenderedmedia, @xenialeblanc, and @ThePickupMovie. Step-by-step videos are on the YouTube channel @unrenderedmedia.
Main image: Xenia LeBlanc in a very expensive looking shot in “The Pickup.” All photos courtesy of Nicholas Acosta and “The Pickup.”