VOTD: Rare Behind The Scenes Footage From 'Back To The Future Part III'
Yesterday brought a lot of fun updates for fans of Back to the Future, from the forthcoming arrival of Pepsi Perfect (in a very limited supply) to a trailer for Jaws 19 to the arrival of skateboards modeled after the iconic hoverboards from the film, just as the word for the floating device has been recognized by the dictionary.
And now we bring some unique footage from a Back to the Future Part III set video, shot by someone who just happened to live next door to the house that was used as the McFly residence. She's a peeping tom! It's nothing too revealing, but it gives you a good idea of the vibe on a film set, which usually requires a lot of standing around.
Here's the behind the scenes footage Back to the Future Part III from (via Reddit):
As you can see, the production is at the McFly house, right at the garage, shooting a scene from near the end of the movie. It's the moment where Marty (Michael J. Fox) has just come home after the DeLorean is wrecked by a train, briefly talks with his family and Biff, and heads off to pick up Jennifer. Sometimes you forget just how many people are needed to pull off a simple scene like this, and that should also make you realize just how much more work is involved when it's a much more complicated sequence being shot.
It doesn't look like the set was all that closed off to the public, or at least to the people who lived in the neighborhood where they were shooting. Maybe that's a testament to how much more nosy people are today, or just to how much easier it is to come by information about where a particular movie is shooting when word can move lightning fast across the internet and social media. Nowadays, if a Back to the Future sequel was shooting in someone's neighborhood today, everyone would know about it within the hour.
Also, for those wondering, there's no clear indicator as to why Michael J. Fox's on-set chair says "Roller of the Eyeballs," but Tom F. Wilson (who played Biff, Griff and Mad Dog Tannen) wrote down that detail in a diary entry from 1991 that originally appeared in US Magazine (via Tom F. Wilson Online):
As a joke, the prop men have changed the back of Bob Z's chair. Underneath 'Robert Zemeckis', it now reads 'Guardian of the imagination'. Michael is having his chair changed to read 'Michael J. Fox, roller of the eyeballs'.
Maybe he rolled his eyes in response to the name on Robert Zemeckis' chair? Does anyone know?