HISTORY OF THE PRODUCTION PAGE 2

With principal photography underway, the first scenes to be shot were those at a Lady Salisbury owned field in Baldock, Hertfordshire, UK, doubling for the Kent's farm, Smallville, Kansas, USA. Location shooting continued at Sir Frank Markham high school in Milton Keynes, UK. After this came three weeks in Central Milton Keynes, with shooting at the Avesbury building office block doubling for the Daily Planet interiors, it's gym was also used for the fitness centre interior, while the Avesbury foyer played home to the Metropolis Hyatt hotel. The Milton Keynes Winter Gardens joined onto the Avesbury complex became the Metropolis Museum Of Modern Art interior, Milton Keynes Railway Station and station square played the United Nations exterior, the Forte Post House Hotel Milton Keynes was used for a shopping mall interior and the Milton Keynes Wayfarer Hotel doubled for a heliport interior. Further location work was done in London, with the capital's 'Hippodrome' Leicester Square night club doubling for the interior of the Metro Club, and Wembley Conference Centre doubled for a UN hall interior. Didcot Power station in Oxfordshire also doubled for the nuclear reactor.

With Lane's extensive US footage completed, it was decided that location work in the USA was not needed. All principal main unit photography of city streets would be filmed on a backlot set at Elstree.

These sets could have been executed like those in 'Superman 2', 'Supergirl' and 'Santa Claus', all of which had supposedly American location work actually shot on enormous sets at Pinewood. In those films, split screen miniatures and extensive matte paintings were used, inventively disguising and enhancing the limited, studio-bound surroundings. Unfortunately, the crew of those technically inspired films had just been fired, leaving behind obvious single storey mock up "skyscrapers", a visible soundstage roof and a dubious sense of size. To contrast this, the Salkinds very own Santa Claus had required extensive location filming in New York City, but through clever use of big budget sets, location footage by the aerial team, painted scenery, miniatures, mattes, front projection and innovative cinematography, the whole film was made entirely at the studio. None of this artistry aided 'Superman IV'.

For 'Superman 2', a set was needed for a scene set in a fictitious Houston, Idaho. Inventive location work allowed the filmmakers to create Houston at Chobham Common in Surrey. Using a series of mock-up buildings, miniatures and acres of deserted land, the art directors plowed a dirt road, planted nearly one hundred telephone poles pointing off into the distance. The cinematography also manipulated the lifeless English countryside, adding warm blue skies that also match US aerial shots used within the sequence. Cannon attempted a similar experiment with 'Superman IV', in a scene requiring Superman to attract attention at the United Nations building.
Avoiding a New York City shoot, production designer John Graysmark used the modern architecture of London suburb Milton Keynes for the UN set. The Milton Keynes mirrored-glass railway station could have easily played substitute for the American location had it been handled similarly to those doubling-for-America shots in Superman 2 and Santa Claus. However, paintings from Harrison Ellenshaw's matte department proved insufficient, resembling the Cloud city he rendered for 'The Empire Strikes Back', too stylised and lacking verisimilitude.

The choice of technicians had obviously back-fired, and instead no enhancements were made, leaving the five storey railway station looking like a five storey railway station. No matter how much work John Graysmark contributed with redfire hydrants and checker cabs, the unsuited visual effects crew could not make it work. Incidentally, Alfred Hitchcock's 'North By Northwest' made in the late 1950s contained superior UN scenes to those in 'Superman IV', and as with 'Superman IV', no principal photography was actually undertaken at the actual UN plaza. Hitchcock had a plate unit shoot background action of the UN, with interiors shot on a small soundstage that were enhanced considerably using large matte paintings. A long shot filmed by the second unit had a stand-in for Cary Grant walking across the UN plaza, which was later cut together with process shots of Grant against the plate photography. To the average audience member the trickery was seamless and totally taken for granted. Not only was the illusion convincing, but it also had great scope and style. Alas, Cannon could not take advantage of past inventiveness, and their shots of the UN were restricted and small. Would it have been so difficult to have a stand-in for Reeve walk across the real plaza in New York, intercut with close ups, process and matte shots of the real actor on a set?

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