November 21st, 2009
SPOILER ALERT: “LOST” is filming today near Hawaii Pacific University in downtown Honolulu today. Thanks to an email alert widely circulated among HPU staff and students, and a post from an HPU account on Twitter, fans had ample notice to head over to check out the filming.
Early in the morning, this fantastic observation came in from “Ann the LOST Fan”: “Josh Holloway (Sawyer) and Ken Leung (Miles) are here. Sawyer has a badge on his belt, Miles has a gun on his hip.”
One scene took place in front of a “La Brea Property Management” office in “Pacific Tower” (false signs hung on Kukui Plaza). Around the corner, two L.A.P.D. cruisers were parked. Sawyer is waiting in a new-ish but nondescript silver four-door Mercury sedan. Sawyer beckons to Miles, who cautiously walks up to the car, then tries to wave Sawyer off and walk away. But Sawyer calls out and stops him, leans over, and opens the passenger door for Miles.
Miles gets in. Sawyer gives Miles one of two cups of coffee, and they talk. Sawyer then gives Miles a file or folder with photographs, and he flips through it. He looks at one photo intensely, and hands it back.
Miles was wearing dark jeans, a blue plaid collared shirt, and a leather jacket. Sawyer was also in jeans, with a dark, rugged jacket over a gray T-shirt. Miles is definitely a cop, but this scene suggests that even Sawyer somehow again ends up involved with law enforcement. If he is working with Miles, it would appear the pair are a team, just like in the Dharma Initiative circa 1977.
Could it be? Given earlier reports of the pair at a L.A.P.D. station, it seems possible. Sawyer was also seen with Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) at a fancy restaurant earlier this week, and the implication was he was “conning” her. But maybe Sawyer was working for the police, and not a criminal enterprise? Or maybe he’s just playing the cops, too.
I headed down to the set before noon to check things out for myself. As it turns out, “Ann the Lost Fan” lived in Kukui Plaza, and residents of the secured building had a particularly good view of the action.
They set up a quick scene in a narrow alley across the street. The same narrow alley where Michael met Tom in an earlier season. Posters were hung, boxes were strewn, and a hose was used to add an extra layer of wet dinginess. An unfamiliar, slight woman wearing a black jacket and with a gray hood pulled over her head repeatedly ran down the alley as a camera crew filmed her from above (perched atop the Thomas building). She knocked down a stack of boxes as she ran, which would then be carefully set back up for another take.
The HPU email suggested that a woman would be chased, screaming, down the alley (and to therefore not be concerned). But I must have missed the screaming.
For the next scene, a blue Dodge sedan was positioned on the street behind Sawyer’s car, and a stand-in dressed the same way as the running woman sat in the driver’s seat. They set up a dolly to film a zoom-in-to-tight shot of Sawyer in his left-side rear view mirror. Holloway then threw himself violently around behind the wheel, as if rear-ended hard.
Finally, the actors cleared out to set up for a stunt scene. The silver car was swapped out for an identical one, but with a camera in the back seat and a meticulously polished back window. The blue Dodge was backed up about 20 yards, and a large black SUV was added to the mix. Sawyer’s stand in and the woman’s stand in were briefed by Jack Bender as things were put into place.
An all-hands meeting was called in the middle of the street, then everyone took their places. Sawyer’s stand in, with his coffee cup, got into the silver car. So did, it appeared, Miles’ stand-in. The hooded driver got into the blue Dodge, another man in a white tee got into the police car, and the SUV driver got set as well.
And… action!
The blue car sped down the street. The black SUV passed on its left, then cut in front, causing the blue car to swerve and hit Sawyer and Miles’ car. They actually filmed the stunt more than once. The first time, the blue car just gently crunched into the silver car’s driver’s side door. So the crew just pulled out the dents, spray painted the scratches, and buffed out the evidence. The second take was much more solid, the blue car slamming into the back of the silver car, apparently as planned.
Standing by, though, there was an identical pair of silver and blue vehicles. They were apparently going to repeat the scene it until they ran out of cars. But I had run out of time and headed home. But a friend said more filming was going to take place until evening on nearby streets, perhaps to depict the car chase that preceded the crash, or a foot chase that follows.
Though these scenes were obviously shot out of sequence, I’d guess it unfolds as follows: Sawyer flags down Miles from his car, and they meet, sipping coffee and looking over photos. Suddenly, a blue car involved in a police chase crashes into them. The driver, a hooded woman, takes off down an alley.
Throughout the mythology of “LOST,” car crashes have been a major nexus for our characters’ encounters. Miles and Sawyer together is interesting, but who is the woman on the run?
I don’t know for sure. But I’ll give you three guesses.
UPDATE – 7:08 a.m. on Nov. 22: Evangeline Lilly was definitely not part of the car stunt or alley chase scenes filmed earlier in the day, but as many suspected, it looks like the hooded woman was supposed to be Kate. Commenter Bernard writes below:
Hey Ryan, the hooded woman was Evangeline/Kate. I watched the filming of the last shot of the evening at 6pm, by Mercury Bar’s alley way (around the corner from JJ Dolan’s). Josh/Sawyer and Evi/Kate are doing a close up scene where he grabs her by the collar and pushes her up against a doorway. I was close enough to see them, too far to hear them.
