I often see scenes in movies and I wonder why they are made that way. Maybe you do too. So, if you have any questions about making movies or can provide some info on why they are made a certain way, chime in.

For one, I'd like to know why so many night scenes are filmed on wet streets.

Those wet streets are more visually appealing.

What's the deal with porno soundtracks?

They have soundtracks??

Better yet, what's with all the close-ups of the dude's face whenever he goes for the money shot?

I'd like to know how they go about shooting some of the pedestrian street scenes. For example, in Tootsie Dustin Hoffman is walking down a Manhattan street in the middle of the day talking with someone. Are all of the people in the scene actors? Do they block off the street or sidewalk. That seems like it would be a major undertaking.

You New Yorkers should have plenty of experience with movie scenes.

They just use extras; they'll usually let it be known somewhat publicly that they will be shooting in that area for a day or two. Then they have everyone agree to a basic contract before just shooting on that street, using pedestrians as extras. Although, I imagine period pieces would have more extraneous casting calls.

Thanks. Sometimes I notice people in the far background that have stopped to look at what's happening. I guess they can't get everybody to cooperate sometimes.

I notice those types of things as well olivant. It can drive me crazy when I see something like that in a movie I like.

I always wonder how they do those high speed chases because they can take along time and if its a highway they have to shut down the highway, don't they? Like in The Matrix.

The Matrix Reloaded was crazy in terms of production, as they built their own 3 mile highway in the middle of the desert near California. The filming of that chase scene in the Matrix Reloaded took weeks to film, and I thought it was pretty well done. However, the CGI(computer generated imagery) of the agent could look bad at times, espcially when he jumped from a car's hood. Usually, they film these scenes in remote locations or pay the city have these streets closed for when they film car chase scenes.

They actually built a highway? Madonne!

Yeah. Try paying attention to the extras in the last scene of Teen Wolf sometime.

People can pay attention here (if you don't see anything the first time, focus on the top-center part of the frame):

http://stacey.vox.com/library/post/teen-wolf-wang.html

Haha, that's funny

In the climactic scene in Gladiator, when , the whole crowd is silent and still bar one guy scratching his head. Ridley Scott lays into him in the commentary, saying he asked if it was possible to delete the guy with some sort of post-production CGI.