A classic and a favorite of many, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off still makes kids and adults alike dream of ditching things for a day. But what happened behind the scenes? John Hughes: A Life in Film reveals Hughes’s methods behind the camera that made this movie, and his many others, into such fantastic films.
Production, which was to begin in September, was divided between Chicago and L.A. due to the budgetary concerns and the weather. (The story needed to take place in spring.) A “Midwestern” house in Long Beach, California, served as the Bueller residence for interiors and even some exteriors. All upstairs sequences were filmed on a soundstage.
As usual, John insisted on his own peculiar rehearsal period, which began August 29. Actors hung out with one another and visited locations.
Since everyone stayed at the same Chicago hotel, John would meet his actors in the same room every day to rehearse, which was mostly schmoozing and eating and looking at pictures.
“He was always playing Preston Sturges movies,” recalled Broderick.
John drove his four principal actors around in a beige Lincoln Town Car to show them his Chicago and talk about his life there as a high school student. He slammed music cassettes into the car’s tape deck to play music he intended for certain scenes.
He did admit, though, that he was still searching for music for the film’s big parade sequence.
“I want something like Elvis or the Beatles but then I want something Midwestern, kind of schmaltzy,” he said.
Jones piped up: “How about Wayne Newton?”
“Who?” said John. Addicted to cutting-edge music, he apparently was unaware of more main-stream performers.
“Well, his song ‘Danke Schoen’ is about the schmaltziest thing I can think of,” said Jones.
A few minutes later, John stopped at a music store and went in to look for a Wayne Newton cassette. While Broderick, Sara, and Ruck stayed in the car, Jones hot out to try on sunglasses for sale outside the store. John came out and saw him.
“Those are perfect for the film,” John said.
So be bought three pairs. Not only did Jones now have flip-up sunglasses for Rooney, John had found his parade music.
The only actor who felt uncomfortable with these “rehearsals” was Sara.
“I was very young,” she said. “His method of rehearsals was more about trying to get to know you. He and Jennifer (Grey) got along incredibly well. I think on a personal level, I didn’t understand that he wanted to be friends. That felt awkward. I felt like a kid and that I didn’t belong in the environment he created.
Again, John sat under the camera and always kept it rolling. This way he could stay close to the actors and, as new lines would occur to him, he’d “rewrite” the scene on the fly.
John was among the first directors of that era to have high shooting ratios, exposing much more film (expensive in those days) than his contemporaries. Jacobson estimated that on Ferris Bueller he shot at least a million feet of film and printed about 650,000 feet. This was to become a methodology for other writer-directors, such as James L. Brooks.
Spontaneity and improvisation were the goals. John welcomes input from all of the actors and then decided whether he wanted to act on a suggestion. Edie McClurg, playing Rooney’s secretary, came up with the delicious idea of pulling pencil after pencil – four in all – out from her bubble hairdo. And John suggested Rooney should be picking at invisible specks of dust on his desk.
“It’s a tiny little think but just right for that guy,” remarked Jones.
The sequence between Jones and McClurg as multiple phone calls come in consisted of four pages of dialogue to be shot in two days. John ended up using four days to capture all the physical comedy the actors came up with.
Shooting the upstairs hallways scenes, where Broderick talks directly to the audience, John told the actor to keep his eyes on the camera at all times.
“Never look away and then back even for a moment,” he said, “Newscasters look the whole time at a camera. Otherwise viewers would think something else is going on.”
One day, while filming Ferris going to the shower as he’s speaking to the camera, John suddenly had an inspiration. He went to Broderick and conferred briefly with him, then told his cameraman, Tak Fujimoto, where the actor was going to stop and say new lines.
As instructed, Broderick popped out of the bathroom in his robe, stopped on his mark, and delivered his lines: “What are you guys still doing here? The movie’s over. Go home.” He turned and walked away.
This, of course, became the very end of the movie.
John Hughes wrote 46 movies, produced 23, and directed 8. He never went to film school, never spent time studying film and its history, but was unusually adept in three key areas — writing, directing and producing.
John Hughes: A Life in Film, by Kirk Honeycutt, former chief film critic at The Hollywood Reporter, is the first complete illustrated tribute to the legendary writer and director, and includes fresh interviews with Judd Nelson, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Columbus, Steve Martin, and more.
John Hughes wrote 46 movies, produced 23, and directed 8. He never went to film school, never spent time studying film and its history, but was unusually adept in three key areas — writing, directing and producing.
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