New Moon director Chris Weitz Phone Call Interview

A lucky Twilight fan won a contest from Twilight's official twitter. His prize is an interview with New Moon director Chris Weitz. Here's the interview posted in his blog.
1.) How nerve-racking was it to know you had to relocate several location for New Moon?

A.) It was really nerve-racking because I thought people would notice and be upset, it was a puzzle to get it just right. The outside of the school is all CGI, we built the stairway for the school and took stills. In the Cullen's house I also tried to show different rooms in the house to add to the feeling of the house. When Taylor was traveling during Twilight a fan gave him a hand-carved Native American ornament. We used that ornament in Jacob's room in New Moon.

2.) I know Edward's car is now a dark silver, but was there any reason for the change?

A.) Availability. Volvo wanted to introduce a new car into the series, instead of the older model. So they provided a newer model, brown Volvo. Immediately we knew it had to be repainted, and chose a dark, non-shiny, black colour. It added more to the first Edward scene in the movie, the feeling is upbeat but the colour of the vehicle adds to the danger lurking.

3.) How did you decide to shoot the scene where the months are passing by, considering the books only name the months that pass?

A.) We originally thought we could use a blank screen with names of the months passing but felt that it was best to portray depression visually. CGI was used and the windows were covered by green screen. We used a robotic camera for revolvement to mimic the original hand camera as much as possible. I'm not sure if you noticed but with each revolvement the room changes, there are less pictures of her friends and the room gets more sparse.

4.) I really enjoyed the added scene with Victoria swimming towards Bella. (The book hints to the orange colour the water was reflecting, in a later revelation by Bella.) How did this scene come to be?

A.) Well, the orange coloured water wouldn't have looked right in the scene so we put her in the water visibly. That scene was difficult because we wanted to film her swimming towards Bella but it had to be at a distance. If it wasn't at a distance fans would wonder why Victoria didn't just get her in that short scene, but at the same time it had to feel threatening. That was all shot in Vancouver in a swimming pool, we had the actors underwater with four or five frog men with air tubes for security purposes. We also had green screens in the water surrounding the actors so we could CGI in all the particals in the water. Theres actually a program to add in all of the floating debris and colour differences in the water after filming. Kristen had a cold at the time and was scared of drowning. We had to force her to stay in the water [laughter] But Rob was more comfortable in the water, hes had to shoot underwater scenes in the past. [Harry Potter]

5.) Were there any scenes that you would have loved to see in the film but never made the final cut?

A.) Yes, one scene. Theres a scene with a motorcycle crash that gives more of a sense of danger. The reason why it didn't make the final cut was because of weather reasons, it was just too sunny to be considered Forks. The DVD will include that scene as well as extended scenes. Some of the extended scenes include more of Edward's visit to the Volturi concerning his immortality and more from the scene between Carlisle and Bella. [when he was stitching Bella up.] In one of the early drafts of the script this scene was not in the movie. Immediately I knew that had to change, it was essential to the story line.

6.) In the movie why were there two scenes where Bella and Jacob almost kiss when its not as dramatized in the book?

A.) It was more of trying to get the point across and we kind of stole the thunder from Eclipe a tiny bit so it wasn't just "Poor Jacob." With less Edward we needed a little more romanticism without compromising the spirit of the book.

7.) Did you have any say in the soundtrack? If so, how difficult was it to choose what made the final cut?

A.) I actually had a lot of say in it, and a lot of great bands didn't make the cut, [example: silver sun pickups] but we knew it needed to be more downbeat. For the scene with Bella's initial depression [the months] we had an older radiohead song, but we brought in Lykke Li and she watched the scene. She came back to us with a track that worked perfectly, but was never-racking because you never know what they're going to bring back. We really wanted newer, Indie songs for the soundtrack to match the mood.

Source