Step Up 3D Director Jon Chu on Breaking 3D's Rules (and Cameras): 'Screw It, We Have Insurance!'

You were one of the first directors to make a big movie like this in 3D. Have you heard from a lot of other big directors now who are asking you for advice?

Yeah, across the board. It's been a fun journey. When we first decided we would do this in 3D, I went to the DGA and we had this seminar with Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and James Cameron. It was just feature directors, so I'm sitting there next to Steven Soderbergh and Jon Turtletaub and they're all taking notes as these three guys are talking about 3D. It felt like film school, and everyone was on the same level again because no one knew how to use this technology. No one even knew which questions to ask, let alone what the answers were.

So you were raising your hand next to Steven Soderbergh to ask, "Can we throw water at the lens?"

[Laughs] Exactly! Yeah, basically. For the first three minutes of the meeting, I was just looking around at everybody else, not even paying attention. Then I started listening.

Now, let's talk about that long, one-take dance sequence between Adam Sevani and Alyson Stoner, where it goes up and down a city street with all these incidents and obstacles. Was that really one take, or were there invisible cuts I wasn't picking up on?

No, that was one take, two and a half minutes. Coming into the movie, we knew that was something we wanted to do, because we have such talent. Adam was 16 at the time, Alyson was 15 at the time, and they're such amazing dancers that I wanted to do this throwback in 3D on a real New York street, not a backlot, and I didn't want to cut around them because I knew they could pull it off. So I put the challenge to them, and they were down to try it. It was actually the first number that we choreographed and we had the general idea, but our choreographer Jamal Sims really figured out the details of every gag that had to be there. There's no special effects at all, so every time they jumped in that trash bin, it had to explode the right away, every time there was water, it had to spray the right way...

What were the hardest parts of that sequence?

There were two really hard parts. When they do the tap dancing on the trash can lids, those would always fall off their feet, or we'd get to the very end, and Adam would grab for the tree branch [to shake leaves off of it] and miss the branch and that would ruin the whole thing. We knew we had to get it perfect.

That took two and a half minutes on screen, but how long did it take to shoot?

We shot it in one day.

I'm surprised you had it so nailed in one day.

We'd had rehearsals there the day before, which was really nice -- especially to work out all the technical issues with the camera, because some of the 3D cameras are spastic and you never know if they're gonna work or not. That was Take 18 that you saw in the film, and we didn't get that until 6 o'clock at night, when the sun was going down. [Laughs] By 4 o'clock that day, we hadn't gotten even one shot completed yet. It was a scary moment. We knew that if another hour went by and we didn't get it, we might have to get some cutaway shots to sell it, but I really wanted to get it all at once so we could have a discussion like this about how these great dancers can pull that off.

Obviously, you have a passion for dance, as we can see by the fact that you're doing The LXD too. Do you worry, though, about getting pegged as the dance guy?

I mean, I never get concerned about getting pegged as anything because I know I can tell lots of different stories. For some reason, dance speaks to me, and there's something about the language of movement that I've always been fascinated with. I feel like, if I can make movies for the rest of my life -- whatever movies they are -- then I'm incredibly lucky. These dancers are so incredibly talented and I grew up watching Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Michael Jackson, and these guys made me believe in magic. That doesn't really exist anymore, these dance heroes. There should be a Tony Hawk of breaking, there should be a Michael Jordan of popping -- and they're out there, they're all on the internet getting better. I think that's an important idea behind what I do on something like The LXD, and if that's what I do for the rest of my life, then so be it. If I can be as good as Stanley Donen or Jerome Robbins, that would be a great career.

Then when is your LXD star Harry Shum Jr. gonna get you a guest directing gig on Glee? You seem like you'd be an absolute natural for that.

I'm ready! When they call me, I'll be here.

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