Behind The Scenes: 12 Festive Film Facts

1st December 2019

12 Behind the Scenes Festive Film Facts. By Laurie Wood.

Tis the season to be jolly and that means, seeing family & friends, enjoying some Mulled Wine and sitting down to some festive films. But, just to add an extra touch of Christmas magic which you can share around and spread some Christmas cheer, below are 12 film facts which you might not have heard of before. After learning about these, you may want to put some of these films on the naughty list!

In Elf (2003), all the decorations in the store took weeks to build. Which meant the fight scene between Buddy the Elf and Santa Clause had to be filmed in one take.

Both Eddie Murphy and Jack Nicholson were considered to play the role of The Grinch (2000), but ultimately it went to Jim Carrey and he fits the character so well, I doubt anyone could imagine someone else doing it.

Initially, the prop department in Home Alone (1990) created a fake Tarantula to put on Daniel Stern’s (Marv) face, but Director Chris Columbus, insisted on using a real one instead.

One single minute of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) took about a week to shoot. The film is about 1hr 15 minutes long and took 3 years to make.

Cornflakes painted white is a popular method to create fake snow in films, but this was not practical in It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) because it was too loud. So Director Frank Capra, had to help create a new type of artificial snow for the film, which consisted of foamite (used in fire extinguishers), sugar, water and soap flakes. This was then pumped out through a high-pressure wind machine to completely cover the set!

In A Miracle on 34th Street (1947), the parade scenes were shot during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This meant the crew only had one chance to film all the scenes they needed. On top of this, Edmund Gwenn who played Kris Kringle actually played the Santa Clause in the parade as that was the only way they’d be able to get the necessary shots for the film.

It took approx 8 hours to complete Jim Carrey’s make-up for The Grinch. Carrey even had to complete torture-endurance training from a CIA to help him sit through the long hours.

Donald Trump only agreed to feature in the film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) if it was filmed in the Plaza Hotel, a hotel owned by Trump at the time.

No CGI was used in the North Pole scenes in Elf to make Buddy the Elf appear larger than everyone else. It was done by forced perspective.

Disney has a rule to not hire ex-cons. However, this rule was broken for Tim Allen in the film The Santas Clause (1998). Allen in 1978 had been caught in possession of 1.5 pounds of cocaine.

In Elf, Will Ferrell, Director Jon Favreau, and a cameraman ran around New York in order to film the “Buddy discovers New York” scene. No actors other than Ferrell were used.

Bill Murray improvised a lot of the scenes in Scrooged (1988).

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