We sat down with "(500) Days Of Summer" director Marc Webb (you can also read our discussion with the writers, Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, and our full review) who's making his feature film debut. Marc tells us how he got involved and why he picked the downtown area of L.A. to shoot the film. He also goes into great detail of how and why the crowd pleasing "You Make My Dreams Come True" scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt was filmed and just how hard it really is to be able to get the rights to us a scene from a "Star Wars" film.

Mike: I was really surprised to find out this was your first feature film. Nice one to start on.

Marc Webb: Yeah! I was lucky. I read the script probably three years ago, now. It's funny because it was orphaned, no studio wanted it and when I read it [Fox] Searchlight wasn't involved at that point. It was this, and it's cliche to say, like a little gem. I read it and I was like, "Yes! This is it. I would love to do this." Then it was six months of interviews and presentations and chicanery and shilling in order to get the job. I feel really lucky to have been a part of it.

Mike: I know most films aren't filmed chronologically but did [the jumping in time in the script] present any challenges?

Marc Webb: You know, it didn't really. Actors are so conditioned to shooting things out of order and crews are... it wasn't that big of a deal, it was just one extra layer the editor had to worry about but it was contained in the script so that wasn't tricky. The trickiest part about filming this, from a logistical standpoint, was it took place over a year and a half... 500 days. You have to keep track of the seasons and there was an evolution. We shot it in 29 days but there's a lot of time passing so keeping track of that was a tricky part. There's hair evolutions, there's wardrobe evolutions, there's a color palate evolution and all of that was brought to bear in an important way to help us feel like time was passing.

Mike: I know originally it was set in San Francisco and I know cost was a huge factor in that, but did it almost make it easier that it was in L.A. because the seasons don't change as much?

Marc Webb: Yes. Though, in San Francisco the seasons are a little more subtle. I'm from Wisconsin where the seasons are much more pronounced.

Mike: Well, yeah, I'm originally from Missouri so I understand.

Marc Webb: The Ozarks? ... I've been to Missouri. St. Joseph, crazy city...

Mike: Home of the Pony Express...

Marc Webb: And Jesse James! (Laughs) But, the seasons in L.A. made it a little bit easier but there's shifts. There's parts of the year when it's colder; what's really important is that we were trying to represent some of an emotional season as well. There's times when he felt a little grayer and we sucked out the colors from the wardrobe and from the production design. And there's moments when he's more hopeful. Like at the end of the second act there's that wedding sequence and suddenly there's color and a little bit of warmth in the tonality which helped suggest his mental state.

Pictured: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Marc Webb © Fox Searchlight

Mike: And this is probably what you were going for... If I'm going to pay for a movie I'll usually know quite a bit about it but if I go to a screening I'll try to know as little as possible. For the first ten minutes I was thinking, "What the hell city is this set in"? I was pretty sure it was L.A. but I can't remember it ever looking this nice. I like that it does have a New York feel to it.

Marc Webb: We spent a lot of time looking for locations in L.A. that were romantic and exciting. We really wanted to champion L.A. because all of us live there and we think it gets shit on in movies all the time and made fun of. And I understand why that takes place but there really is something romantic about parts of L.A. But we spent all of this time and I remember one of the first reviews was like, "Set in San Fransisco..."

Mike: Really?

Marc Webb: I was like, "Come on! Give me a break." But, we're just so used to seeing L.A. in a certain way. But downtown Los Angeles is a really interesting part of the city because it's totally underrepresented or it's doubled as New York. There's streets that look something like New York but it's a very different vibe.

Mike: That's interesting. So the only time we ever see those streets is when it doubling as New York in a film.

Marc Webb: Exactly. I mean, it's been showcased in a million different films. "City Lights," Charlie Chaplin filmed there all the time, that part of Los Angeles, before they took down Bunker Hill. What we tried to do, how it relates to the character is Tom [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] tries to find beauty in the past. Whether that's examining his relationship or listening to music or his notions of love or architecture; it's like he's trying to find beauty in things that people ignore. And downtown Los Angeles is a perfect place for that because people dismiss it.

Mike: And I think it's three-fourths of the way through the film before we even see someone drive a car.

Marc Webb: We sucked out any really any sort of time, temporal things. There are cell phones in it but it's not about social media, it's not about Twitter, it's not about a moment in time. It's about a very relatable experience that I think everybody goes through at some point in their life; it's really not about defining a moment.

Mike: I think it struck the perfect balance between real comedy and drama and the tongue and cheek campy scene where Tom is walking through the park with the song and dance. A lot of times at screenings people try to be reserved but I couldn't help laughing, especially when ["Star Wars" character I was asked not to mention] winks back at him. But how did you not go too far with that?

Marc Webb: Well, all these moment come from a real emotional place. It's describing a feeling that we've all felt.

Mike: Yeah, You know, I've had those days where I'm in a great mood and I feel like everyone on the street is smiling back at me...


Marc Webb: Yeah, you just feel like everybody's in sync with you. It's a weird thing; it's like they smell your pheromones or something because it can't be just you. There's something like the god is smiling on you. And we wanted to try that and it's such a relatable thing. One of the tricky things about that scene, pulling it off, was that there was a transition. There's that moment he walks out and he smiles to himself; that always gets a laugh. It's funny, when I thought about these things before we were shooting it but while we were editing it I sort of forgot about it. When an audience sees it for the first time they mark all those beats and there are tiny little increments of pushing it a little bit further. He smiles. Then somebody smiles on the street and nods. Then another person gives him the, "yeah." Then he looks in the mirror and [Star Wars character] is there and, like, all hell breaks loose. It's a great moment to watch with a crowd. I hate giving it away; we've been really careful about keeping that sequence under wraps from the Internet because it's such a great moment to discover in the film.

Mike: Do you not want me to mention him in the piece?

Marc Webb: You can maybe say a "Star Wars reference" because that cat is out of the bag. It's funny because those are all little afterthoughts but they ended up being the biggest laughs in the movie.

Mike: I know it's all Fox but was it hard to get the rights. I'm not sure what Lucasfilm owns...

Marc Webb: Lucas owns it and you had to get [Star Wars actor] and George Lucas to approve it so, yeah, I had to write letters to those folks. I don't know if they read it or saw it or what, but they approved it. We're thankful to them for that.


"Mike's Pulse" is a column written by transplanted Midwesterner and current New Yorker Mike Ryan. For any compliments or complaints -- preferably the former -- you may contact Mike directly at miker@starpulse.com or submit reader questions for celebrites to Mike on Twitter.

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