From fair use to Kobe Bryant, Josh and Benny Safdie were determined (at any cost) to set their fantastical film in reality.
There’s a climatic moment in Josh and Benny Safdie’s 2012 short “The Black Balloon” where the titular character tries to free his fellow balloons from a van by breaking the vehicle’s back window. The scene was staged in an industrial area of Sunset Park, the camera on the opposite side of eight lanes of high-speed traffic.
“The probability of impact, of the glass breaking, the probably of it being blocked was probably 60 percent — a truck could pass by and that’s it, you miss the moment,” said Josh when he and his brother Benny were guests on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast. “But it was the only place you could see the action from, from my point of view. It added to it. It added to the stress of it, that there were cars running through, and subconsciously I think it makes the stunt feel less catered-to, which makes it feel less…
