Behind the scenes of Johnny Depp's new movie being filmed in Wisconsin!  I would like to share this e-mail I receive from Hannah Heidi Levy.  Her brother, who she calls "Crazy Jack," is one of the Wisconsinites chosen to be in the movie as an extra.

FILM UPDATE 3/23 ... Well, I talked to Jack, “Crazy Jack,” today. He is on call again for tomorrow because they may be using him in Columbus again. He was on the scene in Darlington where they are filming the arraignment scene...thus he was able to work with THE star, Mr. Depp all day long. Jack said he is just a superb actor...short guy...as most actors are. Jack said the Director Michael Mann is ultra ultra picky. They began shooting at 5AM sharp and did not end until 8:30 that night. Jack went to Darlington (a 3 hour drive for him) the night before since he had to be on set at 5AM and he didn't trust the weather. It was an interior courthouse scene and Jack played the part of a camera man running the reel to reel (crank) camera. In one of the shots they had to put the camera on a box and put him on a box because the Director wanted it higher. Mr. Mann decided that two people would be smoking in the room (you could do that in those days), so they handed out 6 Lucky Strikes (no filter) cigs to begin with and the people who got those were instructed to smoke 2 cigs per take...well, needless to say by the end of the day, the place was really really smoky. The were opening windows during the breaks. The people who had to sit in the courtroom all those hours had numb butts. The also had the "National Guard" (or similar) in the courts in the 1930ish era, so those actors had to stand at attention during the whole time. One guy fainted, one guy had a diabetic crisis (don't know if he was standing or sitting in the court). Mr. Mann would shoot a whole scene over every time he decided he wanted to move certain extras to different positions, etc. Jack was lucky because he got to move a little while turning the crank on his 1930's camera. Right down to the detail of Lucky Strikes is how fussy it all got.

The movie cost about $150 million and will air in Spring 2009. The Director Mann bought the film rights from the author of the novel "Public Enemies." Apparently, the author sold it to Mann even though he had other bidders because Mann "sticks to the story as it was written" as depicted In his filming of "Last of the Mohicans." Jack says he has had a terrific time and has met very interesting people from Chicago and LA. One of the extras is from LA worked on "Batman," "Field of Dreams," a bunch of other movies, and 12 episodes of "ER." There were crowds across the street during this filming and Jack was even signing autographs "Crazy Jack" right and left. He has more stories, but I wasn't able to talk to him very long...guess he's going to do an interview for one of the papers.