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LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- One of the striking moments early in Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, now streaming on Apple TV+, captures Fox stumble and fall as a result of Parkinson's disease. Cinematographer Julia Liu called watching Fox fall "stressful," even though the film crew was briefed that he falls frequently. Liu said the crew was advised not to interrupt the shot to assist Fox.
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"He's very good at tucking into it, rolling and doing it in a way that will not hurt him," Liu told UPI in a Zoom interview. "But it was really difficult because I'd be standing right next to him and I'd see him wobble."
The falling scene in the movie is indicative of how Fox puts onlookers at ease, Liu said. Fox falls after a pedestrian says hello to him, and he responds with a joke.
"He immediately broke the ice and was like, 'You knocked me off my feet,'" Liu said. "It just changed the whole energy on set and made it into a humorous and joyful moment."
Editor Michael Harte said he almost did not include the fall.
"I was like, 'This is too much. I feel like we're showing something we don't need to see,'" Harte said.
However, Harte realized he was evaluating an incomplete scene In the rough footage, He could not hear Fox's "knocked me off my feet" line.
Once Harte found footage in which the line was audible, he realized the falling scene worked.
"That line sets the tone for the movie," Harte said. "Once you hear that, it's almost permission to laugh with him as opposed to at him. He doesn't want pity and that's his way out of it, which is with humor."
Cinematographer Clair Poppkin, who filmed on a separate unit from Liu, said she captured another fall that did not make it into the final cut. Fox tried to recreate a moment from Back to the Future in which he slid across the hood of the De Lorean.
"He's not fully accepting limitations," Popkin said. "Then he just tries it, falls, gets up. He's just bold, still."
The film, directed by Davis Guggenheim, covers Fox's childhood, career, Parkinson's diagnosis and living with the disease today. Harte said Fox did not restrict including any personal moments in the film, even though he had the contractual right to.
Harte only edited out material for time. Still runs 95 minutes, but cutting some of Fox's career anecdotes about cult favorite films like The Frighteners was bittersweet.
"If I was left to my own devices, I would have made a six-part series on the opening sequence of Back to the Future II in the future," Harte said.
Still combines Fox's interview, footage from his movies and recreations that feature Danny Irizarry as a young Fox. C. Kim Miles filmed the re-enactments, avoided showing Irizarry's face, and recreated lighting aesthetics from the '80s.
"It was a balancing act of trying to do his flashback, like his memories, in a way that appeals to modern viewers but was still kind of timeless," Miles said. "We made lens selections that bridged the gap between now and then."
Liu also filmed Guggenheim's interviews with Fox. To make it look like Fox was speaking directly to the viewer, Davis sat on a box behind the camera and Liu's crew cleared away equipment that would obscure their line of view.
"Davis really didn't want to have any kind of barrier between him and Michael during the interviews," Liu said. "So the whole idea was to have just an intimate conversation between two men."
