circumstance of actually...
...getting to redo a couple of those scenes.
We did make them a little bit better.
They were also angst-ridden,
because once you go back, you feel...
...you're compelled to make it better.
That's why, any time you re-shoot,
it's always a pain...
...because you're going,
"Oh, no. I've got to make it better now. "
There's nothing worse than re-shooting.
Michael J. Fox would go crazy because...
...we'd have these conversations,
"When we did this scene before.... "
He'd go, "Damn it. I never did this scene before. "
Some scenes I shot...
...exactly the way I shotit with Eric.
Completely, camera in the same place.
Other times, I was able to go back and say:
"We can improve this by doing this. "
And the best thing is, you get to....
The advantage of going back and redoing stuff,
is you know whatyou don't need.
"Let's not waste our time doing that.
"That wide-angle, we're never going to use it. "
So that was helpful.
Can you comment on the editing of the film?
Was it as frantic as the shooting,
in terms ofschedule...
...and are there any deleted scenes?
I was coming into the editing room
about two hours before the call.
So I'd go and I'd edit, and then I'd....
Because we were shooting nights,
I'd edit, then I'd go see dailies...
...and then I'd start to work.
I think the editing rooms were trailers
near the back lot.
Toward the end, I'djust getin a golf cart
and zip over and they'd look atit.
Look at a scene, give them my notes.
We had to put two editors on,
because we had to have this accelerated...
...release. Because, when did we wrap?
We wrapped, I think, on April 20.
-And the movie came out on...
-July 3.
So nine and a half weeks from when we wrapped,
the movie was in the theater.
This movie ruined
postproduction schedules in Hollywood.
Because nobody thought this was even possible.
And at the point when we changed actors...
...Universal was resigned to the fact
that the movie probably wouldn't come out...
...until the middle ofAugust now.
So, we were kind of thinking that...
...we'd have a release date
in the middle ofAugust.
And then we had this dynamite sneak preview.
And Mr. Sheinberg sees the movie
with this audience and they go nuts.
And the visual effects weren't finished...
...and the lastshot was in black and white.
It was still rough.
But the audiencejust gotit, and gotit big time.
And he pulled us aside, and he said:
"Is itpossible? What will we have to do...
"... to get this movie out
for the Fourth of July weekend?"
And we said, "Write some checks. "
And he said, "Okay, whateverit costs, do it. "
And we actually had sound crews
working 24 hours a day.
In the Hitchcock Theater,
where we were doing the mix...
...we had a pre-dub crew
working the graveyard shift.
They'd start work at 8:00 p. m.
and go home at 7:00 a. m.
And then we'd come in at 8:00 a. m...
...and mix the picture with the tracks
that they had pre-dubbed the night before.
So that was insane.
Bob Gale, can you tell us a little more
about those sneak previews?
Any surprises after the first one?
The firstsneak preview....
We had two sneak previews.
The first one was in San Jose,
and we didn'tinvite the studio to that one.
One of the advantages of having Steven
Spielberg as your executive producer...
...is you can close the door
on people thatyou don't want there.
We didn't want their feedback yet.
We didn't want the studio...
...to give their feedback. We wanted
to hear what the audience had to say.
One of the things that....
The movie had gotten no publicity.
Back then, there was no Internet,
there was no advance word about anything.
Here we had a recruited audience
that only knew they were seeing a movie...
...that had Michael J. Fox,
who they knew from Family Ties...
...and Christopher Lloyd from Taxi...
...and it was a comedy,
and they didn't even know whatit was about.
They didn't even know it was about time travel.
So when