Another technically daunting sequence is that in which Harold’s apartment is suddenly attacked by a massive wrecking claw. “We originally contacted some Chicago demolition companies to see if there was an appropriate building that was scheduled for demolition during our shooting period, but when we couldn’t find one, we had to come up with another plan,” recalls Kopeloff. “I think it worked out really well in the end. We ended up designing a kind of Lego®-like wall structure for Harold’s apartment that weighed about 5,000 pounds and then we brought a real wrecking crane onto the stage to remove that section of wall. In this way we were able to create the dramatic effect of a wrecking grapple coming through the apartment and ripping the contents of Harold’s life to shreds — a pivotal turning point in his story.”
Perhaps the most memorable visual effects in the movie are the graphics used throughout the film to reflect the workings of Harold’s mathematical mind. The technical name for the white-line numbers and designs that appear around Harold is “graphic user interfaces” or “GUIs” (pronounced “gooeys”), and they were among the first visual effects that director Forster discussed with Haug.
“The intent was to translate Harold Crick's compulsive habits from script to screen,” says Forster. “The GUIs were a way to visually see inside Harold’s mind to learn more about him and his routine.” Haug describes them both technically and playfully: “The graphics are simple two-level composites of 2-D graphics, cleverly tracked and lit to fit into the shots as seamlessly as possible. The GUIs are Harold’s super-power, and like a good super-hero, he doesn’t tell anyone about them, not even his best friend.”
Each of Harold’s scenes was examined by Forster and Haug to see whether a GUI was appropriate for illustrating what Haug calls “the graphable/quantifiable aspects of Harold’s thought process.” For example, in designing the graphics that accompany Harold as he runs for the bus, Haug and his team designed two separate versions. “Both times, the GUIs show Harold counting his steps and quantifying, in four dimensions, when and where he is vis-a-vis today’s bus and how this trip relates to all the trips on all the buses he has ever taken. But the second time, Harold gets distracted by the narrator and loses count for the first time in his life. Chaos descends on his GUI, causing him to abandon it as he runs for the bus, resulting in the GUI crashing to the street behind him.” As the story progresses and Harold becomes less and less compulsive about numbers and order, we see fewer and fewer GUIs until the crash of the wrecking grapple sweeps them from his life forever.
Throughout the film’s production, the main focus of the effects, set design, costumes, cinematography and performances was always on telling the story of Harold Crick, which in turn is really the story of Karen Eiffel, which in turn is an allegory for the stories we all tell about our lives, which in turn comes right back to the sweetly funny yet deeply emotional story of Harold Crick.
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