The production began shooting in a quaint little bandshell in the community of Sunny Isles in North Miami Beach, where Seymour Cassel twirled elderly ladies as a dance instructor. Later that afternoon, production moved to the legendary Rascal House Restaurant and Deli where Burt Reynolds appeared to muscle his way to the front of a line of patrons and the special effects crew made rain on a cloudless summer day.
"The Crew" filmed at the Port of Miami where Richard Dreyfuss' character handed out complimentary travel kits to extras playing passengers of Carnival Cruise Lines, and at Miami Beach's deco-designed Burger King where Burt Reynolds' character harassed customers until he was kicked out of the establishment. In true Reynolds fashion, he declined a stunt double to weave through six lanes of oncoming Fifth Street traffic.
Jennifer Tilly's character made her home at a tiny beachside cottage in the City of Hollywood in Brownard County, while her stepmother enjoyed the splendor of a multimillion dollar private estate on Key Biscayne.
There were crime scenes on the Miami River and helicopter shots at Card Sound Road in Key Largo. "Hostages" were held in sets built at Brickell Shipping. The explosive final confrontation and rescue scenes were shot with a 265-foot freighter docked against a backdrop of a neon-lit city skyline. Richard Dreyfuss, Carrie-Anne Moss and Miguel Sandoval all ended up in the murky Miami River while their stunt doubles dove some fifty feet from the bridge of the freighter into the dark waters. Environmental and safety standards necessitated the presence of an ambulance, a fire truck, four tugboats, one motorboat, police, marine patrol, experienced stuntmen and women, pyrotechnics experts, paramedics and manatee spotters.
Miami Broadcast Center housed various departments and production offices, as well as soundstages where production designer Peter Larkin built interiors of the Raj Mahal with touches of Moorish architecture.
Guests at the Park Central Hotel on South Beach endured days of filming both rusty and rehabbed exteriors and a lobby redone to show the hotel's better days. A city block of Ocean Drive was closed for ten days of filming a number of scenes, including stunt diving, a kidnapping and a staged traffic jam of the residents' exodus after the murder, complete with a glut of news vans and reporters covering the crime scene. Outside on the verandah, "the crew" and the film crew enjoyed the ongoing parade of scantily clad extras and onlookers.
"We shot Miami as Miami is," says director of photography Juan Ruiz-Anchia. "We have a diversification of cultures here that's unlike any place in the world. I think the audience will see that on the screen."
They will also see an array of ages and body types. Hundreds of elderly extras appear in many of the scenes while buff bodies sashay through sequences shot along Ocean Drive. The film truly reflects this social conundrum of aging.
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