Remembers Jacobs, "after an enormous day of shooting on ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ we sort of jokingly talked about wouldn’t it be fun to do a tiny little movie.
"At that point we were all eager to do something 180-degrees opposite ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ which looks like a lot of fun, but was actually a lot of hard work. Then Steven brought up Coleman’s script, which he had read. He thought that it could be done with a low budget and a small crew."
"Steven is the consummate film-guy," comments Kramer. "He knows more about the history of film and how to make films than anyone else I know. And he loves what he does – it’s who he is. He probably works harder than anyone else but seems to enjoy it more. Whether big budget or small there is a certain quality of a Soderbergh film that makes it more interesting than what anyone else is doing."
When Soderbergh approached Miramax about making "Full Frontal," he explained that he wanted to "make a very small budgeted movie that was a comedy, in color and in English. For Miramax, that was not a huge risk.
"Full Frontal" was shot during eighteen days in November on eleven practical locations with an extremely limited crew, usually numbering no more than fifteen at any given time. The company functioned using one truck that housed the camera, video, props and sound equipment as well as a rack for the cast’s wardrobe. During the last week of production, when both film and video were being used, a second truck was added for additional camera and lighting equipment.
Although the company shot throughout the city, a large section of the story took place in the five-star L’Ermitage Hotel in Beverly Hills. A boutique hotel, it’s staff was gracious throughout the six days the production took over various public areas, including the bar, the lobby, the elevators and the entire sixth floor. Recalls Kramer, "this was our key location. It was written to be this particular hotel because the lives led by our characters made more sense played there. It had that certain look and feel. It was also enormous fun; during our time there the hotel guests would come by and watch us shoot the film."
Other areas of Los Angeles which appear in the film are an apartment building in Hollywood, Le Sex Shop in Studio City, the Los Angeles Magazine editorial offices, The Complex Theatre in Hollywood, the Century City offices of a well-known law firm, the Los Angeles Convention Center (which stood in for LAX), the hip café, Red, on Beverly Blvd. and a warehouse in the San Fernando Valley.
Adds Kramer, "In keeping with the nature of the production, we shot interiors in both Steven’s and Greg’s homes. For automobiles, we only had to rent one car because Catherine drove Steven’s car, David Hyde Pierce was driving Greg’s car and Enrico Colantoni, who plays Arty, drove his own car. If my car hadn’t been recalled it probably would have been used too."
Continues Jacobs, "this shoot was harder than I thought it would be because I kept second-guessing myself, wondering how we were going to film so much material in a day. It seemed like we were attempting to do in a single day what would have taken three days on a normal movie. And frequently we were shooting at two different locations on the same day: moving from Hollywood to Studio City or from Hollywood to Century City; Beverly Hills to Hollywood; Century City to Studio City – company moves that would have been nearly impossible on a regular film.
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