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Press - 2004
Eurotrip Making Of Report
Post-graduation trips have become something of a tradition, and Europe
has been the destination of choice for many teenagers looking for that
last "hurrah" before settling into college or a career.
"It’s an American rite of passage," writer/director Jeff Schaffer attests.
"It’s very universal," writer/producer David Mandel adds, "Kids graduate
from high school or college and go to Europe, but it’s the backpacking,
stay in youth hostels kind of European tour. There have been a lot of teen
comedies, but they are always in the States, so the idea of this trip—that
we didn’t necessarily get to do, but people with normal lives actually
do—was our starting point."
Writer/producer Alec Berg offers, "We had several different ideas that we
felt were funny situations for kids traveling through Europe before we
came up with the premise to bridge them all together."
The premise the three longtime writing partners decided on centers on two
trans-Atlantic cyber pen pals whose language barrier leads to a
misunderstanding. American teenager Scotty, after years of exchanging
emails with his German pen pal Mieke, is still under the mistaken notion
that Mieke is a guy. The revelation that Mieke is a girl—coming on the
heels of Scotty’s being dumped by his girlfriend—sends him across the
Atlantic to find and finally meet Mieke.
The trio’s screenplay found its way to The Montecito Picture Company, the
producers of another teen comedy trek, "Road Trip." Montecito principals
and executive producers Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock both loved the idea
of taking a group of teens on another trip, this time overseas.
The filmmakers then turned to casting their young tourists. Relative
newcomer Scott Mechlowicz was cast as Scotty, whose ineptitude with German
sets the story in motion. Schaffer jokes that the fact that the actor and
character share the same first name "…is the real reason Scott was hired.
In actuality, Mechlowicz was hired because, after wading through hundreds
of readings and audition tapes, the actor was the first to make the
filmmakers sit up and take notice. "He was fantastic. We were so excited
to finally find him," Schaffer recalls.
Schaffer explains that the role presented a casting challenge, saying,
"Scotty is the first among equals, the center of the wheel that his
friends revolve around. He needed to be funny and charming, but not a
stick in the mud."
Berg offers, "You have to believe that he’s a guy who’s missing something
in his life to the point that he decides to go all the way to Europe to
find it."
Adding to his character’s description, Mechlowicz says, ""He also has to
be a bit crazy. He does, after all, leave the country to find a girl he’s
never met—never even spoken to once in his life. But he still goes. He’s a
good kid, with a good heart. And like all good kids with good hearts, he
always seems to get knocked down by the bad now and then. He's just very
lucky to have such a good group of friends to prop him back up."
Scotty’s best friend is Cooper, played by Jacob Pitts, who remarks,
"Cooper is your basic crazy, nutty best friend whose ideas are a bit out
of sync with everyone else’s reality. He’s driven by his own base
impulses—he’s obsessed with sex—which gets everyone else into trouble."
"Jacob has real comedy stuff," Berg states. "He doesn’t give you the
obvious read. Most actors will come in and read the scene exactly the way
you thought it should be read…"
"But with Jacob, it’s unique…and really funny," Schaffer steps in. "From
the minute we saw that first tape of him and saw the glint in his eye, we
thought, ‘This is a charming devil.’"
At the opposite end of the spectrum from Cooper is Jamie, who, with his
twin sister, Jenny, had been planning a very organized tour of Europe,
seeing all the sights recommended in his Frommer’s guidebook.
"Jamie is not a geek, he just has more adult wants for his trip to
Europe," Schaffer comments. "He wants to tour every castle in Europe, and
he loves his guidebook."
Travis Wester, who won the role of Jamie, says, "Jamie was described to me
as an astronaut on vacation. He loves learning; his goal is the
accumulation and dissemination of knowledge. Any time you go to Europe
with a group of friends, you’re gonna need to have someone with you who
loves that stuff, and Jamie’s that guy. He’s the one who can read maps.
He’s the one they turn to when they don’t know where they are."
Mandel notes, "Travis brought such a nice vulnerability to his role that
the relationship between Jamie and his twin sister, Jenny, became really
believable."
Michelle Trachtenberg, who stars as Jenny, remarks, "Jamie is more of a
bookworm. Jenny is a lot tougher and the more daring and rebellious one.
She is more willing to take a chance or go on an adventure, whereas Jamie
always has to be convinced. Jenny has always been one of the guys, until
she surprises them and they realize that she is most definitely a girl,"
she laughs.
Trachtenberg is the best known of the ensemble from her role in
television’s "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." "Michelle is incredible,"
Schaffer states. "She always gives you exactly what you need and more. She
is really, really funny, and she is such a trooper. Some of the scenes she
did were in the worst possible conditions."
Mandel attests, "It got to the point that we were only half joking that we
never shot one of her exterior close-ups where it wasn’t raining outside.
There would be a little rain…Michelle’s close-up…pouring rain. Okay, we’re
done with Michelle’s close-up…moving over to Travis…the sun’s out."
Berg confirms, "And any time she had to be somewhat scantily clad…"
"…30 degrees!," the trio says in unison.
Jessica Boehrs, a young German actress and a rising pop star in Europe,
was cast in the role of Scotty’s cyber pen pal, Mieke, who is also the
object of the group’s European quest. The cast also includes a number of
recognizable cameos who pop up along the way, including soccer
star-turned-actor Vinnie Jones and Lucy Lawless, of "Xena" fame.
The filmmakers were thrilled to work with the stars, whom they call "dream
casting." Schaffer expounds, "Vinnie Jones was the one person we all had
in our heads when we wrote the part of Mad Maynard, the head soccer
hooligan. When we found out he was actually going to do it, we were over
the moon. When he showed up, he was so much better than we could have ever
imagined. And we all agreed that Lucy Lawless was simply the coolest human
being we’d ever met."
"Eurotrip" was filmed entirely on location in Prague in the Czech
Republic. Mandel says, "Prague is a beautiful city. Just the fact that we
were able to double Prague for so many cities was amazing."
Berg notes, "The irony is that one city that Prague did not serve as in
our shoot was Prague. But it was London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome,
Vatican City, Bratislava and even Hudson, Ohio."
Despite shooting in and around one city, the production schedule felt more
like a trek across Europe to the cast and crew. "We were traveling every
day," Schaffer remarks. "It was the wildest thing; we were never in the
same place twice. The fact that we were able to accomplish so much in one
city is a tribute to our entire production team, especially our
extraordinary director of photography, David Eggby, and our production
designer, Allan Starski, who is unbelievable."
Several of Starski’s sets were so convincing that they fooled a number of
locals, as well as visiting tourists. His Paris Metro station was decked
out with authentic signs and posters and looked so real that passersby
tried to use it and were surprised to learn "they couldn’t get there from
here."
Visual Effects Supervisor Kevin Blank was responsible for completing the
transformation of Prague into the many different locales needed for the
film. Through the use of CGI, Blank was able to add such familiar sites as
the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum and Big Ben into the backgrounds of their
respective cities.
The filmmakers emphasize that this "Eurotrip" is not your parents’
European vacation. "The main thing we tried to do is make sure that our
group does things that 18 or 19 year olds would want to do," Schaffer
offers. "They are not doing things they would do with their parents—that
their parents would drag them to. They are on their own, so it’s them
having fun in ways that kids would have fun."
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