I’m Joe Robert Cole, writer/director of All Day and a Night. So in this scene, we’re following our main character, Jahkor, played by Ashton Sanders, his girlfriend, Shantaye, played by Shakira Ja’nai Paye, and his best friend, TQ, played by Isaiah Johns. The sequence takes place during a distinctly Bay Area gathering called a sideshow. Authenticity was big for me. So I tried to incorporate elements, like the BART train that just passed and local people, as much as possible. The guy on the bike we’re following is an example. Even the banter and the slang in the background I tried to make specific to Oakland. The film is crafted to root the audience in an intimate way in Jahkor’s journey. But I wanted to do something a little bit different here. I wanted our three leads here to feel swept up in the whirlwind of people, cars, and culture, and music. So this tracking shot becomes more about how it feels to be at a sideshow than keeping up with them. [OVERLAPPING RAP] I worked out the placement and the camera route with little model cars and people on a schematic in my office. [OVERLAPPING RAP] But I think that the biggest challenge of the scene was figuring out how to safely get our camera between these two moving cars. So as we move into the center coming up here, the car that just passed us ducks out through the crowd. And so we stay focused on this one car here with the ladies in it. And it feels as if the other car is still behind us, when actually, it’s not there. So at real sideshows, people actually try to hit the cars with their hands when they go by. Where we going to be able to put people that close? The answer to that is no. So we had a lovely VFX house that helped us to place our folks without putting anybody in danger.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
