CLEVELAND — If you have been in downtown Cleveland in the past week, you’ve noticed changes: long black cables running down the street, storefronts you don’t recognize, and signs claiming Cleveland is the fictional Metropolis.
It’s all part of the new Superman movie filming in Northeast Ohio through mid-July.
“Cleveland is a really great place to be for this right now,” said Aaron Connor, the production coordinator at Cleveland State University’s film school.
Connor toured downtown with 3News to explain what spectators are seeing during filming.
Wednesday’s sights included someone in a black suit, attached to a harness, hovering back and forth over The May Company building in Public Square.
“I'm not sure if it's the actor in that black morph suit up there or if it's just a double, but it looks like they got him flying around, which is pretty cool,” Connor added. “I'm assuming that was a stunt double, but it sounds like they may have also been rolling … so they could be comping in a costume over it in post.”
Connor says they’ve used the same film magic for Marvel movies.
“They'll edit the costume on the character after or for their [the current Cleveland production] case, they might be trying to not have the actor out yet.”
And then a drone showed up.
“They got a camera on that on a stabilizer,” Connor explained. “If you a look at the bottom … there is a camera. I'm not sure what they're shooting this one on, but those cameras get pretty large for this sort of production … There's a team of people at wireless stations that are controlling that drone with a feed to be able to see what's going on.”
Connor says production crews are getting multiple aerial shots of the action.
“That's how drone technology has advanced to where we don't need helicopters to do this anymore,” he said.
Unfamiliar businesses are popping up too.
“Those are all fake storefronts,” Connor said.
He explains that crews will probably film in front of the fake storefronts set up on Public Square in the next few days. In fact, Public Square will close for filming from Monday, July 1 to Friday, July 5.
“That's all just part of the art of it, making Cleveland look like Metropolis,” Connor said.
If you noticed extra greenery on Public Square, Connor believes the plants are associated with filming as well. He says there are people from the film’s greens department bringing in plants to spread out around the set.
“They can cover things … if they don’t want it in the shot, they might put some plants in front of it,” the CSU Film School graduate says.
There are also yellow signs around downtown with the word “ACE” and a black arrow printed on them. According to Connor, the signs are directions for production crews telling them where to go and how to get to the set so no one gets lost.
And then there are the black vans with small "Genesis" signs.
“Those are probably shuttles for the actors and you'll going to see, maybe you'll see some of the famous folks getting out of those.”
Conner says the big-name stars will probably have security and travel in standard vehicles.
You’ll also see multiple people walking around downtown wearing lanyards that say "Genesis," which is what the feature film currently being shot in Cleveland is called on the Greater Cleveland Film Commission’s website. However, all signs … like the Daily Planet sign on the Leader Building … point to the film being a "Superman" installment.
“This is a huge, huge production to come to Cleveland,” Connor adds.
According to Connor, at least 10 recent graduates or current Cleveland State film school students are working on either this project or a Disney film that just wrapped up production here in Northeast Ohio.
“It’s just a great way for our students to get on set and get professional experience,” Connor said.