Chapter 5: Discovering Detroit Through the Characters For 8 Mile, Hanson and Prieto developed a disciplined, yet free form approach to capturing the drama. "When things aren't perfect, it's more spontaneous," said Prieto, "and that's the way we approached the photography. Curtis and I talked about the way these guys live and how they do free-style rapping, and that's the way we shot it - free-styling, with a lot of improvisation. We did almost all of it with hand-held camera. It gave freedom to the camera, not confining it to a track or a tripod. You can move around as things happen, with the camera adapting to the situation and organic as to what the actors are doing. We're not doing complicated dolly or crane shots, and generally not doing establishing shots of locations either. We discover Detroit through the characters." The cinematographer added: "Curtis has really been great. He listens to whatever we have to say, as a team. He has his ideas about how he wants to do it, but always asks for our opinion. And when he thinks it's correct, he'll do it without hesitation. He has no ego . .. it's all about the movie and the end result." Production designer Messina was dazzled by the multitude and variety of looks that Detroit offered. The variety may be largely due to the unusual number of vacant or recycled structures that remain as architectural reminders of Detroit's illustrious past. Office buildings from the turn of the century stand empty and unused or in some cases have been gutted and converted to condominiums. Churches have become restaurants. Mansions dating back to the Model T are now nursing homes or community theaters. This tendency to incorporate and expand upon what came before rather than raze and start completely anew is not only a Detroitism, it is also a concept central to hip hop, where the use of beats and samples from the music of the past is key. As Nelson George notes in his book Hip Hop America, hip hop "is a postmodern art in that it shamelessly raids older forms of pop culture - Kung Fu movies, chitlin' circuit comedy, 70's funk and other equally disparate sources - and reshapes the material to fit the personalities of an individual artist and the taste of the times. " Hanson and Messina decided to build on this idea and showcase many of Detroit's structures that have had a past life, or in some cases lives, reflecting how the city has struggled to survive and reinvent itself over the years. One example of this phenomenon is the Michigan Theatre, which opened in 1926 and went through several incarnations as a supper club, nightclub and finally, a parking garage, which Messina described as "one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in my life. The theatre was literally gutted from the roof down, with about a quarter of its proscenium intact with tattered curtains hanging over it, and the rest is a three-level parking garage. We really fell in love with it and it became a key location." The filmmakers also found and then resurrected the Chin Tiki in its original location, where it had closed years before. "It was almost as if someone had just walked away from it on a Saturday night," recollected Messina. "There were still liquor bottles at the bar, and matchbooks out. The owner was there the night we were shooting, and he was almost crying, seeing his restaurant bustling again and filled with activity." Another key location is the "abandoned house" where a little girl has been raped, prompting its torching by Three One Third. While such acts of arson are still a fact of life in Detroit, in 1995 they were epidemic, with more than 4000 incidents reported, many of them on "Devil's Night," a prelude to Halloween. "A lot of those derelict and abandoned structures became drug zones and crack houses, very dangerous for people in the neighborhood," explained De' Angelo Wilson. "And the city wouldn't or couldn't focus on the problem. So for my character, DJ Iz, who sees himself as a political militant, burning the house down isn't fun… it's a statement. " For Jimmy, it's an emotional turning point, prompting him to reflect on the abandoned house's previous incarnation as a family's home and, by extension, on the family life he never had.