Diksha Sundriyal
‘Fall’ follows the story of two adventure seekers who climb the top of a 2000ft tower, only to get trapped there. While Becky and Hunter have climbed all sorts of heights, this experience is particularly terrifying for them because they are trapped in a place where there is no escape. The only way down is falling to their death. Seeing them in such a position is anxiety-inducing for the audience, particularly the people who already have a fear of heights. It also makes us wonder whether a tower of such a height actually exists or if it was created in CGI for the purpose of the film’s plot. Let’s find out.
The Inspiration Behind the B67 Tower
Yes, the B67 TV Tower mentioned and partly shown in the film is a very real thing. It is an abandoned tower, also known as the Sacramento Joint Venture Tower or KXTV/KOVR radio tower in Walnut Grove, California. The filmmakers scoured the country, looking for a place that they could use in the film because the tower plays the most crucial role in the film. On finding the B67 tower, they decided to use it in the film, but still, they couldn’t really use it for filming the scenes. It appears in the establishing shots of the movie. For the rest of the scenes, the filmmakers recreated parts of it somewhere else.
“We scoured all around California, and it was during COVID, so we’d just drive and drive and drive to these random remote locations, to try and get access. A lot of them had kind of radio masts and things at the top of these mountains and you’re just finding the right kind of top of a mountain with the right cliff and the right sunlight positioning,” Mann told Radio Times, underlining the importance to find the right location to shoot the film. They eventually found their perfect location in the form of a 2000ft cliff in the Shadow Mountains.
Because most of the action takes place in the topmost part of the tower, this was recreated on the top of the mountain. “They built these 100-foot sections at the top of this mountain cliff thing. And so basically, we were actually above 2000 ft so all the kinds of camera work and things to capture the movie,” he added. Because the director knew that shooting the film would be a grueling process, he made it a point to choose the right actors for the job. He didn’t want to cast anyone who was afraid of heights that would require them to be 100ft above the ground for most of the film.
The decision to be very careful in choosing the right actors for the role became even more important when several new challenges appeared during shooting the film. Getting the filming equipment to shoot at such a great height had already been a difficult task. The crew also had to withstand what Mann described as “hurricane-force winds” that threatened to tear apart the entire structure. Then there was the intense heat that brought out snakes and other animals in the desert.
The director also mentioned braving storms and lightning with flying ants and termites presenting their own challenges. But all of it not only added to the atmosphere of the film but also allowed the actors to respond to such threats more naturally, which only enhanced their performance. To sum it up, the crew of ‘Fall’ not only chose an intimidating tower as the location for the film, but they also took on the challenge of filming it realistically without green screens and using as little CGI as possible, all in the effort to make a more realistic and scarier experience for the audience.
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