The Bridge (2006 Film) - Filming

Filming

Steel interviewed relatives and friends of the suicide victims, not informing them that he had footage of their loved ones' deaths. He claimed that, "All the family members now, at this point, have seen the film, glad that they had participated in it." He filmed 120 hours of interviews.

The project was kept secret to avoid a situation where someone would "get it into his or her head to go to the bridge and immortalize him or herself on film." The camera crew consisted of 12 people that showed up each morning for an entire year to film the bridge.

During filming, on average, one person jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge every 15 days. In an interview by BBC British Broadcasting Corporation, Steel reinstills that as the death count was approaching one thousand, there was a rash of jumpers including people jumping with signs reading "I'm 1,000."

In the beginning of January to February, 2004, the film crew captured only splashes on the water and only knew from the Coastguard arriving on the scene that someone had leaped. The first jumper caught with the telephoto lens was not behaving as filmmakers expected - crying and weeping - but, rather, was jogging; talking on his cellphone; laughing, and then suddenly put his things away and leaped to his death.

The film shows many jumpers, and also, many people being saved from jumping. In one case a woman traversed the upper railing to the lower railing only to be pulled by her collar back to safety by a photographer. Filmmakers tried in each case to intercede when they could, succeeding in preventing six jumps. But in most cases there was either no warning, or no time to prevent the jump.

The documentary also has an interview of Kevin Hines who jumped in 2000, and survived because, as he fell toward the water, decided that he wanted to live after all, and positioned himself so he hit the water feet first. He suffered serious injuries to his spine but his life was saved by a black seal swimming below him. He later attributed the seal's presence as a sign from God.

The documentary caused significant controversy when bridge officials charged Steel with misleading them about his intentions. He secured a permit to film the bridge for months and captured 23 of 24 known suicides that took place during the filming phase of the project. In his permit application to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, a government agency that does not have any jurisdiction over the bridge but that does manage nearby park areas, Steel said he intended "to capture the powerful, spectacular intersection of monument and nature that takes place every day at the Golden Gate Bridge". Shooting lasted the entirety of 2004, ending with almost 10,000 hours of footage filmed.