Editing Animal House (section)

===Principal photography===
Filming began on October 24, 1977, and concluded in the middle of December 1977.<ref name=AFI/> and Landis brought the actors who played the Deltas up five days early to bond. Staying at the [[Rodeway Inn]] motel in adjacent [[Springfield, Oregon|Springfield]],<ref name=orencyclop/> they moved an old piano from the lobby into McGill's room, which became known as "party central." James Widdoes ("Hoover") remembers, "It was like freshman orientation. There was a lot of getting to know each other and calling each other by our character names." This tactic encouraged the actors playing the Deltas to separate themselves from the actors playing the Omegas, helping generate authentic animosity between them on camera. Belushi and his wife Judy rented a house in south Eugene to keep him away from alcohol and drugs;<ref name="Nashawaty"/><ref name=chfanml/> she remained in Oregon while he commuted to New York City for ''Saturday Night Live''.

University of Oregon students got haircuts to appear as extras. Not knowing the story, they were bemused to see a horse being led into [[Johnson Hall (Eugene, Oregon)|Johnson Hall]].<ref name="stone20180706">{{Cite magazine |last=Stone |first=Jason |date=Summer 2018 |title=Animal House: Still Funny at Age 40? |url=https://around.uoregon.edu/oq/cell-uo-loid-heroes |magazine=Oregon Quarterly |language=en |access-date=2022-10-19}}</ref> Although the cast members were admonished against mixing with the college students,<ref name="insidestory"/> one night, some girls invited several of the cast to a fraternity party; assuming the invitation had been made with the knowledge of the fraternity, the actors arrived and were initially greeted coldly which soon turned to open hostility.<ref name="Nashawaty"/> It was obvious the group was not welcome, and as they were leaving, Widdoes threw a cup of beer at a group of drunk [[Oregon Ducks football]] players and a melee "like a scene from the movie"<ref name="insidestory"/> broke out. Tim Matheson, Bruce McGill, Peter Riegert, and Widdoes narrowly escaped, with McGill suffering a black eye and Widdoes getting several teeth broken or knocked out.<ref name="Nashawaty"/>

Other than Belushi's opening yell, the food fight was filmed in one [[shot (filmmaking)|shot]], with the actors encouraged to fight for real.<ref name="insidestory"/> Flounder's dexterous catching of flying groceries in the supermarket was another single shot; Furst deftly caught most of the grocery items Matheson and Landis rapidly threw at him from off camera, to the director's amazement.{{r|neumer2003}}<ref name="insidestory"/> By filming the long courtroom scene in one day, Landis won a bet with Reitman.{{r|neumer2003}}

The film's budget was so small that during the 32 days of shooting in Eugene, mostly in November,<ref name=chfanml/><ref name=orencyclop/><ref name=ergsaflfin>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_aRVAAAAIBAJ&pg=2133%2C6569609 |newspaper=Eugene Register-Guard |location=(Oregon) |last=Baker |first=Dean |title=Seeing a film from inside |date=October 25, 1977 |page=1B |access-date=October 15, 2020 |archive-date=January 31, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210131010514/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_aRVAAAAIBAJ&pg=2133%2C6569609 |url-status=live }}</ref> Landis had no trailer or office and could not watch [[dailies]] for three weeks. His wife [[Deborah Nadoolman]] purchased most of the costumes at local thrift stores, and she and Judy Belushi made the party togas.{{r|neumer2003}} Landis and Bruce McGill staged a scene for reporters visiting the set where the director pretended to be angry at the actor for being difficult on the set.<ref name="Arnold2">{{cite news | last = Arnold | first = Gary | title = The Madcap World of John Landis |newspaper=The Washington Post | pages = H1 | date=August 13, 1978}}</ref> Landis grabbed a breakaway pitcher and smashed it over McGill's head. He fell to the ground and pretended to be unconscious. The reporters were completely fooled, and when Landis asked McGill to get up, he refused to move.<ref name="Arnold2"/>

[[File:Dexter Lake Club (Dexter, Oregon).jpg|thumb| The closed [[Dexter, Oregon|Dexter]] Lake Club in 2011]]
Black extras had to be bused in from [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]] for the segment at the [[Dexter, Oregon|Dexter]] Lake Club ({{coord|43.914|-122.8115}}) due to their scarcity around Eugene. More seriously, the segment alarmed Tanen and other studio executives, who perceived it as racist and warned that "'black people in America are going to rip the seats out of theaters if you leave that scene in the movie.'" [[Richard Pryor]]'s approval helped retain the segment in the film.<ref name="insidestory"/><ref name="neumer2003">{{cite web | url=http://www.stumpedmagazine.com/articles/animal-house/ | title=Animal House: The Movie that Changed Comedy | work=Stumped | access-date=October 28, 2015 | author=Neumer, Chris | year=2003 | archive-date=April 6, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190406043642/http://www.stumpedmagazine.com/articles/animal-house/ | url-status=live }}</ref> The studio became more enthusiastic about the film when Reitman showed executives and sales managers of various regions in the country a 10-minute production reel that was put together in two days.<ref name="Medjuck"/> The reaction was positive and the studio sent 20 copies out to exhibitors.<ref name="Medjuck"/> The first preview screening for ''Animal House'' was held in [[Denver]] four months before it opened nationwide. The crowd loved it and the filmmakers realized they had a potential hit on their hands.<ref name="Nashawaty"/>

The original cut of the movie was a lengthy 175 minutes and more than an hour was dropped; the deleted scenes included:
* a John Landis cameo as a cafeteria dishwasher who tries to stop Bluto from eating all the food. Landis is dragged across a table and thrown to the floor by Bluto who then says "You don't fuck with the eagles unless you know how to fly."
* a scene where Boon and Hoover tell Pinto the tales of legendary Delta House frat brothers from years before who had names like Tarantula, Bulldozer, Giraffe, and his girlfriend, Gross Kay.
* two different deleted scenes with Otter and a couple of his girlfriends (one played by [[Sunny Johnson]]—listed in the credits as "Otter's Co-Ed" although her scene was deleted—and the other played by location scout Katherine Wilson, whose deleted scene can be seen in the theatrical trailer).
* an extended version of the scene where Bluto pours mustard on himself and starts singing "I am the Mustard Man."