Editing JFK (film) (section)

=== Principal photography ===
The story revolves around Costner's Jim Garrison, with a large cast of well-known actors in supporting roles. Stone was inspired by the casting model of the documentary epic ''[[The Longest Day (film)|The Longest Day]]'', which he had admired as a child: "It was realistic, but it had a lot of stars ... the supporting cast provides a map of the American psyche: familiar, comfortable faces that walk you through a winding path in the dark woods."<ref name="Riordan, James2"/>

Cinematographer [[Robert Richardson (cinematographer)|Robert Richardson]] was a week and a half into shooting ''[[City of Hope (1991 film)|City of Hope]]'' for [[John Sayles]] when he got word that Stone was thinking about making ''JFK''. By the time principal photography wrapped on ''City of Hope'', Richardson was ready to make Stone's film. To prepare, Richardson read up on various JFK assassination books starting with ''On the Trail of the Assassins'' and ''Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy''.<ref name= "Fisher, Bob">{{cite news | last = Fisher | first = Bob | title = The Whys and Hows of ''JFK''| work = [[American Cinematographer]] | date = February 1992 }}</ref>

The original idea was to film the opening sequence in 1.33:1 [[Aspect ratio (image)|aspect ratio]] in order to simulate the TV screens that were available at the time of the assassination, then transition to 1.85:1 when Garrison began his investigation, and finally switch to 2.35:1 for scenes occurring in 1968 and later. However, because of time constraints and logistics, Richardson was forced to abandon this approach.<ref name="Fisher, Bob"/>

Stone wanted to recreate the Kennedy assassination in Dealey Plaza. His producers had to pay the Dallas City Council a substantial amount of money to hire police to reroute traffic and close streets for three weeks.<ref name="Riordan, James17">Riordan 1996, p. 371.</ref> He only had ten days to shoot all of the footage he needed and so he used seven cameras (two 35&nbsp;mm and five 16&nbsp;mm) and 14 film stocks.<ref name="Fisher, Bob"/> Getting permission to shoot in the [[Texas School Book Depository]] was more difficult. They had to pay $50,000 to put someone in the window from which Oswald was supposed to have shot Kennedy.<ref name="Riordan, James17"/> They were allowed to film in that location only between certain hours with only five people on the floor at one time: the camera crew, an actor and Stone. Co-producer [[Clayton Townsend]] has said that the hardest part was getting the permission to restore the building to the way it looked back in 1963. It took five months of negotiation.<ref name="Riordan, James17"/>

The production spent $4 million to restore Dealey Plaza to 1963 conditions.<ref name="Riordan, James18">Riordan 1996, p. 375.</ref> Stone utilized a variety of film stocks. Richardson said, "It depends whether you want to shoot in [[35mm movie film|35]] or [[16 mm film|16]] or [[Super 8 mm film|Super 8]]. In many cases the lighting has to be different."<ref name="Riordan, James19">Riordan 1996, p. 377.</ref> For certain shots in the film, Stone employed multiple camera crews shooting at once, using five cameras at the same time in different formats. Richardson said of Stone's style of direction, "Oliver disdains convention, he tries to force you into things that are not classic. There's this constant need to stretch."<ref name="Fisher, Bob"/> This forced the cinematographer to use lighting in diverse positions and rely very little on classic lighting modes. Shooting began on April 15, 1991, and ended on July 31, lasting 78 days with filming finished four-and-a-half months before the release date.<ref name= "Salewicz, Chris6">Salewicz 1998, p. 84.</ref>