French documentary on Paul Walker comes to the SCV
Members of a visiting French documentary team made it clear with a couple of key phrases Friday why they came to Santa Clarita all the way from Paris: Paul Walker, Fast and Furious, street racing.
The crew, like millions of Walker fans around world and like the 6,000 out-of-town mourners who streamed past the crash site on the day of the memorial three years ago, the film star’s appeal is worldwide.
Walker, 40, star of the popular “Fast and Furious” action movie franchise, and his friend Roger Rodas, 38, were killed when the Porsche driven by Rodas smashed into a light pole and tree and then burst into flames Nov. 30, 2013, near Rye Canyon Loop.
Documentary filmmaker Gilles Ganzmann hired local camera and sound technicians to join him and his team, in their quest to learn all they could about the actor, the crash and the adoration of fans verging on hero worship.
They filmed the scene of the crash and inside The Signal newsroom where news of the crash was first reported by Cary Osborne, former Assistant Managing Editor for The Signal.
In a taped interview Friday, Ganzmann asked about Walker’s celebrity status, his fans, the fiery crash and about the pitfalls of street racing, specifically, its popularity and efforts undertaken to combat it.
The documentary, according to crew member Gaetan Cafaro, takes a close look at the hugely successful Fast & Furious film franchise.
Produced by 3oeil Production, the documentary is slated for a release that coincides with release of the next installment of Fast & Furious, believed to happen this April.
Last week, “Fast and Furious” fans filed steadily by a roadside shrine of fresh flowers, unlit candles in glass jars and handwritten signs left in Walker’s honor, on the third anniversary of the crash that took his life.