Trivia: According to director James Wan on the director's cut DVD commentary, the major plot twist of the film, from Adam listening to Zep's tape to Jigsaw standing up, was one continuous shot, and was also the only shot they did of the sequence.
Trivia: As is often the case with micro-budget films, the movie was not shot widescreen, but rather was shot on cheaper 4:3 full-frame film stock and cropped for the widescreen theatrical release. Thus director James Wan filmed the movie ahead of time with the knowledge that the tops and bottoms of the frame would be missing from the theatrical cut, and he made sure to compose the shots accordingly. Unfortunately, instead of panning-and-scanning the cropped widescreen release for the full-frame home-video release, the distributors merely uncropped the image. This causes some rather strange and subtle blunders in some full-frame home-video releases, as portions of the frame were visible that shouldn't have been.
Trivia: The actor playing Adam is actually a co-writer of Saw. The film was shot in 18 days and for under a million dollars, and it all took place in 2 warehouses. The writers/directors wanted to make a movie about people trapped inside a single room.
Trivia: Although never mentioned on-screen, the puppet's name is Billy.
Trivia: When the lights are turned off in the bathroom, and the glow-in-the-dark "X" is revealed, the effect wasn't actually achieved using glow-in-the-dark paint. Instead, the lights were dimmed somewhat on-set and a bright light equipped with an "X"-shaped stencil was projected onto the wall. This is because there was too much light on-set for glow-in-the-dark paint to be visible, as even during dark scenes, film sets require at least a moderate amount of light.
Trivia: Adam's screams, which are heard during Lawrence's successful effort to saw off his foot, are the exact ones heard when he is being sealed in the room by John/Jigsaw. It's the same audio file.
Trivia: In the scene that Amanda digs through her cellmate's innards for a key, the hands shown in the close-up shot are not actually Shawnee Smith's hands at all. They're Leigh Whannell's hands with his nails painted black. Likewise, several shots of Detective Sing (when he first enters Jigsaw's lair and when he is killed by the hidden shotguns) it is not actually Ken Leung but Whannell dressed as Leung's character.
Trivia: The budget did not allow for a dummy of Jigsaw to be made, so actor Tobin Bell had to lie on the floor and portray his character in each shot the body appears in.
Trivia: One day, co-star Cary Elwes looked over to talk with director James Wan, and noticed Wan was sitting on a small, wooden apple-box just a few inches off the ground. Elwes questioned Wan about where his director's chair was, and was shocked to learn that the budget was so tight, they evidently couldn't even afford chairs for the major crew members. Elwes evidently went to the producers and demanded that Wan, a first-time feature director, get a proper director's chair, and eventually one was purchased.
Trivia: The doll/puppet seen in the film (called "Billy" behind the scenes) was actually built by director James Wan, and is the exact same doll used in the original short film that was made to help sell the script. (Although Wan did slightly modify it between the production of the short film and the production of the feature film.) Due to the tight budget, the producers told Wan that they didn't want to spend unneeded money making a new doll when the original was still available. Wan later admitted he was slightly annoyed when the sequels were released, as each subsequent sequel had the budget to allow for the construction of newer, more intricate versions of the doll.
Trivia: The scene in which Gordon turns off the lights and whispers to Adam was written differently in the script. The characters were to cut open opposite ends of a long pipe with their hacksaws and speak through it. This sequence was actually shot, but later cut because director James Wan decided that the characters being able to cut through a pipe made no sense if they couldn't cut through their chains.
Trivia: As mentioned on the DVD commentary, Amy Lippens, the casting agent, asked James Wan, the director, which actress he's interested in for the role of Amanda. Wan suggested Shawnee Smith, whom he had a crush on since he was a teenager. A few days later, when Amy Lippens told him that they actually signed Shawnee, he was happily surprised.
Trivia: According to an interview with Leigh Whannell, Adam and Lawrence were originally going to be trapped in an elevator, not the infamous bathroom.
Trivia: Pre-production for this movie lasted only five days. The bathroom scenes were shot in just six days and the actors' rehearsal takes were used as the actual footage for the film.
Trivia: There were no effects added to Tobin Bell's voice on the recordings, save for slowing it down.
Trivia: Shawnee Smith spent only one day on set.
Trivia: The director and writer were also the director and writer of a low budget Australian film called Stygian. There is even an inside joke when someone at one point refers to "Stygian Street" and you see the street sign.
Trivia: Danny Glover's wall has hundreds of newspaper clippings attached to it. At one point in the film, we are shown some of the headlines, i.e. "Psychopath teaches sick life lessons." If you actually read the text below you'll find that it bears no relevance to the headlines whatsoever. (You may need to use the zoom facility). Two of them are about a fourteen year old boy who died in an explosion, due to "Goofy Clay", and if you pause and read the wording, they have exactly the same text. Not really a mistake due to needing pause/zoom, but interesting to look for.
Trivia: The inspiration for the villain Jigsaw being a cancer victim came from an event in co-writer Leigh Whannell's personal life. Whannell began to suffer near-constant migraines during the writing process, and ended up having to go to the hospital to have an MRI. He was petrified about getting the results back and began to ponder what would happen if he found out he had a brain tumor. He began to ask himself what he would do with the rest of his life if he found out he was dying. Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing, and the headaches eventually went away, but his fear and paranoia stuck with him and inspired the character Jigsaw. Whannell was also inspired by an article about a man who was mis-diagnosed with cancer and how it (briefly) changed his life.
Suggested correction: In the flashback of the razor wire trap, it shows the clock as a few minutes past 1, so he did know he had 2 hours.
Paul knew he had 2 hours as like you said he could see a clock counting. But how did detective Kerry who made the remarks in the first place as listed in the mistake?
Ssiscool ★