Underground film was improvised and composed directly in the camera

Evidence

The drug-den atmosphere (at one point Smith is shown smoking hashish or opium in a long-stemmed pipe) perhaps prompted Joan Adler’s recollection of “three-day sessions,” which involved “two days of waiting for Ron to start shooting.” The film was essentially composed in the camera. Rice double-exposed ten rolls of color film, usually in his loft but a few times in the street outside, on one of Smith’s locations, and on Coney Island. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 459