A crowd of three to four hundred extras was hired. Meanwhile, Lumet asked the neighbors to appear in the film by watching from their windows. The director offered to relocate to a hotel for those who did not want to be disturbed by the shooting. The crowd grew as filming progressed, and pedestrians joined the actors. Lumet directed the crowd and "whipp them up to a frenzy". By the second week, he felt that the crowd could improvise on its own. To amplify the effect in the film, he utilized hand-held cameras. In regards to the project while it was filming, Lumet said "It's out of my hands. It's got a life of its own". In a scene on the street, before Pacino left the bank, assistant director Burtt Harris whispered to him to ask the crowd about Attica. Pacino then improvised the complete dialog with the crowd.