Don't know how I missed this; in Feb., Gus Van Sant talked to The Onion A.V. Club about making his films. The sequential filming mode from Gerry was used again on Elephant; with a small, light crew, Van Sant was practically flying along, shooting whatever he wanted. It was an approach he'd missed since his first feature, Mala Noche.
One review of Gerry deadpanned that Los Angeles is enough of a desert itself, why go to Death Valley; since reading it, I've wanted to do a shot-for-shot remake of Gerry, set in teeming east LA. After all, for a west-side anglo, being stuck on foot in East LA could be as alienating and threatening as an empty desert.
[Update: I finally found it; It was a Voice interview with Van Sant, who said: "In the West, as soon as you get out of town, depending on which direction you go, you can hit desert, especially in L.A. I mean, L.A. is really a desert anyway."
Unfortunately, there's something screwy going on with the DVD release of Gerry. Criterion is apparently handling it, but there's no mention of it at all on their site.
