| the last 28 hours |
[11 Jun 2003|02:05pm] |
MONDAY, JUNE 2. Woke up at 4AM, stumbled out of bed over to the living room where the TV was glowing blue and Will was asleep on the futon. I took a moment to see where we were -- Will had set a reel to capture while he was sleeping but something had gone wrong with it. I finished it for him and set another reel to capture, then set working on scenes 1 and 2 on my desktop.
Got through scene 1 in an hour, and scene 2 took little time as well. By 7AM Will was awake and we kept working through the reels -- still had three to capture. We were working with five different storage drives, and it was difficult trying to sort out which ones Will could use to capture and which ones I coud use to edit -- it seemed that each drive had footage from each scene. We spent a LOT of time swapping drives from one computer to another and back -- I started editing scene 4, got it done by late morning.
Will started struggling with some reels that for some reason would not capture -- corrupted tapes or something like that. I was stalling with scene 5, I think because not all the footage had been captured -- and then we started getting phone calls from people, I don't remember who but it broke up our rhythm. By 1PM we were in need of a lunch break.
Leland arrived just as we were having lunch, and it was like having the cavalry come. He started synching and editing media like mad -- took him half the time it would take me. An hour or so later Karin arrived and Leland had finished editing two sequences. Craig came in the afternoon for a couple of hours also and helped us compile and create our title sequence.
At 6PM Leland took a break to play tennis across the street, but by this point Karin, Will and I were in a groove -- we had another scene done by the time Leland came back and we broke for dinner. At the same time we would repeatedly run into the wall of finding that footage we needed hadn't been captured properly and having to re-capture it. We were advancing, in fits and starts.
It was now 9PM, we had three sequences to go. My memory at this point starts to get questionable -- I can't account for what exactly happened at each hour -- I know Karin and Will continued to work on finalizing the credits, while Leland and I polished up the remaining scenes and then started assembling them. I think around 1AM we had finished that, and Leland started copying all the scenes into one timeline. That took a bit longer than we expected -- we were originally hoping to view a rough cut by midnight and then make final changes, but that time had passed.
I think it was around 2 or 3AM that the computer crashed and we lost a half hour of work. At this point Karin and I were really fading, and we both took naps. I was out for a half hour or so -- apparently during this period the computer crashed again and Leland was nearing the end of his rope, having carried us so far -- he could not recreate his work a third time. But Will did a search for an autosave file and found one, The "polishing up" process was taking much longer than we'd expected, but we were nearly home.
At 5:30 or 6AM we started playing the movie through while watching it on my TV, hooked up to my computer via my camera, which was making the mini DV dub to send to Chicago. We had to stop about 4 or 5 times to make fixes as we went along. I remember laughing a lot -- the film does have a number of funny moments but I think mostly I was delirious.
At 8:10AM we were done. We hugged each other, Leland and Karin went home and Julie drove Will and I to FedEx. About two minutes after we left FedEx the car broke down -- out of gas. Talk about luck!
what's funny is that my wife was pretty much in the house the whole time but I barely remember her being there. She bought us all dinner, she hovered and kept things in order, talked on the phone in the bathroom or the bedroom, the only quiet places in the apartment during that time, went to bed and woke up just in time to watch the rough cut. I must thank her for not flipping out upon seeing how we had rearranged the living room into an editing suite, and being supportive throughout the crazy final day, and all the days leading to it. (But at least she got to meet Will Calhoun -- Living Colour was one of her favorite bands in high school.)
And those are the facts. Perhaps I have more thoughts to offer about the whole thing, but maybe this is enough. Besides it would be nice to hear someone else's voice for a change, wouldn't it?
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| Shooting Ends, Editing Begins |
[10 Jun 2003|05:41pm] |
SUNDAY, JUNE 1. Been awake since 3AM, re-logging footage out of frustration and stress. While the computer was capturing I popped in Robert Bresson's AU HASARD BALTHAZAR which I found strangely soothing to watch -- movies like that, which are about everything that's wrong with the world and the utter crap that people suffer through unfairly, have a way of giving you a healthy perspective on your own situation.
7AM -- arrival on set. Absolute downpour, most intense rain I've experienced all year. Fortunately we're just shooting indoors. I'm a bit rattled due to the editing fiasco from the evening before, but on the other hand the shoot went off unbelievably smoothly, so we may have time to work through the editing problems and still finish the shoot on time.
Mention the editing snafus to Leland and Karin -- Leland offers to get his laptop from home as an additional editing deck with Final Cut Pro. He instructs Chris and our two set PAs Mark and Meghan (who were all OUTSTANDING) on how to set up and then Julie drives him home to pick up his laptop. They come back half an hour later -- in the meantime my friend Eric (who designed the Parallex company logo and the ID badges) comes in fresh back from Boston on one hour's sleep to help out and immediately gets recruited for logging and capturing. It takes Leland and I about half an hour to get our editors properly set up on standard FCP log and capture practices -- we don't get on set until close to 9, an hour behind schedule, with extras for the second scene already showing up... But priorities are priorities.
So with that we bang out scene 3 -- I notice there's not quite as much energy as there was yesterday, partly due to the crummy weather. Scene 3 works out fine though... scene 7 is a bit unruly -- there was supposed to be a part where Jack the CEO throws a cell phone at the wall but long story short it doesn't work out. I also inadvertently yelled at three extras for being in the wrong spot -- one of which happened to be my boss! Afterwards someone told me that they asked her if I would have a job on Monday, and she replied, "probably not". These things happen! It was a chaotic morning, moreso perhaps than the morning before. This scene was more difficult to pull off as well -- more interpersonal dynamics going on between multiple characters, and a big shift in the power dynamic trying to get across. Scene 8 wasn't much of a reprieve -- more power dynamics being played out, this time between Marge and Davis, and each take gave us something different, but whether any of them were consistent with what went on before was unclear. But above all, we were getting hungry. Finally we broke for lunch when we were done with the extras for that scene. Discussed the scene with Gabriele and Kevin while we ate, and then we did one more take after lunch that seemed to work. We were really navigating difficult waters here -- trying to keep track of the flow of the story from the beginning to this scene wasn't easy, especially with improvisation playing such a heavy part in the takes.
We got through scenes 9 and 10 and we wrapped before 6, still earlier than yesterday. While the crew wrapped, Karin, Craig, Will, Leland and I had an impromptu post-production meeting to break down the 39 hours we had left and how to allocate it for the editing process. We were out of the building by 7 (despite someone accidentally tripping a fire alarm and summoning the fire department) -- I drove Leland and Will to my apartment with two laptops, two decks and four firewire drives in tow. Leland immediately converted my living room into an editing suite with my TV serving as a monitor. We spent a couple hours just trying to sort out what footage was on which drive -- Leland kept looking for project files but wasn't coming up with much. I was fading. What we finally did was took inventory of each drive and wrote it all down on paper, and then resumed logging whatever hadn't been captured yet on the drives -- at least four or five reels -- the editing crew had captured about 15 reels which wasn't bad at all. We were in good shape -- we'd figure we'd have an average of 2 hours to edit each scene.
After Leland left Will and I captured a few reels -- then Will got a call -- it was Will Calhoun, the drummer from the rock band Living Colour. Karin had put us in touch with him as a possible music contributor to our movie. He was coming to drop off some of his CDs. Really, really cool guy -- it was fun to talk to him and I didn't embarrass myself too much by saying stupid patronizing stuff like, "I loved that album that had 'Type' on it, I liked i more than 'Vivid'". Hey I was operating on zero sleep anyway -- and when Will Calhoun left I was ready to call it a night. At midnight I setup the living room futon for Will Comerford to sleep in, set the alarm for 4AM and went to bed with Julie, with Will still logging away in the living room, the TV/monitor flickering into the dark...
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| Shooting Day 1 |
[09 Jun 2003|01:00pm] |
SATURDAY, MAY 31. Woke up at 5, 1/2 hour later than Julie and I wanted, but that sure got us motivated to move fast through our wake up routine. Made it to the location by 6, Will and Craig were already there. Helped unload van while Julie quickly set up craft table in stairwell. Leland and Chris started working on setting up lights. Lots of nervous energy in the air.
It took 1/2 longer to set up lights than planned, which made me nervous. Actors showed up 1/2 hour late anyway -- Kevin and Ron seemed very confident coming in. Craig and Karin were looking at the schedule, trying to get a sense of how the day would play out.
Finally at 8:30 we were ready -- first scene was easy, which is why we scheduled it first -- just Ron and Kevin and three extras, one played by Will. 8:55 we took our first shot. We were done by around 10 -- and suddenly we were back on schedule!
The whole day really went by remarkably well -- we had overestimated the time it would take for these scenes -- they were all pretty easy to shoot, even when it involved a dozen or so extras -- once everyone knew what they were supposed to do it pretty much ran like clockwork. Leland was extremely fast with his setups, so we ended up doing multiple setups for some of the scenes as we had originally planned before Thursday's meeting. By 1 PM we had blazed through 3 scenes and were ready for lunch.
The rest of the afternoon was spent on two scenes, 5 and 6. These were tougher than the first two scenes, especially scene 6. Scene 6, as we had written it, didn't seem to work much at all -- it was supposed to show increased paranoia spreading among the employees, but it just didn't come off right -- so after one take we scrapped it and totally improvised it. The result was better than what we had before.
And with that hurdle jumped, we were wrapped at 6:30PM. Five scenes in 10 shooting hours. Unreal. Too bad the hardest part of the day was yet to come.
When I got home I started working with the footage that had been logged while we were shooting, hoping I could finish editing scenes 1 and 2 by the end of the night. Unfortunately what I discovered was that the files had been captured using iMovie, which doesn't run properly on Final Cut Pro. Basically my evening of editing was shot. I didn't sleep well that night, 3 hours and then I woke up frustrated... so I went ahead and re-logged two of the reels myself starting at 3AM in the morning. I had no idea what had happened with the editing, why iMovie had been used. That was going to be the first issue to deal with the next morning...
This account of the shoot day feels kind of rushed, but to be honest it really went by in a blur. If more details and moments come later I'll bring them up.
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| Last minute hustle and bustle |
[08 Jun 2003|08:04am] |
Karin came through for us once again by getting Greg's office intern Mark to help as a production assistant for the shoot, as well as making van and equipment pickups for us on Friday. So that left Craig, Will and myself free to do what we had to do. Will continued finalizing extras, Craig was busy drafting callsheets, finalizing the shooting schedule and making calls. Craig called me and expressed his doubts that we'd be able to keep to a 12 hour schedule -- we'd have a 6AM crew call, and then two hours to set up lights and camera, so our first shot would probably be around 8:30 AM -- and with an average of 2+ hrs per scene plus lunch time we weren't looking to wrap any earlier than 8PM, 8:30 at the likeliest.
Leland called after that to say that a) though he was going to go with the group's decision made the evening before, he sincerely felt that we were making the wrong call, and that we were overreacting to a sense of fear of the unknown. I told him that he certainly had a point but we shouldn't take the limited time we had for granted -- with only 72 hours to work with, sticking to our schedule becomes much more of a priority than it would normally be. He then informed me that Chris our gaffer would not work more than 12 hours a day, not for what he was getting paid. I called Chris and told him I'd pay him overtime if it came to that, and he agreed. It's better to put out these fires ahead of time rather than having them blow up at an inopportune moment.
I spent the morning working on titles and credits, then in the afternoon I went to Best Buy to buy storage drives for editing -- I ended up going twice and still not getting what I needed -- what I needed was a FireWire drive for Macs, but the first time I bought a FireWire drive for PCs, the second time I bought a USB drive for Macs. What a waste of time -- and this wasn't the first time I've done stupid stuff like this during preproduction-- it's just the only time I'm going to admit to it. So I went downtown to J&R to buy what I needed and then headed straight to Karin's apartment for our last rehearsal.
Kevin J, Ron, Gabriele, Arnold Kim and Arnold Sidney (who plays the janitor) all showed up -- it was our biggest rehearsal yet. This was also the first rehearsal with Karin, Will and Craig all in attendance, so everyone was watching to see how things were going to be. We were still tinkering with the roles and the line readings... I don't know how much of it was due to my lack of telling them that THIS was the way they were supposed to read the lines; maybe I expected my actors to have a more consistent reading of their roles... or maybe it was Kevin J -- he rarely gives the same line readings, he's always tinkering, probing, questioning, improvising, giving a new take each time. I admit I enjoy seeing his mind at work. Kevin J has brought as much meaning to this film as Will or myself -- a fact which I have no problem admitting to. On the other hand, as a director the challenge for me was to not be blown away by Kevin's or anyone's tremendous contributions, but to actively employ them in the service of the overall vision for the film. That was probably the most difficult thing I had to do throughout the whole movie, and the one thing I want most to work on in the future. This wasn't lost on Karin and Craig either -- both expressed concern that if we do all this tinkering and discussion of the script during the shooting it will significantly slow us down. Which is why you do it in the rehearsal!
Craig was concerned that our actors weren't off the book yet -- that they were still referring to the script for their lines. I'm not sure why this didn't bother me as much -- I guess because after seeing the different rehearsals my understanding was that they just needed to warm up with one or two readings and then they'd be ready -- and our approach wasn't so much towards getting the lines down but in understanding the situation the characters were in and have them act and react according to their nature. But this was tricky because if they veered too much from the original lines then they'd be utterly lost in terms of what they were trying to accomplish with each scene. It was a balance that needed to be struck, between coming up with fresh new lines and moments and yet making sure that we didn't lose sight of the objectives of the scene.
I think when the rehearsal was over we had a generally good feeling about how it was going, and we were pleased with our main actors -- but there were still so many x factors -- how were all those extras going to work out if we hadn't rehearsed them yet? But somehow we weren't bothered by this -- at least I wasn't. Like yesterday, I was feeling incredibly confident, because everyone was finally together and communicating with each other and much of the pressure was off me to make this all work.
I got home at 9-ish but Julie wasn't there. It was a weird hour of waiting for her to come back from buying props and lots of food for the crew from Costco and Target -- at least that's where I presumed she was. In that hour no one called me -- it was eerie, being utterly alone, so near to shoot time. I started wondering if Julie had gone out to eat dinner, or if she had gotten into an accident. Started wondering if I'd keep to the shoot if she were in the hospital. When you've spent 6 weeks running through all kinds of scenarios and plan Bs and such there's really no end to this kind of thinking. Anyway she finally came home with a full trunk of food and several bags of props. I should take a moment right now to say that going through this madness has made me more appreciative of the peace I get from being with my wife.
I had wanted to get to bed by 10 but it was midnight before lights out -- well 5 hours of sleep before wake up call is better than none...
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| Document: Extras instructions |
[07 Jun 2003|08:30am] |
Since I'm clearing this from my email it might find an archival resting place here. Will emailed this to all our extras the Thursday before shooting. Thank goodness for email -- without it there would have been no way for us to coordinate our shoot as quickly as we did.
Costume: Please wear “business casual”, unless you’ve received other instructions. Men may wear a tie, but a button-down shirt and slacks (no jeans) will be fine. Women may wear a blouse with slacks or skirt, or other “business wear.” You may want to bring a bag or purse, whatever you would bring to work. Dress for the weather. The weather outside will be the weather in our story.
Time: You will be contacted on Friday to confirm the call time.
Character: We have given some of you specific instructions about your character. We will also have further instructions available for you when you arrive. We are looking for LOW-KEY performances. We don’t see lobbies as places of high emotion. Keep in mind that we may have to recruit you for a role other than what we’ve prepared you for—we know unexpected problems will arise, so we hope you will be patient with us in solving them.
Nice day procedure: Who knows, it might be sunny this weekend. If so, you will be greeted outside by several crew members. They will sign you in, have you sign a waiver, and provide you with some prepared instructions about your character. Please make sure we have your name spelled correctly for crediting purposes. There will be a table with snacks and drinks outside. If you are working with someone else in your scene, you may want to find that person, so you can begin talking about the scene together. You will not be able to enter the lobby until the previous scene wraps. Once it’s done, you’ll be invited inside, and we’ll get to work.
Rainy day procedure: If it rains, you will still be met outside by someone with an umbrella. You will have to wait until a break in the action, and then you will be escorted to a waiting area. This will be on a wide stairwell landing. You will be signed in there, and our snacks and drinks will be there.
We think this will be a lot of fun! Just relax, have fun with it, and be patient with us. Thank you!!
Kevin and Will
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| Coming Together |
[06 Jun 2003|05:44pm] |
THURSDAY, MAY 29: I think the first person I talked to in the morning was Brian. All this time he had been confident that this would be an easy shoot, but after talking to Leland he was developing knots in his stomach. I decided it was time for me to be director-as-consoler, and even if I didn't know exactly what the reality was or what the outcome would be, we'd be better off if I told him it was all going to work out, that I was going to look out for him when I talked to Leland, and that we didn't need perfect crystal clear pristine sound because the nature of the project called for something kind of ambient and dirty. Brian is most definitely a perfectionist so I don't know how much he bought into that last line of rationalization, but in any case I think we had a better mutual feeling that this would work out.
Wednesday's rehearsal between Ron and Kevin went so well that we decided to do no rehearsals until tomorrow -- a quick run through of key scenes with the principals. So Thursday was freed up to take care of the crew and the shoot. I tried to get in touch with Craig to see if he got the stills of the shotlist I emailed him for our meeting with Leland, but no answer. About one hour before we were all set to meet I called his cellphone -- he was at his apartment owner's office because his whole building had been without hot water for the past week. He hadn't received any of my calls so he didn't know that we had set a meeting. Well, a week ago I would have flipped but after having to put out all kinds of setbacks this was getting to be a routine. I called Karin and Leland and rescheduled for 6, which was when Craig expected to resolve his emergency.
Since I now had time on my hands, I decided to buy videotapes for the shoot -- on the way I met up with Eric who delivered 25 fake ID tags for us to give the extras throughout the day. They were pretty funny -- he had snatched passport photos off the internet and placed them next to the company logo we used for our movie, and underneath that he made up bogus names like "Passa Courvoisier" "Wanda Annoya" and "Rudolf Jiulianni". Stuff like that keeps you sane and smiling.
Sure enough, Craig called earlier than expected to say he had successfully argued with his building owner and that hot water would be back by evening. So we all convened at 5 in the East Village. Leland brought a bug-eye camera that he wanted to use a the surveillance camera for the shoot -- it looked good but I wanted to get to matter of discussing logistics and seeing just how feasible the plan that Leland and I had worked out would be in Karin and Craig's view. So we started looking at the setups -- after a moment Karin and Craig expressed concern that for 7 out of our 10 scenes Leland and I had mapped out more than one camera setup. Their reasoning was, isn't the reason you have 3 cameras to avoid having to do multiple setups? Leland's response was that the 3 cameras may not be in the best position through the whole scene, so one or two of them may have to be moved. I initally seconded Karin and Craig's objections (which certainly must have drawn Leland's ire towards me) but I also agreed with some of Leland's points. For once I felt like I was in a comfortable spot, because I could have them make their arguments on their respective sides and so I'd be in a better position to listen, evaluate and decide. And so it went, with Leland showing the shots that he and I had taken and laid out in Final Cut timelines for each scene on his laptop, and Craig and Karin asking questions.
After several tense moments of back and forth, Karin gave perhaps the decisive reasoning, which was that with the little time we had, the priority had to be placed on the actors -- we had to give them as much time and space as possible to get them comfortable so that they can give their best performances. To that point I had news to report: over the last couple days of rehearsal, the actors have been taking a highly improvisational approach towards their line readings, which made our efforts to block them counter-intuitive. I think Leland had realized this in part from what had happened on Monday -- it probably wasn't the style he preferred to operate in, but I think at this moment he realized what the nature of the producion was, and it wasn't what he had expected all along, nor was it probably what he preferred. And with that, he closed his laptop -- and said that we'll just wing it with the cameras. I was afraid he may have taken all our work with the shotlists as a waste of time, but he didn't -- we certainly had a general idea of where we wanted our cameras in each scene; it was just that we'd have to be more flexible.
Leland was understandably disappointed but I think he also understood the rationale behind a more simplified shotlist. He mock-glared at Karin and asked, "So are you going to be at the shoot?" It was pretty funny. Afterwards Karin said she was really impressed with how Leland had taken the change in strategy. Many DPs would be obstinate about sticking to their plan, esp. if they had spent hours hammering it out; but I think we had succeeded in getting everyone keyed to a big picture perspective of the shoot. Anyway I felt much better, having convened my DP, my AD and my producer for the first time and letting them work out the shoot between themselves. It was really a meeting that should have taken place a week or two ago, but the point is that it did take place. It just wasn't working with me being the only point of contact, if only because I didn't have the experience to speak knowledgably between everyone. Karin, Craig and Leland each brought a lot of expertise to the table, each in a different capacity, and putting them together was what finally put me at ease. Everything seemed clear now. It was the best night of sleep I'd had since the start of this circus.
The funny thing is though, that when it came time to shooting, we ended up doing it very much according to Leland's original concept. But more on that later...
(btw Leland, Craig or Karin if you're reading this and if you have a different take on that meeting please chime in. I'm just the director you know...)
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| The Gathering Storm |
[06 Jun 2003|04:21pm] |
WEDNESDAY, MAY 28: I forgot to mention one other thing from Tuesday. I had been trying for days to put Brian my sound mixer together with Leland to talk about how they would work together on the shoot. On Tuesday they finally connected and, well, I'm afraid we kind of sprung a big surprise on Brian. He was informed for the first time that we were using a three-camera setup. This made him uncomfortable because as he saw it there was no way for him to get close enough to the onscreen action while keeping himself and his mic offscreen and get good sound. Brian called me Tuesday night as I was in the midst of finding a replacement for the part of Davis, and he shared his concerns -- Brian had been under the impression that we were going with one cam and we weren't going to get too elaborate or crazy with our setups. The decision to employ the 3 camera setup came about in my meetings with Leland the week before, and Leland had done a phenomenal job of selling me on it. But listening to Brian I started to wonder if we had basically incapacitated our sound guy with what we had devised for the cameras. Leland's solution to the problem wasn't altogether heartening -- he suggested we rent some bug mics and plant them around the room. Sure, if I've got the $$$$ to do this, which I didn't. Renting additional mics was going to run me much more than what I was paying for the two wireless and one boom that Brian had ordered. Leland's lighting kit was already three times as much as Will and I had budgeted -- Karin saw it and was surprised by how much stuff there was (though the bulk of it was really in the lights Leland wanted -- 4 Kino flows and 2 Dedos) -- I told Karin that the costs didn't matter but what Karin was worried about was how much time Leland and Chris the gaffer would spend playing with all the gear they requested. I was fine with getting good lighting for our project, but at the same time I was starting to feel like this production was getting out of hand, and Brian's and Karin's apprehensions were beginning to rub off on me. Not the state of mind I wanted for going to sleep.
Next morning I woke up with the overriding idea to find an actor to play Davis. Filmmaker Greg Pak (see www.gregpak.com as well as www.asianamericanfilm.com), who has come to my aid many a time before, recommended Ron Domingo, who had a role in his first feature Robot Stories (www.robotstories.net). I got Ron's number and left word. Then I started shopping around the rental houses for the camera and lighting equipment Leland had requested. Managed to get a package for $625, which wasn't too bad. Then Ron called and I gave him the pitch (it was probably the single best pitch I've given to anyone this whole time). He said he'd love to do it, he was all for crazy spontaneous fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants projects. He sure got one. All that had to be worked out was whether I could wrap him no later than 7PM on Saturday so he could sing at his cousin's wedding in Jersey. The schedule looked like it would work, so it was a deal. Then I set him up with a rehearsal that afternoon with Kevin. Looked like the boat was back on keel.
Then Craig called, finally back from vacation in Newfoundland. I wasn't sure where to begin catching up with him, so we set up a conference call with Karin and Will for that evening.
Met Kevin J and Ron at Karin's for their rehearsal, and they hit it off in an instant. A very rewarding session. Ron is very energetic, charismatic and eager, and it really added something between the two characters, a kind of rapport, as if the two characters knew each other. Kevin really dug it though we weren't sure if it was true to the story and how the characters were conceived. But I definitely wanted there to be some kind of bond between them that would form -- it would be a way to humanize what would otherwise be a stereotypical supervisor, and make us connect with someone other than Kevin's role. Anyway, it was nice to see another spark between Kevin and someone -- I didn't want this movie to be Kevin/Robert never being able to connect with anyone, some absurd parade of people passing by as he sits back and watches impassively -- I wanted to mix it up and have people trying to tease him out and see what happens. So with Ron I felt I finally had a key to help unlock that humanizing potential between Robert and the ensemble.
I got home, had cold pasta salad leftovers from Julie's graduation party, and then called Karin, Will and Craig for a production meeting. I think we were all impressed by Craig and his ability to bring up and talk us through a number of logistical concerns -- between him and Karin we steered through pretty much everything. We decided that our friend Janet, who volunteered for both days of the shoot, would help as "2nd AD", that is someone who would coordinate the 50 odd extras that would come through the set over the two days. We discussed staging areas, craft service, and setup times -- the 12 hour days that Will and I had scheduled looked overly optimistic in Craig's view; we had to talk through it to really see how long it would take to rehearse and shoot each scene -- but at best we were all taking an educated guess. We fixed on a 6AM crew call for Saturday to be safe, and prayed that it wouldn't take us any later than 8PM.
The conversation came to the dilemma of camera vs. sound that I'd been dealing with between Leland and Brian -- and in the course of the conversation it became evident that Karin and Craig hadn't been apprised of the 3 camera setup either! Eesh. Well Craig had been away so he didn't know, but somehow Karin and I hadn't communicated that. Craig and Karin immediately expressed concerns over how much time Leland and Chris would need to set up cameras between setups -- I assured them that no more than one camera would be moved from setup to setup so it really wouldn't take more than 1/2 hour. But I had the increasing feeling that I was over my head, with everyone looking to me for information -- it was time that the different sides finally got put together. So immediately after our meeting I called Leland and set up another production meeting between Leland, Craig, Karin and myself. We would meet the following afternoon, look at the shotlist and all get a collective sense of how the day would play out.
With that, I went to bed with a sense that things were really starting to come together...
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[05 Jun 2003|02:45pm] |
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I don't want to interrupt Kevin's narrative of what happened too much. I just want to say that it's good to be done, and it was worth it. At times, perhaps, I felt a little bit like that hiker in Utah, or Colorado, who had his arm pinned under a boulder for three days and had to cut it off with a dull knife in order to survive. Well, it was a learning experience, and with the bonus that I still have all my limbs and most of my faculties.
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| Coming Back |
[05 Jun 2003|01:45pm] |
TUESDAY, MAY 27: While sleeping, I expected to have nightmares about yesterday's rehearsals, but instead I had nightmares about putting together a shotlist for Leland, which is what I had to do that morning. At least my nightmares are forward-looking.
So I woke up and started putting together all the shots Leland had done the day before into a Final Cut timeline so I could see how the scenes flowed visually with a 3 camera setup. And they were pretty good. Didn't take me more than a couple of hours, and then I emailed the sequence back to Leland.
Checked in with Will, who was now undertaking a massive endeavor to coordinate 50 extras over the two day shooting schedule. Earlier we had mapped out just how many extras we would need for each scene, and the general time frames for shooting each scene -- so now we could email them and confirm their availability for the timeslots we had in mind.
In the afternoon I went to Karin's apartment where we were holding rehearsals. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned at first -- due to an unfortunate set of circumstances I found myself suddenly having to recast the role of Davis. In the meantime I worked with Gabrielle on her role and then when Kevin J came in they worked on their scene together. Then Arnold Kim came in to do his scene with Kevin J -- they had a good moment, it was really the first time that I saw any two of my actors really connect.
I felt good coming out of the rehearsal -- hopped the 6 train to meet Leland in the East Village to go over the shotlist I had done that morning. We both seemed to be in solid agreement over it, and after an hour of looking it over we then hung out and had dinner together -- first time I had actually hung out with anyone in a long time without an agenda in front of us.
Came home late and tired but somewhat satisfied... then I got a call from a person who I had in mind to take the part of Davis and he said he was way too sick to do it, but he'd put me in touch with others. And then the satisfied feeling started sinking back to dread -- whoever we'd get to do this would have three days to get ready for the second most important part in the movie. Impossible?
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| Backtracking |
[05 Jun 2003|08:45am] |
this may be anticlimactic, to report the last week's events in retrospect, but there was simply too much going on every day starting last monday for me to take time to report on it. Nonetheless I want to write it all down for the record.
I also invite the key cast and crew members to write their thoughts as well!
MONDAY, MAY 26. Dreary downpouring day. Key cast + Will and I met up at the location at 11AM to do a read-through. We really started at 1130 as people came late. When Kevin Jackson came in I instantly knew it was going to be a rough day -- he looked jetlagged and tired, and the weather wasn't helping to get him going either. Plus he didn't take the read-through well -- after how we had worked through the first 5 scenes on Sunday, it was like taking a step back for him. But I had wanted to do this so I could listen to everyone say their lines. It was a good way to get everyone on the same page and see where everyone was. On the other hand, it may not have been as critical given the improvisatory nature of the script. In any case, it was hard to get through, especially in that cold dark lobby.
At 12:30 Leland came in with Chris Weck, the gaffer he had brought in to help him with lighting and operating the second camera. We started running through each scene and staging our actors so we could get a sense of what each shot looked like. It was a bit chaotic -- Leland had been under the impression that I had already blocked my actors and that they were ready, when in reality this was the first day I had to work with all of them! We got through it all right, though Kevin J looked miserable -- if you look at the stills we took that day it's almost funny how many shots had Kevin slumped over with his head down.
By the time we were done it was about 2pm, the time that Kevin J and Dave Koenig were to begin a 4 hr rehearsal of their scenes together. We were supposed to have had lunch at 1 but they decided to go upstairs and get to work -- big mistake. You HAVE to make sure people are fed if you expect them to have the energy to work on their roles. We did not have a productive rehearsal. Kevin J expressed his confusion over what had happened downstairs with the read-through and the shot blocking. He said something to the effect of, I didn't know you were making a Movie movie, I thought you were just going to play it simple and natural, go with a documentary style, isn't that what you wrote on your journal? The fact of the matter was, he was right. Somewhere along the line, through Will's and my conversion of our treatment to a shooting script, through the shot blocking and discussions I had with Leland, the vision of what the project was to be got obfuscated. Actually it wasn't *that* bad -- it was just that Kevin J was seeing things going on around him that were making him feel that this project was going to be a lot more complicated than he anticipated. And looking at it from his perspective he had a point. In the time between he had first read the script and had gotten here for rehearsal, I had found someone in Leland who had a real appreciation for the craft of cinematography and was going to try to make this into something that looked really good and professional, which was more than I could have hoped for back when this thing started. I had to protect Kevin, put him back in a sense of safety, make him feel that he was going to have the right environment to do his work as naturally as possible.
Unfortunately all of this was going by so fast that I couldn't think straight. And what's worse is that my animated exchange with Kevin was putting Dave Koenig in an uncomfortable spot. While Kevin's point was, What exactly are we doing here? Dave's point was, look, we've got only a few days to do this, so why don't we just stop arguing about it and do it? And both of them were right. Unfortunately, again, all of this was happening so fast that I couldn't take charge and tell them both to settle down and get to the business at hand. Kevin J excused himself from the rehearsal, which was just as well because he looked pretty roughed up by the day anyway -- but this only made Dave more unhappy because a day of valuable rehearsal time for him was shot.
This day was to get a sense of where we were. Well we certainly got it.
After Dave excused himself Karin, Will and I talked things over. Karin, with her unfailing sense of perspective, said, This day needed to happen, and now we can go forward. We got a reality check of how much we were in command of our vision and what we needed to do to communicate it with our actors. We should have been much more prepared in giving our interpretation of the scenes, without having to look at the script constantly. These actors, they have so many questions to ask, and they want so much to figure out their characters inside and out -- and Will and I simply hadn't taken it that far. The last two weeks we had been so caught up with production issues; all my creative energy had been devoted to developing shots with Leland. But even if we'd had the time, I still doubt that we'd have been prepared to work with our actors that day, because we have such a different way of approaching the material as they do. Will and I seem to be more intuitive with our ideas of story and situations, or at least I seem to be -- I like to just put things together and see what happens without an overriding idea of where it's going to lead. Which has its merits, but when dealing with a feature project involving dozens of people, perhaps more is required -- especially if its to be done in 72 hours.
Anyway Karin left Will and I with plenty to think about -- what Will and I decided to do was to look at each scene and really drive the key points of what we wanted to accomplish in each scene into our skulls. Karin had a birthday party to go to -- namely, hers -- which Will and I could no longer attend. We went to Subway to finally get our lunch at 5:30, then we spent the next 5 hours going over each scene. I was exhausted by the time I got home -- still optimistic, but exhausted. It was the first day I had really been challenged on an artistic level, as opposed to a logistic one. It was the first day that I really needed to be a decisive and clarifying presence for others, and I wasn't.
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| YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS |
[03 Jun 2003|11:05am] |
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details to come... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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| well, we started |
[31 May 2003|01:44pm] |
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our first take was 8:55AM this morning... a bit later than what we hoped for but now it's lunch and I have time to check in if that tells you anything. This past week has been a whirlwind, haven't had time to make any reports, which is too bad because each day was a self-contained soap opera. But I'll make up for it starting Tuesday, once this baby is Fed Exed. In any case, things are going okay...
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| Home stretch |
[26 May 2003|09:13am] |
Friday was sort of an off day -- doing odds and ends, continuing to work on securing supporting cast, but really a day to celebrate my wife's graduation. Saturday we auditioned a dozen people for smaller speaking roles. Unfortunately I missed about half of them as I got myself locked in the fire escape when I took a wrong turn from the bathroom. Good that it happened that day instead of the day of shooting -- we'll be much more careful.
Will is now in charge of hiring extras and getting our cast list finalized. Once that's done he'll give it to one of our friends who may be serving as 2nd AD since we can't seem to hire one. This person will be managing our extensive list of extras as they come in over the course of the 2 days.
After auditions on Saturday Will and I came up with a shooting schedule. We didn't have one up til now because we wanted to have our shot list down first, but that's still not finished (hopefully it will be by end of today). But we still needed some kind of schedule in order to set call times for our cast... so we just went ahead and drafted a provisional one. After discussing it with Karin yesterday it looks like it could hold up.
Saturday evening I picked up Kevin Jackson from the airport. He came brimming with ideas -- it was a real pleasure talking and listening to him. The next day Will and I met up with him at the set and went through half the script -- again, hearing him talk through each scene really reinforced the logical flow of the narrative, esp. in what his character goes through. It was the first time in a while that I really felt like I was reacquainting myself to the story, after all the weeks of plotting and planning I've done. This week should be refreshing, working with the actors should bring my focus back to the film's content.
Karin, Will and I had perhaps our most positive status meeting to date -- it seems that everything is pretty much under control. Our crew is set, Will's continuing to work on casting and that's coming along fine... I am working on getting our post production arranged and finalizing an equipment and shotlist with Leland. Leland has also been helpful in suggesting postproduction options. Currently I'm looking at two friends who each have G4 laptops they can bring to the set and log footage there while we're shooting... and also Leland's friend who has an editing suite which we can log footage during evenings and put the film together. Just need to figure out how this will all fit together...
Today we've got a readthrough from 11-1 with the principal cast, and then rehearsals with Kevin J and Dave in the afternoon. Leland will be there as well to visualize the shots we've mapped out to see how well they fit, and hopefully we'll have our shot list finalized by tonight. Then we can start renting equipment, finalizing call times...
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| only 10 days away... |
[22 May 2003|10:53pm] |
are we in good shape? hard to say, but at the risk of jinxing myself I'll say yes. Still have to figure out how to mobilize our extras and the dozens of friends who have offered their help. It would be much easier if I had a sense of how our shooting schedule would play out, but like Leland said yesterday, there's no way we can tell, none of us have ever really done anything like this, trying to shoot 35 pages a day! Most films will get 5 pages a day at most! But aha, this is the world of digital video we're talking about. Bang, bang bang. And now that Leland has pushed the idea of multiple camera coverage, we no longer have to worry about getting everything perfect in one take. We can just pick up from any point where we flubbed, and we can cut to a different shot to cover it up -- so we can just push forward through each scene. Still this sounds great in theory, but will it really play out so well?
Actually I've been editing an industrial video for my company, which I shot last month on DV -- and for that I did 30 pages (30 minutes of finished film) in two 8 hour days, getting multiple coverage on ONE camera. This time I just need a little more than twice that much material to shoot, with days twice as long... but this time I'll have THREE cameras to take care of my coverage, which may cut the time back down to size. 70 pages in two12 hour days, is it doable? Can't anybody tell me??? Could it be that I may have a better sense than anyone else?
Anyway Leland and I met for another 3 hours yesterday, tried planning out our shots but by scene 7 he felt we needed to see the actors in position to really see the shot. At least we have that possibility -- I've set the rehearsal schedules and we're having our inital readthrough on Monday at the location, so Leland can come in and test out all the shots we've come up with. He's not entirely confident that what we've plotted out will hold up onscreen, but we'll know for sure Monday. He's now thinking of including a FOURTH camera (a lipstick minicamera to put in front of the guard on the desk)... I'm okay with that SO LONG AS IT SERVES AN INTEGRAL PURPOSE TO VISUALIZING THE STORY (sorry, don't mean to raise my voice -- I'm just reinforcing this for myself really). Especially if it means even more footage to log and edit.
For Saturday I've set up an informal audition session for our invited extras so that we can meet them and see what we can do with them. Leland is so doubtful about the likelihood that we can stick to a schedule that he suggests we have our extras stay throughout the whole shoot! I'd love for that to be possible but the reality is a) we're not paying any of these people; b) we only need each of them for one scene, two tops. There's got to be a way to make our timeline manageable, to get a fair estimate of where we'll be timewise after each scene...
I'm looking forward to getting my main actors together. They've been checking this journal and have been very encouraging. Kevin Jackson, who will play the lead, finished his theatrical run in LA last week and apparently is now in the desert recharging his batteries -- I'm picking him up from the airport Saturday. Last Friday I caught Dave T. Koenig (who will play the supervisor) in Shades of Male -- and he showed me a much darker side to his persona that I had only caught a whiff of in the audition... this is great, because his character has a bit of a sordid past and now I can really see Dave playing to that.
Karin has been poking fun at me because for the past week, whenever we talk, I start worrying about craft service. I don't know why, I just start worrying about who's going to buy the snacks and beverages, set up the craft table, etc. To my relief, my wife has agreed to go buy the stuff at Costco and I think we have someone assigned to set it up while Julie takes care of props as I'm hoping she will for both days. She's finally graduating from seminary tomorrow, and hopefully she'll have a job not too long after...
I talked to Craig last night and he started throwing questions at me as is customary of AD's to do. Here, I'll even copy some of them:
"What would be the start times for the two days? Ladder(Camera), Props(ID badges, telephone)? How many PA's will we have for each day? Can we assign them to specific departments or will we have to float them? We will need an on-set PA to do lock-ups, etc.. Will we have an interior space to stage actors and set-up craft service table? Think inclement weather....What is the parking situation on the street? Permits? Will there be multiple cameras/operators? What kind of day would you like to make? 12hrs.? 16hrs.? Do you have the list for entire cast?"
I'll take the Fifth.
I think that since last Sunday or Monday, I have been in a Zone. Last week I was a real stress case but this week nothing really seems to faze me. Part of it is that when I talk to Will, Karin, Leland or Craig I get a sense of satisfaction, a sense of Yes, this can be done. My people are in place, my tasks are laid out before me, and I just need to bang through them, hopefully with my vision guiding the way.
Now watch as God pulls the rug from under me for what I just said, ever so cockily.
Okay, gotta go... someone's at the door...maybe it's God?
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| It's good to end a day feeling happy... |
[20 May 2003|10:45pm] |
for once.
Yesterday I kind of spoiled myself by watching a movie instead of doing anything movie-related... and of course it came back to bite me today when I realized how much there was to do. Well, at least I got to laugh my butt off to Stephen Chow's THE SIXTY MILLION DOLLAR MAN, one of the most insanely funny movies I've seen. It is Demented. It has nothing to do with ON GUARD which is just what I needed. (Incidentally Chow's latest film SHAOLIN SOCCER is due to be released any day now... it made a ton of money and won armfuls of awards overseas).
Anyway, so I woke up at 6 this morning and read through the script to re-time it after Will's revisions. Clocked in at 65 minutes, er, just a few shy of the 70 minute requirement. And then that old feeling of dread so familiar to me in the past month sank in once again. So i spent the morning working over the script to see what could be expanded and came up with six pages (~ 5 minutes) of material. Of course the script may still undergo further revision and expansion through rehearsals with my key cast, but I wanted to at least get us to a point where any further work wouldn't be just to satisfy the time requirement. Sheesh, this is embarrassing writing about it -- but it's the truth so there it is. We're obviously not going to fulfill the 10-minute takes goal we set for ourselves, but at this point it seems like a foolhardy idea to push that far. 10 scenes avg. 7 minutes each seems like enough to get our point across, esp. if we're still going with the single takes (which I'm no longer sure we are...).
In the afternoon I had a check-in conversation with Karin. Sometimes I have to brace myself when I talk with her because she'll come up with a dozen things I haven't been thinking of! But like a trip to the doctor, it's exactly what I need -- to get drilled on what's in front of us, and what's coming up. She thinks Will and I are doing very well in staying on top of things, but the truth is we probably wouldn't be if she weren't checking in.
Discussion about what our start time should be -- crew call could be anywhere from 6am to 7am , with cast coming in no later than 8... this is standard, but on the other hand it's saturday. there's still uncertainty as to how much time the shooting will take -- the logic is that we really don't want to do more than 3 or 4 takes of each scene because frankly we don't have that much time to log, capture and edit all that footage... better to spend more time rehearsing and then shoot. Leland thinks we can bang out scenes at an avg of 2hrs each, which would place us well under our 12 hour a day sched. Others aren't so certain... I'm okay with 15 hour days if others are...
So then in the evening I met with Leland to map out our shots for each scene -- let me just say right now that this man is gangbusters. He's fast, he's thorough, he's creative, he's cooperative, and he's challenged and expanded my visual approach to the shoot while at the same time respecting the philosophy and practicality behind my initial aesthetic ideas.
The key shift in approach has been to go with multiple cameras. Many DPs we've spoken with have proposed this but Leland was really the one who convinced me that this was both desirable and doable within our time constraints. To wit:
- He expressed skepticism that any one static camera angle can retain an audience's interest for 3 minutes, let alone 7. Upon further consideration I realized that even the long-take filmmakers I had cited in the initial proposal (Kiarostami, Tsai, Akerman etc) kept their long takes well under 3 minutes on average. It's still an idea I'd like to try in a future film but it may be something I'm not quite prepared to undertake with this feature -- I feel like I would learn more about what I really want to do by exploring alternative options that in the end may be more feasible.
-I guess I had also figured that I wouldn't have enough time to edit multiple camera coverage into a film in one day, so the single camera longtakes was the way to go. This idea defintely made sense in some respects but it also seems both overly conservative and overly risky at once. Overly conservative in that I may have more time to edit than I think, especially if I have somebody log and capture media at the same time as we're shooting (which is what I've noticed other projects say they plan to do). Overly risky in that I'm banking everything on one shot, one take, and if it flubs at any point then the take is ruined, I have nothing to cut to.
- If we go through the script (as we started doing today) and look at what shots we want for each scene, we'll have prepped ourselves for what we want to look for in the editing stages which should speed along the process.
So he's proposed using three cameras for most of the scenes: one Canon XL-1 as the main cam, and two GL-1s for coverage. He has done a phenomenal job of making this proposal convincing -- mapping out the shots such that the cameras don't get in each other's view, and going through the script and marking which shots are best for each point in the script. I still hold my breath a little at the prospect of having all these cameras and all this footage to sort out, but he's made it sound very manageable -- just log as much of it as quickly as possible, then just lay out the multiple camera tracks for each scene side by side in the Final Cut timeline, and go wild.
As I said before, I've balked when others have proposed the multi-camera approach, but what made me agree with much of what Leland has proposed has been that he really seems to understand the motivations behind my shooting strategy and is offering an alternative that speaks to those motivations. We agreed that our camera technique should be inspired by the aesthetic of the surveillance camera, and in doing so we have come to the agreement that overt camera movement is not pertinent to the idea of surveillance that's central to the story. Surveillance cameras don't track and they don't move through space -- we agreed that these kinds of movement bring too much attention to the camera. At most we'd do panning shots but only when absolutely necessary -- the effect we want to give is a view of this lobby space from multiple surveillance camera angles -- unobstrusive, probing, composed in such a way that it doesn't seem composed while subtly leading the viewer along in interpreting each shot.
In many ways Leland has taken this shoot to a new level of professionalism beyond my initial expectations from a month ago. There's going to be some serious fancy footwork involved in coordinating these cameras from take to take, scene to scene. But it all makes a lot of sense and his confidence is contagious. Hopefully his cold isn't -- the poor guy has been fighting a nasty bug for the last week, so I hope he recovers in time for a grueling weekend shoot. Anyway, I left our meeting today feeling like, Yes, we can really do this! Let's see if it carries over as we continue shot listing tomorrow...
I need to start getting Craig's AD duties started -- pass on all the contact info I have so he can create a call list. Craig, if you're reading this, get on my case!
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| Extras extras (and more extras) |
[20 May 2003|03:15pm] |
So some time ago Will and I went through the script and counted out how many speaking roles are in the movie. The total count: 31 (not including the four leads), a number which has since gone up a few as we tried to expand our script to ensure that it actually finishes at feature length. This number also does not take into account the number of people needed as non-speaking extras, which at a bare minimum would number 20. Of course we could use some of these non-speaking extras as speaking extras for other scenes. In any event it looks like, to be safe, we'll need 50 extras involved in this production over the course of our two day shoot.
Of course we won't need them all at once. I broke it down scene by scene and we won't need more than 10 at a time for whatever scene we'll be shooting. Some scenes, thankfully, will have hardly any extras. The trick is that if we don't want to have them hanging around all day, we need to schedule as best as we can to estimate what time they'll be needed. This is something I hope to accomplish with Leland and Craig this week.
In the meantime, there's the task of assembling the extras. Our first options have been to invite our own friends to see if they'd want to take part -- through this effort we've gotten 25 people to express interest. Not bad, that's half the extras we need. Next we invited those who auditioned, since we met them, we know what kinds of characters they could play. 19 responses from those ranks. Almost there. So as a final safety measure, I emailed all the people who sent their headshots and resumes who a) supplied their email addresses and b) were non-SAG. 160 people in total. I invited them to take part yesterday morning. As of now I have 50 responses. So it looks like I have a healthy pool to draw from.
The next step I suppose is figuring out just who goes where and who should play what. Though we call them "extras" a number of these smaller parts are significant. So it will take me some time to sort this out...
One idea I had, as a lark, was to invite these folks to come up with their own "lobby moment" -- what they would see themselves doing in the main lobby of an office building. If what they came up with was good, we could have them do what they described when it came to shooting. I might just ask them that to see what they come up with...
The other issue is rehearsal -- I'm not sure whether I can do this or not, even if I want to, with time getting increasingly precious. Will it be enough to assign them roles and instruct them over email/phone as best I can -- or is it wishful thinking to think a rehearsal prior to the shoot won't be necessary? I'm sure we'll have to work it out a little during the shoot, but I'm hoping it won't take more than 10-15 minutes to get them to do it the way I want if they already have their sides handy. We'll see...
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| A Big (tentative) Sigh of Relief |
[19 May 2003|05:00pm] |
I apologize for not writing more frequently this past week -- hopefully this week I'll be more forthcoming with information. The main reason for the lack of updates from my end has been the protracted dilemma of hiring key crew. I've been anxious to get my DP, AD and sound guy in order for the last couple of weeks and the process has been much more involved than I expected. I think one thing I didn't have a firm grasp on was how tentative things could be. In this business all sorts of last minute stuff may happen -- people who say they'll commit to your project will drop out at any given moment when something bigger or more lucrative comes up, or they may just drop out for no apparent reason at all. On the other end of things, you might find someone you think you really like and then suddenly a change of circumstances lead you to someone else.
I'm telling you, last week was the most stressed out I've been -- the uncertainty, the decision-making, the waiting on others' responses and contingency planning, it drove me up a wall. I can't say I handled it perfectly but at least I went through it and I'll be much more comfortable with the hiring process next time around. Of course the process isn't really over until the movie is finished -- anything might happen up to that point and one must ALWAYS have a plan B...
The world of uncertainty really opened up on Saturday the 10th when we interviewed DP candidates -- Karin, Will and I met with different DPs and we each had such different views on each it made my head swim. Where one of us saw someone who seemed to make the camera and lighting setups more complicated than they needed to be, another would see someone who was very aware of potential problems with the shoot and was actively presenting solutions. Where one of us saw someone who seemed to really share our vision for the project, another would see someone who was agreeing with what we were saying without challenging us or coming up with his or her own ideas. It was tough trying to accomodate the strengths of others' points of view while trying to stay to your original vision, especially when at times they seemed irreconcilable. But I came out of that with a much better appreciation of what makes a collaborative process work.
I'd like to say that I had at least one or two other strong candidates to choose from for each department, which I see as a blessing even though during the decision-making process it felt like a curse (I just hate saying no to really qualified people). At least if some god-forsaken thing were to come up with any of the crew I picked, I may have a strong person to bring in to rescue us, if they're available. I don't know how filmmakers stay sane with all this contingency and uncertainty. I guess it makes life exciting if one knows how to handle it.
And so, I would like to announce my key crew and say that I'm very pleased to have them aboard and I hope they will get as much out of working with me on this project as I expect to with them -- they are all significantly more experienced than I am; what I hope to offer them in return is a great project to work on in terms of creative challenges, organization, publicity, and potentially long-term collaborative relationships.
Leland Krane (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Krane,+Leland) has shot several features, using various formats from 35mm to DV. His most notable recent work is on the feature "Under Hellgate Bridge". I'm very excited to work with him. Though he was fighting a nasty cold when I met him on the set, he still came alive with a plethora of ideas and approaches to shoot the video. We'll be planning out our shot list this week, hopefully in time to hand over to...
Craig Greene, assistant director, has worked in the film industry for nearly a decade in various on-set production capacities, and is now studying in NYU film school. I like Craig because in his email to me he came right out and said, "I see a lot of potential snafus in your project." That's exactly what a good AD should say (so long as he helps us figure out how to solve them).
Brian Fish has recorded sound for a number of features and has recently finished a three-month shoot for an upcoming bowling documentary (www.nobowlereverturnedcommie.com). He came in with great references and everyone I talked to couldn't speak highly enough of him. Sound is going to be very key in giving this film the right atmosphere. Brian scoped out the site a while back and thinks we can get all the sound we need with two lavaliers and a boom -- I hope he's right!
So there's the team -- and I do feel great relief being able to say that. Now I can move on to getting everything set for rehearsals and final preparations next week. This week we'll rework the script some more, put our list of extras in order, get our shotlist down and schedule our shoot days accordingly, and so on... Wish us luck.
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| double space |
[14 May 2003|11:47am] |
That script writing Web site let me down. I could have sworn it said to double space. Oh well, so we've got a script that's a bit short of the 70 minute minimum--for the moment.
We needed some revisions, which were bound to add length, anyway. Now underway.
Kevin wanted me to take a look at what Robin Wood had to say about Taxi Driver and Bladerunner (in a book referred to him by a friend of his on the Internet Movie Database). Not sure if he's suggesting that I'm what Wood called the quasi-fascist Paul Schrader and he is the more open Scorsese. I think he's concerned about creating an "incoherent text" (which Wood says resulted from the collaboration of Schrader and Scorsese).
I have to admit I have some reservations about being overly "coherent." Especially when we're trying to represent such a chaotic space (lobby), ordered by a narrow viewpoint (security cam) that can't hope to provide a clear understanding of what happens. But I suppose coherence refers to a consistent attitude toward the subject. This makes sense, but I'm more cautious, say, of presenting a "solution" to the "problem" presented by the story.
Wood seems to have a good sense of how slippery ideas can be, but I have to read a bit more. By slippery, I mean something that appears radical in fact being the opposite. For example, a film that shows a "way out," a revolution, could be seen as a fantasy, its effect to pacify.
The best thing I read recently about The Matrix were some comments by Slavoj Zizek, saying that the film is really a simple and savvy reversal. In the movie, humans are in a bleak and desolate reality, but they are provided with a fantasy world (the matrix) to keep them in control. When in fact, the real world _is_ this bland place of social interactions and steaks. And we are maintained by the fantasy that there is some deeper, more authentic self somewhere (perhaps stuck in a bucket of embryonic goo) that is pure because it is not part of this complex tangle.
So, what I take from that, is that this movie superficially portrays some revolutionaries who have freed their minds... but in fact it's about a group of psychotics who lash out at the real world because it is dirty and complex and demeaning, and because of that they don't think it really exists.
So while we still may employ the 360 degree still shot with kung fu in the final scene, we won't be using the same background theories as the Bros. Wachoski.
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| this is just to say |
[13 May 2003|11:33am] |
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that Jacques Tati's PLAYTIME is one of the greatest films ever made. I watched it for the third time last week and it nearly brought me to tears, for four reasons: a) it's so damn good; b) that this guy ruined his personal finances in order to realize his vision, which puts the risktaking that Will and I are doing in a certain perspective; c) I'll consider myself personally blessed by God if our little film manages to be a tenth as good as Tati's; d) it reminded me that filmmaking should be an act of joy, joy in creation, joy in collaboration, joy in celebrating what's good about life in the face of so much that's terrible and tragic. Thank you, JT.
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[13 May 2003|10:05am] |
It's getting harder to find time to write this -- rarely feel like there's a moment of clarity where I can report lucidly on what's happening. But I hate to see days go by without a record of our progress.
We had our auditions for the facilities manager Saturday and I'm very pleased to report that Gabriele Schafer has taken the role. Gabriele originally caught our attention by describing her involvement in the Fly By Night 24-Hour Play Producing Marathon (http://ratconference.com/flybynight/index.html) whose improvisatory, run-and-gun nature seems right up our alley. Welcome, Gabriele!
And there we have it, our key cast is set. What a relief!
Will and I have spent considerable time mapping out our shots for each scene and have been in dialogue with different prospective DPs about logistical and technical considerations... This has been a particularly challenging stretch of the production, though I'm sure it will only get more intense as we grow increasingly preoccupied with details. But we've also learned a tremendous amount from the various perspectives we've encountered.
In the course of our scene mapping we determined that apart from the 4 main characters we will have 31 smaller speaking parts and at least 20 walk-on roles. Oh brother.
So we've decided that our first resource in finding dependable, reliable and enthusiastic participants to fill these parts will be to invite all of our friends and good acquaintances to take part. We're doing that today. After that we will recruit from the fine pool of auditioners whom we met. And if we still need more, there are 400 headshots we could refer to. So I guess we're covered.
We'll be meeting with Karin tonight to determine the rest of our pre-production schedule -- a little more than 2 weeks left.
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onguard's journal