On Guard (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} onguard) wrote,@ 2003-06-06 17:44:00 |
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Coming Together
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...)
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...)
