Blade Runner Transitions

Run, Don't Walk, from The Blog

I don't know whether this blog should just be used for my "four pages" each morning a la The Artist's Way, except that people would be reading it so I might censor myself a bit. I just don't like the idea of spending time on something that is meant to just vent and to never be of any practical use.

But I know I have to spend that evergy on getting my screenplays solid and that means another pass for almost all of them through the laptop and through my thoughts and excreted out the printeer. If I can get my perfectly good printer to communicate with Windows 7.

I'd feel sorry for anyone actually trying to follow my blogs.

Last month I got to shoot most of video footage for a play's multimedia material.
Good experience to goose me back into the rhythm of shooting. I have to be careful not to let life beat out the filmmaker in me. I need to have my ass kicked once in a while to even take note of a time and location and commit to that. Things end up working out. Many of my own projects have been compromised one way or another - maionly by the idea that everything HAS TO be done within an allotted time, which is the case with every project. I have to ensure that in my own projects the script is respected and actors learn their lines because otherwise the lines read flat and there is less probability of the actor truly bringing more to it. The labor is the memorization. They have to be willing to do that labor. Now I've seen some actors pretty much commit themselves to someone's dialogue and build from there.

I've thought about writing a one-man show for one of the characters I've created, but the actor wants a teleprompter. That's kind of a heartbreak. And he'd rather have the play be more about himself, which is a no-go, really. I don't think I'll be writing anything based on anyone else's ideas, aside from specific adaptations of books I like. Working from anyone else' idea or life sets up a paradigm where it is all about "getting it right" according to someone else. Mind-reading interests me as a topic, but not as something I would have to do.

I also have to be especially careful about whatever I am eating. I can have great bursts of energy peter out so easily because of the type two. I have to beat that and lose weight, whether the work of weight loss is tedious or not. And that means a slightly new life. Not something to sneeze at.

Also, I have to refrain from watching so much TV on-line. I'm into No Ordinary Family, starring the guy from The Shield and Wired, as well as Julie Benz who was Rita on Dexter another favourite show. Nice touch on their anniversary episode where Benz' character at a restaurant changes reservation order with someone with the last name of Morgan. As in Rita and Dexter Morgan. I's details like that I apparently need to have grafted onto my brain instead of spending my time fine-tuning and perfecting the screenplays that are the reason I am in Toronto and alive.

So the last thing I need is this blog to update every now and then. Still not getting enough hours at work. Had a glimmer of hope that maybe the new company I'm with might inherit the last site I was supervisor at and maybe then I'd have a more clear say in how to ditch a troublesome guard who had been told showing up on time and leaving only when relieved was optional. Returning to a set site might be an improvement over the current situation, but I would also have to get rid of that problem even before committing. The same principle also applies to a film. Never accept responsibility over anyone you can't get rid of.

Moon

Sam Rockwell appears in this under-rated sci-fi film by Duncan Jones. It's interesting to me because it's a "first feature." As such it is excellent. It is difficult to describe the plot without either lying or giving a spoiler. Kevin Spacey plays a computer voice for which he achieves a HAL 9000 without doing an impression of Douglas Rain. The end result simply reminds us of what we knew all alone. Kevin Spacey's usual tone is fairly measured and robotic to begin with, and like his character Gertie here he is someone we initially mistrust or from whom we expect and accept a wide range of possibility. I can't say that Moon is for everybody. It wasn't just a marketing mix-up that led to its fate. Moon involves a technology that is very trendy and mixes that with a third act plot device borrowed from Outland (which I admit I prefer) or High Noon if you like without being too overt about it. But it is closer in tone to Sodderberg's version of Solaris. There are things I like about Solaris, more than the Andrei Tarkovsky version anyway. But unless you are driven to see a wide range of films because you are in the industry or a cinephile, it's not necessary to see any film called Solaris. Jason X includes a space station called Solaris, perhaps as a nod of respect for a much critically-favored story/novel/film or films, but I'll admit I can recommend "Jason Goes to Outer Space" more easily and widely than either Solaris. And I'd much rather boast having made the pop-horror flick than the drifting narrative of a Solaris. Sam Rockwell keeps most of his whimsical side in check with Moon, since it is a more somber situation. But I would have preferred a more silly movie, frankly. Rockwell in serious mode reminds me too much of his unhinged psycho Billy the Kid in The Green Mile which puts up a barrier to empathy with him. But then keep in mind I'm one of the few people who want to see him play Zaphod Beeblebrox again. Most of the movie is a two hander of sorts between Rockwell and the computer voice of Spacey.

Kickstarter

They still need more money for the Burning Man intergenerational flick:

I've been introduced to this new site to help filmmakers get some seed money for their projects.

http://kck.st/90rJJY

Kickstarter is the name. The link is for a friend's flick I've just put a thousand dollars into. Big step for me, because I don't help anyone.

Oddly, one of their producers is someone who did The Corporation and a Noam Chomsky film.

waiting and patience

7 months of restraint before even suggesting that there is a shark in the water and keeping the beaches open.

That's not enough for some people. You don't even have to name the shark. You don't have to threaten to close beaches. The shark swims right up and asks if you have a problem with him.

Amity Island politics make a lot of sense. More true to life than it gets credit.

"You're the mayor of shark city. People think you want the beaches open."
- Chief Brody, 1975

"Smile you son of a *bang* " is another good line, strangely also applicable to politics.

But I've decided my written self is the real me. It's less nice and more sarcastic.
There is an instinctive low key mode I got from security work, very suppressed, face to face. But facts and afterthoughts and revisions are as true as the mess that we speak or the politeness that and physical limitations and environmental constraints that stifle us face to face or over a phone. Verbal and visual cues only tell you maybe how strong a person is at a given moment, as superficial as choosing who to dance with in a dark, noisy club.

I have had some pretty nice people play dumb to my face. Then there are those who don't get back to you at all. If I'm strung along enough and an opportunity finally opens up, I think I have to be honest that my bitterness exists and the window of opportunity is closed. Years of waiting pass, patience may be a polite word for resignation. It's like how many years you can think about a woman out of reach as "the one" before she finally comes around and she resembles neither the mental picture nor a photographic one you've carried around. That's just life. But for most of the things we look forward to and identify as a goal have a shelf life. There is a time when we are most ready and fertile to act, when energy and whimsy and
willingness to take risks are a natural part of the voice.

You know something, if a slogan on the cover of a book says "uncompromising security" and you are supposed to turn a blind eye to an abusive authority figure who skulks around committing a felony unpunished there is going to be bitterness.

If I - in my vocation of film making - insist on writing a script and then hear a lot of blather about the merits of improvisation or stealing jokes, it tends to render the exercise useless. If I psychologically carry the baby of a movie script for several years and then someone with arbitrary and unknowing judgment says that I can't direct my own script, I'll be honest with you I'll risk flushing the whole project down the toilet.

If a producer asks me for a sample or a submission of something - you know what? I want to know that they received it and maybe even what they thought or when a judgment will be made. And if they can't do that I think: how will they approach the day-to-day grind of producing and providing for the film?

Waiting may be my whole life. You wonder why a movie or any action taken on anything takes months or years? It has nothing to do with the actual doing of anything. If I had the money and the right set-ups for distribution and the proper paperwork so a project is "in the loop" and expected to be made, I'd start right into it immediately. While I still have a bit of youth left in me and I can still walk, I don't hear the words "Hakuna matatta" or "don't worry be happy" the same way as others. I am not celebrating. I'll celebrate when I'm on some sort of track.

I just want to give people a shake. I LOVE rejection letters, because they are closure and they can be filed in case someone claims that I owe them some sort of acknowledgment. I'd love to have someone quit early so it's their decision and I'm not acting on whims. Frankly if I don't hear back from a girl or a job or a collaborator, I write them off and move on. Their judgment or priorities aren't a good sign. If I know someone is hanging by a thread for my response, I give it as soon as possible. But even in Toronto which is supposed to be an ambitious town with people on the go I hear a hell of a lot about lazy, boring, crap. Maybe I'd look at that stuff differently if I was DONE something important or the huge backlog of little somethings.

This after three beers tonight and some cashews.

Big smile, big smile

I was watching Chaplin the other day, Robert Downey Jr.'s most celebrated role, and I had forgotten "Big Smile, big smile" was from that as he prepares for The Great Dictator improvising snippets of faux German while watching Hitler footage. I had thought the line was from Lethal Weapon 2.

I'm thinking "smile and the world smiles with you," trying to get some perspective. Yet another summer is no longer ahead of me. The days aren't getting any longer. Not getting as much shooting done as intended. Getting specific actors together can be a feat. Ensuring that they have all read the script is another hurdle.

Meanwhile my job is undergoing a transition, so a predictable pattern is no longer going to be there. Moving on to re-adjust at another site which may or may not last. But at the end of life I won't be thinking about a job, only a career that will either happen in film or won't. I may have to take a big risk and be unemployed a while, just for the time to focus on updating my writing and storyboarding and actual shooting.

It's not like I've been distracted by being a husband or a parent. I live in a town where anything can happen, and yet I wait and gain weight. I once wrote poems, plays and short stories always with the expectation that they would circulate. What's missing now is a certain anger, an agression, willingness to wage war to get things done. I mentally spin my wheels and know I have to get some traction and move forward. I look at a script and think how many Harry Potter movies have come out since I wrote this or that?

The relaxed or sedated mindset I have - an unearned happiness or false peace - feels like a chemical thing. Something is off. Or is it from watching too many DVDs? What may save me is the edge and anger I reclaim thanks to some of the idiots I have to deal with.

The Sanitized Version

Here is a journal excerpt that was posted on a website I no longer promote, associated with a film I made in 2003/4. I haven't even re-read it since then, but I know some of the anecdotes were passed along in good faith. I didn't know quite everything that was going on at the time. It has been somewhat edited by a nemesis of mine as well. It is just pasted here from the abandoned site.

Future blogs may touch upon lessons learned after the fact.



Location Check and Pickets
When John Lindsay and I met to look at the location Shannonn had picked out, (I think this was my second visit), but we sailed right past the turn-off and then backtracked.
Before John arrived, I waited on Yonge Street for a while. As I got out of the subway, I realized that the street was lined with pickets featuring mutilated fetuses.
I thought this must be something to do with “Big Babies.” I realized I had not prepared a speech. The worst thing is that I might have been early or John had been held up elsewhere, so I had a long wait at this intersection. I had my still camera, but as I tried various positions I couldn’t get quite a satisfying angle showing how many pickets were lined up along the highway. One lady in charge saw my camera and asked if I was with media. I said yes.
I asked if there was a clinic in the area that she was protesting. She said no; it was just a randomly selected intersection. I asked about guys who insist their girlfriends give birth and than take off. She said these are not very nice guys, but at least the child is alive and an uncle may help out. She stated that it is more common for boyfriends to insist on abortion, and whether or not the relationship survives, a lot of girls go along with this “emotional coercion” instead of choice. I asked a few more typical questions and I was impressed that there was no “God’s Will” talk, which I find very clumsy debating.
A very attractive-looking woman walked by as a male protester trailed off trying to pass her on to the leader. “I’m calling the police,” she said over her shoulder. “You’ll be gone in less than an hour.”
I admit I didn’t know what the young, bearded gentleman had said to her, but it caused me to feel some empathy for the demonstrators. Except for one sign which read, “Adoption, the loving option,” depicting a living and uninjured baby, it could be argued that the pro-lifers were guilty of bad taste. But I felt and still do feel that is no reason to have police drag people away. I ended up telling the lead protester that I was just waiting for my cinematographer and I told her about the movie and it’s content. I said I was not especially taking any “side.” When I crossed the street and John arrived, his first comment as I got into the car was, “Did you see those zealots?” I laughed along and told my story but I also realized the movie could easily be side tracked if I ever actually engaged anyone in a substantial discussion of the subject matter. I’m more interested in the way people use their words and, especially these days, compartmentalize.


Day One of Shoot: Thursday 14 August, 2003
I initially joined LIFT so I could access equipment. At the last minute, we had to cancel a package from LIFT because we could not get a camera compatible with video tap. I needed a video tap, so we rented elsewhere for that reason. As we arranged ourselves on the backyard lawn of our location getting the first set-up, I notice that our video monitor had blinked out. Art department boss Mark MacKinnon reports something he heard over the radio. There is a blackout across. . . whatever area. . . and most importantly us. His explanation was more detailed than I remember. We speculate that it must be terrorists and that the phrase, “The Events of August 14. . .” will be part of all surviving media for years to come. Luckily, it was not as dramatic and we kept out own mundane problems in focus.
Anne Gravel gave a sincere look of concern, anticipating my disappointment with the project potentially stopped short. It turns out that if the shoot were transferred to the following weekend Dave Mckay would not be available. So the best we can do is chug along with whatever exteriors we can get and then keep showing up.
I have a fleeting thought that these are my vacation days and that the power problem could is ironic; this is happening the first day in a while I have taken time away from the security desk at Toronto Hydro. I expect I am missing out on a different brand of panic. Later I will find out they had it in hand.
We were already setting up for exteriors, so I only shuffled the schedule enough to accommodate the eight known exterior shots available to do and though I looked in the viewfinder a couple of times I verbally described the shots and trusted John to report any problems. As I hunch over the camera, John noticed I cast a shadow on Linda, who has to spin away to complete an edit point for a transition. I note the direction Linda spins so it can be recreated laterat a church exterior.
Without audio playback of a song to synch, we shot one pass of an overhead shot with the actors singing and another pass without mouth movement. The synch proved accurate in post, but the latter option worked as filler when I cut another shot and threw off my shot-timing in another scene.
A shot of Anne walking along the street, kicking a can, our “Moonstruck” homage, meant Monika Geresz had to run back a few times for new pop cans as they were untimely crushed by cars that got past us. Anne had to jump aside as cars approached. I was not so quick snatching a couple of pop cans. Monika ended up replacing me on the street divider-island. No cars will be shown in the final cut of the film, but the traffic was being diverted to this little street because of the blackout. In the background is a little “Welcome to Bedford Falls” sign, as Shannonn calls it. This quaint, quick touch, but it is there.
Close-ups of Bertha’s arrival and her invitation inside have to carry the scene because there is not quite enough light for a full two shot by the time we come to that. The shot of Dr. Ian peeking through the sliding glass door and his view of Bertha’s cleavage (and unusual fetus cross on her necklace) will carry the scene. Linda suggests the off camera noise of the door opening further. It ends up even more amusing despite the fact that it was a practical suggestion by Shannonn to use this rear door instead of pushing our luck with the location owners and trying to shoot at the solid, normal front door.
This way, the house is completely identified by this one side. It is also lucky that at the end of a take Linda ends up covering the fetus-cross with her shawl, which takes the curse off of the following shot where her cross will have been flipped between takes and got past me. In story-logic, the shawl may have caused the cross to flip. The secedes bugs made noise but subsided long enough to get the dialogue out. Then we were done at the house for the day. Maybe just enough time left for one more shot.
I had scheduled a church exterior for the fifth day of shooting. Apart from any pick-ups or photos, it might have been the only business on that fifth day. But taking advantage of whatever daylight we had left Shannonn piled a few of us into her truck and John followed in his car. Shannonn remembered passing a church. Though it wasn’t Catholic, it had a cross on top and a stone front. Someone suggested setting up across the street, but once I was on the sidewalk, I felt the main walkway was enough distance for Linda to spin up to the camera.
Adding a tilt-down from the cross meant we didn’t have to worry about an actor walking across the street. The camera move would still have to fit the song later, so it was a risk. Later in the video transfer the blown-out sky would have its blue restored. We advised Linda to hide her “life” picket sign from people sitting on the bench nearby until we are ready to roll. There was no video assist to consult for the direction Linda should spin playback, so I luckily trusted my own memory and not Linda’s. The action that feels unnatural is often correct, in an abortion musical.
We got the shot and drove south as dusk fell around city volunteers who were helping direct traffic in the power starved city. Shannonn shouted out compliments to them, and I was dropped off at Bloor street. I would take the bus home from there. But now I was back in reality.
That meant waiting at the curb with a huge cloud of people. When a completely full bus stopped and opened its doors perhaps only for air I gently shouldered my way in and I think I am the only one who bothered. As I flashed my bus pass and wormed my way in, I detected every un-breathable form of human smell combined into a new strain on stink. Every now and then the bus would stop to let in a gust of fresh smog. I considered trying to escape and walk, but luckily I stayed on my feet, people around me standing shoulder-to-shoulder-to-buttock, and eventually arrived at Danforth and Victoria Park where I could walk to my apartment.
I discovered new areas of the apartment complex by approaching from a hillside and into the wrong building from parking. A few neighbors or looters gave directions and eventually I climbed up the right thirteen flights to my apartment. I let the bathtub drip hoping that by morning there might be enough water for a cold bath. I would use a little dish soap, since I could find that. When I did bath after failing to fall asleep, it was like being in an isolation tank. But, unlike William Hurt in Altered States, I did not transform into a fetus at all. I still had to get up in the morning with total reliance on a wake-up call.

Day Two of Shoot: Friday 15 August, 2003
I listen for messages, call in to listen to other messages. It turns out that power is on at Shannonn’s, so we can shoot the washroom shot set-ups there in the morning. It was already the plan before the blackout that we would cheat Shannonn’s lavatory for that of the location. The actual washroom did not appear to be of the same design scheme as the kitchen set; also, a hallway outside Shannonn’s gave us just that much more space to back up.
Monika notices at the last second before we roll that the time hand on the egg timer is not set for twenty minutes as it is being placed in hiding, and thus saves the film from having its central story point over-looked. I am doing my own continuity, so as director I would have to fire myself.
By the time our washroom and bomb placement shots have been wrapped, we get word that the main location up in the suburbs has power back now. So the planned unit move goes onward and we set up at the house. Perhaps in the original schedule for day two, there might have been another exterior because for some reason the camera was converting for a daylight source. Our first shot of the house, an interior, was facing the sliding deck doors and it might have been thought that they should be the primary light source, but I notice while sitting through the video transfer that a tungsten window gel can be seen. Since the film is tungsten balanced, the gel should become invisible as it converts the daylight. The sliding half of the door is open for part of the shot, so the trade-off should have been a slightly blue look outside. Luckily, the problem must have been caught before the next set-up. In post, the editor Michelle Gurevich was able to reduce the orange of the gel but if someone really wants to look for technical flaws that shot is one that bugged me after the fact. At least nobody comments on it and it flies by unless I point it out like an idiot the way I am doing now. But I won’t say which scene it was.
John was able to bring in a grip and got him to remove a ceiling fixture that was causing reflection problems. It was placed onto a grip stand to place into scenes wherever it is required as dressing. Meanwhile, I find out John’s camera assistant Serhat Yalcinkaya worked on Chicago. If I engineer another SARS panic I will have the industry to myself. Just as planned.
We ate up some page space with a shot that holds on Anne for most of a scene despite the fact that much of the dialogue is off screen. Even after some off-screen dialogue has been trimmed, we are still able to stay on Anne for much of the camera run and cut only when the rhythm of the scene calls for it. This is the first leap of faith, testing the waters to see how the actors will do in long camera runs. It’s a great relief, since a director with a small shooting ratio and really only a week of good rehearsal time is really at the mercy of the concentration and preparation of the actors.
For a couple of shots of Linda, I felt instinctively that Bertha’s character should minimize any mundane walking around and should just appear. This is along the lines of the creepy housekeeper in O’Selznick and Hitchcock’s Rebecca, supposedly. But it is more accurate to say that the sudden appearance of characters was exaggerated more as a Warner Brothers / Bugs Bunny cartoon device (which is where I first saw it and where it is more obvious than the acclaimed film above. As Bertha is noticed by Anne, we would have sound designer Jason Matthews crate a burst of scare music. I found the specific sting on my copy of Halloween and then told Jason the clock time and he rented a copy to find the place. It is a very good, short adaptation of the effect. I complicated the next shot by planting Linda’s feet behind Dave and giving her an odd scolding finger gesture to go along with my loopy dialogue. That was good for a few bloopers that ended up in our end credit roll. Next we moved on to a silent shot of Dave catching groceries and putting them into the cupboard. I was not worried that he doesn’t synch to the song, since this shot could work as an all purpose cut-away from the reverse master of the song to be shot later. Only the strangeness of the movie allows us to get away with him silently working while his voice continues with Anne on the track.
During the song “If Only” there was originally not much written in terms of action. Even when I originally storyboarded it I had a few lame dance moves in mind but no activity or project the audience could follow. Shannonn suggested that the characters could be putting away groceries, because I had indicated a box of sanitary napkins on the counter as a simple joke. So I worked backwards from that adding the prop of a grocery bag. Now Anne would be arriving with her dad’s birthday cake box and a grocery bag. This gives Bertha a motivation to stay, and something to do during the song. She picks through Anne’s groceries like a raccoon, pretending to help. This motivates Ian and Anne to put away the groceries that minute.
By now we had less light outside but we didn’t have to see the windows. A synch bit requiring playback from another song was then done with Anne and Ian from the side.
Finally, we could excuse the actors and finish the day with images of the cutting of the fetus-shaped cake. I asked Monika to add a little smile on the fetus-cake. John remarked with a laugh, “I’ve said it before; You’re a sick man, Will.” I said thanks. I had to admit this particular shot was something I have talked to people about for a while and it was weird to finally see it shot. It was original to me when I first thought of it, but The Naked Gun has a similar effect with a Queen Elizabeth cake and I could also claim that it is an unconscious homage to Margaret Atwood’s first novel The Edible Woman, which unfortunately was not the story I expected.

Day Three of Shoot: Saturday 16 August, 2003
“It’s a cluster fuck,” John finally says, a bit of edge creeping into the smile. We have been waiting around the location for almost a couple of hours beyond our planned call time. I finally ring through to Shannonn’s cell and get a worse burst of anger as an answer: Turns out I needn’t have gotten off the Westbound bus at Yonge and I needn’t have stood waiting in a cold drizzle for the Northbound with all the puddle hopping to the location. I was supposed to go to Shannonn’s and be driven up to the set. The only thing stopping me from carving a big bloody “L” on my forehead (for La Rochelle) is that we haven’t heard from our make-up girl either. She is en route and caught in traffic, so the first shot would have come off at the same time even if I had been alert to every plan that flew past me on the wind last night. So besides being grateful for Sawsan Sibani being what Shannonn calls a “stealth make-up artist” I am also happy that she was held up in gridlock that morning.
We ate through some good pages today and got off a good axis change in a handheld shot I had hoped to have a ramp for originally. John managed a good, very tricky move. Most of the movie is fairly static, so this dynamic shot was necessary and is dictated by the content. While we imply Anne mooning her parents, we swing around behind them to imply that she is done by the time she resumes her argument. There is a moon photo on the wall just for that one reason, to help implant the idea of mooning, since we can’t show a butt (though the first pass of storyboards long ago did show that).
There is a slight light flare, which was hard to spot on set over the video tap but nothing that anyone has drawn to my attention. If we had a ramp behind the parents to see over them toward Anne, the final angle would have been pointing down more and there would have been no flare. But at least John was operating and he is (like most people) taller than me. If I had to perform the shot, it would have been a full shot of lights hanging from a grip stand.
As Anne takes over the gun in a big stand-off scene, there might have been a slight drift of the pan control between my sign off on the shot and the final take. Seeing the final film, John agrees this might have happened. So I can point to the drifting pan if people say my direction is too rigid. I don’t like corrective moves during a take, so I generally say pan and tilt should be locked off. But the energy of the scene is still the same even if the final placement of the actors in the frame feels just a hair off to me. There was a good reaction from crew over performances in this scene. I even recall people clapping.
I notice we caught some interesting behind-the-scenes footage due to my forgetting to turn off the video assist unit. Scanning through the High 8 tapes, it is interesting to watch Julie Hall attend to Dave’s costume and Sawson touch up his make-up. This is in a shot where Dave has to do a “Groucho” and squat to arrange a clock behind his head like a halo. A couple of people watching the film have pointed it out as if it were an accident. It’s interesting to see that we are all being deliberate, down to the napkins in Dave’s collar to protect the rented doctor’s lab coat from make-up smears as Julie and Sawson buzz around him. Or maybe they only appear to buzz because they are on high speed search. I don’t know if I could go back to my own one-man productions after having good crews on my last two films.
I’ve also noticed that other than hello there isn’t much that has to be said to the sound recordist Edward Hue and his boom operator Brent Stewart. They seem to have their approach worked out, working around the frame. I was intimidated by sound initially, and I’m happy the tracks are so clean. My fear of inter-cutting is one reason I chose to avoid covering each actor in close-up, time and film being other factors. I was paranoid enough to imagine that I might be tempted by a sale to cut an offensive joke if need be and so I am pretty much deliberately painting myself into an all-or-nothing corner.
There are a few little flourishes as characters come in and out of songs or fantasy embellishments and crash back into reality. I’m glad I storyboarded so that every little whip-move of the camera can be ticked off of a checklist when we are lit for the proper section of the set. The one scene where I felt a little tug of improvisation tension is in a scene involving a bit of handheld moves involving a coat hanger, buttering a bun, not wanting to cut the cake, and finally the introduction of a spider. The writing basically has to ask a lot of the audience here in terms of filling in blanks or following the content itself. But I couldn’t bring myself to cut anything here, even though it may seem to be a speed bump. There is a coat rack bar placed beyond the actors so I have an excuse to have Anne offer Bertha a hander as she takes her shawl.
That might be where I was asked if I want the rack put up. . . although I believe they used an adhesive, and I’m not sure how a hole got into the wallpaper. If it was a high hole, it must have been to move over the clock for a shot. I didn’t see any hammers in evidence, but it didn’t make the homeowner any less peeved when she found a nail hole. I think we had to compensate for that and have the carpet cleaned in an area we were not to trespass upon. As for the carpet thing, I did find crew set up in that area, but I think that rule breakage was good for the film and worth the added location expense for carpet cleaning.
I took a leap in terms of camera direction and axis change by cutting to what should be Anne’s view of a spider crawling on the table. It should seem to crawl toward her, but we zoom out to reveal we are on the other side and it is crawling away.
Mark had designed a crawling spider using a magnet under the table and it was great when he demonstrated it. Monika wrangled it for the take and I should have given her more than one kick at the cat. The move is one part of a very long camera run that includes Anne singing a song.
Monika wanted to see the spider, so the video monitor was placed under the table. I got as comfortable as possible there on the floor during the take. I don’t know if Monika remained there beside me or whether she felt it was safer to fly blind. John made a comment about me being on the floor, “You have to suffer for your art. I know I sure am.” I replied, to clarify, “You’re suffering for my art.” He said, “I wasn’t going to say that, but. . .”
Ultimately, if I could redo this, the one change I would make is that I would have done one additional angle, perhaps at table level, on the spider so there was more scurrying and more chance to see it work. This is one case where my efficient shot functions were too strict. On the monitor, the spider movement was fine. It scurries a bit, then stops, perhaps in fear. I didn’t have time to scrutinize it on the monitor until we had moved on. I saw what I wanted to see. It was a well-conceived gag. But by tying too many functions into a shot I sold it short. I was too busy being amazed that in the rest of the one-take shot Anne managed to synch an entire song and hold our attention long enough that a cut-away was not needed. A lot of things had to come together in that shot and I was happy with where the actors ended up, but the spider deserved a better fate, even apart from being squashed, snuff-movie style. Her children complained and threatened a lawsuit right before they ate her.
The last scene of the film was an even longer camera run and mostly dialogue. Big day for props. Mark and Monika provided and prepared a gestation tank with a near-birth fetus inside.
Once John and the lights were set, I had to thank the crew and advise them that the actors needed a few more minutes to drill the lines. Again, I wanted confident readings, faithful to my every fantastic typo. At a certain point, where it was just a matter of getting over the words and getting trouble sections right, I would be firm and make the actor in question repeat the lines insanely and quickly over and over. Then I let the group of them drill the lines quickly and just walked away for a while once they started getting back on track. I did storyboard an implied version of the spit-take that begins the shot, assuming that we wouldn’t want the actor to make a mess on the camera or crew.
I think Shannonn questioned this cop-out, arguing that there is entertainment value in people spitting up. It may have been her idea to put crushed crackers into Linda’s mouth to help illustrate the lumpiness of sour milk her character has ingested. As footage was assembled, Shannonn suggested that the gestation tank had not been featured enough with more of a close-up. We discussed that, then I ended up asking the editor Michelle if Final Cut Pro could generate a glowing, pulsing special effect around the tank. I was surprised with the result, which also helps boost the lights that Mark had already set into the tank itself. There is not question that the audience eyes are drawn to the tank and its occupant. It gets a reaction. A last minute storyboard on the shoot day was a quick cut-away of Bertha touching her chin in thought. This was to be used just before the “explosion” shot, as the homage to Peter Cushing as arrogant architect of an SDI-like space station before his creation blows up. I won’t say whether it means culpability or Bertha waking from debate only now remember the deadly reason for her visit. Maybe it’s just another cheap Star Wars reference to book-end the film.
Ian turns his head, cringing at the spit . . . a knife is twirled in anticipation of expert cake cutting. Then a long master of dialogue surrounding the cake scene and a cut-in of passing a pill.
Here I ran into a continuity problem because I intended again to shoot only one long shot. When I improvised by suggesting a close-up of the pill being passed, I could then not return to the master shot right after that. I would have to get another angle, a close-up of Bertha receiving and sniffing the pill, so that the wide shot would have emphatic purpose as a double-reaction shot. I would have to wait until we were set up on the other side of the room the following day.
Under the gun, we took Bertha’s pill-sniffing close-up, which was great, in one take. I should have taken the time to watch playback to confirm Linda’s memory of which hand she used. So there is a continuity error, but I guess the pacing and content help distract from it. I still needed to use that reaction shot from the master for a mock-suspense beat of music which could lead in to a commercial.I decided to work the possible breaks into the script and storyboards so that they would not have to be imposed inappropriately by a broadcaster in the future.
By now I think the day was winding down. We were a little behind in what we had hoped to have shot, but the light had dwindled. We tried to turn around and face the deck door again for a shot of the freedom pads on the countertop, but John stated that we were pooched for sunlight. Though it was dimmer outside, I insisted on a take but we would end up redoing it the following day anyway. The character of the outdoors was too far gone. Dark was dark. The last thing we were able to shoot required seeing no windows. It was from the hallway, showing Dave as Ian cross with a coffee mug. It meant establishing the door handle of the washroom in foreground. Mark had removed Shannonn’s door handle and the knob of the location washroom door, which opened on the wrong side. Now Monika had to mount Shannonn’s handle onto the location door. The Set Foreman Daniel Gibbs crouched nearby before the take and held the handle against the door hoping whatever tape or adhesive would hold while the camera ran. He let go, and the take went fine.
Set Foreman was I believe a title made up by Shannonn for Dan, who had arrived as a surprise to me. I didn’t want an Assistant Director, because I was doing many of those tasks. He was on the phone to Shannonn a lot. Someone who didn’t make the cut of the crew heard the story and said to me, “So, she brought in a mole.” In fact, this interaction demonstrates that Shannonn had a good instinct for who to hire and who to filter out. I think Dan was a hard worker and I’m glad we had him around. Very over-qualified for his job. I still do feel that everyone moved at exactly the right pace and that I’m never motivated by time-stamps or contrivances of pressure. It’s bad for my nerves; just one more thing to tune out. Some people show tension up front, but directors have to filter it so there is no destructive stress for the cast and crew.
Speaking of good crew members, I believe Edward Hue dropped me off home and picked me up the following morning.

Final Day of Shoot: Sunday 17 August, 2003
This was a marathon day. Shannonn repeated cheerfully that there would be no fifth day of the shoot. Whatever the deadline, all we can do is one shot after the other. At the time I was reading “The Tao of Pooh” which is about dealing with what is in front of you at the moment.
We started with a retake of the shot from the previous day where we had lost the daylight. Much better now. We are now entirely doing shots that face the door this morning. We will get through some pages. One thing that got by me as continuity is that we forgot to ask the grip to put the ceiling fixture back up. He couldn’t be here today. Since most of the shots don’t show that part of the ceiling, it never enters my mind. There is one shot where an empty ceiling is visible, but the eye isn’t led to it. Still, I notice it and I regret that I neglected to note it until the homeowners arrived that night and saw it out of place. I know it was handled with care, but they perhaps did not.
As a family the characters sway, putting groceries away and singing. Linda was given some business by choreographer Michelle shaking a box of noodles, for which the foley will be carefully added in by Jason. When I told people I was doing a musical I heard about “tie downs” and various contraptions which would make it prohibitively expensive to synch actors to their vocal tracks. We have gotten away with having Edward basically press play on a CD player.
For the dialogue leading into “A Little Bit Pregnant,” we have to see artwork on the fridge apparently done by Ms Anne Thrope as a child. It's actually artwork of one of John Lindsay’s kids that was happily supplied. I needed it to fill the first third of the frame so there wouldn’t be a gap, so Dan and other crew pulled the fridge carefully out from the wall a bit.
For a scene where Linda has to begin in the foreground addressing the camera, spin away to reveal Dave, and then reappear on another focal plane where Dave is; the crew rigged a little platform over the kitchen sink island so Linda could climb over off screen.
I insisted that some of the island be visible in frame so it would be impossible and unexpected for Bertha to reappear in the same shot. The scene ends with all three cast dancing back to the door with a little step and head turn which the actors had worked out with Michelle. I think in rehearsal I said, “It needs to end with some kind of end move.” I think Linda added the head-turn and pivot and Michelle refined it.
When it came time for a shot following Anne to the washroom where the bomb is, Shannonn’s handle had to be attached to the door again. I think this time had a more durable method. No damage done. But at the start, Bertha returns a pill to Anne. We had to do another take because Linda – and I’m not picking on her – mimed the pill instead of asking props for it. I was a little agog at this, although it is funny. That’s why I say people should never fear asking silly questions. Like, “Where did I put my prop?”
After eight set-ups, we had a lunch break in the back yard.
I had planned to have the family march around the living room. I had already cut one of three shots from the sequence for time. Shannonn asked “Are you sure you don’t need it? Are you sure.” And I was sure, until post when Michelle reported that I didn’t have enough picture to fit the song. This was where we were able to pop in the non-singing option of the family tableau from the intro. But one good decision came when I realized it was a shame we didn’t have shots to exploit the lovely back yard of this property so why not shoot the living room stuff out there.
I spoke to John and Shannonn about this time-saver. The scene works much better as a fantasy outdoors anyway. The content was mainly a march. Anne, Dave and Linda wear sunglasses and hard hats for no other reason than a Norman Jewison reference, this one from Jesus Christ Superstar. Shannonn grabbed a pair of glasses from a crew member and mixed and matched making sure each actor was fitted.
The biggest challenge of the scene was the use of a picket as an axe. Don’t ask. Or don’t axe.
Anne has a good close-up rubbing her eyes full of tears in reaction to the silly violence. Ironically, she has demonstrated that she is one of those actresses who can cry on command. It might be worthwhile to utilize that skill in a more serious dramatic film some day.
Back into the house. A low synch shot looking up at Linda. “A Little Bit Pregnant.” She asks me about a “silly rumor” she heard: “Are the shots are being arranged to let Anne leave early and hold me here till the end?” I wonder how this got started and who the leak is to this conspiracy. I tell her no. Anne does end up wrapping first, and Linda does have her opening scene as the final scene shot, but Anne ends up staying around and helping until the end. So clearly Anne had no master plan of skipping out. She was totally dedicated.
Somebody remarked that Anne’s hair style is similar to Wednesday Addams. This is cool, since the film, "Addams Family Values" is a favourite of mine.
For the song Abortion Lullaby, John had the lights on a dimmer and I believe Shannonn crouched and spun the disco ball nearby so sparkles would appear. Here is another of those leaps of faith. It would be easy to stumble, but Linda makes it through the whole song in one long take. I believe I showed her the video tap to assure her it went well. Shannonn has commented that the song is disturbing and has been giving her nightmares. Exxxcelent.
Next, is a close shot of the fridge being opened by Linda’s hand, retrieving a milk carton and revealing for the first time the gestation tank and its occupant. There is a little camera noise, so the dialogue and sound effects are recorded without camera as well as in synch.
A small portion of the family room did end up lit, for a few quick shots of Dave as Ian. I slightly regret backing off on my idea of having a gun lay beside Ian’s head as he is curled up on a sofa, but that might have played as misinformation. Also, a bullet hole created by Mark for the scene could have had a close-up, but I thought it would read in the medium shot. Had I done a close-up, I wonder with the dwindling light whether it would have been in sharp focus. Okay. I could have started close and then whip-zoomed out before Dave pokes at it.
We moved the last stray members of crew into the basement, where Mark had set up a confessional using a closet he had found. So the location scouting didn’t stop at the location. John asked me to art direct the piece of felt that was hanging above the closet and the curtain emerged.
We had been able to wrap the kitchen pretty much on time, but this left a handful of people with us downstairs and a few people relaxing outside and nobody actually restoring the kitchen to the way we found it. Shannonn I think arrived around the same time as the homeowners. Care was taken to look after the location, but items like the ceiling fixture perhaps made our presence look more dramatic at first glance.
The homeowner Grace was polite and said she’d be interested in seeing the final film. I said me too. I guess Shannonn got the brunt of her complaints. But she was invited to the Grace’s script-reading club; I was not.
When Linda’s opening scene was done, that left shots of the bomb, and a disco ball to top it all off. We hustled stuff out of the house, cleaning what we could. John stayed in for the camera alignment chart, and then we all sat in a circle outside lit only by maybe one movie light, since the family was retiring and we were not allowed back inside.
It was a pretty positive post mortem. I’ve been on a lot of sets and I was happy how sane and focused this one had been. Hard work all around, but personally necessary and a good way to spend my days off.

Lemons and Lemonade

Have you ever sat down and kept record of the daily progress on a project? I've done that. As a matter of therapy than posterity to log what went wrong or what I did right when working on someone else' project. I even came up with a checklist or two that could at least bring to the surface any potential conflicts earlier rather than later, since at the start of any venture - a film for example - people are likely to let fights go until it would be a disaster to dissolve the partnership. That said, I'm not sure many people would have it together enough to be so deliberate as to provoke each other early on. It would seem like an insult, a lack of good faith (or bad faith) and they say a liar won't believe anyone else. It's like a Catholic pre-marriage course designed to raise the tough questions. And some people aren't into that. You are looking a gift horse in the mouth, which is a term I've never understood. I mean if you look into the mouth of a Trojan horse before dragging it into your gates, you may see the soldiers hiding inside and burn it instead. So looking a gift horse in the mouth should be a wise routine.

I can think of one producer I worked with back in 2003 who I'm sure is the one who makes up a new Youtube account every once in a while and does a blitz leaving demoralizing and insulting messages on the videos I've posted under the one ID of mine she knows about. When you really don't have many enemies, at least that narrows down the suspects. But what good can I extract from a bad experience? What can I pass along so that it wasn't just a case of poorly spent trust costing me thousands? Well, even if you know better it won't be applied in time. I know I had seen The Spanish Prisoner by David Mamet a few years before. I should know the role politeness plays in preventing people to ask the right questions or refuse the wrong help. Faith in people and lack of imagination make us all marks.

There are some people who hear the word "money" when you say "movie." They may believe "why you and not me?" when it comes to the leadership or "why this idea and not mine?" They may feel I MUST BE PAID as the only measure of worth and value. But they will look at the limited resources for a volunteer-driven film and somehow try to be paid. If they don't sign off their services for a specific amount (even a dollar) they may try to bill you later. You may expect that it makes sense for every contender to bid for a job or a role, but it is not unusual for someone to join under implicitly volunteer conditions and shun signed documents and then consider themselves welcome to a blank check onc work is done. I don't know any filmmaker that can agree to blank checks. I know the movie is a square peg and the round hole is the amount of money available to pay for it.

Years later I still end up paying for the honor of directing my own scripts. Getting excited about the next project can happen immediately and be sustained, but most often now the state of drive to create comes and goes.

One thing I can take from the worst experiences and own and control to an extent is the question of readiness. Am I in a state of readiness? At present, no.

Emotions and thought play catch-up with physical health. I can walk along with a fully developed negative philosophy, then force myself to eat some celery and it's all gone. Or I force myself to get some tedious cardio or go for a swim and a writing problem has worked its way from vague sense of something wrong to problem-solving idea. I plan to swim more in the new year. I don't watch Jaws before swimming nor before sleeping, and I miss the film but I've been sleeping too much and so it's tricky to fit that in. I'd have to start my day watching Jaws while eating apples. Lately I've had no excuse not to swim. The habit I still have from my childhood may have nothing to do with fearing shark visions in a swimming pool. I would stand on the diving board or on the deck ready to jump in but not ready enough. I don't like surrendering to the adaptation of the water, and there is no plan around it. It is all about accomodating the water. Same with a woman. As long as I stay on the deck everything will be fine. Dip my toe into the surface and it will seem a lot colder.

I have to lose weight, and read more often and stick to books rather than what passes for news and concentrate rather than addle myself with even the best movies or TV streamed on-line. As much as I have to catch up on Californication, I also have a backlog of scripts and outlines to complete, prepare and shoot. I'm not sure I care to attend a film festival and schmoose and promote something I've done. But that's another blog.

Welcome

This is the blog of Jawsphobia. It will not be limited to my condition which causes me to flinch and look away from the Jaws logo or most pictures of sharks. In fact it will mostly be a collection if reviews old and new and general comments, a few of which are salvaged from my comments on imdb.com and other sites.

I don't much like critics, so I am an anti-critic.

Happy New Year