Living in My Oblivion - A Life in Low Budget Films

I Will Not Be Ignored

2012-02-23T01:14:00.003-05:00

Lucky Stiffs was in the can, so it was once again time to try to get my pet screenplay, Never Waver, produced.

JR and I talked about what it would take to produce it ourselves. JR had the equipment and the talent. Truthfully, though, it wasn't going to happen. Even back then, neither JR nor I were ever into making a movie just to get it done. Trying to make movies on a shoestring didn't start in the digital age. In those days - we're talking 1992 or so - the big thing was either pre-sales to home video, or films done with credit cards (we're into Kevin Smith time, and all those stories) or the great deferred (everybody works and, theoretically, gets paid later - right).

Movies that break through for little money have a way of making their way into indie lore. It was 1992, and the famous ones were Kevin Smith's Clerks, and Rodriquez's El Mariachi. The stories of shooting on short ends (unused film raw stock that was then resold cheaply) and getting equipment using your friend's film school ID were everywhere. The problem is then, as now, the handful that got distribution received all the publicity, while, for most, to quote my friend and colleague Chris Kelley, the only projector they ever saw was Rank Cintel. For the rest, there were credit card bills that still needed to be paid, and crew still waiting for their checks.

Lore gets ahead of reality, and the El Mariachi you may have seen in the theater (ok, you're too young to have seen it in a theater, I don't really hate you) did not cost $10,000.

As Ransom Scott says in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Film school kids have that t-shirt that says "What I Really Want to Do is Direct." While I have a drive to direct, what always attracted me to anything, from radio to theater to film, was writing.

I had sent out the script to people in New York, with little response. I had done the LA thing (They Also Serve to Paint Houses). I wasn't ready to give up,

I didn't want to make it on a shoestring, and I didn't like the idea of continuing to knock my head against closed doors.

Sorry, couldn't resist throwing in one of my favorite movie scenes, favorite because all of those characters, from Bill Murray's lovable loser playwright to Teri Garr's neurotic eternal acting student ("I cant play her. She's a...she's a..woman) to Hoffman's too-Method actor are people with whom I was extremely familiar.

I went back to what I knew, and what I knew how to do inexpensively, and that was using the stage. I decided that I would do a staged reading of Never Waver that I would direct, rent out a theater, and invite literary agents, producers, production companies, and actors I wanted for the roles.

One of those actors was Martin Sheen. Oddly enough, on one of my LA trips, I actually met Martin Sheen in a coffee shop. I can't remember which one right now. No, I wasn't stalking him.

I think of that old David Letterman skit "brushes with greatness," where people told stories of meeting big stars that were funny. The thing is, in our business, you meet big stars all the time, and it really is no big deal. I was lucky enough to work on a set with Lauren Bacall, sat at a dinner with Tennessee Williams, and have worked with lots of "name" actors. It's just not something that phases us.

This was different. This wasn't about a "name" actor. This was about being face-to-face with the actor I wanted for my lead. Of course, I had a copy of my script with me; the entire point of me being in LA at that point was to get my script produced. I wasn't a fan looking for an autograph, or an actor looking for a job. I screwed up the courage to walk up to him, briefly told him that I thought he was perfect for the lead, told him the characters name, and said I wouldn't bother him further as I set the script down and walked away. As I recall, he smiled, and was very polite.

I am reminded of a horror scene an actress/bartender friend related. She was with her aunt in a restaurant in NY, where my friend worked, when James Earl Jones sat down with his wife for lunch. My friend's aunt was very impressed, and insisted on going over and speaking to Mr. Jones, who was very courteous. That wasn't enough. She dragged my friend over, and introduced her niece as a "very talented actress that you might want to work with one day" My friend wanted to dig a hole and bury herself as she shook hands, but never so as much as when, reaching for an autograph Mr. Jones kindly signed, her aunt spilled his drink all over him.

This, and the "cool" factor, is why those of us in the business don't bother people in public. In any case, I never heard back from Martin Sheen.

I was going to get my shot the old-fashioned way. I was going to earn it. I managed to put together most of the cast I wanted for the reading, but was still in search of the elusive young girl who is inadvertently killed in a ROTC bombing gone wrong in the 60s. The girl had to leave an impression, as she causes the protagonist in the film to kill a Congressman/mentor, setting the action of the script in motion.

I finally settled on a model named Natasha*. She was tall and all legs, and she just had this smile that was infectious. I could see my protagonist being unable to get her out of his head. Despite her chosen one-word moniker, she was not Russian - I think she was some Irish-American kid from Queens who thought Natasha was exotic. Never mind, she was my ingenue.

The reading went well, but was sparsely attended, though many of the major players (those same guys who sent those form letters years earlier) sent whoever was available from their office who couldn't talk their way out if it. Hey, I was proud of what we did, and I kept in touch with many of those actors for years, getting some of them cast in films I worked on.

Even in my young, single days, models were never my type; too cold. Still, there was something fascinating about Natasha. We kept in touch, and I coached her some on her acting.

This was during a period where I was supplementing my income by doing some acting coaching. I liked the term coach; I avoided the term teacher. I don't know that I was able to teach very much to actors, at least not like the acting teachers I had met when I was coming up as a struggling actor, or as my friend Annie was now doing in LA, having studied under the venerable Sanford Meisner in Bequia. I felt more like a personal trainer who was just pushing them to do what they instinctively knew how to do, but better and more effectively.

One of my students was a dancer at a place nearby called Flashdancers, and, no, it was no relation to the movie, as in the movie, the girls kept their clothes on. These ladies did not. One of the girls was - surprise, surprise - an aspiring actress, and she so thought my coaching was helping, she recommended me to her co-workers. I'm pretty sure there was a period in the early 90s when I coached more strippers than any acting coach in NY.

I don't think they give out awards for that sort of thing.

If you are wondering at this point what this has to do with a career in film, those connections are to come, one quite quickly, as JR and I were to soon strike up the band one more time and work together on a film that was shot in the Fall of 1992, what I call The Fall of Love, for reasons you will soon discover.

* I made the point many times in this blog that I have no intention of ever embarrassing anyone. From what I can tell -and I've done some research - the model/actress has since changed her moniker, or is no longer in the business. Using her name here in no way will affect anyone's career.

The Black Box

2012-02-18T04:00:00.000-05:00

In the wake of an airplane crash, the National Transportation Safety Board searches for the black box, which hopefully tells them what went wrong, and helps to prevent future crashes.

Movies are a little different. We have production reports, which should accurately detail how each and every day goes. Good 2nd ADs and 2nd 2nds keep detailed notes, and I have always encouraged them to write it down, even if they aren't sure. If I am the 1st AD, I will call out notes (privately on Channel 2, or as private as Channel 2 is when other departments aren't spying) as they occur for my 2nd, because I may not have time to write it down. Better to have a record of it than not - we can always sort out later if something noted is important or not.

There are other clues I look for as line producer or UPM, also from the production reports. Set-ups, of course, are crucial. I also look closely at the script notes: how many takes are we doing, how long are scenes running, what does the coverage look like, and, if we are shooting film, how much film are we exposing. All of these things can give you clues, but they don't give you the answer. Much like the Black Box, it's all in the interpretation. Thankfully, on a movie, you (hopefully) have live witnesses you can interview to get more information.

Unlike plane crashes, we try to analyze the crash while the plane is still spiraling to the ground.

It's amazing the little things you will notice from production reports, especially the script supervisor's notes. For instance, I line produced a film where I noticed that, for a scene that would run, say, one page, the masters would run two minutes or more. Hmm, no matter how you cut the coverage into the master, that means the scenes will run a bit long. Not a big deal for one scene; definitely a big deal when it's every scene. I had a first-time feature director who had done shorts and music videos and thought he could just fix it all in post.

After two or three days of this, I sat the writer/producer/lead actor, exec producer, and scripty down and discussed this. Indeed, her timings, and the way we were running, would mean the entire screenplay would run over 4 hours! The time to fix this was now. We needed trims to the script, I needed to see better shot lists, and we needed to get this under the control. The director blew it off, and the writer/producer was unwilling to cut anything from the script.

Long-story short: the film, which I left because if they won't listen to you, there is nothing you can do, was a story with a past, a present, and a future. It ran almost twice the length of the original shooting schedule and triple the budget (yes, the line producer who replaced me was very competent and the AD was very good - there is only so much you can do). Worse, the final film cut out almost all of the past and future and just used the present; they only used about 40 percent of the movie they shot.

This was all predictable and avoidable. They wouldn't listen.

I choose this point in the blog to address this because of the problems noted on Lucky Stiffs, and the eternal question we have of why things go badly at times on film sets. Like in a plane crash, there are mechanical problems (like the dolly mishap, or, on other shoots, REDS freezing - they like to do that). Also as in a plane crash, there is often human error.

Note that I say human error, not pilot error. Depending on how you look at it, pilot error on a feature film is either the director or producer. On studio films, the producer can fire the director. On indie films, the director often is the producer, so that's not going to happen.

Also like on a plane, though, it may be the pilot that seems at fault, but it may begin somewhere else, a mechanic missing something faulty in the working of the plane earlier, for example. By the time gets the pilot, it may be too late.

The Hollywood Juicer , in his wonderful blog, has a classic article called The Circle of Confusion, that shares three disaster flicks - the happenings on the shoots, that is - that happened earlier in his career. He also notes his surprise, coming from it originally as a naive kid in film school to these Hollywood shoots, that professionals could make these sorts of mistakes.

In the indie world, we look at problems on set and bemoan our lack of money, or sometimes write it off to the smaller budgets meaning smaller or maybe less seasoned crew, but is it really that? Francis Coppola, who produced one of the most successful and, by most lists, one of the best films ever made ( be it Godfather I or Godfather II - you choose - I know it wasn't Godfather 3), took American Zoetrope through some very shaky financial times, with film after film that went over budget and did not recoup their money. Spike Lee, an admired filmmaker, went over budget on Malcolm X and the bond company took it over for a time.

I could go on, but clearly having talented professionals and boundless money does not solve the problem. Why, then, are movies so damned hard to make?

I go back something Martin Scorcese was quoted as saying in the book, Scorcese on Scorcese. I'm paraphrasing, but it was something to the effect that 'every time I come on set, and I see all these people and all this equipment, I think to myself, I'm not qualified to do this.' Granted, this was shortly after he had close to a nervous breakdown but right before Raging Bull.

The point remains that there are a lot of moving parts, mechanical and flesh and blood, on a movie set. We try to have contingencies for everything - cover sets for rain days, more than enough equipment if something goes down, etc. It is even standard to build a contingency into a budget.

However, when you take all those mechanical moving parts, and add them to human beings at the control, the possibilities for delays and overruns are endless. Oscar-winning actors can have bad days, where take-after-take may not work. The hero car that got to set fine doesn't start. The DP and director have the same idea in their head for the shot, but it just doesn't look like they drew it up, and a re-light is in order. The art department ordered the prop in more than enough time, but Fed Ex broke it in shipping. The costume designer is breaking up with her husband and her distraction is leading to sub-par costumes that have to be redone.

The human equation is not theoretical, and not so easy to determine. I had two experiences hiring people who had previously been wonderful who turned out all wrong on another shoot.

A 1st AD who had just experienced the birth of his first child. On our previous shoot, he was energetic and detail-oriented. On this one, small things were slipping, and it culminated in a tech scout where he seemed to not know what scenes were being shot where. It turned out the baby was keeping him up and he was getting no sleep. One of the most unpleasant experiences of my career was this person whose wedding I had attended. More on that in a future post.

The other was a location manager who had come on and saved a shoot I had taken over. On this shoot, she was about three months pregnant, but assured me that it would not be an issue. Once again, the blessed event of childbirth reared its ugly head to hinder the clearly more important task of making a movie. Her mood swings made her impossible to deal with as a co-worker, and she wasn't finding us any locations. Her foul spirit at the time made her termination a little more easy to bear.

If Dante was correct, I wonder what circle of hell line producers who fire pregnant women and fathers with newborns occupy.

Oh, and for the record, I discourage any crew or staff member of mine from quitting smoking during the course of our shoot. I will gladly be supportive later; for now, smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Multiply these sorts of things times the 30-40 crew people on even a small indie shoot, plus the cast, and you get the idea of what human error can look like.

Certainly, all of this should lead us to despair, right? Maybe not.

I have worked on far more movies that came in on budget than over budget. I have worked on many films I am extremely proud of, including post supervisor on a movie shot in Cambodia on a 5d for less than $300K that looks like a million bucks just recently and films that have had major distributors and won major film festivals.

I told students that I learn on every movie I work on, and if you ever kid yourself that you have nothing more to learn, it's time to get out. Each script is different, and has different challenges. Your last film had lots of stunts, and you figured out how to do all of that? Great, this film has no stunts but most of the cast are children. Next movie is filming in the Gulf Coast during hurricane season, or animals abound, or you name it.

There is no cookie cutter, no template, no one-size-fits-all. There are tried-and-true procedures, and you lean on them for all they are worth, because while there is no template, there is no need to reinvent the wheel either.. (Have I used up my quota of metaphors and analogies yet? Now you know why I have trouble with Twitter).

What can you do? It starts with taking time with the hiring process. Find not only good and talented people, but people who want to be on this particular job, and are a good fit with each other. The best DP in the world is not gonna work when you have a limited budget and he can consistently needs 60 minutes to get the shot "just right." That AD might be very talented, but if his or her personality somehow doesn't mesh with the director, there are going to be problems. We are humans, and we bring issues to the table. In a business full of freelancers, otherwise known as people who have trouble with routine, authority and convention, let me tell you, the table is pretty overcrowded with issues. I often say that my 'usual suspects,' my preferred crew, have their own issues, but since I know what those issues are, I find a way to work with them. A good team means checks and balances, and someone will likely be there when an oversight occurs.

Some I have worked with might suggest I have issues, but I can't imagine that to be the case. At all. Really.

Those of us in production should be trying to find the right balance of rigidity and openness; no, I will not do something I have seen fail a dozen times before because you think it's a cool idea. I believe in most of the conventions of film-making, and standard production procedures and practices. They have been developed over years, and those that stuck did so because they work.

There is, however, something to be said for the fact that you need to know the rules in order to break them. There are times when the standard doesn't work or doesn't apply, and then you have to be able to adapt.

Hopefully, there will be more lessons along the way. I will put out there all the things I know that work, and all those I have seen not work, so others can learn from mistakes already made when possible. We will have a little fun along the way. Stick with me, and you will learn everything you wanted to know about working with draft horses, snakes, the wonderful world of "mob actors" and a whole lot more.

Most of all, remember that the light at the end of every tunnel is not necessarily an on-coming train. Matt, for all our problems, loved the final result of Lucky Stiffs. Did you see that smile in the last post at the opening? The same can be said for the people who made that movie where the final product was only 40 percent of what they shot; they got distribution and some nice reviews. People don't tend to remember the days when everything went right, and, at the end, an audience doesn't care, as long as the final product is good.

What if you are not the director or producer? What do you have to look forward to on difficult shoots? On even the worst shoots I have been on, I have met good people who I brought onto future shoots, good people who brought me onto future shoots, good people who became lifelong friends. On other films I learned something I used on future shoots.

Forget if the glass is half-full or half-empty and enjoy the water (ok, it's rarely water) that's in it.

Get all of that data from the black box, then get that next plane up in the air. We have places to go and movies to make.

(Un)Lucky Stiffs - Part 9 - This Slate only Goes Up To 9...

2012-02-15T04:44:00.001-05:00

...so this must be the last part of the story of Lucky Stiffs.

First ADs develop different ways to encourage directors to keep moving. The last thing an AD ever wants to hear is "let's go for one more." One of my encouraging jokes, as the takes rise, is that there is no room for double digits on this slate, so we can't go past nine.

So it is that this is, indeed, the last installment of the saga of Lucky Stiffs, easily the longest evaluation of a movie I doubt more than a few hundred people ever actually saw.

Once Stan came on board, moving things along became the priority, and everyone was on the same page. One trick Stan taught me in moving along a director who was never sure was obvious once it was mentioned, and one that ADs had been using so long that it's a little embarrassing to admit it took me until then to realize. Once you had a take that you could tell seemed fine, as soon as the director called "cut", call out for the AC to "check the gate, and if the gate is good," we're moving on to (call out next shot)."

Any experienced AD on a film set knows to do this, but at this point, this was only my second feature as a 1st AD, and I was still a little too deferential to the director to decide when to move on. Matt, as with many directors, will always wonder about another take if left the option. In essence, take the option away from them, and make them stop you and ask for another take.

Least you think that this is somehow disrespectful to the director, note that all the director needs to do is to ask for another take and he gets it. This helped save them from over-thinking.

A few things need to be explained at this point.

Because we are in a digital age, it amazes me but I understand that there may be many of you who have only worked on digital sets, where the need to check the gate for a hair (or dust, etc) is unnecessary. One of the blogs I follow actually did a really nice post on the what "check the gate" really means beyond the literal. Check The Gate.

Matt could be indecisive. Something else you need to understand is how we used monitors in those times, especially on low-budget sets. While this may be an anathema to film pros, especially on bigger budget films, there was a time in the indie film world where DPs would warn you not to have a monitor on set, to have the director check the shot through the viewfinder when it is set up, and that the monitor just led to more discussion and a loss of time.

To some extent, this was also something DPs did in order to control the process. It left the decision as to whether what was seen through the lens was good or not to them. They liked that.

What you also have to understand is that playback was not as quick or easy as it is on a digital set, and that what you saw on the monitor did not necessarily reflect the lighting, as it does on a digital set, as it was not a true reflection of the speed of the film, aperture, timing, etc. On a digital set, it's pretty much WYSIWYG.

JR and I discouraged playback. Basically, in the time it took you to do playback, you could do another take. Of course, on a film set, that also means exposing more film, which has a cost, but time is always your biggest factor, and you try to find a happy medium. We both knew that not only the director, but others involved, such as the script supervisor and myself, needed to see the action and the frame during the take, not just before, so we always had a monitor up.

I will say that I see way too much playback today on digital sets, and it has become, for many directors and DPs, the crutch we feared back in the day. There is a time for dailies. Watch the monitor carefully during the take, know what you're looking at, and decide. If in doubt on a digital set, it makes little sense (unless you are talking about a complicated set-up or stunt, reset for art department, etc) to sit, discuss, stop the replay - just shoot it again. I guarantee you it is something I make my AD and director very aware of if I am the line producer, and something I drum into the director if I am the AD before we start shooting. I emphasize this is done before we start shooting, because you want to avoid at all costs undermining the director on set at any time, or suggesting to the crew that maybe the director is wrong.

Wow, how ironic. In explaining how "check the gate" was meant to help a director move on, I have taken a rather lengthy detour on this post, this last post, on the making of Lucky Stiffs.

So, we are now moving faster, which makes all of us happy; happy enough that some of the lightness had returned, lightness which had disappeared from the set when the loss of time was causing tension.

Matt was a pretty likable guy, and he liked the good feel and gentle kidding that went on with JR and our crew. One day, in the latter stages of our shoot, comes to mind.

We were shooting in a very large, empty warehouse, which was also the art department's work and storage area. We were trying to get this particular scene while art department was doing a major build for the the next day's set (they never did catch up, really), so we had to coordinate them holding the work when we were ready for takes, but I would sometimes let them keep working through our rehearsals to make sure they were ready with this set for tomorrow.

Final rehearsal, I want to move, and I call out that picture is up, and to hold the work. Well, by now, they had listened less and less to the walkie, and between the grips moving equipment and the art department trying to work to the last second, it was difficult to get the place quiet. If you've ever been an AD, nothing is more annoying, and it didn't take a poker player to tell how annoyed I was at this point. Finally, after repeated calls on walkie and a little tough love from my 2nd 2nd CK, the place is finally quiet..

Ok, deep breath, and we are ready.

All of a sudden, our master of voices, our gaffer Jeffrey, goes into Elmer Fudd: "Be berry berry quiet. We're hunting Bwunos (my last name)!"

I want to be mad, but the first person to burst out laughing is Matt, our director. As I am looking incredulously at Matt, as if to say "don't encourage him," Joe, our 2nd AC, who naturally had a cartoon-hyena-like laugh, starts laughing loudly and uncontrollably. JR, my buddy, goes into Elmer Fudd imitation Shhhhhing people. The actors start laughing.

Great. It didn't cost us more than a minute or two, which was no big deal in the grand scheme of things. In the first part of the shoot, I would have been upset, because we had lost so much time. Now, I couldn't help but laugh along - along with my usual threat to murder Jeffrey if he did it again. Jeffrey and I had an on-going, friendly, one-upsmanship thing on set, and he had gotten me good!

Odd that all these years later - we're talking twenty years - I still remember that particular moment.

Stan's influence was very helpful, from the first day back shooting. We were having a meeting in the office, while crew was coming and going ready to leave in the vans and vehicles for set. My ride, on this day, was supposed to be in a van with Satan's Child, Someone rushed him, and rather than realizing it was probably a bad idea to leave without the 1st AD, he took off. That was Satan's Child.

I walk into Stan's office furious. He smiles, pulls out the keys to the production vehicle he added during the break, and says, "No problem."

We drive to set, and the discussion, which was part of an on-going discussion, was about being calmer. In the time between that movie and now, I've become a Zen practitioner and I've gotten older, both of which have served, to use an old phrase, to "mellow me out." Then, I was pretty much a caffeine-driven, high-energy, emotions on my sleeve person. Stan spent a lot of time explaining how and why I had to relax, and it sank in.

Of course, that first day led to a challenge for both of us. We got to set, and asked where production was set-up. Julie and Chris, who were already there, had found the perfect location for production - on the third floor.

As someone with two prosthetic legs, I've come to accept that Murphy's Law properly puts production either a flight down or a few flights up. It makes sense - you want the printer and other discussion that goes on away from set, and unlike G/E, there is not a physical reason to be next to set. If this confuses you, ask your favorite grip about dragging equipment up or down a flight of steps.

Stan, who had one-lung and used an inhaler, looked at me at the base of the stairs and said, "I'll race ya'." It was the way Stan could take an unpleasant situation and make it all okay, even funny,

Did I mention that by now, with the break and the understanding people don't work on Thanksgiving (yes, Thanksgiving!) we were now into December! We started prep with people in shorts, and now, we had mostly night exteriors to be filmed along the piers of the Brooklyn waterfront.

In the gallows humor that abounds on set, a few of my G/E started wearing Santa hats. Nah, baby, we WERE NOT going past Christmas.

I don't have to tell film pros how little fun night exteriors are, and if you are East Coast, and, more specifically, NYC, you know what night exteriors by the Brooklyn waterfront are like. If Man's irresponsible behavior was going to lead to Global Warming, the selfish part of me wishes it had started earlier. We were looking at frigid nights in the teens before wind-chill.

My approach to brutal weather was just to stay outside. Once you get cold enough, or wet enough, it doesn't really matter anymore, and this was as cold as I ever have been on a shoot before or since. My gloves kept my hands marginally functional, and I knew if I ever started taking off the winter gear in front of a warm heater, I wasn't going to want to go outside. So, I stayed outside during lunch, during breaks, and just let people come to me. My PAs loved me because it meant if I were going to stay outside, I could do fire watch, and they could warm up inside. I didn't see the point of two of us freezing, and these kids were outside long enough standing in one spot as it was. You don't see a lot of First ADs on fire watch.

The last two nights, specifically, involved the climax to the movie, including an ambulance, multiple police cars, prop cars, and the end of a wacky chase. For both nights, we had "cop extras". In NY, that meant, often, cops (or their relatives, or retired cops) with NYPD uniforms (we paid extra for that). You have to cover their precinct lapel, and, obviously, they can't carry real firearms, but it's great because they know how to carry themselves like NYPD and you don't have to explain it all.

We also had our share of odd extras, including one off-duty cop who carried a cat-of-nine-tails with him. He explained that he was an insomniac, and to relax at night, he would practice using the whip on the Brooklyn Bridge. Somehow, they all found me. Doesn't the NYPD have a psych eval? He was on each of the last two nights (and somehow worked his way onto a subsequent shoot with me, despite my best efforts), and it was kinda creepy watching him with a wild "yahoo!" as he practiced with his whip during breaks.

The very last night involved a very complicated chase sequence finale. It wasn't The French Connection, but it was complicated. Getting everything to go exactly when I wanted involved me on bullhorn, as well as communicating on walkie to others to cue cars, etc.

As we approached the martini for not only the night, but this entire long shoot, we were third time through the walkie batteries, and we had fewer and fewer that were hot. Additionally, the bullhorn I was using was starting to go. As I looked at the horizon, as one does on night shoots, I saw the slightest tinge of blue, which meant we were not far from losing night cover (the sun would rise, making it impossible to shoot a night scene).

That would mean we were going to have to come back, and, let me assure you, that was not going to happen on my watch.

I had two of the grips help me on top of the roof of a car, cane and all, where everyone could see me. As I tried to get attention over the bullhorn, the bullhorn almost completely went out on me. I threw the bullhorn to the ground, and shouted "First position!" at the top of my lungs. My erstwhile ADs repeated my commands at the top of their lungs, as I called for sound to roll, for each car to go ("hero car go! police car one, go!, etc). As is often the case, one action set off the other, so I just needed to get the action in motion.

Completely hoarse at the end of the night, as daylight was about to break, I looked at JR, he smiled and nodded. I looked at Matt. He smiled and said "Hey, JB, you know what?" I knew where this was going - the joke about someone else calling "It's a wrap!" instead of me. Matt started laughing, and with what little voice I had left I shouted to Matt "Don't even think about it!" I started giving the send-offs to our main actors ("That's a picture wrap on Bobby. That's a picture wrap on Antonina...") each followed by the appropriate applause, and finally, only one season and I don't want to think about how many days later, arms raised triumphantly,

"That's a wrap on Lucky Stiffs!"

Pictured above, the male cast of Lucky Stiffs with Brooke Shieldsat the opening. Director Matt is far right in white suit .

First, You Have To Make the Movie - Stan's Guest Blog

2012-02-11T14:26:00.000-05:00

N.B. - Stan is sadly no longer with us, and though he was open to innovation, I can't see him being introspective enough to write a blog, or even a guest blog post. However, if I did convince him to write one, it might be something like this. It includes so many of the stories he and I shared, as well as his producing philosophy. Most of the words are his, in one form or another, and ALL of the stories are true.

JB has asked me to write this guest blog, and I don't know if there is all that much to say. Basically, it all comes down to this - first, you have to make the movie.

That sounds simple, but I am constantly surprised by the number of people who just don't get it. The worst thing in the world is when the biggest obstacle to making the movie is the people who you are working for who should be most interested in getting the movie done, and done right. Instead, they get caught up in all sorts of silliness and, yes, pettiness, that has nothing to do with the movie.

Roger Corman, now, he understood this. Keep focused on getting the movie done. That's why I left my job in the accounting department at the studios to work with Corman. I didn't go to USC Film School to be an accountant, and with Corman, you got to start where you could do the most good. For me, that was as producer of two films that were part of a teen double-bill, High School Big Shot and T-Bird Gang in 1958. The trade-off to the big title was that your money was tied to how well the movies did. My pay on each of them as producer was a flat fee of $500, but I got 13% of Big Shot and 17% of T-Bird Gang, which is where I learned that percentages, after take-out aren't really worth it. I eventually sold back my shares to both of them to Corman for $375.*

Now, High School Big Shot had Tom Pittman in it. This guy was going to be the next James Dean, I'm telling you. JB and even his buddy John Rosnell don't get it - Rosnell used to kid me that the only way Pittman was like Dean is that they both died in a car crash. I had shares in Big Shot and a stake in another movie he was supposed to do, and if that had worked out ...well, what's the use of going on about what could have happened; it didn't.

The late 50s and early 60s were pretty busy for me, including "Machine-GunKelly," starring Charles Bronson; "Wild in the Streets,"starring Richard Pryor; and "The Intruder," with William Shatner.I was production manager on some of them, like "The Cry Baby Killer," which was JackNicholson's debut film;and "Beach BlanketBingo" and others with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello; and "TheTrip" and "The Wild Angels," both starring Peter Fonda.

I know the technology has changed, but it always changes. A lot of the early films I worked on were in Black and White; it was cheaper. When color came in, it was great for audiences, but it was lousy for low budget filmmakers. I mean, in the old days, if you wanted to to cut to an air battle in a war movie, you just dumped in stock footage from the government news reels - it all looked alike. With color, that didn't work anymore, you actually had to shoot something - or pay for it somewhere.

JB complains about battling with budgets in art department, but that has always been the case. I did a movie with Corman once where the art department gave me the expected cost of a 35 foot lizard; it was way more than we wanted to spend. I asked them to come back with the cost of, say, a 10 foot lizard. If you came home to a ten foot lizard, you would be scared, right? See, but Corman understood - people wanted to be amazed, and as cheap as he was, he understood it was worth the extra cost, so we did it.

That's what I mean when I say, first, you have to make the movie. People think production managing and line producing is all about cutting costs, but if you don't make the movie you set out to make, what's the point?

Not that we didn't watch the budget. We would always shoot stunts late, in case the actor got hurt, we still had the rest of the footage. When we needed some extra bucks in a small town, and we needed extras, we would put up signs that said: "Want to be in a movie - only $10!" See, people weren't so fancy then, and people in small towns didn't always understand that they should be getting paid instead of paying us. They would line up around the block to be in the movie, ten-spot in hand. Worked for everybody; they got in a movie, and we off-set our costs for lodging and all.

Actors complaining? Please, happened all the time. I was the AD on Mama Bloody Mama with Shelly Winters, and at one point, when she got into the whole Method thing on set after I had said "and, we're movin' on", she complained to me, "We're not making a movie. We're making a schedule." She didn't forget me, either. When she wrote that book about all the husbands she had gone through, including the ones she outlived, she gave me an autographed copy with the inscription, "To Stan, From Shelly - You're Next." If it sounds like a threat, it was!

Raising money a problem? It was always a problem. I saw the movie "Mistress" with JB, and it had this scene where the producer, Martin Landau, meets the guy in a meat locker to try and get the money raised. I actually had a meeting just like that once!

Cash talks. I taught this to JB, always bring cash on scouts and on set. When you are talking to people, and you put cash on the table, it's that much harder for them to walk away.

I once did movie for this mob guy that was all cash. I would tell him every week how much we needed, and these two big guys would come to the office with suitcases and drop it off. I asked if they wanted me to sign for it, but they said that wouldn't be necessary. They understood that it was unlikely I was going to run off with it. If the Feds think they have penalties for embezzlement, they got nothing on the mob.

Funny thing about that movie. The guy only made it to put his girlfriend in the movie. At one point during the movie, she started having an affair with the lead actor. The mob guy found this out after the movie was completed. He asked me for the reels of film from the movie. He took them all out to sea, and dumped them in the ocean. That's right, every penny was lost, which didn't matter to him, as long as she never got to see herself up on screen.

This is what I mean by the people who should be working with you working against you. Like, there was this dentist who had made enough money that he wanted to make a movie. He had a script, and it had to be shot on location. So, we get on location in this small town, and we build the sets and fly out the cast and the crew and everything. About halfway through the shoot, he comes to me one day and says, "Pay everyone through next week and send everyone home." What was he talking about?** We had everything we needed to complete the movie!

He looks at me and he says, "Jack Nicholson came to me in a dream and said, 'You're not a director, you're a dentist,' and he was right."

That was it. Movie over.

Then, there was the time where I was production manager on a movie for a husband-wife team. They come to me and say that their psychic adviser has told them that we need to finish on a certain date or the movie will have bad karma. Bad karma, really! The problem was that the date was about 4 days short of what we needed to finish the film. I try everything to explain we can't do this, it will ruin the movie. They don't believe me, they believe the psychic. They beg me to find a way. I open up the stripboard - this is after about 45 minutes of explaining and I'm getting nowhere - and I pull out all of the strips from the board on the last four days. Mind you, these are random scenes. They could be anything - the most important scenes in the movie. In my frustration, I joke "See, we could do this and we would end the movie on the day your psychic wants." They smile, pat me on the back, and say, "We knew you would find a way."

Sometimes, they just don't get it.

What I don't get is all the paperwork today. JB is really good with all the permit stuff that the Mayor's Office in NY has. He says its a good deal, because as long as you have insurance and you go through all this rigmarole and you get to park where you need to. I told him we always used to get to park where we needed to in New York. We would have our locations guy tell us where we wanted to park, then I would go to the lieutenant at the local precinct, ask who needed to be taken care of, and we would drop off a package with cash. No permits, but we didn't get any tickets.***

I'm glad JB does budgets and schedules now using that software - it's a lot quicker than we could do it, and a lot less typing. JB gives me too much credit sometimes. Yes, I did show him how to budget a film line-by-line, but he used to help me out by providing the schedule on his software, which saved me work.

I am a stickler about a lot of rules, not so much ones that don't matter as much. Some things you just have to use common sense.

JB and I were doing a PSA once for the American Dental Association, and we had these twin infants. We only needed one at a time, but you use twins when you can with infants because one or the other tends to get tired or cranky. Well, both these kids were cranky, and I suggested to JB that if someone had a joint on them, you could just blow a little smoke in their face and it chills them out. JB laughs and goes on about child labor laws and all that, and I know all these things, but what works works, and maybe it would be something the mother could use at home. I did it with my daughters and my cat, and they all turned out alright.****

Rosnell likes to kid me about my size, but I kid about it before he did. I used to like to play poker - a guy has to relax, you know - and it was legal in Los Angeles at these poker clubs. We didn't have cell phones or beepers, but as producer or production manager, my assistant at the office used to need to know where to reach me, even in off-hours. Now, when you would do this, if they tried to reach you, the place - be it a poker club or a restaurant or whatever - would page you. There were a lot of movie people in those clubs, and I didn't want everyone looking up and saying, "Oh, Stan is here," so I used to use the pseudonym Duke Manicelli. Had a nice ring to it, don't you think? Well, you should have seen the faces on the big goons who were security at the clubs when they would wait for Duke Manicelli, and he turned out to be this little Jewish fellow with glasses.

JB and I worked on more than a few things together, and he will tell you more about that. He just wanted me to tell you a little about how we used to do things in the very old days. Well, there it is.

* The facts about the money Stan made on these films are courtesy of the a book by Fred Olen Ray, a producer in his own right, called The New Poverty Row: Independent Filmmakers as Distributors.

**"What are you talking about?" was Stan's common reaction to odd situations. It was usually accompanied by him throwing his hands in the air, palms out.

***Stan would tell this story about bribing police - he wouldn't use the word bribing - almost quixotically, with a nod to how much simpler the old days were.

****Stan didn't drink at all by the time I met him, and I don't know if he did when he was younger. He didn't mind having an occasional joint after work, though. He had emphysema and only one lung, and had found a doctor in LA who taught him how to smoke it through his nose without it going into his lungs.

(Un)Lucky Stiffs - Part 8 - The High Cost of Free

2012-02-09T20:48:00.000-05:00

Stan Bickman had a long career in low budget films. In many ways, he was the master of low budget films, having left the Studio system in the late 1950s to produce for Roger Corman. As far as low budget resumes go, it doesn't get much better.

I came to learn a lot about Stan, and you will, too, as this blog continues. I thought rather than start with Stan's war stories or colorful bio - and it certainly is that - I would let you meet Stan the way I met Stan, knowing only that he was now in charge of production of Lucky Stiffs, that he and JR had worked together on a low-budget horror film, and that he started working with Corman

Stan set up in his own office in the production office, with Dianne now coordinating. Dianne was a producer in her own right, but loved working with Stan and, as much as any of us would, loved Stan. The first time I went into the office to talk to Stan, Dianne led me in with a smile. She had been going over the details of the accounting and how vendors and other issues were set up with Rody. Stan would watch the big picture; Dianne the details. White manila folders newly labeled were everywhere.

Stan asked Rody and Dianne to leave, so he and I could talk alone. Stan was short of stature, with short hair and bifocals. His classic stance was arms folded, looking over his bifocals at you.

He and I had a lot to discuss. As previously mentioned, JR, Matt and Stan had been talking privately, and I felt left out. I was 34 years old, but in many ways, after years in both theater and film, this was early in my career. A DP I often worked with once said that in this business, if you aren't paranoid, you aren't paying attention, and in the game of hangman, the AD always has a couple of lines drawn.

Rody had no set experience, Matt was quiet, and JR liked having me worry about keeping the set moving, so I had grown accustomed to running the show. It was clear that falling behind in the schedule and the new regime meant that was going to change.

Stan and I started talking about schedule, and although I don't remember the exact discussion, I know I was a bit defensive. Stan put that all to rest with a balance he had perfectly tuned: no-nonsense honesty and the ability to acknowledge fault and move on. Once something was fixed, it was not discussed again, and it wasn't held against you. This is a balance that I have sought to replicate my entire career.

Stan said something like this: "Look, I wouldn't be here if everything was going right. This is a mess. You've let your second fall behind on the paperwork - get that fixed. The schedule isn't working. JR told me all about the location and budget problems, and those are my problems now. The schedule problems you and I are going to fix together."

Stan took out the stripboard, and he and I started going over it. Stan had not only been a producer and UPM, but an AD, and he was good at analyzing schedule. The more we worked on it, the more comfortable I felt.

The second thing I learned about Stan was he had absolutely no need to take credit. It was amazing how empowering it was to have someone who clearly knew more than I did make you feel like decisions he was heavily involved with were your own. That was something that later served me not only with ego-driven directors, but with production people moving up that I was instructing.

He would hear nothing of my disagreements with Rody. Past was past and there was no time for it. This was something I learned later in the shoot when he caught a mistake on the call sheet that I had missed. My second had written it, but it was my responsibility to approve the call sheet before I gave it to Stan, and I had missed it. I never mentioned the 2nd and said it was my mistake and it wouldn't happen again.

Stan smiled, handed the call sheet back to me with the mistake circled in red marker, and said, "Good. There's no competition for the dunce cap today. Tomorrow someone else gets it." That might not sound reassuring, but, again, it was no-nonsense acknowledgement of a mistake and then letting it go. In a business that has its degree of back-stabbing and a permanent stake in the blame-game, it felt great to know where you stood, something else I strove to emulate throughout my career.

As far as the budget was concerned, Stan found places to cut the budget, but also places where we were being penny-wise and pound foolish, and it was costing us time. Stan had a production car at his disposal so he didn't need to rely on one of the crew vans when he was needed somewhere. In an era where you couldn't change the call sheet in Google Docs on your smartphone, this was very important, and something else that became a staple for me on films I line-produced. Time is your biggest cost, and don't nickle and dime yourself.

Once Stan and I had cleared the air on the past and settled on how to move forward with the schedule, the biggest hurdle remaining was still locations. Stacey was now location manager; one of the beauties of low-budget filmmaking is that talent can rise quickly, and Stacey was talented.

So it was that Stan led a meeting with Dianne (who, as usual, was taking notes), JR, Matt and I. For each potential location, Stan wanted to know every detail. When he asked about the cost of one location, Matt assured Stan it was free.

In a moment that is burned in my mind, Stan slid his bifocals down on his nose, looked up over them and asked a question that was a definitive Stan quote that I have often repeated:

"How much is this free location costing me?"

Ah. free. Don't we all love that word? I'm not talking here about free as in freedom, as in our huddled masses yearning to be free, or free at last.

I'm talking about the "free" that goes against everything the Elders told us - that nothing in life is free. We see evidence to the contrary every day, don't we?

If we buy one, we get one free! Oh, right, if we are buying one first, it's not so free. First one hundred callers get one free! How come we dialed right away, and we never seem to be among the first hundred callers? Online, we just click here, and we get something free! Sure, we have to give them our email and get spam for the next hundred years, but it's free, right?

In low-budget filmmaking, there is no word that potential producers yearn to use more than free. You look in their rough budget, and they are getting so many things for free; they must be, because they put zero next to the line item. All those books about making your movie for a dollar a day - you've seen those books - tell you that you can ask around and get all sorts of things free.

Stan understood what he liked to call "the high cost of free." My friend can lend me his camera for free, but it only has one lens that goes with it. Can you shoot a feature on one lens? Need a 1st AC? My friend will do it for free. No, she doesn't have that much experience, but she did it in school. Should be fine.

Nowhere, however, is free more freely used than in locations. We can use my friend's store for the deli scene. We can only shoot it for three hours at a time, and we need it for nine hours, so we'll have to go back three times, but that can't cost us money. Oh. right, more like five times because of set-up and strike.

My sister's apartment would work for the scene, and she'd let us have it for free. Her landlord? Do we really have to tell them? Sure, its their property, but it's her apartment. What could they do?

Matt went through a few of these, and we decided what was worth the free and what was not. Finally, we came to a house. Matt knew he had Stan here. His uncle in New Jersey had a house in NJ we could have for free. Yes, it wasn't that close to the city, and there was gas and tolls, and time lost traveling and not shooting, but this was his favorite uncle, and he would let us have all the time we wanted.

Stan conceded. Let's take this free location. Evidently, it might have been his favorite uncle, but it was clearly not his favorite aunt. She hated having us there, started freaking out before lunch, and we had to cut a lot of shots to wrap early before everything we did shoot was lost to continuity.

But, it was free.

I was reminded of this just a few years ago when I was production managing a short for a very experienced TV news producer. We needed a house for 8 days (including prep and wrap) for a very good short she wrote, with the intention of using it to raise the money for a feature version of the same story.

After a long search, she thought of her childhood friend. Both women were in their fifties. professionals, and had gone to elementary school together. The friend actually suggested her house, and I was at the kitchen table when we discussed the deal. I had suggested making a $500 offer, to cover the inconvenience. We settled on no fee- they were dear friends - but the director handed her a check for $2000, to cover the deductible on the insurance, just in case there was any damage.

At first, the friend said it was silly and actually slid the check back, but eventually agreed, assuring us that it was just a precaution, and under no circumstances would she cash the check.

At the end of Day Three, she came up to the me and the director. (Names changed) "Sally," she said, "I just thought I should let you know I cashed the check. You folks work such long hours, and it's been just crazy for Jack (her husband) ."

Boom. No damage to the house, and we had discussed the hours and the fact we would probably be in every room. The best part. "Thank you, Sally. We gave it to Jill (her daughter) so she could have a little spending money on Spring Break. You know how tight things are these days."

Sally didn't say much right then, but in her understandable rant to me later, she did say something about how she wouldn't be upset if Jill choked on a Jello shot.

Yes, the $2000 was a reasonable cost. Very often, you can get very good deals. Just don't assume anything will ever be free.

Now that you've met Stan, I will post a "guest blog" from Stan - if he were around to write one, and if he were to even consider writing a blog if he were. Then, on to the conclusion of Lucky Stiffs (yes, it had a conclusion).

(Un) Lucky Stiffs - Part 7 - Down Goes JR

2012-02-06T18:59:00.000-05:00

Philosophers and clerics will tell you at the worst of times that there is a universal plan that we cannot see, and, at those times, we are tempted to tell them to go to hell. So it was that what seemed like the worst night of the shoot became a defining positive moment in my career.

For all my joking about this crew, they were good, very good. Safety first was more than just an expression on our set, and when I wasn't preaching it, JR was. Most DPs will tell the gaffer what they want and then walk away until it is close to done; not JR. This was mostly his equipment and his crew and he watched over both at all times.

One piece of equipment that didn't belong to JR was the dolly, which was a rental from a reliable vendor. Let me take this opportunity to talk a little about working with vendors.

I was not the PM on this shoot, so I didn't make the arrangements with the vendors, but I did on a number of other shoots subsequently, and the vendor for the dolly was one JR had worked with before and that I worked with after this shoot. They were good and reliable.

In an era when budgets are cut today even more so than they were then, and new vendors coming along every day, there is a temptation to take the cheapest price. Avoid that temptation. If you find a good vendor, and they give you a good price, stick with them. Never do this - use one vendors' quote with another vendor to get the second vendor to give you a cheaper price. This is a small business, and if you think vendors don't talk to each other, think again. They may be competitors, but they will sometimes sub-contract from each other, and employees go from one company to another. Word gets around.

I treat my vendors right, and expect the same from them. When I send back a piece of equipment, I don't want an excuse - I want a replacement and no questions. I have more than a few vendors who, when negotiating, will get to the point where they just will say, "JB, what can you afford?" and if they can make it work, they will. They know if I have a little bigger budget I won't undercut them.

People forget that vendors are people, too (this is one of those rare occasions when I will agree with Mitt Romney and Citizens' United). I had one vendor who resold film that had a rough stretch when he was quitting smoking, which affected his mood. He lost a few clients who didn't appreciate the attitude, but he had been good to me in the past, and I let it go. He never forgot it. There were times when he delivered film I needed to set, on nights, on weekends. Once, when we were scheduled to pick up film on a Monday, but went through more than I expected on Thursday and Friday, he delivered it to me in New Jersey on a Saturday in a tuxedo - he was heading to a wedding, but made a stop to drop off my film.

That's the type of relationship I have with vendors.

Conversely, there was a vendor out in Queens, NY who would routinely offer a better price, then switch out equipment you requested for the closest thing he had, tell you it would work, and had equipment that was poorly kept. I never worked with them once they burned me the first time.

So, we come to the night in question. The camera was on the dolly, and our key grip and best boy were using the hydraulics to raise the dolly. JR was in the seat with the camera, Lorelei was on the dolly protecting camera. My grip department had done this a hundreds of times.

I was off-set when I got word over the walkie to come to set - there had been an accident. It was a freak accident, to be sure, one I haven't seen or heard of before or since. Something went wrong with the hydraulics, and JR was literally shot off of the dolly with the seat. When I got to set, JR was on the ground, his hands wrapped on around the camera, and Lorelei was beside him. JR had not let go of the camera, and Lorelei had not let go of JR.

Lorelei was a little bloody and shaken up, but she was okay. JR was badly shaken up, and his back was in great pain. Both were covered in oil from the dolly's hydraulics.

We called an ambulance immediately. CK, my 2nd 2nd, knew how close JR and I were, and he let me head to the hospital with him and wrapped everything on set, as did my 2nd AD. I insisted that Lorelei be taken to the hospital as well, although she kept saying she was alright. Safety is the responsibility of the AD, and I was not going to take any chances that Lorelei was more badly hurt and just didn't know it. Veterans will also know that for insurance purposes, this is a workplace accident that must be reported immediately. Julie, my 2nd, was with me filling out the accident report and keeping track of everyone's condition.

Yes, it would normally be left to the 2nd AD to wrap set, but CK was more than able to handle it, and Julie wanted to be with us. Also with us was Stacey.

What none of knew at the time was that Stacey and JR had become a couple. We were a tight-knit family, so it was quite a chore to keep a thing like that a secret, but they both wanted to maintain a professional tone on set, and felt it best none of us know. Now, with JR hurt, the pretense was not important.

JR would recover from his injuries, but would need some time to rehabilitate - at least a week. I had a quick discussion with Matt, and there was no issue - we would take a hiatus while JR recovered. We would not attempt to shoot with another DP. There was also the issue of repairing the camera.

Yes, we could have gone on with another DP and another camera. It was an option, and at the end of the day, it was Matt's call. None of us wanted to do that, but we would have understood. To his credit, Matt made the call mostly out of loyalty. I will always have the greatest respect for him for that.

The hiatus led to a good deal of soul-searching. The schedule was a disaster, and in another world, I must be honest, I might have been fired. No, I was not the reason we were behind, but as I have said before, when things are going badly, the first one to go is usually the AD, especially when it had to do with schedule.

Matt realized the problem went higher. Much of the schedule juggling had to do with the problems with the art department and locations, and neither were in my control. That didn't make me feel any better that the schedule was far from optimum. There were days, to be honest, that I would make a change and then wonder if I should have done something else.

It is impossible to make perfect decisions in less than perfect conditions. That said, I've always thought it was important to be honest with yourself about your own performance, and I wasn't thrilled with mine.

On top of that, I kept thinking about the accident on set. The vendor insisted there was nothing wrong with the dolly. They tend to do that, if only for insurance purposes. To this day, I doubt the fault was with the crew. In times like this, no matter how much you know there was nothing you could have done, when it is your responsibility, and on top of that your friend, you doubt yourself.

All in all, this was far from a high point in my career.

I point all of this out not as a mea culpa, but the blame-game that sometimes goes on in this business leads many people to assume that as long as they can blame something on someone else, they can avoid responsibility. If you go through your career like that, you will never really learn anything. I did a good deal of self-evaluation.

From a selfish perspective, I worried about my fate. At one point, JR had a number of meetings with Matt where I was not invited. That didn't do much for my confidence. It was after one of those meetings that JR patted me on the back and said that changes were happening, but I was not to worry.

Yes, the question of whether I should stay on did come up, I later found. However, JR stood up for me, Matt knew how much I had done to help us, and one other person, who was asked to evaluate the situation, said that I should stay on.

That person was Stan Bickman. Stan and his assistant, Dianne (she was a production coordinator in title, but much more than that in fact) came on board. Stan would be the line producer. Rody would stay on - Matt was loyal - but in a much diminished capacity.

I had heard a lot about Stan from JR, who had worked with him before. Stan was almost 60, and had been in the business since the early 60s. I will devote the next post to talk about Stan, his background, and his influence on the shoot. Over many posts to come, you will see his influence as my Yoda, my Obi Wan, my mentor.

I was certainly sorry that JR got hurt, and that we were in such a bad way, but had that one horrible night not happened, I would not have the career I have today. I learned so much from Stan over the years I cannot count. I learned about both being an AD, and later a UPM and line producer. Stan had done all of those things.

More on that in future posts. For now, we were on hiatus, and it was into early November. No one dared joke about Thanksgiving.

New Blog - The Spin-Off

2012-02-04T21:05:00.001-05:00

This blog is a look back at a life in low-budget indie films, and I try to stick to that, and how that influenced my life.

That focus keeps this blog in the past for some period of time, and it is not possible to know where you're going if you don't know where you've been.

However, I do work in film today, and the issue of the effect of digital on movies is a topic of great interest. I have discussed this topic with a lot of people across a broad spectrum, and there are widely varying opinions.

I wanted to explore that in a blog, so I started a completely separate blog referenced under My Blogs - "Don't Call It Film"

The first post is called "Just Don't Call It Film". Feel free to check it out, and join the debate over there.

Meanwhile, we will continue to saga of Lucky Stiffs (very 35mm) in a day or so here.

Just Don't Call It Film

(Un)Lucky Stiffs - Part 6 - I Need A Hero!

2012-02-04T16:38:00.000-05:00

We were behind schedule, and it was now looking as if we would be going into the third week of October.

We had bad weather, un-cooperative dogs, possessed PAs, wacky lead actors and just about every challenge we needed.

With all of these obstacles, we also needed to do stunts; fights, gunplay, car chases and more. This was a screwball comedy about a heist gone wrong with many double-crosses, and most of those ended up with physical comedy and comedic violence.

We had nice actors, but none besides Bobby were seasoned pros, and Bobby was far from physically-adept.

If these stunts were to go well, and work within our schedule and budget challenge, we would need a real pro to help us with the stunts, someone with skill who could work with people without physical skill, someone who could give audiences a thrill without giving the AD a heart attack, someone who embodied a daredevil with unquestioned safety.

We needed a hero.

He rode a motorcycle, not a horse, but he rode to our rescue and his name was Shane.

His bio starts, "In 1982, a young man named Shane "Butch" Grier saddled up his motorcycle, cleared his bank account ($200 in cold hard American cash), and drove 1563 miles from Tulsa, OK to the Big Apple to pursue the stunt end of the film and television business." The logo for his company, United Stuntman's Association, Ltd. (USA) had a representational American flag, and that logo was on the back of his denim jacket.

This was a superhero costume I could like.

Every question from him ended with "Sir", and every greeting from him came with a firm handshake. He had a young son, maybe 10 or 11 years old, who rode behind him on his bike, and looked like a mini-me version of him, complete with the hero stance; arms folded or at his hips, shoulders square, head held high.

When the kid would stand by the motorcycle and refer to his dad ("You have to ask Shane") it was like right out of the movie.

As Lorelei, our 1st AC, said in mock Hollywood swoon one day, "Ah, Shane."

He worked with another guy Michael who everyone called Critter. Together, watching them set up stunts in a scene, making complex choreography look simple, was pure art. They would assess what the actors could and could not do, and make the most of it. Matt and I would have suggestions (Matt with principals, me with background) but when we were on stunt days, it was his show.

While I loved Shane most of all, let me say this about stunt people. In all my years in the business, I've worked with tons of people in every department, and, as in life, some are better than others. Some are lousy in their jobs, or can be difficult or rude or have a bad attitude. That's just life.

Not stunt people. I've never met a stunt person I didn't like, who wasn't professional and courteous as well as good at their job. The irony is that for all the daredevil stuff they pull off, and all the risks they take, no body is more serious about their work or about safety. They have to be, or people get hurt or even killed.

One of the biggest challenges of complex stunts and fight scenes is adrenaline. In the times I've heard of actors being hurt on set - and crew people have told me some gruesome stories - it always involves an actor who, after having been warned of how to do something safely in rehearsal, gets his adrenaline going and tries something extra during a take.

Shane and Critter knew this, and did a good job of keeping the tone calm on set.

One of my favorite days with them was a day we were blocking a car stunt. We needed someone to sit in the car next to Shane as he did the stunt for the first time for camera blocking, and my actor's stand-in looked a little afraid. I volunteered.

Before you think this is where I tell you what a brave soul I have, let me preface by saying I think I only have been on a roller coaster once, and I guarantee you my eyes were closed the entire time until I faked being brave at the end. I'm terrified of heights, cannot walk over high bridges, and look away when a car drives over one that is close to the edge of the bridge. I cannot even watch bungee jumping, no less would I try it.

However, I felt completely calm with Shane. He went over how to strap myself in, and then, in the calmest voice imaginable, went over all the steps to take in case something, like a crash or the car rolling over took place. The list was pretty ugly, and you would think this is where I bailed, but coming from Shane, it was like a stewardess asking you to turn off your electronic devices - just part of the routine.

All of the stunt days went well, to the point where we looked forward to it. Pictured below are Shane (still with mustache) and Critter today - 20 years later, 20 years older, and they still look like heroes to me.

And, yes, I just had to add this - enjoy the Eighties haircuts and choreography. Shane, this is for you.

(Un) Lucky Stiffs - Part 5 - Broadway Bobby,Sarge and Satan's Child

2012-02-03T02:37:00.000-05:00

Back on Terra (somewhat) Firma, after surviving our encounter with Asbury Park (Greetings From Asbury Park), we proceeded with the mundane business of getting this puppy in the can.

We filmed a few days in an abandoned prison in New Jersey. Low budget films are always in search of the elusive abandoned (fill-in-the-blank) location. It means you will have the location all to yourself, and, if all works out, for a reasonable price. After all, the place is no longer in use. How cool!

Yeah. The thing is, if it's no longer in use, it also means a number of other things, like no one has cleaned it in some time, and getting power is something of a challenge, and when you ask someone there if something works, you are just as likely to be met with a shrug as a real answer.

When you take over a location that was most recently inhabited by rodents, there is little good to say for the place. The prison location near Hoboken, NJ was no exception.

One of the amusing things about filming in the prison for a few days was that it held some insight into the personality of our set. Anyone who has been on a film set knows that the First AD is front and center; they are the one calling for silence, the instruction to "lock it up" (no one allowed to come into frame), the call to "settle" (stop walking, hold the work, and making other non-verbal sounds), calling the roll (briefly, roll sound, roll camera,) and the echoing of the director's instruction to "cut".

In our case, we had a rather quiet director in Matt, and somewhere near the end of our third and last day in the prison location, one of our contacts asked how I thought things were going. I told him we were getting everything we needed, and it looked like we would wrap on time.

"But, are you happy with the footage you are getting? Is this the way you envisioned it when you started directing this?"

My active set presence contrasted with Matt's quiet lead, and I realized that this guy thought that I was the director. I explained how things worked, and he asked who the director was. When I pointed to Matt, he seemed surprised, as a number of people, including JR, seemed more demonstrative.

One of those people was my 2nd 2nd AD, Chris Kelley (CK). CK, who I had met in my NYU class, was a broad-shouldered Irish-American from Boston with a wicked sense of humor. I used to pace the set back and forth with my cane, and CK once looked up and said "Prisoner requests permission to wish walkin' boss a happy birthday." The 'walkin' boss' thing stuck. (If you don't know the movie reference, look it up !)

If I was the prison walkin' boss on set, Julie, my 2nd AD, was good cop. She was cheerful and efficient. The way I had my team work, she also did most of the paperwork (including generating production reports and call sheets, the latter being standard domain of the 2nd AD) and was my contact with the production office and talking with other departments. That left CK as my guy on set, doing lock-up and managing the PAs. CK became, depending on how you looked at it, my bad cop, or, in mob terms, my enforcer, but he was an enforcer with a humorously sarcastic edge.

CK could be heard reprimanding PAs who didn't respond quick enough on walkie with something like "this is yet another opportunity for you to reply, copy" or a telling a PA having some trouble with a lock-up "let's try the type of lock-up this time where you don't let anyone through." He had a style that kept people on their toes with just the right touch of humor that most people, myself included, loved him.

It was fitting, then, that it was CK who dubbed one of our PAs "Satan's Child." It was this film school graduate's first feature film, and he had a lot to learn.

Remember earlier I mentioned that Stacey had just that perfect combination of intelligence and enthusiasm? Satan's Child was one-for-two, with the one being the latter. He was the type of PA who would rush off on a mission (run) when you had only gotten through half of the description of what you needed, meaning he would get to the van and then have to come back. He would take every trip off set as if he were an ambulance driver in a Hemingway novel, screeching as he pulled out of his parking area, very much half-cocked.

It was on his return from one of those runs when he literally ran up to CK at lunch to see if there was anything else he could do for him and almost knocked CK's lunch out of his hands. CK put his fingers as a cross, as in an exorcism, and shouted "away from me, Satan's Child!" and so the nickname was born.

One of Satan's Child's responsibilities often was transporting my first team actors, as he didn't mind doing repeated runs, enjoyed discussing the movie with them (think the PA in the movie Living in Oblivion on amphetamines) and took the job of getting them where we needed them on time very seriously.

Our actors were Jason and Lane as the younger robbers, and Bobby as Eddie, the older (though not much smarter) robber. By this time, Stacey's abilities had gotten her promoted to assistant location manager, and, as with all her jobs, she was very good at it. It also meant that I had other drivers to set. This was fine with me - as long as I didn't get Satan's Child.

It was on one of these days that I was waiting for my ride, which was a little late. Nothing bothers me more than late, even though "late" to pick me up was still early for my call time. As I am pacing my apartment and on the phone with the production office, my doorman buzzes me and tells me there is a detective downstairs looking for me. What could this be? I ask him what this is about, but he says the detective can only speak with me. I grab my set bag and head downstairs.

There, in my lobby, is Broadway Bobby Downs, a big smile on his face. It's not that I didn't have a sense of humor, but I don't have one when I'm late, and this did not endear me to Bobby. Even worse, when I get to the van, there is Satan's Child driving. Save me.

Satan's Child is a young White kid with long hair and a do-rag. I make the mistake of reminding him we are late, which is greeted with a response of "No fear, JB!" and a screeching turn around my corner, which quickly leads to a screeching halt behind a real police car, who has pulled over another car, presumably for a traffic violation. Both officers were out of the car, and the way they had pulled up behind the other car, it was impossible for us to get around them.

I rest my forehead in my palm, knowing we are going to be even later. Satan's Child (lets call him SC, for short, though we didn't sue that) has a metal band screaming on the radio (a rock-and-roll child myself, I prefer something more calming on my way to work) and is talking a mile-a-minute, as is Bobby.

SC looks over at me, and even though he isn't the most perceptive person in the world, he can see I am not happy. He tries to reassure me that he will make up the time, and I don't look any happier. Right then and there, he decides its time for action! He starts honking his horn at the police, and, when they turn around, confused at what idiot is honking at police officers, they see SC behind the wheel of a mini-van motioning with his hand for them to move and yelling out of the car that he has to get his boss (indicating me) to set. Bobby, dressed in a pseudo-mob outfit, is urging SC on.

At this point, I'm thinking of how quickly I can get a hold of the production office from the police station where we are most certainly headed, and where do I begin to explain this to the officers. I have to get the actors to set, but I am more than willing to leave SC in their good care.

To my surprise, the officers start laughing, and one of them pulls the car forward so that we can get by, and laughs as he waves us on. I guess they figured anyone stupid enough to do something like that had to be legit.

Of course, I should not have been surprised at SC's lack of understanding of how to interact with an emergency vehicle. One day we are filming on a long, winding country road in New Jersey, where we have permission to hold traffic during takes and rehearsals. SC is at the furthest point. Just as I call for us to lock it up, I hear fire engines. Sure enough, I see fire engines headed in the direction of our shoot. I turn to CK and tell him to clear the road - obviously, you do not ask a fire engine on the way to a fire to wait for you while you do a take. Well, this was obvious to most of us, but there was Satan's Child, his hands in the halt position, trying to stop the fire engines!

Before I can yell "Get him the hell out of the road!" CK is storming toward him, yelling all the way. Satan's Child was confused, but the sight of CK rushing toward him screaming gave him a hint that something was wrong - and that we weren't rolling. He moved aside, and the fire engines roared by, me with my hands in the air motioning "I'm sorry" as they did.

Later in the same day, Bill, our sound recordist, mentioned that he was getting the sound of cow's mooing. SC actually asks CK if he should try to quiet them. CK later told me that he was going to tell him to hold their mouths shut, but he was afraid he might really do it.

Cows were not our only animal problem. During one part of the gang's getaway, they are chased by a German shepherd, who catches up to one of them (Lane) and bites his arm. All three of them are wearing Halloween costumes (it was part of their disguise for the robbery - get it!) so it was easy to pad his arm for the dog to grab.

Those who have worked with animals will tell you that in cases like this, you will often use two dogs that look alike, in case one is difficult, tired, etc. We had a father/son combination. I forget the son's name, but the father was Sarge. The scene involved the robbers running down the stairs, and then the dog chasing right behind them. The timing was tricky enough, made even more tricky by the fact that dad and junior had completely different temperaments. Sarge was like Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens looking to take a quarterbacks head off; junior was like a ballet dancer out for a weekend jog. With him, the scene would be my guys running down the stairs, followed by a long pause, followed by junior finally loping into frame.

Needless to say, junior spent a lot of time watching dad from the sidelines.

On our final take before lunch, Sarge nailed it. He wound up on Lane's arm, Matt called cut, and we would all soon be off to lunch. All, that would be, except Lane, who still had Sarge in his arm, refusing to let go. Though the padding prevented Sarge from breaking the skin, having an enraged beast clutched to your arm is no fun. To his credit, Lane was good about it, joking while expecting that Sarge would let go soon. The trainer repeatedly ordered Sarge to release with "Aus! Aus!" ( many dogs are trained in German - it had nothing to do with them being German shepherds).

Finally, the dog released. The trainer tried to convince me of how well-trained Sarge was, releasing on command. From what I could tell, he only finally let go after a few minutes because his jaws got tired.

Never been a big fan of working with animals.

Things went on this way for a while, with the location and art department issues still looming over our heads. I was forced to change the schedule so often to keep up that Stacey, now location assistant, once shredded a soda can with her bare hands as I sadly informed her that she had to go back to her location contacts again to change things. At that moment, although she was too professional to admit it, I'm sure she wished the soda can was my throat.

With all of this, I did want to take an opportunity to show a few pictures of Broadway Bobby Downs. Bobby drove me nuts by staying "in character" as the villainous Eddie Minucci, even when we weren't shooting, but he was one of those actors who lived to do this, even though making a living at it was far from easy for him. I mentioned that this blog, in part, was to pay tribute to a lot of forgotten soldiers of the low budget wars, and the pictures below will give you an idea of the costumes, and serve as a small tribute to the late Bobby Downs.

(Un)Lucky Stiffs - Part 4 - Greetings From Asbury Park

2012-02-01T16:52:00.001-05:00

When I was in high school, the Jersey shore was a trip from the Bronx to Seaside Heights with fake ID and big dreams.

When I got to college and started working at the radio station, the Jersey shore was a trip to Asbury Park and a hope that in some random night at the Stone Pony, Bruce would walk in and jam with the band. I mean, we heard that it did happen; why couldn't it happen when we were there?

At some point during the filming of Lucky Stiffs, Asbury Park became my Niagara Falls. In case you're too young to remember:

(Yes, Abbot and Costello did it as well, multiple times. Old vaudville routines, like 'Who's on First', made the rounds, and even when they came to movies, since audiences could only see movies in theaters - no DVDs, no Netflix, no cable, no television - the idea was you could do the same routine with a slight twist and it would be new for audiences. Television changed all of that)

Our main location was a warehouse in Brooklyn that got multiple uses. It was the home of our art department, some main sets, and where we would shoot generic material when we didn't have a set (the location problem) or needed a cover set for weather.

We didn't want to burn our cover sets, as even into early October - we weren't going later than that, remember - we could run into bad weather.

The script required us to shoot one day - actually, about six hours - in Asbury Park. We had to see the boardwalk and some other attractions. Glenn, our location manager, with the assistance of NJ Film Commission's David Schooner, had gotten all the clearances for us.

Of course, the scene was about a beautiful, sunny, day so we needed the weather to cooperate. In those days, you couldn't go to weather.com (didn't exist) to check out hour-by-hour forecasts. Film companies would often pay a service to a company that would get their information directly from the National Weather Service, and when correct, they could tell you the forecast within a hour or so in any given area. Farmers used similar services. For a city boy like me who never needed such services, this seemed like a marvel of modern science. (Now, of course, you can do it on your phone in a few clicks and we all take it for granted.)

Moving an entire crew with full equipment one-and-a-half hours for crew, and longer for equipment (commercial vehicles could not take the Garden State Parkway) to a location requires a good deal of planning, and we had that. We had checkpoints and maps (no GPS - geez, I sound like Stan now) and written directions and times to check in. As per usual, some of us would go ahead first, Stacey and myself being among them.

That was the plan.

On the first day we planned to shoot Asbury Park, there was about a 50 percent chance of rain. As I said earlier, I was leery of burning our cover set, and didn't have a lot of location alternatives that I could easily move . That also meant the art department would have to stop everything and have our cover set.

I laid out a perfect plan, involving all of the drivers checking in with me at a precise time at the office. I was there an hour before call time (probably looking at 4AM or so) on the phone with the weather service. JR, Rody, Matt, and probably Stacey and my 2nd AD, Julie, were there as well.

As decision time got closer, it was still a tough call. Matt and I talked about how much sunshine he really needed, and could we get by if it was clear part of the time, and maybe we shot in looking away from the water or something for a bit. It wasn't optimum , but there were slight alternatives. The guy at the weather service gave me hope.

Matt asked me what I thought. I said considering everything, I thought we needed to give it a shot. We were behind on locations, and if we kept pushing Asbury Park back, who knew when the weather would work for us, not to mention at some point we would wind up on nights and turnaround would be a problem.

Calls went out and calls came in. We were on our way. This was one of those times when someone had to make a decision, and I even remember saying bravely when some of the others were ready to back out that it was my decision, and I would take the responsibility (look in the dictionary under "hubris").

As we headed south on the Garden State Parkway, all signs were positive. First, there was a slight mist, but as we got about 20 minutes or so from the exit, the sun came out.

I am reminded of that moment in The Perfect Storm when they are in the eye of the storm, and the sun comes out, and everything seems so beautiful.

Then, the skies opened up.

The rain was so hard that I remember saying that maybe this meant it was one of those downpours that comes and goes. JR and I start talking about how it might look if it's sunny out and the boardwalk is wet, and he says we can make it work, and, in fact, the reflection off the shiny boardwalk might look nice.

Hey, this might all work out.

A little while later, we are standing around in holding, from our vantage point right by the water, looking out at the power of the sea.

Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was a downpour. We called the weather service, and they said maybe it would be down to a drizzle by afternoon. Thanks.

A note about those weather services we paid. At one point on another shoot I was doing, we were doing a night exterior shoot out in Long Island. We call ahead to the service, and they said "no chance of rain." Great. We get there, and the winds are swirling. We set up the light stands, but don't raise the heads, out of safety concerns. I finally get the guy from the weather service on the line (cell reception was bad in these areas in those days).

"Oh, yeah, there's a lot of wind. You folks are catching the remnants of a hurricane that swept offshore."

"A hurricane?"

"It's not a hurricane now. It's been downgraded."

"Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"The rain is all offshore. You only asked me about rain. You folks shouldn't get any precip (I'm supposed to feel better because he uses cool terms like 'precip').

I only asked about rain? I didn't ask about tornadoes, either; it's just the type of thing I assumed you'd mention. "What about the winds?"

"Should be about 40 to 60 miles an hour."

"I can't put light stands up in the air with wind like that."

"Light stands? You better secure those things. That sounds dangerous!"

Really? Thanks for the advice. Last time I ever paid for a weather service.

Back in Asbury Park, I take JR aside. I probably sounded a lot like Uzo from a previous post. Could we cheat some of the shots where we see the characters and the ocean in the background without us being in the rain? Where, he asks? With the wind and the rain, even if we found cover, we would get pelted, not to mention production sound would be useless.

JR and I were talking privately. Finally, friend that he was, he put his hand on my shoulder, smiled and said,"JB, unless it stops completely, we're screwed." It's the sort of gallows humor JR and I often shared, but this time, I felt my neck in the noose. I was the one who said we should come down here, and now we were going to lose a day.

Jeff, our trusted gaffer and meteorologist, looked out at the clouds and said the rain wasn't going anywhere. I thought that maybe we just didn't have a good enough vantage point. Without putting on any rain gear, I stormed out of holding, passed Madame Marie's, expecting no good fortune there and headed to the boardwalk. I perched myself along the boardwalk, looking out at the ocean, getting soaked. It didn't matter at this point.

Momentarily, I hear footsteps; it was Julie, my loyal 2nd AD. She was much shorter than me, 5'2" at most, and, at that moment, smarter than me, as she had rain gear. I shook my head, leaned on the rail, and looked out to the ocean. She did the same. Somewhere, someone has a picture of two crazy ADs looking out at the ocean and getting drenched.

We didn't shoot that day, and as we headed back, there was talk of shooting Asbury Park the next day. There was still a chance of rain, and I wasn't going to have this happen again. Rody, of course, was her usual supportive self, reminding me that I had been wrong about today, and that shooting a cover set tomorrow would put stress on her friend's art department. I didn't care; we were shooting the interior tomorrow. Trust me on this.

The next day was sunny in New York, and in Asbury Park.

As we struggled with a lack of locations and prepared sets, we headed out to Asbury Park a second time a while later in the schedule. As we got a little bit outside of the exit, it was a little cloudy. Please, please, no rain!

No rain. Fog thick as soup rolled in, fog so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Don't ask me about the weather service.

Fog?

JR and I weren't joking as much this time, but, in an effort to cheer me up, he did mention that we hadn't yet seen locust or raining frogs.

There is little worse than objectively knowing you were making the best decisions possible given the information and circumstances at your disposal, yet doubting yourself because the results were so bad.

We did eventually get Asbury Park shot, and it looked great. Combined with the location problems and the art department problems, though, we did lose days. At one point, I had to have us down for a few days to regroup and save money from shooting half-days. Not good.

We were now going to wrap somewhere into the third week of October, and Halloween was looking scary.

(Un)Lucky Stiffs - Part 3 - Hookers and Hussies

2012-01-31T00:14:00.001-05:00

Least my previous two posts on Lucky Stiffs suggest that all was gloom and doom, I should point out that, with a good crew and Matt's calm direction, we had a number of good days. It was, after all, a comedy, and comedies can have intended, and unintended, humorous elements.

This post will deal with some of the lighter moments.

When I came back to NY, Maureen and I were living in NY's Hell's Kitchen (although the city fathers would prefer I use the newer title Clinton, I prefer Hell's Kitchen and all the sordid history that went with it). This is the Theater District and just south and all-the-way west to the Hudson River, where after the theaters were long closed, entertainment remained vibrant.

We started the shoot with some locations in Brooklyn, along the waterfront, and in New Jersey. One of the more talented PAs I mentioned, Stacey, was assigned to pick me up and get me to set. Although technically the 2nd AD is first-on-and-last-off, this was still early in my career and I was motivated (in no small part by fear of failure) that I had to oversee everything. Capricorns. As such, I wanted to get there before the crew vans to make sure all was well.

The rides with Stacey were great. She had started out in theater as a stage manager - just like me! All these years, I have loved to bring stage managers into the AD department; the temperament and skill sets required are very similar. The differences can be learned.

The two key things I look for in potential production people are intelligence and enthusiasm. Stacey had both of these plus leadership skills, maturity, and the willingness to take responsibility.

The first couple of days of any shoot tend to be exterior day, and ours were no different. This is for a couple of reasons, many of which are obvious to production veterans, but I will point out anyway.

As you go later in the day, it becomes harder to start early. This is because, even with non-union crew, you want at least a ten-hour turnaround for crew, and must have twelve hours for cast. You want to get those beautiful sunrise (or magic hour) shots done early. You also want to shoot day exteriors early to avoid weather problems later on.

On lower-budget films, these scenes often use little or no lighting, only diffusion and reflectors to control "available light" (also known as the sun). This means it's a good chance to get things moving while the crew and cast settle in.

This also means that your early shoot days have those un-godly call times, such as 5AM or 6AM. We had our share of these, and Stacey would be picking me up in front of the brownstone I lived in before sunrise.

Hells Kitchen, in those days, had its own special brand of graveyard-shift freelancers, known commonly as hookers. As I would sit outside, there was one hooker who always passed on the way home. She later told me that at first she thought I was a detective, especially seeing me getting into the car. She thought the cane might have been a prop.

After a while, though, she felt comfortable coming up and talking to me. Yes, her first question involved a date, but after she realized that wasn't happening, she took to just chatting with me. We would talk about how each of our respective jobs was going - her bad nights were worse than my bad days.

Stacey stoically would pick me up as my hooker friend would wave goodbye. Stacey's evil grin grew day-by-day, along with her "I'm not going to ask, JB.". Once we would get past the snicker, we would talk production, and she always got me to set calm and prepared.

Once on set, there were not only the production issues but the cast. There was talent, and there was insanity.

One moment strikes me as indicative of the insanity that went on behind the cameras.

The script revolved around a jewel heist. Two young slackers want to plan the heist, and they plan it with an older "experienced" criminal. Turns out they could have made a better choice, as their veteran had issues.

He also had a moll.

I find myself using some older, classic terms in this post; moll, hussy. Today, we tend to be more graphic or judgmental.

Hussy and moll are two phrases from a by-gone era, but they better represent the femme-fatales in this movie.

The older, experienced thief was played by "Broadway Bobby" Downs. Sadly, Bobby is no longer with us - more on him later - but his "moll" was played by an actress whose first name was Antonina.

"Moll" was a polite term used in the old studio days for the girlfriend of a mobster. It's origin is multi-fold; it comes both from the suggestion that she carries a gun, and "moll" is short for Molly, an Olde-world euphemism for prostitute.

See how it all comes 360 degrees?

Our "moll" was not a prostitute. Her character name was Angela, and her fatal flaw was that she had the bad judgement to be dating Eddie Minuchi, the older criminal. In the script, Angela came off as a busty, sultry and alluring woman in her twenties; Antonina only had the first of those bases covered.

The first scene in the movie in which she appears goes something like this: Eddie and Angela pull up in a cab, Eddie has bought her lots of expensive presents (this is how he keeps her). She is about to get out of the cab, the young guys help her. When they open the door, she drops the presents, revealing her ample cleavage. The guys ogle her and lose track of what they are doing, impressed by her cleavage.

Do you still wonder why we weren't at the Oscars that year?

We had the usual location problems, so we shot the scene in the open parking area of an abandoned warehouse where our other work (including art department) was going on. While they were working out blocking and everyone hitting their mark, I went to our make-shift production area, which was about 50 yards from set, to work on revising the schedule.

I left my very competent 2nd AD to run the rehearsals, even though we were rehearsing with our "first team" (actual actors, not stand-ins). My 2nd was on top of everything.

It was early in the process when I started getting called to set. I was working with Stacey (more on this later) on the schedule, and asked why, if we were not ready to shoot, I had to get to set. Members of other departments were on "Channel 1" (which should only be for production) and I kept hearing snickers. Hmmm?

When I finally made my way to set, down a long hallway, I saw crew and production people trying (or not trying) to stifle their laughs. They also followed me to set. If my crew wanted to see me get to set, nothing good could come of this.

I get to set and survey the scene. There is the yellow cab. There is my DP, hands on hip, my director beside him. There are the two young actors playing the slackers. There is Bobby.

There is Antonina coming toward me.

Antonina may have been of Italian heritage (as am I) but I am pretty sure she was either born here or came here when she was young; that not withstanding, she had a Sophia Loren-accent. You know, the exaggerated Italian accent Sophia Loren had in her American movies to come off more "Italian" (see, sultry).

You must use this accent when imagining the following conversation.

"Oh, JB, I am so happy you are here. You will understand."

"Is there a problem, Antonina?"

"Oh, yes, yes, JB. You know that this is my character's first scene in the movie?"

"Yes. It is. We've all been looking forward to shooting this."

"Well, JB, I am supposed to look good in this scene."

I look her over. Her make-up and wardrobe look fine. Channeling my dear father, I go into full flirt mode.

"Antonina. you always look wonderful."

A kiss on the cheek, and she draws me closer. Counting the hooker, this is the second woman today I have no interest in who is in full flirt mode.

"Thank you, JB. That's why I knew you would understand why it is not right that I have competition on a day that should be about me."

I take another look around. I see all the same things I saw before - there is no other female in sight. I peek in the cab just in case - a male Indian cab driver who will not make eye contact with me, but looks pissed.

"Antonina. there are no other women in this scene."

(Almost in tears) "Oh, yes, there is JB. It is not right."

Did JR and Matt add a character I don't see on set? No, Matt wouldn't do that. He was not an organic, lets-improv-this-scene-and-see-what-happens guy. It wasn't JR. What could it be?

Then, I looked on top of the cab. I looked at JR. He smiled and nodded his head.

Tell me this isn't it. Antonina has seen where my eyes went.

"Antonina, are you talking about...."

"Oh, yes, JB. It is not right."

Atop this NYC Yellow cab was something like this - it may not have been exactly this, but it was for this product.

As I remember the ad, it was a full face of a woman in an Annie Hall-like hat. She was pretty - c'mon, they're models - but its not like she was in some skimpy outfit or bikini that would distract anyone. The theme was similar to the ad above.

It didn't matter

"Antonina, do you mean the ad on top of the ..."

I hadn't finished when Antonina nodded vigorously. It was the ad.

Antonina had seen that shameless hussy atop the taxi not as a sign of the ultimate female liberation, that, now, women, too, could bring on horrible cancer proudly. She may have come a long way, baby, but she wasn't going any further while that woman stole her scene.

"Now," she continued, "if you could take the ad down from the cab...."

She went on, but my mind blocked it out. Take the ad off the cab? We were paying the driver $200 or so, which did not include dismantling the ad on top of his cab. If my grips could figure out how to do this without harming the cab, how were we going to get it back....

What was I thinking. This wasn't happening.

"Antonina, we can't take the ad off the cab, but we are not going to see it."

"How are you not going to see it? It is so big. It's right there on top of the cab."

The specifics of my argument then eludes me, but it had to do with promising that I would make JR and Matt frame out the ad. I would sit by the monitor, and, if needed, I would call cut myself if I saw the ad in the shot (No, that wasn't going to happen). JR and Matt nodded approvingly; yes, we will have JB do that. At this point, anything I said, they were going to show agreement.

Discussion went on for a while, and I did have to discuss some re-framing, but we got the coverage we needed. In the final cut of the film, I cannot tell you if that ad appears.

These, as I point out, are the light moments. The real road bumps? Oh, they are ahead.

(Un)Lucky Stiffs - Part 2 - Location Location Location!

2012-01-30T00:19:00.000-05:00

In a perfect world, the assistant director would go into his or her fortress of solitude, where they would prepare the perfect schedule.

They would take every element of their breakdown into consideration, then the projected shot-list or story-board, think about both the creative and logistical elements, and emerge with the perfect schedule.

In fact, the AD can do that. Then, they wake up.

Once you have the perfect schedule, you start dealing with the other issues. You try to bring the director on board with the schedule. Unless they have some major reason why they cannot make it work, you try to show them why it will be the best flow. Once the DP is aboard, you might work out a few more of the specifics.

You really want a crane? Hmm, can we schedule both crane shots for the same day so as to not rent it twice? Is that worth the budget difference of having the crane on two separate days because other factors don't make shooting those two locations on the same day cost or time-effective.

If you are doing a feature, and working with SAG actors who you are, of course, paying, you should not be dealing with actor availability. On any budget above SAG Modified Low, you are dealing with drop/pick-up days - but that's for another blog. Assume they are available all through the shoot, and the schedule allows you to shoot them out in the most efficient manner, which usually means the least number of days.

Once you have done all of that, you talk to locations.

In your perfect schedule, you shoot the hospital on Day 3, the deli on Day 5, and the nightclub scene on Day 10.

Locations informs you they have finally found the perfect hospital, the perfect deli (they will shut down for us, the aisles are big enough, and the price is right) and a nightclub the DP has shot before that could have come right out of the script.

The hospital administrator must be there, and Day 3 is a Saturday - they need it to be another day. The deli is cool - as long as you can shoot at night - you are on a day schedule on Day 5 and turnaround won't work. The nightclub already has their hottest band booked for your Day 10.

Your perfect schedule just became not-so-perfect.

The two basic schedules that get distributed are the shooting schedule, which is the long breakdown, and the more common one-line schedule, which gives everyone just the basic facts. Because this paperwork gets revised, and to prevent confusion, the original color for these schedules is White, with subsequent revisions running Blue, Pink, Yellow,Green Goldenrod, Salmon, Buff and Cherry. Sometimes the colors after Goldenrod can be slightly different based on paper available, preference, etc.

Colors are fun in pre-school. On a film, it means things are changing, and unlike the 2008 Presidential campaign, Change is not good. It means logistics have to change, people have to actually read the changes and adjust to them (as an AD, I can't wait until we go digital and can just install chips each of the crew members brains where we can make the change simultaneously. )

On Lucky Stiff, we had a hard-working location manager named Glenn, who had us working in locations in NY and NJ, with the help of the NYC Mayor's Office of Film Theatre and Television (MOFTV) and the NJ Film Commission, which even then had the great Davis Schooner.

The permit system in NY is relatively similar to back then, with some minor differences (some would call them major). Briefly, you needed to lay out exactly where you were shooting, where you needed to hold parking, what you were shooting, and if you needed NYPD or NYFD assistance. If your schedule changed, someone had to go to the MOFTV to change it. Today, some of that can be done with a fax. Then, it was not allowed.

Suffice to say changes meant lots of work and paperwork.

As an AD, I want to lock the schedule, and that requires locking locations. That means signed agreements and guarantees. They came slowly on Lucky Stiff; as such, as we got closer to principal photography, I was juggling to move locations we had to the beginning, regardless of whether it was the best order. I just didn't want to find myself not knowing if I could shoot the day as scheduled a few days ahead (changing equipment, actors, extras, etc.).

My apologies to veteran crew who know all this - I try to write the blog for both pros and curious others.

Additionally, I had an art department that could not assure me that locations would be dressed for when I needed them. Certainly, part of this had to do with the location issues. However, coordinating the logistics of seeing that these locations got cleared and prioritized fell on the production manager. Nothing was more important, or so one would think.

Rody, as most UPMs when there is no line producer, was responsible for managing the budget, and I certainly know how hard that is. However, the process of monitoring the budget should never slow the process down - you make decisions and you move on. Rody was slow in this area, in part because she did not have two key skills for the position; the ability to prioritize and the the skill to delegate responsibility.

A UPM has many responsibilities. We did not have a huge budget, but we had enough PAs, and there was enough money to have hired a production coordinator, who could have freed Rody up. That, however, would have required her to a) communicate what was already being done with another person, and b) be able to explain what needed to be done. Both required trust, and Rody was afraid that any admission that something had not been done was admitting failure.

All of this would have been frustrating enough if she had not decided that, having not done her job, she was going to interfere with mine. She had never scheduled a feature film, yet would come up with her own ideas on schedule publicly after we were in motion on my schedule.

This requires some clarification.

I've said it before - ADs are possessive of their schedules. That is because they have to take a ton of elements into account to produce the schedule, and the person who makes suggestions is usually just reacting to one or two elements. If a move looks obvious, it often means there is some fact you don't know.

When I became a line producer and UPM, I gave prime responsibility for the schedule to the AD. It didn't matter than I had been an AD - it was their ship now. If I had suggestions, I made them in private, after hearing why they had it another way. I did this, mind you, when in at least a few cases, the people who were now 1st AD for me had been 2nd AD for me before. It didn't matter. Prime responsibility now fell to them, and I respected it.

Rody never understood this line. This led to confusion, and tension.

So, now the stage is set. We are getting close to principle photography, and we have a schedule (revised multiple times before we get to Day 1) that has holes - scenes scheduled for which we do not have the location locked - or, in some cases, even agreed upon.

The first major decision I have to be involved with is whether we push back the starting shoot date. There was a good reason to push back a day or two (I forget which it was) and we do that. I do not, however, see how more time will change anything. We have to start. Pushing back seems easy, but I know it will bite us.

We know we will be done by, at latest, the second week in October now. Someone makes a joke about Halloween. Not funny.

We set sail. We hope for fair waters, and to return safely to shore soon.

(Un)Lucky Stiffs - Part 1 - Bringing Up Baby

2012-01-28T21:57:00.000-05:00

I got back to New York in mid- August, the hottest and mosthumid time in New York. The good newswas that we weren’t going to start on Lucky Stiffs until early September, and by then, theweather would be better. The better news was that my original estimate, before breakdown, would be that we would wrap by the first week in October, before the weather got too cold.

Perfect.

The first people I met were Matt, the director, and Rody, the production manager.

Matt's background was as an editor, though he had co-written and directed one documentary. For a director, Matt was a good editor. He had clear ideas on what he needed for coverage, and he had written a simple, comedic story that he could get a handle on. He was a veteran, one who knew the traditional way to make films, and for the most part, that was how I liked to make them. Sure, we were low-budget, and the execution was different, but the organizational structure remained the same.

Matt was a pleasant, nice and decent human being. Those are not always qualities associated with directors, and not adjectives I would use for a few I've known and a few I've worked along side. Matt was in his late 30/early 40s, and past the ego that sometimes drives young directors. He wasn't worried about his next movie, or making a fortune on this one. He knew the latter was unlikely, given the nature of the business.

He did not have an ego that needed to be stroked, and he didn't need to be king. He was a successful editor, and would have a career in the business regardless of the outcome of the film. He was comfortable.

Comfort is not always a good thing for a director or a movie. A movie often takes on the personality of the director, and comfort for a film crew can lead to overconfidence. A movie in production develops a psyche, it really does. Bits and pieces of the personalities involved go into that psyche the way parents, relatives, teachers and environment go into the psyche of a child.

It took a number of years in the business for me to come to my take on a production's psyche. Over the years, I have kept a close eye on how this forms, making sure things never got too heavy or, for lack of a better term, too light. Mostly, I have tried to 'biologically engineer' this psyche through the crew I hired.

Was this film a good fit for them, and how would they work with the other keys?

So, Matt added quiet and pleasant to work with to the mix. I was never a screamer as an AD, but I'm a Capricorn, and we tend to suck up air in the room. I'm much more laid-back now; I was much more front-and-center at that time.

You know JR and his main crew by now. If you missed it, check out When JB Met JR - Part 1 - The Birth of JB.

I had a Second AD I had worked with before named Julie, and I brought on Chris Kelley from my class as 2nd 2nd AD. This was a working relationship that would continue for some time, and CK (as we called him) and his personality would definitely be a part of the mix.

We had an earnest young PA who tried very hard but who always managed to wreak havoc who CK dubbed Satan's Child. You will see why.

We had a young PA who became location manager and later became an integral part of our team. She later went on to become a successful DGA First AD.

I met my mentor.

We had a hero named Shane. Really. He even had a little kid calling to him.

The cast included an actress in her mid-thirties named Antonina trying to play mid-twenties, a featured actor playing the "experienced" hood named Bobby who was more of a character off camera than on, and two cool young guys in the slacker roles.

Rody, the production manager, had a background in documentaries and covering her back, the latter of which included working closely and secretively with the production designer who she had brought on board.

The production manager and the AD must work well together. There are many films over the years on which I was AD that not only was the PM a partner, but a Godsend. You make each other look good, When I moved to more work as PM and line producer, I was the biggest fan of the AD, because I had been there, and did everything I could to have their back.

Rody was figuring her job out as she was going along, which would have been fine, if she had asked for help. Instead, she covered mistakes and kept things a mystery until small problems became big problems.

This was not the perfect AD and PM marriage.

There was a natural, but not healthy, tension that developed. Me, JR and his crew were one team; Rody and her production designer was another. To be fair, all sides tried to make it work, but it got tense at times.

The first challenge we faced was the schedule and locations, which, in a perfect world, is a symbiotic relationship. They are intertwined, and in the next post, I will talk about the scheduling and location securing process, and the rest of pre-production.

We were in prep, the child was born, and the psyche was being developed. Stick around for the formative (weeks) years.

The Posts To Come - Truth, Lies and 35mm Film

2012-01-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

Up until now, it's been pretty much a post or two per project. We are now getting into a period where I did a number of features, and each of them will need multiple posts to cover.

Many of these films got limited, or in some cases, no release. Some did better.

There is a line from Steely Dan's Deacon Blues that goes "They got a name for the winners in the world. I want a name when I lose." I don't consider these films losers, but many will not show up in any book on the indie film world.

They were the effort of just as much sweat, tears, and imagination as those films that went into indie lore, and to quote Willy Loman's widow, attention must be paid.

I have tried, and will continue to try, to be positive. I hate "reality" TV that is about casting villains. You follow anyone around on a set for 12-20 hours a day, six days a week, and I guarantee they will come off as a jerk, myself definitely included.

Still, it would be dishonest for me to portray every project I worked on as a love fest. That's just not real.

From here on in, don't assume that first name only means I saw someone in a negative light. It just means that if I'm covering someone over a long period of time, I'm bound to say something negative, and this blog is not about bringing people down.

When a biographer came to an older John Huston to do the book called The Hustons (which I've mentioned), Huston gave the author his contacts, and sent him off with this:

'Tell them to be honest. If they thought I was a sonofabitch let them just say it.'

I will be breaking the projects, starting with Lucky Stiff, into multiple posts, and they will be coming every few days - sometimes on back-to-back days.

This is truly Living in MY Oblivion. This is my experience in the low-budget film world. This is the reason I started this blog, to make sure there is a record of some of the great people and hard-fought projects that would otherwise go unnoticed.

I hope you enjoy.

Back to LA - I Am Not a Number - (But I Could Be 1A)

2012-01-28T04:51:00.000-05:00

The following story is true. The title of the film, as well as the names, have been changed or left out to protect the neurotic, the psychotic, and the petulant.

The city is Los Angeles, 1991.

I am there because a woman has sent me a dark, unique cerebral script. She teaches film at a local California school, and we have a good conversation on the phone.

Have script I haven't seen one hundred times before, will travel.

This is part of the on-going flirtation I had with Los Angeles during this period. My actress friend Annie had moved out there, as had some other friends. Maybe Maureen and I would move as well. If you've ever worked in film, you've thought about whether you should move to Los Angeles.

There isn't a huge budget for the film, but enough to get it done. I was going to come on as production manager AND assistant director. I had seen the really talented Paul Kurta do this on a feature I worked on in New York, and I had done it to some extent in on a few shorts, so it seemed okay.

The writer/director and the cinematographer were lovers. They happened to be two women, but the lover/couple team is always a complex relationship on a film, regardless of make-up. Often, it is one as director and the other as producer. This was my only experience (to date, I might add) where it was cinematographer and director. We will call the director Cheryl, and the DP Lynn.

The prep for the film went well. I sat in on most shot-list sessions and many of the rehearsals. Because I was not native to LA, I probably spent more time with the team than usual. I really got to know them well, and was impressed by how much they supported each other. Couples often try to hide affection on shoots; these two would hold hands during meetings. What a good feel I got for this film!

Of course, I was reminded of something another LA indie film person told me - never believe what they tell you at Dennys. It was an LA thing, and I later grew to respect it, and you can trade Denny's for any NY coffee house to cover the idea that nothing is ever as rosy as the first meeting leads you to believe.

The lead actress brought a lot to the table; the male lead, not so much. The short was called The Artist's Wife (title slightly altered) and the man, who was featured in a soap out there, was very much a supporting role. He was good enough, but there was no growth or depth in his performance.

When you are trying to UPM and AD, a good Second AD is essential. Lack of budget means we were only paying a stipend, so I split the responsibility between two bright up-and-comers, leaving some of the UPM paperwork to one, and the other took on the 2nd AD paperwork.

As we got closer to the shoot, the DP would express her concern for the director, who was working the usual long hours. Was she stressed? Yes, but that was not unusual for a director close to rolling on a film. I thought she would be alright, but also felt good that her partner was there on set as part of the creative team.

The lead actress had established herself as a solid character actress in bigger films. She did a great job.

The lead male actor was, to be polite, passive aggressive, and as with some actors like him, left the heavy lifting to his agent. I worked out the deal memos, which included giving him single card credit in the opening titles after the lead. This was a short, and it was generous, but we all agreed it would work.

Both the actor and actress were on lower SAG rates. While she made more, their rates were comparable.

All of this will become relevant soon enough.

The first day of principal photography, I am like a fire warden in an overcrowded bar - I expect the worst. This is a good mind-set, as anything short of a Titanic-like day seems like a success, and I know when to deploy the lifeboats.

We set up for the first shot, and the director and DP are arguing. Hmm, I haven't seen this before. They were so close in prep. I'm sure this will improve.

It gets worse. By mid-afternoon, they are screaming at each other and I am clearing set to keep the disagreement in-house.

The lead actress is siding with the director and making things more uncomfortable.

We work through Day 1 like this, and things just get tenser.

Finally, we wrap Day 1. I'm spent. I want to get the director and DP into a room and get this worked out. Before I can do that, the DP takes me aside.

"Have you seen Cheryl?" she says. "She seems so stressed. We really need to protect her more."

Oh, really? Maybe if you weren't screaming at her on set, she would be less stressed. No, I don't exactly tell her this. I am thinking it. I see this as an opening to make tomorrow better. We go for dinner, the director lays her head on the DPs shoulder. All is well.

Hey, maybe today was an aberration. At least, tomorrow will be better.

Yeah, right. Day 2 is a repeat of Day 1. End of day is the same - all love and comfort.

There is one difference. As I have pointed out, this was the days when beepers were more prevalent (and less costly) than cell phones. I'm being paged with a 310 (LA) number. Hmm, have to call later. The young lady who is helping me PM comes to me on set.

"The agent for the lead actor needs to talk to you. It's urgent. He says he keeps paging you and you don't call back."

I know it was urgent - the 310 number was followed by a "911" at the end. That meant it was an emergency. Was the guy's wife sick? Mother dying? Oh, my God, I should have called back.

When we break for lunch, I call him back. The conversation goes something like this:

"Hey, JB. How is Jack doing?"

"Pretty well. What's wrong?"

"It's about the call sheet."

Let me explain something. Remember I mentioned how breakdowns work in earlier post? In order to get info on that little strip, you assign each character (and actor) a number. That number represents the character. You cannot keep fitting the character name everywhere, so you assign a number.

Generally, somewhere in the # 7 to # 10 area, you are getting into a subjective area. Which character should be higher? Different AD's might break it down differently, based on either shooting days, script pages, importance to the story, etc.

The #1 and #2 characters are easy - or should be.

"Jack (I'm making up a name for the actor) is upset. You have him on the call sheet as # 2"

"Right. He is right behind the lead."

"You know, males normally get higher ranking."

"You've read the script, right? It's called 'The Artist's Wife'. That means the story is about her."

"See. that's what bothers him. It's about him, too."

"Well, yes, it is, but it's more about her, you know, the Artist's Wife?"

"Ok, I see why you assigned her #1. You're trying to give the girl a break."

"No. She is the lead. That's why I assigned her #1

"Do you know who my client is?"

I want to say a two-bit soap actor, but I don't. Circumstances to the contrary, I try to work with logic and facts.

"We've already worked out his billing and money in the deal memo. Number on a call sheet is just paperwork."

"To you, its just paperwork. To him, well, it really affects his attitude to come into work every day and see he is number 2 on the call sheet."

I almost drop the phone. He must be kidding. No, he isn't kidding. This jerk of an actor has really asked his agent to have this discussion with me.

"Look, she is # 1 on the call sheet, he is # 2. It's paperwork, and I'm not changing it."

"OK, I see where you're coming from. It's all good. I have an idea."

"What is that?" I ask.

"What if she is # 1, and he is, like 1A? That could work, right"

What's in a number, really?

After lunch, the actor asked me if his agent had spoken to me. The old stage manager in me kicked in - firmly, but politely, I told him I had spoken with him, and nothing would change, and I would appreciate him acting like a professional and not bringing it up again. I gave him a look that made it clear I was not kidding. I wasn't mean or nasty, just firm.

The short turned out well, and the tension between the DP and director was a little less on subsequent days, in no small part because I took the DP aside and said that Cheryl didn't just need support after the day was over, but during it.

After the shoot, the director asked me to teach a seminar in production at her college. I loved it. Passing on what we know is part of our job.

While I am undecided as to what to do next, JR contacts me. He has a guy who wants to do another feature. He sends me the script.

Some things don't change. Even then, I read scripts in coffee shops. I was living in West Hollywood, so I was at a place on Sunset. Don't recall the place, only remember it wasn't Duke's. Went to Duke's early on, but found it too hip for me.

I was a ways through the script when I went to the men's room. When I came back, there were three headshots on my table next to my coffee - and I could swear one of them looked like my server.

I love LA.

The script, Lucky Stiffs (real name) was a comedy about three bumbling hoods and the hot gang moll who joined them. It wasn't very deep, but it was a comedy, and comedies are so much lighter and more fun on set.

It was mid-August, and we would start filming in September. I would have the prep time I needed. I would be working with my buddies, my crew, on a comedy in the Fall, my favorite season in New York.

What could go wrong?

Another Great Blog - It's an AD thing...

2012-01-27T12:18:00.000-05:00

As much as I try to do my bit for mental health in this country, talented young people continue to go into the productions side of the film industry.

If they are going to endure the pain, they deserve our support.

One of them is a great young AD in Texas named Michelle. She has a wonderful blog called "It's an AD thing you wouldn't understand." She has posts ranging from discussions of the nuts-and-bolts of production, to the daily woes on set.

She posted a production tic-tac-toe a few months back that had many of my friends howling.

If you enjoy my blog, I'm certain you will enjoy hers. I follow her here, but I see her blog doesn't come up at the top of the blogs I follow, so I hereby provide you the link below :

http://goingforpicture.tumblr.com/

We AD's may seem strong and commanding, but we need love, too (if you prick us, do we not bleed? Well, yes, but we'll wait to get first-aid until after we get the shot).

I especially have to thank Michelle for exposing my blog to the Schmudde's blog Beyond the Frame, and getting some love for my post, When JB Met JR - Part 3 - We Must (Not) Shoot Today

Thanks for following my blog, and show your support to Michelle's as well.

.

When JB Met JR - Part 3 - We Must (Not) Shoot Today

2012-01-25T21:14:00.000-05:00

"If you want good news, hire family."
- JB Bruno

Yes, that JB Bruno. Me.

I'm not exactly sure what the rules of blogs are; after all. this is the internet, which is all about expressing individuality, and, lets face it, the arguable premise that what each of us has to say is important. In that light, I think quoting yourself is just fine.

I connect certain quotes with certain production heroes of mine. In each case, the quote expresses that person's unique style while being universal. I will get to these in good time. For this post, however, I have to stick to a quote that I know I originated.

Anyone who has ever worked with me has heard me use this line, and any former student of mine heard it in my introductory class.

I don't know if I started using it when I was an AD, or when I started line producing, but it was in my head for a long time. Film is all about collaboration, but film runs like an army. It's not a democracy, and after taking all opinions into account, one level head has to make a decision.

For different reasons, the AD and the line producer find themselves telling people facts they have to hear, but often do not want to hear. If you want someone to tell you how great everything is going, your family is a good bet. They are there to prop you up, to boost your spirits, to make you feel good.

The easiest analogy for me is a doctor. Imagine going to a doctor who didn't have the heart to tell you that you needed a new heart? Too literal? Eh, maybe, but you get the point.

Making a decision means that if it's wrong, responsibility falls on you. If you can't handle that, then you can't handle responsible positions.

Sometimes, you have nothing to do with the horrible problem, but are merely the messenger. History tells you what happens to messengers of bad news.

A former Second AD of mine, who is now an incredibly successful First A.D., told me this question from the DGA Trainee test. I think its a great example of the latter dilemma.

You are a DGA intern and are sent to the trailer of the director to get three questions answered. When you get to the trailer, the producer and director are in a heated argument. Because the questions are important, you knock on the door. Although still angry, you get the director to answer two of the questions before you forget to ask the third. You walk outside the trailer and, as the door closes, you remember that you had to get an answer to the third question.

What do you do?

The answer is easy and obvious when it's a theoretical question; not so easy when you're standing outside that door.

If you cannot immediately and unequivocally say that you would turn around and go right back in, maybe the AD department isn't for you.

My situation on Walls and Bridges was a combination bearer-of-bad-news and Murphy's Law.

A majority of the scenes on the film had limited characters, and we did a good deal of the filming in Nassau County, which is the closer Long Island county to Manhattan. On this particular day, we were filming about as far out in Suffolk County as we had on any day, and we had a large number of extras. Organization for the day had been in the works from early in prep, and all of those plans were working perfectly. This would be one of the top two or three most expensive scenes in the film, but it was all coming together nicely.

Most of the extras were still signing in when things turned bad. JR rolled on a smaller portion of the scene that did not require extras when we heard a funny sound coming from the camera, a crunching sound.

For those not technically proficient in 35mm cameras, crunching sounds are definitely not a good sign.

JR was a tech whiz. He said he hoped he could fix the problem, and to let him work alone and uninterrupted somewhere. I found a room and put a PA outside it with instructions that no one was to enter.

Meanwhile, I worked with my 2nd AD to make sure that once camera was back up, everything would be ready to roll.

Minutes passed, and minutes turned into more than an hour. All the while, Uzo, who was not only directing this drama that was close to his heart but who also made a healthy financial investment in it, keep coming up to me. We would be able to shoot today, right?

To be honest, I hedged a little. I said that if the camera was workable, we would be prepared to make up the time lost.

The if went away in a heartbeat.

I went into the room that JR was sequestered in, and it was a sight I had not seen before, not seen since, and don't expect to see again. There, on a series of tables, were many, many pieces of the camera. The lens had shattered, and the broken glass had worked its way all through the camera body. Humpty Dumpty was in fewer pieces after that unfortunate fall off the wall.

It is amazing that JR could take a camera apart like that, and more amazing that he could put it back together.

I feared the worst, but without having to ask, I got my answer. I think I only got as far as "So, JR...." when my good friend looked up from the patient and shook his head. How long? The answer was a few days.

I just nodded my head and did the first of many "dead man walking" trips.

"Uzo. The camera is down. I'm going to have to wrap us for today."

Denial is the first stage of grief.

"We are shooting today, right?" Uzo asked.

I was more specific. We were not shooting today. We were wrapped. I had not called it yet out of deference to him, and as we were not close to a full day yet, no one was going into overtime.

Make no mistake. We were wrapped.

Anger.

"We MUST shoot today!"

I started explaining to Uzo that we could not shoot without a camera (he knew that - but grief is a bitch).

"I DO NOT care about the camera. We MUST shoot today!"

This may be one of my favorite all-time lines from behind-the-scenes of a film. It is ludicrous on its face, yet completely understandable given the situation.

Bargaining.

Yeah, this is where it gets ugly. An erstwhile PA, who had recently graduated from NYU, suggested that he could get us a camera. Uzo loved this solution.

Problems?

First, we were almost three hours from Manhattan, so if he got his school to agree (highly unlikely) it would be six hours round trip. It was also a 16mm camera and we had been shooting on 35mm. Conforming them would be ridiculous, but, then again, the discussion was ridiculous because we weren't doing it.

Uzo started talking enthusiastically to the PA. At my suggestion, the 2nd AD removed him from the room.

I'd like to believe me opposition to capital punishment was without exception, but then I remember this incident.

"Do you realize what this will cost us?" Uzo asks me.

Depression, and, yes, I do.

I guess we got to acceptance, but I don't remember it right now.

Squashing dreams is not my business, but squashing unrealistic solutions that sound good at the time is part of my job. There were other contributions from the peanut gallery, but my job now was to see that the day cost us as little as possible and to wrap us in an orderly fashion.

I've sometimes thought if this film thing didn't work out, I could hire myself out to hospitals to be the guy to tell the family that their loved one was gone. Nah, there is no upside to that one. At least movies have given me many happy moments.

Epilogue:

Ok, this isn't really an epilogue per se, but I always loved when "epilogue" would come up at the end of the 60s series, "The F.B.I" with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. All the Quinn-Martin shows used it at one point. Never heard of the show? Here's a peek:

Probably the most famous Quinn-Martin epilogue"

Today, I am working as post producton supervisor on a wonderful film shot mostly in Cambodia on a 5D that tells a great story and looks great. The producer and director are anxious to get the post process finished, as am I. Today, for the umpteenth time, I've had to tell them it will take a day or two longer. After firing the worst editor imaginable, who was hired before I came on board, we have actually made good time, but not as good time as they would have liked. It's costing them money. I feel for them, but, again, today, I had to remind them that getting it right was the priority. All these years later, doesn't make me feel any better."

When JB Met JR - Part 2 - Through the Walls and Over the Bridges

2012-01-24T18:17:00.000-05:00

Walls and Bridges was my first feature as a First AD, and it held its share of challenges. For what would become the norm rather than the exception, I was working with a first-time director, Uzo, who previously had established himself as a talented print art director.

Some films push the envelope; Walls and Bridges didn't even have an envelope. The story revolved around a successful African-American commercial artist who has a moral dilemma around the work he is doing with his clients. He confides in a young White nun who works at a youth center. They fall in love, she leaves the Church and they get married. His family does not approve, and complications ensue. At one point, when she is in the hospital and pregnant, they get into an argument and he hits her. It isn't in any way indicative of their relationship, but if you want to challenge an audience, have the Black husband hit his pregnant White wife who left the Order to be with him.

Many of the scenes were highly-charged, and I still remember trying to calm a hospital administrator who asked what the scene was about while we were working in a vacant wing not far from a working wing of the hospital.

"Screaming? Oh, yeah, she screams, but not for long. Why? Um, they have a disagreement."

When dealing with locations, you try to be truthful, but deal in the truth they can handle. We knew we wouldn't have a lot of takes of the blow-up before we would get shut down or at least severely restricted, so it was a rough day.

There were other rough days, like the night we were filming on a street corner in Harlem. We had police assistance, but a crowd did gather around. I had the following conversation with a guy who came up to a corner we were blocking off to film a scene where the lead character, Trent, is shot.

HIM: "Hey, what are you guys doing?"
ME: "Just a little movie."
HIM:"Really? How long are you going to be here?"

It turned out the corner we were filming on was "his office," as he described it. I did the math quickly, and made a snap decision on what his business was. I informed him that we would be there all night, accompanied by the police, and maybe he wanted to take the night off. In the process of talking with him, I shook his hand, and put a $20 bill in it "for his inconvenience." Did I have to do that? No, but I found that you get more with honey than with vinegar, and $20 was a small price to pay for him walking away quietly.

He thanked me, and seemed to get it. Then, he turned around, and said that he didn't like to take anything for free, and that he could give me $20 worth of what he was selling, and that maybe I would buy more?

Was he kidding? No, I wasn't interested in buying drugs, but thanks very much, now go away.

He got really upset. What did I think he was selling? I told him I didn't know, but I probably didn't want it on me, and hey, I said jokingly, I'm working and don't indulge when I work.

"Hey, man, you think I sell drugs? You think I'm some crack dealer?" I assured him I didn't know what he was selling. He proceeded to pull out a pocketful of small pieces of paper. On each of them was a pre-paid telephone card code. What he sold, you see, was stolen credit card numbers and stolen pre-paid phone card numbers (this was a big illegal business pre-cell phones, when people depended more on pay phones).

He emphatically made the point that he only sold these (albeit, stolen) card numbers, and would never consider selling drugs. After a short speech about the evils of drugs and the pariahs drug dealers were in the community, he handed me two slips of paper. "They're worth ten dollars each," he said angrily. "I don't take no hand-outs." With that, he walked away.

Got to admire a man with principles.

Later that night, we were rehearsing a scene where a gun is fired. When we did the first run-thru with the prop gun, one of the onlookers behind the barricades yelled out, "damn, my piece is bigger than that." How reassuring.

After some initial problems, we actually hit a good speed at one point in the shoot. We had an incredible sound recordist named Bill Kozy, who, while he is still an excellent recordist today, also does quite a bit of theater and film acting work!

My favorite joke with Bill was that "sound isn't important in this scene." We all have heard the lies that men tell women; two of the biggest lies told on set are "sound is not important in this scene," and "we'll fix it in post." Those words are always said by people who will definitely be nowhere in sight when the problem comes up in post. Bill was the first of many talented sound recordists I've worked with, and the difference that it makes in post is immeasurable. One of the biggest things that hold up small indies is bad sound, and the cost of fixing it in post is so much more than taking the moment to get a wild track or get that room tone on set. Bill was great at working with me to move on when we needed to move on, and to be insistent when that was needed.

Still, I got a great deal of pleasure out of playing with him and telling him that sound was not important in a given scene, where he would make a sheepish face and say, "aw, don't say that JB."

The other lie, that "we will fix it in post" is told to the script supervisor. I dare say that there are "gorilla filmmakers" (I HATE that term - more on that in later blog post) that have never dealt with or understood the value of a good script supervisor. The job of the script supervisor is both creative and clerical, big picture and minute.

Of course, when it isn't "fixed" in post, and a character's scar moves from one side of his face to the other, or the cigarette he is smoking magically gets longer, it is the script supervisor who is left cringing at the screening.

We had an exceptional script supervisor, Christine Gee. Christine went on to work on numerous projects - she was the script supervisor for the run of The Sopranos, among others. She also taught script supervising at Brooklyn College.

Christine often functioned in an unofficial role as den mother; always available for help when needed, a source of encouragement, and also, when needed, a stern voice of reason.

Christine was the first to point out that we were shooting too many entrances and exits that would later get cut - she was correct. This was part of the big picture. I think it was during discussion with her that JR, or someone, referred to the film as "Entrances and Exits."

When we shot those entrances and exits, though, Christine knew every detail. Remember that we were shooting film, so we had no instant dailies. One day someone gave the address of an adjacent house as one number, and Christine said it was a different number. "I can check my notes, "Christine said," but I don't have to. I know its (this number)." The other person wasn't so sure, and wanted to bet on it. Christine was sure. When dailies came back and her instinct was confirmed, she didn't gloat - just quietly put her hand out for the bet to be paid.

Small picture. We didn't question her very often after that.

My time on that film, and others to come, made me something of a traditionalist. In a digital indie film world now where jobs can overlap departments and directors sometimes don't even realize what each position does, (I am so sick of seeing notices for an AD/script supervisor - they are totally different jobs!) I was fortunate to work with a great staff and crew on modestly-funded projects.

The next blog post will finish the story of Walls and Bridges, with a lesson in one of the unpleasant parts of production.

(N.B. As I post this today, it is Christine Gee's birthday, so, for the first time, I will make this the Christine Gee Tribute Post. Happy Birthday Christine!)

When JB Met JR - Part 1 - The Birth of JB

2012-01-23T16:36:00.000-05:00

We now move into my work in the early 90s (you were how old? no, I don't want to know). It is the period that began to shape who I became as an AD, and later as a production manager, line producer and producer.

After all the talk of the lengthy prep work I discussed in the previous post, my first feature as an Assistant Director was on a film called Walls and Bridges, where I took over after shooting began for a young lady who was fired (you thought I was kidding about that getting fired thing? This wasn't the last time, either!).

Now, there is an interesting twist to coming on a project to replace someone who was fired. They want to like you, they really really want to like you. Why? Because the person who got fired gets the blame for everything that went wrong up until that point, which works well if you come on and everything goes fine. If, however, you come on and things still go badly, then everyone has to take a deep look in the mirror, and people would rather not do that.

I never met the girl I replaced, and what I did learn of her was from the Director of Photography, John Rosnell. John and I would go on to become the closest of friends, and we would do four more features and countless commercials and PSAs together. It was through John that I met the person I consider my mentor as line producer, and, later, it was with one of John's partners that I co-wrote my first produced feature. Those connections mean that no one shaped my career more than John did, in so many ways.

John owned his own camera, a 35mm beast that was the same camera that has shot Clockwork Orange. It was huge and heavy, and I joked with John often that we needed shepas to move it. John was part tough, rugged individual who carved his own path, part cowboy, part geek who invented or fixed or adjusted every piece of equipment he owned, part sci-fi nerd, and full time train enthusiast who had an elaborate train set at his warehouse in Hoboken.

Today's owner/operator DPs usually have digital cameras. John had a 35mm camera, a 16mm camera, and an equipment list worthy of a small rental house. One could shoot an entire feature using just his equipment, and John shot a number of them, more than IMDB lists because not every producer back in the day was up on including information.

John will probably best be remembered for the feature Straight Out of Brooklyn, by Matty Rich. It was one of those feel-good stories (the movie, not the plot) of the early 90s indie scene. Seventeen-year old Black kid from the housing projects in Brooklyn's tough Red Hook area raises money through family, friends, listener donations from a radio station plea and credit cards. Lots of credit card movies back in the day, and while the urban myth often led to the reality of a movie seen only by family and friends, that was not the case for Straight out of Brooklyn, which won numerous awards, among them a Special Jury Recognition at Sundance. The film's official budget was $450,000, though it was shot for a good deal less, and after release by Samuel Goldwyn company, it reportedly made close to $3 million.

Of John's cinematography, the Daily News compared the opening sunset over the city as the way the bigger-budgeted Dick Tracy should have looked. John could do amazing things behind bear of a camera.

I worked with some other owner/operators of their own equipment in the 90s, and frankly, many of them were hacks whose only concern was the check they would get at the end of the show. That wasn't John. He fought hard to make the director's movie, and he watched out first and foremost for his crew, who often got paid before he did. There were times on Straight Out of Brooklyn when John paid crew out of his pocket while Matty was raising money to continue. That was John.

I don't think John particularly liked ADs. It was part of John's personality to lead, and he always thought he knew the best way to shoot things, to plan things. However, we got along immediately. Unlike the previous AD, I did not have my head "buried in paperwork" as John would describe her. I deferred to him on things technical, asked for his input on things, but kept the schedule running as smoothly as I could (more on that later) and, in the end, took a burden off of John. He realized life could be good if he only had to shoot and not try to do my job as well.

That doesn't mean John didn't like to remind me of my place at times. One day, when he assumed we were done, he said "that's a wrap." I made it clear, in no uncertain terms and in a very stern message to the crew, that only the AD called wrap. Indeed, on any set, this is true, but I think I went on about it just a little longer than I needed to. Touchy, anyone? When I belabored the point, John and members of his crew would take great joy in calling "wrap" under their breath at various points throughout the day.

John's crew became part of my first set of usual suspects, or, more accurately, I became the production guy on a crew of techies. This is kinda like being the straight-man singer in a Marx Brother's movie.

There is a lot more to talk about regarding this movie, but that will take a number of posts. I thought it was important to introduce this important person in my career fully, so that later interactions will make more sense.

Among John's crew were the lovely Lorelei as assistant camera and general girl-Friday for John, a second AC, Joe, who had a hyena-like laugh, Russell, a key grip who seemed more like a general handyman at times, and a young gaffer who has gone on to quite a career as gaffer and DP himself, Jeffrey Eplett. Jeff had a great sense of the lighter side of set, and could crack the crew up at any time with anything from his dead-perfect Wookiee to his interesting impersonations of famous people doing lines in unexpected movies. My favorite was probably Jimmy Stewart playing Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. It gives an interesting insight to how Mr. Stewart would have delivered the line, "you get a love letter from me, you're fucked forever!"

It was also on that film that I became "JB." As much as it might seem a reasonable assumption that I gave myself that name out of hubris, that is not the case. Besides Mr. Rosnell and me, there were a few other "John's" on the crew and staff, and it got out of hand pretty quickly on walkie. It wasn't long before I became "JB" and John "JR" while some other "John's" went by their last name. Between this film and another I did with John, I started referring to myself as "JB" with vendors, and soon, that was it. People knew me as JB and not John, and so it began.

How To Be an AD in B.C.

2012-01-21T15:12:00.000-05:00

or How I Learned to Stop Complaining and Love the Computer

You know the stories. No matter how old you are, and what generation you're from, you've heard the stories. Your father had to walk five miles to school in the snow. Your mom learned math with an abbacus. We used the old math before the new math, and then we did the new math by hand - long division and all that.

There are no singers these days like when we were young either Rudy Vallee or Frank and Billie, or, for a different generation, no one like Janis and Grace Slick. Ok, the latter is absolutely true and I don't want to hear any discussion on it.

In any of these stories, two things remain unquestionably true; first, that we had it harder, and, second, for some inexplicable reason, that somehow harder meant better.

One of my mentors stared producing in the 1950s, and did so up until his death in the late 90s. When I would complain that we needed more of some technology, whether it was computers or cell phones (back when there were production cell phones and it wasn't just assumed that everyone had one) he would meet me half way, understanding that time never stopped.

Still, when the moment was right, he would come up along side me on set and start a discussion that went something like this:

Him: Gunga Din
Me: Great Movie.
Him: It really is, isn't it?
Me. Absolutely.
Him: No cell phones then, you know.

The movies changed. The modern device changed. The haiku remained the same.

I worked regularly with an AD a little older than myself who right up until a few years ago used to argue for hand-written call sheets, argue that with a blank call sheet, a clipboard and a pen everything was quicker than doing it in Excel.

I'm not that old school. From early on, I embraced early versions of Movie Magic in helping to break down, schedule and budget a script, and I would never go back to trying to write a script in Word with pre-set tabs rather than use something like MM or Final Draft (no less the old typewriter and crumpled paper days).

I'm far from a tech whiz - my first "smartphone" was too smart for me the day I bought it and my younger assistant had to show me how to answer the phone. Still, I do not miss the "old days" before computers (B.C.) became a staple on every set.

However, as we are about to go into a period where I was AD on a number of projects that shaped my career, I thought it an appropriate time to explore some of the ways, in those early computer days, we used to approach the work in the A.D. department.

Rumors to the contrary, I'm not old enough to remember the very old days when all of this was done on manual typewriters, though let me say this. Anyone who has been around a set, or more so, a production office, knows that one of the promises of technology, that it would reduce paper or paperwork, just ain't so, If anything, I think the ease of making changes has led to us making more of them, and creating more paperwork. If you watch very closely on set as the third draft of the call sheet is circulated for approval, or the second set of sides are handed out after key crew loses the first one, you will see a tree in the background, quietly weeping.

So, how I used to approach a project as A.D, with many of the things I do still similar.

First, I read the script numerous times. First read was just to get the story. Second read would prepare me to start numbering the scenes. Then, and this may be a little anal, I would go through the script for each element for one pass and highlight it in the appropriate color. Highlighting in color was standard, but I would do one pass for characters, one for art department, one for special effects, one for stunts, etc. This meant I went through the script numerous times.

Then, I would hard-write out breakdown sheets with those elements. The next step would be for a 2nd AD to take the breakdown sheets and create a stripboard.

Now, stripboards are still used today, at least in name, but they mostly just exist in cyber world. We might print them out, but few in the indie world actually carry an actual stripboard.

Then, and for many many years before, stripboards were actually wooden charts with cardboard strips of many colors that would represent a script's production schedule.

Here is a good video of most of how the old process was done - watch if you're really interested - its less boring than me describing it:

How to Make a Production Board? -- powered by ehow

Below, from a film museum website (which I am not affiliated with - buy at your own risk). It shows some of a handwritten board from Close Encounters:

The modern version, whether you use EP or Gorilla Software (my preference) is infinitely easier, and I don't think you lose anything, in fact, the linking gives you more information more quickly in the end.

If you look closely at the above Close Encounters cast header, you will see lots of movement, arrows, and, yes, that marvel of yesteryear's technology, white out.

Ah, do I remember fondly being the 2nd AD, sprawled out on a floor, trying to write tons of information on tiny strips and, if you got them wrong (or things changed, as they are known to do), using white-out or white strips to correct (which the AD always hated).

You rarely saw a 2nd AD without white-out on their fingers.

No, I don't miss the old days. Yes, computers and the new software are better - by far. If there was something to be said for the old days, it is that after going through the script all these times, I really believed the AD knew every aspect of the script and the scheduling inside and out. I believe to this day that I knew the specifics of scenes better in those days than the director did.

In the next few blog posts, I will get into the gigs in the early 90s that really set the table for what these low-budget indies were for me. I just wanted to give a little overview of the process, then, so you would appreciate.

Of course, some things NEVER change, as is evident from the wonderfully clever video below, made by a current frustrated AD (language warning!). No matter how you get out the information, people have to READ it!

(A note. It is totally coincidental that while I had this blog post in my head for some time, I wasn't able to get to it until yesterday, when I was running around without my laptop. The ironic result is that the first draft of this was written, by hand, in a notebook. I can only look at it and realize how many poor production members will be spared having to decipher my illegible handwriting).

Just Sit on the Bed

2012-01-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

(N.B. I said earlier that I would not be a slave totimeline. This post is one of thoseexamples. It is a theater story that Irecently remembered that happened much earlier than the events in the blogcurrently, but I thought it was a story worth relating. It is also an opportunity to talk about a fewof the many unsung heroes in the acting community. Enjoy, and think of this as one of thosemid-season repeats – new episode soon!)

Although I spent time as an acting coach and have directedactors in theater, I was never a very good actor. The last time I acted on stage was in themid-90s when a fellow I mentioned in the last post, Chris Kelley, asked me toplay Jesus appearing on a Springer-like talk show. It was wonderful and scary.

Acting is easier to explain than to accomplish. I don’t know the exact percentage of talentto training, but both are needed.

This incident took place during a period where my supportjob was working as a subscription assistant at New York’s RoundaboutTheater. The Roundabout is known for itsgreat revivals, and this was during the period when Gene Feist was the ArtisticDirector, and The Roundabout had two stages, one on 23^rd Street, anda smaller one on 26^th Street off 8^th Avenue.

I have been a huge fan of Harold Pinter since I firststudied his plays in college, and I saw most of the best productions of Pinterplays in New York. Among my favoriteswill always be 1980 Broadway production of Betrayal with Blythe Danner, RaulJulia and Roy Scheider, directed by Peter Hall.

You could not ask for a better combination of talent; Pinter’s crisp and biting dialogue,Hall’s insight and surgical precision, and three different but remarkabletalents, all of whom are under-rated when discussion of great acting comesaround.

Blythe Danner’s work is always so seamless as to seemeffortless – it most certainly is not.

Roy Scheider is able to give as nuanced yet powerful aperformance as any actor; witness his portrayal of the Fosse character in AllThat Jazz, where Scheider, who is not even a dancer by trade, plays one of themost accomplished dancers and choreographers of all time without, please pardonthe pun, missing a beat. His raw powerflourishes in such gritty films as 52 Pick-up or The Seven-Ups, his performanceis over-looked for its contributions to The French Connection and MarathonMan.

Rarely has anyone played a shell of a man with more gusto –one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite films. Scheider carries power and pain - often, literally - in almost every scene.

He later tells the girl (and I’m doing this from memory – myapologies if I’m off by a word or two), “I can’t make you a great dancer. I don’t even know if I can make you a gooddancer, but if you stick with me, I promise I’ll make you a betterdancer.” He manages to make it seem likethe nicest complement imaginable.

Then, there is Raul Julia. His untimely early death robbed us all of one of the truly greattalents. He had some great movie roles,including those in The Eyes of LauraMars, Tempest, Kiss of The Spider Woman, and Romero. He was thequintessential Gomez Adamms. Hisexceptional talent was best displayed on stage, where I saw him within a fewyears do Two Gentlemen of Verona and Three Penny Opera. I remember thinking when I saw him in Two Gentlemen that I’d never seen asexier human being, man or woman, and to this date, that is still true.

The consummate scene in the film is this one. The best friend has been having an affairwith the wife for years, and the husband knows it. This scene shows the brilliance of Pinter’sdialogue. The husband is talking aboutbeing on a motor boat – and is not talking about being on a motor boat at all. It is at a lunch with his best friend, who heknows has been cheating with his wife. During it, he describes the motor boats in Torcello, and the way they go“whoosh, whoosh” through the water. Eachtime, the physical expression of going through the water is the embodiment ofhis anger and betrayal from both of them.

That scene isn’t available ( I will spare you the oneversion of it on Youtube – it is from a beginning acting class - and I like you too much to subject you toit); here is the one where he gets his wife to admit to the affair. Pinter’s use of language is also on displayhere:

It is this hidden meaning of every action and word thatbrings me to a rehearsal of Pinter’s The Caretaker at TheRoundabout. The production, from 1982,was directed by Tony Page and featuredAnthony Heald and F. Murray Abraham. Heald has been a talented character actor his entire career, oftenplaying villains. Murray is probablybest remembered for his performance as Salieri in Amadeus, for which he won anOscar.

Here is a wonderful scene from the excellent 1963 movie:

As a subscription assistant, I was usually far fromrehearsals, but I was a big Pinter fan, and learned that Pinter would beattending a rehearsal. It was the firsttime that Night of 100 Stars would take place in New York, and Pinter was intown for the event. Gene Feist was kindenough to allow me to watch, as long as I stood in the back of the largetheater and remained silent, which, of course, I agreed to immediately.

Pinter’s own quotes can lead to the mystery that surroundsmany of his plays, especially his early work. Wiki points out this oft-related quote:

"I went into a room and saw one person standing up and one person sitting down, and a few weeks later I wrote The Room. I went into another room and saw two people sitting down, and a few years later I wrote The Birthday Party. I looked through a door in a third room and saw two people standing up and I wrote The Caretaker."

Now, that's helpful!

Much is made of every action, every pause, every word. The Caretaker is the story of twobrothers, Aston, who is mentally-challenged, his younger brother Mick, and ahomeless person Aston brings home, Davies. The play follows the subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in power in thesmall flat the brothers’ share once Davies is brought home.

In the scene they were rehearsing that day, Aston firstbrings Davies home. He proceeds to allowDavies to sit on Mick’s bed. Much hasbeen made of this over the years, and Heald broached the subject directly withPinter, asking how Aston having Davies sit on his bed signified the changing dynamic in the apartment, an affrontto Mick and a challenge to his control. Heald was very enthusiastic in his question; he went on for a bit ingreat detail and it was clear he had done a good deal of thinking on thesubject.

Everyone waited as Pinter sat and gave it a good, longconsideration – a true Pinter pause! Finally, he revealed the secret.

“I don’t know. Theold man is tired, and Mick’s bed is closer to the door, but I guess all thatother stuff can be true as well.”

It was just closer to the door? Really?

It was like climbing a mountain to seek wisdomfrom some great sage and finding that the answer was simple and you knew it allalong, and maybe that was the brilliance of it, and maybe Pinter was beingplayful, but I will always remember that moment as a good example of howsometimes the answer to a given scene is right in front of you the entire time.

Beginners Mind, Beginning Again - or the Great Reboot

2012-01-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it isopen to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in theexpert's mind there are few.

ShunryuSuzuki-roshi, ZenMind, Beginners Mind

After my operation and the frustration of not working whilerecovering, I was anxious to get back to work, and this time, really put myfocus more on film.

My degree was in Dramatic Literature, and I had neverstudied film, and was starting to feel a little behind the curve on filmsets. I had worked my way up throughevery job imaginable in theater, and that was what made me so confident. In film, I was on the production side, andalways dependent on people with more technical knowledge. With this new opportunity, I went back to NYUand took their Six Week Intensive, as well as a screenwriting course.

Remember what it was like to be a freshman, the excitementof being on campus for the first time? Beingback on the campus of NYU, walking past students in Washington Square Park, butolder now, all those feelings came back to me. Even NYU’s ugly purple logos looked good tome.

I took a number of things from those few short weeks.

One was our next to final project. They would choose two scripts, and then splitthe class up to shoot two versions of each script. In one night, I wrote a story of a bookiethat desperately looks to collect money owed him. It was, to be kind, homage to David Mamet. Hey,it was a class project and we had little more than one night to write it. I love Mamet’s style, the way he invents hisown language that is a slang that we think we know but we don’t.

One of my favorite examples of Mamet’s dialogue is fromAmerican Buffalo:

"Lookit, sir, if I could get a hold of some of that stuff you were interested in, would you be interested in some of it?"

The other students loved it, and it was picked as one of theprojects to shoot.

The catch was that whoever wrote the script could not directit. I am thankful for that to thisday. Watching someone else interpret mywork gave me insight into the collaborative process of film, and respect forthe fact that the written word is only one stage of the process. One scene brought this clearly into focus.

The scene was one where the bookie goes to a priest who oweshim money. Yes, in my scripts, even thepriests were a little shady. The priestgives him a small part of what he owes. The bookie is frustrated, but says to the priest “OK, Father, well, ifyou can’t pay me, at least pray for me.” I think I wrote the dialogue a little better than that, but I don’tquite remember it verbatim right now.

One of the directors was French, and in his interpretationof the scene, he didn’t change a word of dialogue, but the action of the scenewas different. We open on a close-up ofthe bookie saying those same words, but, when we go wide, we see that he isholding the priest’s face over a steaming hot pizza. He lets the scared priest go as he walks outangrily.

I never conceived of the scene this way. It was my words but it wasn’t my scene. It was better; much, much better. I can’t tell you how much this has helped menot only as a writer, but as a producer working with first-timewriter/directors . The auteur in theindependent film world is much lauded, but the collaborative process and theability to bring others’ creativity into your vision makes for a better tapestryand more energy. One of the greatironies of filmmaking is that it needs to be one person’s clear vision, but italso needs others input to achieve that vision.

Then there is the issue of taking credit. We had two German girls in the class, andthey could not have been more different. One was very serious and studious; the other, a model who wanted to be afilmmaker who could not be more flighty. Stereotypes come from somewhere, and they both represented their ownstereotype; the serious, unsmiling German and the ditzy model. They were friends, and the serious one wouldsometimes admonish the model to be more serious, to which the model wouldreply, “Oh, don’t be so German.” Whenyou’re cute, you can get away with a good deal.

Writing something in English was difficult for them, and themore serious one asked if I would help them write the script they were tosubmit for the final project. I forgethow many final projects were chosen, but there were few, and if you wrote theproject, this time you did get to direct. I had written my own project – this one better than the last, and hadthe time to work with them on their project, which was more abstract.

Of course, their project was chosen, and mine was not. No good deed…

It wasn’t entirely disappointing, though. Once again, I got to learn a skill I wouldnot have if I had directed, which was editing. This was old school – you know, where you hung up strips of film? You’ve heard about it, I’m sure. I’ve edited on Final Cut, and, no, I wouldn’tgo back to cutting film, but it did force you to make harder decisions. This was the first time I learned a sense ofpace and timing. Overall, I would say itwas a very satisfying experience.

There were other good things that came out of that class. Our teacher, Thierry Pathe, had a verydown-to-earth approach to filmmaking, which I always related to better thancomplex theory. Sadly, Thierry passedaway in 2002. I also met a few people Iwould later work with, including someone who would become a great friend, ChrisKelley. See, I gave his full name, soyou know that good things are to come about him, and, indeed, we would work ona number of projects together for more than the next ten years.

In the Land of the Blind...

2012-01-12T12:21:00.000-05:00

...they say the one-eyed man is king. Don't know the similar analogy for legs.

In a previous post, I referred to an injury that affectedboth legs.

The pain increased, and after meeting with a number of topdoctors, we realized the only realistic option was an amputation below-knee onboth legs. My prognosis for a normallife was much better with prostheses, and, indeed, I have never regretted thedecision. I could not have moved on inmy previous condition. I will spare myreaders the entire rehab process, but will share one incident which drove me.

When I was in rehab, I saw a man with his wife and twochildren being helped up onto a board. He had been sitting on his stoop one day, and was the accidental victimof a drive-by shooting involving a drug deal gone bad. Wrong place, wrong time. He would always be paralyzed from the neckdown. I was determined that day that Iwould never complain about my situation, as I was going to walk out of thatplace.

I was going to move on from this, but realized that by doingso, it would seem like I was avoiding the subject, so let me deal with allhere, as opposed to dealing with it in every other posts.

Frankly, it’s been a source of pride over the years thatwhile I know actors and other craftsman that were bi-lateral below-kneeamputees, I don’t know anyone who worked as a First Assistant Director whoworked with prostheses.

In the beginning, I wouldn’t discuss it with potentialemployers, though I walked with a cane. I used to make a joke that I couldn’t catch PAs, but I could tripthem. OK, I never actually tripped a PA, but I thought about whacking one with it (anddefinitely a production designer or two).

That was a joke I made because I felt I had to address itduring interviews. Film is, in manyways, a bastion of stupid prejudices. Iremember having women who worked with me as 2^nd ADs who couldn’t getrespect from male crew because they weren’t used to taking instruction from women. I have a friend who is a very talented AD whoI know for a fact was turned down forone job because he was Black. This waswith an established television actor who was directing. Thankfully, both of these things would berare today, but they point to the fact that in many ways, film can still be anold-boys network.

I rarely had problems with people once on set, though. As I got older, I would feel more comfortabletaking a chair when AD on an interior. In the early days, I would never take a chair, and if I got reallytired, would pull up an apple box, which seemed more manly and acceptable. The reality of prostheses is that they don’thurt – I mean, they’re hard plastic and steel – and my legs got tired where theprostheses rested much the same way an AD without prostheses would have theirfeet get tired after being on them all day. I once read that the Directors Guild of America had done a study that ADshad a life expectancy of something like seven years shorter than the averagemale (this was when most of them were male), and much of this came from time ontheir feet, stress, and inability to use rest rooms when needed. None of this was different for someone with prostheses.

I was an AD on a feature once where the main character’sfather had lost his leg in an accident. This movie was shot near Walden Pond, and was especially difficult forme as it involved a good deal of going up and down hills and time on sandyshores, neither of which are particularly good for prostheses. Still, I never failed to get anywhere ontime. In fact, I had a habit of pacing alot, especially on this shoot, where the director and I did not get along atall.

One day we were doing a scene where the father, who was notreally an amputee, had to put on an artificial leg. He had no idea how to do it, of course, andthey had chosen a very old model that no one would use anymore anyway. I took the actor aside before the scene andshowed him how to work with it. When wedid the scene where he was to walk with the prosthetic, the director made acomment how someone with an artificial leg (only one mind you) couldn’t possiblydo stairs. This amused the actor, andmany of my regular crew, who had seen me go up and down stairs and hills with two artificial legs over and over.

I will share the funnier stories having to do with mysituation when I can tell them in context, especially given the charactersinvolved. For the time being, suffice tosay that I consider myself lucky to have worked in this business my entirelife, and given everything and obstacles others have, I have no complaints.

They Also Serve Who Paint Houses

2012-01-05T00:48:00.000-05:00

“I’ll think about it” means nothing in L.A.

-Karen (played by Rene Russo). GetShorty

So here’s the thing. If you work in film or theater, there is this constant comparisonbetween New York and Los Angeles. Youknow all the clichés. People in LA areplastic. New Yorkers are heartless.

Like everyone else in this business, I spent time here in NYand time in LA. Like everyone else, Ihad a screenplay, or, like everyone else, should I say I had screenplays. Though I was born and bred (I always lovedthat term – what am I, a racehorse?) in New York, these two incidents, yearsapart, represent my interaction with the differences in the screenwriting scenein New York and Los Angeles.

I found myself in theater because I loved English and Iloved writing. I loved everything aboutwriting. I loved, and still love,research, and I think I loved research more when “google” was not a verb, not aword, not even a thought. It is easier,but it’s not about easy. It’s about thewhole process; having one book in alibrary leading you to another in a bookstore to some microfilm in the mainlibrary on Fifth Avenue in New York.

The first full-length piece I wrote was a play. It was called “The Beast” and it was about AleisterCrowley. Before you assume I am somedemon worshiper, I was more fascinated with Crowley the man, the Charlatan, theguy who would do anything for a buck and use religion as his excuse. It was the Eighties, and there was a lot ofthat (and still is) on the holier-than-thou preacher side, and I was fascinatedby this guy who literally sold out his country, England, for a price to Germanyin World War I, and got believers to put up money to support a “religion” he didn’tbelieve in for a moment. He made moneyby being called the worst man in the world, and reveled in the attention itbrought him. He watched the woman he “loved”go mad after being bit by a bat, and though he professed himself a superior mountainclimber, he abandoned a group of fellow climbers, leaving them to their death.

Crowley was a Mamet character running around inturn-of-the-century England.

I researched a civil trial he instigated where he sued anewspaper for calling him the ‘worst man in the world’, not because he wasoffended, but because there was a possible buck in it. The trial became about his character, whichwas in no way good for Crowley. I foundtrial transcripts in the NY Public Library, saved on microfilm from an old Londonnewspaper. As a mentor of mine used tosay, you couldn’t make this stuff up. Atone point, one of the opposing attorneys challenged him to turn him into ananimal. It was great stuff.

That said, “The Beast” went nowhere.

Undeterred, which is another way of saying I couldn’t take ahint, I wrote a script called Never Waver. This time, I was shooting not for the smalltheater crowd, but for the big time – movies. This was my first full-length screenplay. Loosely inspired by a true incident when aone-term liberal Upper West Side Congressman is killed by a former student, Never Waver was a story of a former “truebeliever” from the Sixties who fled to Canada and remained in hiding after anROTC bombing went terribly wrong and someone was killed. He was not responsible, but he was the primesuspect. He came back to “Reagan’sAmerica,” where Abbie Hoffman now said he didn’t trust anyone under thirty to find the truth.

I still think it was a good story, but, hey, I wrote it,what do you expect me to think? My referenceto True Believer is because it is thefilm that most reminds me of the script, though the stories are verydifferent.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098524/

I spent a lot of time writing this script in bars. I wrote a lot in bars because it allowed meto observe other people and feed off that energy. I also wrote a lot in bars because I liked todrink. The romantic notion of writers feeling the pain of the common man with every sip worked for me as well.

Geisler: Mayhew, some help, the guy's a souse!
Barton: He's a great writer...
Geisler: A great souse!
Barton: You don't understand...
Geisler: Souse!
Barton: He's in pain, because he can't write...
Geisler: Souse! Souse! Can't write? He manages to writehis name on the back of his paycheck every week!

-Barton Fink

The script is finished, and I start sending it out. I send it to all the “indie” film companiesin New York, all the “indie” film companies in Los Angeles, and to as manyagents as I think might like it in either city. Maureen, ever supportive, helps me get the script typed and copied. She is temping, and a much better typist thanI am, and I’m not working with screenwriting programs. This is somewhere around 1987, 1988.

We get responses from New York that look something likethis:

“Thank you for considering (company) for your project. We are not looking for new material at thistime, but please keep us informed about your progress.”

You get it. They arenever going to represent you or produce your film, but, on the odd chance thatsomeone else thinks it is good and decides to go forward with it, hey, keepthem in the loop, because then they willbe interested.

This reminds me of something I once heard writer anddirector John Sayles say at a script-writing conference. He had many short stories before his successwith Return of the Secaucus Seven,and they were almost all rejected repeatedly. After Return of the Secaucus Seven, many of the same publishing companiesapproached him, and a collection was published.

Sayles’s quip : “It’s amazing how much better my short storiesgot once I was successful.”

From the Left Coast, I got a much more promisingletter. It was from a company that had afew indie hits, and although they had a big office in LA, their main office wasin London. They showed more enthusiasm,and when I suggested I could come out and meet with them, the person who sentthe letter suggested that would be a great idea.

Wow. They likedme. They really, really liked me.

I was nervous before the first meeting, but notafterward. The person I met enthusiasticallytold me how much he enjoyed the script, so much so, that he wanted me to meetwith his boss, who subsequently metme enthusiastically, and set up a meeting with his boss. This was allhappening within a few days, and it had finally happened. All those days and nights writing, all thattyping and copying and collating, andnow, finally, I was going to be recognized. Inside of two weeks, a meeting was set with the head of thecompany.

This was the guy whose name you saw on the door. This was the guy magazines interviewed aboutthe company. He was the guy, and he was in fromLondon and was going to meet me.

The meeting went something like this. He started by telling me that he hadn’t readthe script yet, but all of his people told him it was very good. I should be very proud of my work. There was one catch – his company didn’tproduce scripts like this – ever. Theyhad no intention of producing scripts like this any time in the near future. If I ever had another script that was nothinglike this script, I should send it to them.

Thanks for your time. Handshake. Nice meeting you.

It was the same brush off I got from the NY companies, onlymany meetings later. I learned laterwhat I should have known, that it was the job of these people to takemeetings. It’s what they did. It didn’t mean anything.

That was my first taste of the difference between thebusiness in New York and the business in Los Angeles.

So, it’s now some time later, and I have my secondfull-length screenplay. It is called Chump Change, and it’s about a guy whosefather was in the same union he was now in and the way the union was sellingout the workers to the evil company. Itwas On The Waterfront withskyscrapers. It was very much a tributeto my dad and my grandfather, both of whom were honest shop stewards in placeswhere honesty wasn’t always valued.

More time in bars. More time typing. More timecopying. More time mailing.

I am about to go out to Los Angeles for other reasons when Ihear from an agent in Los Angeles. He issure that he can sell my screenplay. No,he doesn’t want any money up front or anything sleazy like that. He will, however, need copies of the script –lots of copies. I don’t remember theexact number, but we are talking, I kid you not, boxes full of scripts. Maureen and I sitting on the floor of ourlarge Upper West Side studio apartment collating and binding in just the properfashion, with the brads bent back so no one gets cut, etc. Scripts stacked into boxes; boxes packedsecurely, boxes taken to the Post Office.

I’m in Los Angeles, I think for my friend Annie’s wedding,though I am not sure right now. I know I’mnot there just to meet the agent, but while I’m there, why not drop in?

Before I go out to see him, I remember watching this localnews cast where they did a man-on-the-street interview segment with randompeople, asking them how their screenplay was going. These are random people – post men, door men,shoe shine people, business women, women with their little kids, constructionworkers. The great part is that so manyof them actually do have screenplays.

What most of them don’t have, though, is an agent. I have an agent.

Geisler: Look, you confused? You need guidance? Talk toanother writer.
Barton: Who?
Geisler: Jesus, throw a rock in here, you'll hit one. Anddo me a favor, Fink: throw it hard.

-Barton Fink

I head out to the address on a slip of paper, and, a fewbuses later, walk up to a house. EdBegley Jr. and I are the only people who don’t drive in Los Angeles. The New Yorker in mejust never learned.

Can this be the right place? It’s outside of Hollywood proper, outside of Los Angeles proper, in asuburban house. On the lawn by thedriveway are painting supplies, not easels and watercolors and oils but rollersand ladders and paint pans.

Maybe he is remodeling?

I ring the door bell, and he is pleasant enough when hecomes to the door, until he realizes who I am. Then, he is a little embarrassed. I am out here with no car, and he really has no choice but to invite mein.

Once inside, I see boxes, boxes like the ones Maureen and I had sent. Our boxes were there, but so wereother boxes, all of them with screenplays from authors like me. The house was filled with them. The guy explained that he really did haveconnections, and though he hadn’t gotten any sales yet, he just knew that he would get one soon. Until then, he was paying the bills bypainting houses.

He reminded me how much he loved my script.

In New York, I knew waitresses that wanted to be actresses,and bartenders that wanted to be directors and cab drivers that wanted to be rockstars.

I had to go to Los Angeles to find a house painter who wantedto be a literary agent.

The Raymond Effect

2012-01-04T06:19:00.000-05:00

“It’s alright to be subtle in film, as long as you’reobvious about it.”

If you think about books, movies, poems or songs that youlove, many of them find a way of saying things that were right in front of youall along in a way that makes them clear. The same is true of teachers, coaches or other mentors in yourlife. Somehow, what they had to say justhit home.

These guides along the way in our life or career don’t comedressed in long robes, and they don’t appear out of nowhere with Yoda-likeease. Hell, sometimes they are even younger than you.

This was the case on the same Columbia Thesis project Idiscussed in the last blog. I was hiredon as production manager, and Raymond was hired as First AssistantDirector. For those not familiar withthe position of First Assistant Director, I will again paraphrase Raymond.

He or she is the person you fire when you can’tfire the director.

Well, technically, that’s not the DGA (Director’s Guild ofAmerica) description. An informaldescription might be the person who prepares the schedule, is responsible forkeeping it, maintains that schedule on the set, and coordinates the work of the different departments. The key tool is communication.

Every position on the set has a light bulb joke. You know light bulb jokes: how many (fill inthe blank) does it take to screw in a light bulb? I’ve always been particularly fond of this ADlight bulb joke.

“How many AD’s does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

“Light bulb? Nobodytold me there was a light bulb in this scene!”

This gives you only a small hint at the oxymoron that can bethe AD’s life, as he is responsible for many things that he does not haveultimate control over.

See previous statement on person who gets fired when you can’tfire the director.

In fact, as line producer, I have fired AD’s who were not the source of the problem. I got one of my best gigs, years later, asAD, because someone who was quite a good AD left the job in mid-show by mutualagreement with the producers, but more on that in later posts.

Raymond knew how to AD. In fact, he made it look easy. The AD and the production manager work closely together (hopefully), andI was intrigued by how Raymond was able to spot problems on the set almostbefore they would happen.

This was, remember, a student thesis film, so we’re nottalking about big crews and big staffs. In fact, the lofty positions Raymond and I held gave us the opportunityto do such glamorous things as the craft service shopping and scouting the nextday’s location. I still didn’t drive, soRaymond did all of the driving, and in those long hours in the van, I learned agood deal about how to organize a set. Raymond not only knew more about being an AD than I did, he also knewmore about my job than I did, not that he ever held that over me.

The van rides also revealed Raymond’s sardonic humor. Some people are described as people who seethe glass as half empty, others, half full. I have come to see myself as someone who asks, “Do we really have to usethat glass?”

Raymond’s temperament was much the same.

One night we are driving up Third Avenue in Manhattan andmake a left onto 14^th Street. This is us still working after along shooting day, long after everyone else is home sleeping. We have an early call in the morning. As we make the left, a police car pulls usover. The police officer comes over andasks Raymond if he saw the sign that said; NO LEFT TURN. Clearly, he hadn’t, and if you know the turn,there is no good reason why you can’t make one there.

Exhausted, Raymond just made the best argument hecould. “I’m from Los Angeles. You can make lefts there.”

He wasn’t trying to antagonize the officer. That’s just Raymond. He sees the absurdity of life very clearly. A little stunned by the simplicity of thereasoning, or maybe just confused, we got off with a warning.

It wasn’t until I became friends with Raymond after theshoot that I learned more about him. Hisparents were both in the business; his father, a prolific writer and director,his mother, an agent. There are manystereotypes of people who grow up in the business, and a lot of them aretrue. Raymond was not the stereotype ofsomeone who grew up in the business. Rather than hanging out with the stars on his father’s sets, he took thetime to hang out with the people who made everything happen. That meant crew people and staff. The fact that Raymond never talked about hisbackground until I got to know him pretty well tells a lot about him.

Besides his talent in film, he also was an excellentpianist, and, I later learned, composer, with a great love and understanding ofjazz. I always had a place in my heartfor jazz, and Maureen loved it, so we all got along great.

Sometime after the student film was over, Raymond told me hewas making a short that he hoped would get him into AFI, and asked if I woulddo production work on it, including AD. I wasn’t at all sure I could do it, but he assured me that I could. He gave me pointers on breaking down ascript, on using index cards to represent the different shots in the scene soyou could switch the order around easily, on keeping the set moving. Some of this later came more naturally to methan I thought; for instance, dealing with actors. My years as a stage manager had made medifferent from many of my colleagues who had only worked in film, whose take onactors could be summed up from the exchange below from Mel Brook’s The Producers:

Leo Bloom: You can’tshoot the actors. Actors are notanimals.
Max Bialystock: They are? Have you ever eaten with one?

Okay, I have had more than one actor that I wanted toshoot. In most cases, however, mybackground as a stage manager handling people and pressure came in helpful.

Raymond’s script revolved around the figurative and literalchildren of a blustery real-life novelist. I don’t know if Raymond would want me to share the name of the novelisthere. Some of the better scenes in theshort included the novelist coaxing a homicidal prisoner who was a talentedwriter to accept his offer to get him out of prison by offering to show him picturesof the Challenger disaster, and that same writer, when he got out of prison,stabbing a waiter for seemingly no reason. The latter incident mirrored onethat actually did happen in that author’s life.

You are allowed to do the math.

Yes, this was a comedy, and a very funny one.

There was another scene in the film that is relevant, andthat is one where two lovers wake up post-coital to realize that they are bothchildren of the same author by different mothers. The girl was played by Annie, my friend fromthat bad melodrama years earlier. Iremember we shot most of that scene early morning, and with the hot lights, theearly hour, and the fact that Annie played most of the scene in bed, she hadall to do to keep from falling asleep between takes.

There is one other lesson I remember from that shoot, and ithas to do with picking the right locations. Our budget was limited, and keeping to it was part of myresponsibility. We found this onelocation that Raymond thought was perfect, but they wanted a little more thanwas in our budget. To my eyes, it wasjust a big empty space, and we could find something like it cheaper somewhereelse. Raymond was sure that this was theright place, though, and worth the extra money, and when we screened the film,he was so right. Over the years, I’vedeveloped the ability he already had then, to see locations not for what theywere but for what they could be.

It alsowas something that I grew to learn as line producer, that sometimes you need tofind someplace else to save when something is going to make such a differenceon screen.

A few years later, I was in Los Angeles looking to sell ascreenplay that I wrote. Raymond, whohad grown up on both coasts, met me for lunch. Raymond greeted me dressed in mostly black, still on East Coastattire. When I commented on the weather,he said, “Yeah, another damn sunny day in Los Angeles.”

It was when we discussed his opinion on my screenplay thathe offered the quote at the top of the blog. He hadn’t gotten one of the points I was trying to make in the script,and my defense was that I was trying to be subtle about it.

“It’s alright to be subtle in film, as long as you’reobvious about it.”

Once I got past the usual defensive reaction we all havewhen someone critiques our work (Oh, c’mon. Don’t lie. You know you do!) Irealized how right he was. Over theyears, it has really stuck with me, and its advice I’ve given on a number ofoccasions.

For all his talent, Raymond went on to do alright forhimself. He got into AFI, and hisstudent thesis project, Bronx Cheers, wenton to be nominated for best live action short. His first feature as writer/director was the beautiful and powerful Café Society. Two Family House won the 2000 SundanceFilm Festival Audience Award, among others. His hilarious City Island wonthe 2009 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award.

Hey, I could go on with his bio, but I have a better idea. See the blog list to the right? Raymond De Fellita’s blog is prominentlydisplayed for a reason. It started as hechronicled City Island, and it’s a greatlook at the journey of making an independent film from the inside. It’s also a lot more than that, becauseRaymond has not only a vast knowledge of film and its history, but for all hisknowledge, he never makes it sound academic or boring. I don’t think Raymond could write anythingthat wasn't entertaining.

If you paid for film school, his blog will expand on thingsyou enjoy in ways you had never imagined. If you didn’t pay for film school, well, stamp yourself your own degreewhen you finish his blog.

What the hell, if you spent all this time reading my blog,you would be out of your mind not to be reading his.

Oh, and that screenplay that I wrote, the subtle one? There is a lot more on that one later on inthe blog.

Obviously.

I'm Ok. You're Ok. Is That OK?

2011-12-28T21:42:00.000-05:00

I’m Okay. You’reOkay. Is that Okay?

“Form is not different than emptiness. Emptiness is not different than form.”

-The Heart Sutra

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

-Jon Kabat-Zinn

No separation.

It’s a major premise of Zen practice, that all things areone. If you prefer Quantum Physics,think that nothing exists in a vacuum, and the thing being observed isintricately connected to the observer.

Don’t fret. This blogpost is not about Zen or Quantum Physics, because while I practice the formerand am fascinated by the latter, I’m not remotely qualified to blog on either.

What I do know is that it is impossible to compartmentalizethe experience that is our life, as if our life and our work are two islandswith no bridge between them.

On that fateful first ride up to Canada a few years earlier,I told Maureen that my work was more than my work; it was a part of my life andit would always come first. This isn’tsomething that usually leads to deepening of a relationship, but she understood. It was not a comment on putting arelationship behind my work; in fact, there was no way to disengage the two. That is the reason this blog, which I beganas a blog on life in the indie film world, has been so entangled with mypersonal life. No intelligent way to separatethe two.

We were married on May 29^th, 1987, and Maureenmoved down to New York a week or so afterwards in an attempt to finish teachingfor her school year.

While I was starting to work more on small film projects,and old injury was catching up to me. Ihad injured both ankles doing lighting design years earlier, and together withother complications, they were getting worse, to the point where I was onlyable to walk without a cane.

This was a condition I had when Maureen and I first met, soshe was very familiar with it.

My explanation that my work was my life was fine for me, butnow, it was Maureen’s life as well. Shewas a musician, and had acted in community theater in Canada. For me, it was only logical that she wouldcome here and be an actress and work in the same business I was in. At first, she threw herself into my vision ofthe two artists working together. Shetook acting classes and dance classes. This was going to be fun, right?

Not exactly. This wasmy fantasy, and reality soon creptin. Acting class wasn’t fun; it was allthis heavy sense-memory work. I vividlyremember her coming home crying one day. In class, they had suggested that one way to cry was to bring up ahorrible memory from her past. She usedone where a beloved childhood pet was run over by a car. She still was not able to cry in class; nowhome, she was unable to stop crying. Notfun. Neither was dance class with teenswho had spent every post-partum moment in dance class.

She was, however, incredibly supportive of me. I took jobs that I thought would prepare meto produce films, and that meant sometimes taking non-paying jobs on studentprojects. Like always, I was morecomfortable being the big fish in a small pond.

I had never taken as much as one film class. I learned most of what I know on set. I applied what I had seen other producers andproduction managers do when working on these projects, and learned by trial,error and learning as much as I could from those who knew more.

Two projects clearly illustrate this process. Both were Columbia University grad thesis projects, andI will address one in this blog and one in the next.

The first short film was about a grandfather who was aboutto die. The actor was played by veterancharacter actor John Randolph. You mayremember him as Al Pacino’s tough NY boss in Serpico, or Jack Nicholson’sfather in Prizzi’s Honor. Roseanne’s dad? I know that for many ofyou, this is like ancient history. His early film career was interrupted becausehis union activism led him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. He never became a big star, but was certainlya face you saw in scores of films and television shows. A link to his IMDB page is below.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0709907/

Randolph was the first of many, many established olderactors who proved to be the epitome of professionalism. One might think that old veterans on smalljobs would be difficult, but this was rarely true.

Many had gotten past the ego that actors needto drive them early in their careers and were very comfortable in their ownskin. John was not only professional butmagnanimous. I was the productionmanager, and, as is wont to happen on small projects, also doubled as designer.I earned the latter job in small part because I had done it in theater and inlarge part because we didn’t have the money for a designer.

In thefilm, John had to play himself both a little younger and healthy, and also atthe moment of his death. He had thegreat idea of doing so by use of a scarf to cover his neck, which was ratherwrinkled. Scarf on he looked healthier;scarf off he looked older and sicker. Hehad me over to his apartment, and showed me a few scarves that were perfect forthe character. I chose one. He said, “John, that is the perfectchoice. You really know what you’redoing.”

It wasn’t my great taste shining through, as John had onlylaid out scarves that were perfect. He did all the work. Still, I remember how good I not only feltthen, but every time he complemented me. I also watched as he did the same with the young director. He never showed her up or bragged about howmuch more experience he had. Rather, hewould always present suggestions in such a way that it they seemed like herideas.

I learned not only the ability to be generous, but alsorealized how much more effective you can be if a person thinks that somethingis their idea. This is a lesson that has come in handyhundreds of times over the years when working with directors. Film school mentality is so competitive thatpeople often never grow out of it, feeling a need to show how smart they are atall times. This might feed their egos,but doesn’t solve many problems.

John had experienced the power of a complementfirst-hand. Older actors, like olderline producers, have lots of stories.

Hey, if I didn’t, where would this blog be?

This was a story John shared.

It came from the set of Prizzi’sHonor, working with the great director John Huston. I have always been a big Huston fan, andloved a biography that covered his life called The Hustons by Lawrence Groebal. Lots of great stories there as well.

Randolph’s story surrounds a scene where he is walking withthe hit-man character played by Jack Nicholson. Randolph plays Nicholson’s father, and in this scene on a Chicago subwayplatform, he tells Nicholson that the heat is too much and Nicholson’scharacter has to leave town. Nicholsonhad convinced Huston to let them improvise the scene, and the camera and videovillage with Huston were at the end of the platform.

When the first take ended, Huston looked at them and said, “Thatwas good. Do it again and they did. Second take, and the same thing happens, sameexact words from Huston. “That wasgood. Do it again.”

This went on for a few takes, with long walks back to firstposition. Nicholson and Randolph werebeside themselves. What were they doingwrong, and if it was so good, why were they doing it again?

They do the scene one more time. Huston looks at them, and says, “Okay,”joining his thumb and forefinger in a gesture that reiterated his point.

“That was it,” John said. “That was all he said during that scene, and at the end, I knew exactlywhat he meant. I felt like a milliondollars. This was the guy who said ‘Okay’to Bogie and Bacall, and now he was saying ‘Okay’ to me. Wow.”

The really talented and professional actors and crew peoplenever lose that sense of wonder. Johntold the story as if he were some stage-struck kid, when, in fact, he came to thatmovie as a Tony winner who had worked with Orsen Welles, among many other majoractors and directors. He still had thatgleam in his eyes.

Lest this blog become all flowers and roses, the next blogentry will talk about lessons from someone significantly younger. Like me, this next “teacher” embodied optimismand cynicism.

No separation.

Up in the Air

2011-12-22T15:29:00.000-05:00

Up in the Air

“…Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living...”

Ryan Bingham, Up in the Air

You can’t log ten million miles between New York and Boston,and even if People Express or New York Air or any of those now-defunct carriersput your name on the side of a plane, it would have been painted over bynow. The theory, though, was thesame. Keep moving.

Years earlier, I developed a love affair with Cape Cod, somuch so that I not only went there for getaways whenever I could, but I alsotook theater jobs in Boston, a town I also got to like. If you’re from the rest of New England,Boston is truly the “Hub,” a place you aspire to live and work. If you’re from New York, Boston is provincialand, most of all, manageable.

In those early days of no-frill airlines, flights between NYand Boston-Logan were cheap, $19-$39 cheap. That made a transient lifestyle not only possible, but desirable. Maybe it was being an only child thatinstilled something that teetered between independence and a refusal to growup.

I kept a room in a transient hotel on the Upper West Sidewhen they still had transient hotels and they were cheap enough that you couldhang there. I had a nicer place inBoston, also transient, but in a city where your age is determined by whetherpeople ask you what school you go to, or where do you teach, transience is thenorm. The New Yorker in me had to getused to a “T” that shut down at midnight, creating a Cinderella-like dash forthe Green Line back to Brookline from Faneuil Hall.

Boston had a theater scene that allowed me to workregularly, while still coming home to NY between shows to be in the city Iloved.

It was on one of those trips back to New York over theholidays that my life changed forever.

On this trip back to New York, I interviewed for a job asdirector for an absolutely crazy middle-aged British woman who ran Royal CourtRepertory. If you remember the rules ofthe blog, I don’t generally name people when the reference is negative. In this case, I’m not naming the name onlybecause I can’t remember it.

This Royal Court had nothing to do with the real one inLondon, and I’m sure this woman never worked there. She was nothing more than a bitter, failedactress running a two-bit theater, but, hey, it was directing work, and whenshe offered me a chance to direct a horrible whodunit called “Kidnap Kaper,” Itook it. Auditions wouldn’t begin untilmid-January, so I would have one more trip up to Boston after the holidays tofinish a gig there and then come back.

I’m not good with dates and times and years at this point,but this date I do remember, if not the year. If was December 30^th, the day before New Years Eve, and I washanging at a usual haunt of mine on the Upper West Side that was then called TubaCity Truck Stop. I looked down the barand saw a very animated group ordering drinks, including more than a fewattractive young women. I sent overdrinks, and motioned for one of them to come over. In one of those happy accidents in life, the “wrong”one came over, and we started talking. She was a cheery, cute redhead named Maureen, and I learned that shelived someplace I previously had never heard of, Chatham, Ontario. She and her friends were teachers onvacation.

One thing led to another, andI don’t think I left her side for more than a few hours over the next few days,hanging with her and her friends, though never alone. I was completely smitten, and when she said Ishould come up and visit her sometime, I’m sure she thought that I would agreebut never make it. She was wrong.

Chatham is about an hour or so past Windsor, Ontario, which,for those who don’t know, is right across a bridge or tunnel from Detroit. In the world of cheap airfares, adding oneleg to the NY-Boston run was pretty cheap, and I told her that I would see herthe following week. I think she was morethan a little surprised when I called and said I had a ticket, and would shepick me up at the airport.

My subsequent time getting to know her and her family friendshas made me averse to Canadian jokes, but my first trip to Canada was tooironic to overlook. She picked me up atthe airport, and as we crossed the border, the road got icier. For those weak on geography, Windsor isactually south of Detroit, so it’snot like the temperature had dropped, but just that the snow and ice wasgetting worse. It was in the midst ofthis discussion about American misunderstanding of Canada that we spun out,went across the other side of the highway and wound up in a slight ditch at theside of the highway. Neither of us washurt, but the car needed to be towed. Myfirst trip to her town was in the front of a tow truck.

Our time together? Again, from Up in the Air:

Ryan Bingham: You know that moment when you look into somebody's eyes and you can feel them staring into your soul and the whole world goes quiet just for a second?
Natalie Keener: Yes.
Ryan Bingham: Right. Well, I don't.

Before that, I didn’t either. Over the next few years, it wouldhappen. We would fly back and forth tosee each other.

Meanwhile, back in New York, I am auditioning people forthis horrible play. Headshots are laidout by character, and the largest stack was for the young ingénue. I was always an impulse buyer with littletime for shopping around, and in those days, I auditioned in much the sameway. When I finally found the perfect ingénue,I told this wonderful young actress that she had the part, and proceeded toaudition for the role of what can only be described as the Margaret Dumontcharacter. If you don’t know whoMargaret Dumont was, think of the stuffy, matronly woman who always wound upwith a pie in her face in the old Marx Brothers’ movies. Ms. Dumont certainly deserves to beremembered for more than that, but if you need a quick reference, that shouldwork. You still don’t know? Ok, you can go check who she is on IMDB – I’llwait.

Back? Good.

Now, I’m sitting through a handful of slightly-olderactresses when this extraordinary woman in her early twenties walks in. Her name is Annie. I look down at the headshot, and then back upto her, then back to the headshot, which was so bad that I had added it intothe pile with the character actresses. Not only was she lovely and spirited, but she was an excellentactress. I couldn’t have her auditionfor the character actress, but I had her read for the ingénue. Yes, that ingénue, the one I had just cast,the role I had told an excited young actress was hers. As I watched her audition, I knew she had to be the person for the role.

Don’t ask how uncomfortable the phone call tothe first actress was.

The diva who ran the theater hated her, in no small partbecause she was not only more talented than she had ever been as an actress,but she was lovelier as well, an absolutely stunning redhead.

Ok, I know where you think this is going, but you’rewrong. Annie and I became close friendsfor years to come. Ironically, she grewup in London, Ontario, not far from where Maureen lived. The three of us became fast friends, a bondcemented after I pulled the cast from that horrible show after the diva who ranthe place screamed at my cast one time too many and “accidently” pricked Annie with a safety pin while helpingwith her costume.

Annie later studied with Sanford Meisner in Bequia and laterLos Angeles, where she is still a working actress and highly-successful acting teacher. She would also go on to appear in a movie I co-wroteand produced called Town Diary years later.

We’re not there yet. Be patient.

In the next couple of years, I did some stage managing, anddirected a version of “Children of A Lesser God” for a college theater companyin New Jersey, a production I am proud of to this day. My proudest moment on that play may have beena night when a group of deaf students came to see the show. The show had to be cast entirely fromstudents, and there were no members of the company who were deaf. This was a tricky situation, as the author, MarkMedoff, had made clear his preference that the role of Sarah, the deaf student,should be played by a deaf actress. OurSarah was not, but we did everything in our power to be authentic, and watchingthe deaf students give my cast a standing ovation was a moment that will bewith me until the end of my life.

Meanwhile, Maureen and I found the commuting back and forth tobe frustrating, and I still have an image of her at the top of an escalator atDetroit’s airport, waving goodbye to me as if was the last time. We knew we either had to make a commitment,or break it off, and the latter was unthinkable. We made plans for her to move to New York, acity she loved, but there was still one more hurdle. She was not going to be able to work here,and that wasn’t going to work. We lookedinto all sorts of options for her to get working papers here.

Remember that immigration attorney I met in WashingtonD.C.? The one who met my Hair troop at the rally and turned outto be the brother of one of my radio station pals? I contacted him, and the long and the shortof it was that the easiest thing to do was to get married. I was fine with the life commitment, but therebel hippie in me hated the formality of the ceremony, piece of paper, etc.

So it was in the Spring on 1987 that I was working as associatedesigner on a great theater project, the 1987Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon. The Marathon is a very prestigiousevent in the New York theater world, and I got to work with some wonderfuldirectors, including the casting directors Risa Bramen and Billy Hopkins .

Once again, I got to be involved with the work of agreat writer, Keith Reddin. Keith wrote what was clearly a dark versionof the “Cat in the Hat” series, but the Dr. Seuss people had a decidedlynegative view of having their character be seriously more thanmischievous. Many changes were made to avoid legal problems. Here is the review:

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/20/theater/stage-2d-bill-of-new-one-act-plays.html

Yes, the young boy was Macaulay Culkin, who later wenton to “Home Alone” and other film notoriety. Given the bad press he andhis parents later received, I should make the point that both he and his parents were fun and cooperative,not to mention he was incredibly talented.

It was near the end of tech week for the opening, andI was flying to see Maureen that weekend. We had decided that at the end of the school year, she would move inwith me, but had not even discussed actually getting married. I was in the set shop at EST when I calledMaureen.

“Hey, Mo, can you find out what we would have to do toget married on a weekend?”

“This weekend?”

“Yes, this weekend.”

The next day, she told me the procedure. It involved a Justice of the Peace. He could fit us in on Saturday morning. This was Wednesday.

Me: “So, do you want to get married?”

Maureen: “OK”.

That was it. Iflew up there that weekend, and her friends threw together a party on Fridaynight and a reception on Saturday after the ceremony, one where the Justice ofthe Peace kept informally asking me questions about how we met.

So began a relationship that would last a lifetime,even if the actual marriage significantly less time. For those wondering why so much of the lasttwo blog entries centered on relationships, it is because it’s impossible tounderstand the career changes that were to come without understanding where Iwas in my life. Have no fear, though,as subsequent entries will not be filled with the intricacies of relationships,as I never figured those out.

The next few years would begin a partnership thatwould include a life-changing operation, and a rebirth as a person committed tothe independent film world.

A Life In The Theater

2011-12-22T12:45:00.000-05:00

INT – JB’S APARTMENT – AM

Having finished his morning meditation and coffee, JB sitsin front of his computer, reading intently what is on the screen.

ANGLE-ON – COMPUTER SCREEN

JB’s Blog is on one side. JB’s resume is on the other side.

DISSOLVETO:

…me, sitting here, deciding how to move forward with theblog.

When I kickstarted this blog a few months back, I pointedout that chronology had become a problem, so I wasn’t going to worry aboutit. That’s not entirely true. I find it at least somewhat important to givesome sense of context.

So, here is my jump off point. I looked through all the theater pieces I wasinvolved with from the time I left Allentown, and none of them deserved theirown blog. Therefore, in order to getback to the film work, I thought I would do a two-part blog entry that coveredmost of the better moments I had in theater after that, and the importantchanges in my life that led me into a full-time career in film. Someof these bleed into the time I was doing film, and even into my marriedyears. As I said, topic is moreimportant here than a solid timeline. Doesthat work for you? Great! (You werenodding your head, right?)

When last we visited this blog, I was leaving Allentownafter directing an evening of three one-act plays.

I got back to New York, looking to continue directingtheater, and joined with some other theater friends to form a short-livedcompany called Catharsis Theater Company. We had a small space on Theatre Row, but only got off one evening ofone-acts.

It would be years before I did any serious directing intheater again, although I did spend one season as teaching artist and directorfor Theater for New Audiences, which brought Shakespeare to public schools inNew York. It was a great experience, andwhat I took from that was that working in poor neighborhoods was more fun thanworking in rich neighborhoods. The kidsin the poor schools appreciated the work and opportunity more than the kids inrich neighborhoods. If that soundsclichéd, sorry, but it’s true.

I also spend some time directing opera singers for a companycalled Republic Artists that had a relationship with Lincoln Center. It was truly fun to work with talentedsingers who wanted to learn more about acting.

For the most part, I returned to making a living as a stagemanager, dabbling in set and lighting design.

I also stage managed a forgettable production of SuddenlyLast Summer that was notable only for this funny lesson I learned from an olderactress.

The production was mounted by an actress who had inherited anice sum of money from a deceased aunt. Shecast herself as Catherine, the young girl played by Elizabeth Taylor in thefilm adaptation of the Tennessee Williams classic play. She hired her acting teacher to direct, andthey cast a talented and feisty older actress to play the role of Mrs. Venable,done to perfection by Katherine Hepburn in the same movie.

Hepburn’s take on the role was so good that the actress inour production decided to pretty much mimic Hepburn, right down to her uniqueversion of a New England accent. Nomatter, the actress in question became our den mother on the production,keeping things focused when need be, comforting actors who needed it, andkicking butt when that was called for, as it was on this night.

There is a scene where a rebellious Catherine puts acigarette out in the hand of a nun who tries to take it away from her. The spoiled-brat of an actress who mountedthe play had an annoying habit of playing most scenes with the Venablecharacter as if she were chewing gum, even though she wasn’t. On this night, the actress had influentialfriends in the audience, and decided she would get a more “method” response byactually putting out a lit cigarettein the hand of the actress playing the nun.

I was livid when I heard this in the booth, and atintermission, I stormed toward the green room, determined to tear this idiot anew one. I was met outside the greenroom by the older actress, who looked at me with a smirk and said, “let mehandle this.” Something told me to thatwas the way to go.

The second act began with a scene between Venable andCatherine, and, as usual, the actress playing Catherine faked chewing gum. Venable, completely in character with theno-nonsense Venable, put out her hand and said “Catherine, give me the gum.” This was a complete ad lib, and the younger actresswasn’t sure what to do, but she mimed putting the gum in Venable’s hand. Not good enough. Venable looks in her hand, and showsCatherine (and the audience) that there is no gum there. “Catherine, there is no gum here. I told you to give me the gum.” The older actress proceeds to figurativelyundress the younger actress on stage, until she almost finished the scene intears, and the audience was laughing out loud at her. It wasa much more public and embarrassing come-uppance than I ever could haveachieved.

In the next entry, I will transition to love, marriage, and my last directing gigs for some time, whichintroduced me to another actor I would later cast in a film that I wrote.

Return of 'the blog'!

2011-04-30T08:17:00.001-04:00

Sounds a bit like a sequel to a monster movie, doesn't it?

I am about to embark on a new journey with two dear friends and collaborators - a web series! As such, I thought it was time to revive this blog. It has been some time coming, as more than a few Facebook friends have told me they enjoyed the blog and wanted to see more.

I don't really know why I stopped. I think people of my generation still find it a tad self-indulgent to talk about ourselves. I know I constantly ask myself why anyone cares about what I have done or what I am about to do. However, I now look at it not as necessarily being about me, but more about the quirks of the life and career I've chosen. I have just been an observer; albeit, an interested one.

One of the things that has gotten in my way in this blog is the fog of time. Trying to create a chronological order has been difficult - what really happened in what order? This sometimes addled mind is not always clear on exact dates or what happened first.

In order to continue the journey, I am going to restart the blog with the understanding that the exact order of the events may, from this point on, be a little shakey. I sincerely doubt that I will ever reach the level of noteriety to have an official biographer, but should that day come, I will let that person do the harder research.

The blog will continue with an emphasis on the journey, an emphasis on those mileposts that stood out, rather than each rock and stone along the way.

I will try to keep to my original idea, which is to avoid names when a situation was less than positive, and make sure to include them when deserved. I am not much for "tell-all", and no one I've worked with or encountered deserves to be dealt with in that manner here.

Thanks for your patience, and welcome back!

Hit The Road, JB

2009-07-08T19:18:00.000-04:00

“What I really want to do is direct.”
-Popular NYU Film School T-Shirt

The popularity of the T-shirt derived from the fact that if you walk up to any PA on a film, they will tell probably tell you that this is only a brief stop for them – pretty soon, they will be directing. Most of them never will.

I wasn’t even thinking about directing when I found myself as a Set PA on “The Fan”, a movie where Lauren Bacall played a movie star who is stalked by an overly-zealous fan. If the DeNiro-Snipes film comes to mind when you hear this title, don’t be alarmed – that film was remake of this one.

“The Fan” would be the only film I would ever PA on. I was never particularly good at taking orders, and as PA, everyone is your boss. Also, at 25, I felt I was a little “old” to be low man on the totem pole. As a result, I usually took better positions on lower-paying jobs than lower positions on higher paying ones.

Yes, I got to see Lauren Bacall. From what I understand, friends call her Betty. P.A.s don’t call her Betty. P.A.s don’t call her at all. Not that she was a snob. She would sometimes spend time talking to the Grips or Electrics. As a matter of fact, both those groups, which are usually filled by bigger, burlier young guys, seemed to get quite a bit of Betty’s attention. Old enough to be their mother, she still was every bit the flirt.

I once asked one of the grips if he had ever acted on her flirtations. “Are you kidding,” he said. “She slept with Bogart. How are you gonna top that?” Indeed. I think I would always expect her to ask, “You know how to whistle, don’t you?” Wasn’t a problem for me, as I was not the object of her attention.

I got the gig on “The Fan” from a recommendation of someone on “Q”, and that was pretty much how most film jobs came along. As a freelancer, looking for work became part of the job. Wednesday’s were Showbiz Magazine. Thursday was BackStage. Both listed theater and film jobs. Once I started working in film, Thursday also became Hollywood Reporter day. Picking up these magazines was like clockwork. I even knew which newsstands had BackStage on Wednesday nights.

I got work on a play stage-managing “Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone” for a company called The Actors Collective. This was a really talented group of actors, most of who were currently working on soap operas and wanted an outlet to do real work. Soap operas were how they made their money. These plays were their lifeblood.

I have two memorable experiences from that company, who I stage-managed for two other plays after that first one. The first one was load in for the set. The set designer had a concept of 8 interlocking platforms. To build these, he ordered eight 3/4 inch sheets of plywood. The theater we were working in was on the 6th floor, and when these sheets – and the accompanying lumber, arrived, the only people there were the lead actor, Don, and me. Don was all of about 5’ 9”. We soon discovered that the 4x8s wouldn’t fit in the elevator. Smarter people would have sawed them in half, or waited for help. Don and I carried them up 6 flights. I still hate that set designer.

The other memory was the summer vacation we took after the first play. As I said, these actors made good money from the soap operas, and one had a summerhouse in Cape Cod. We all spent a week out there, and I loved it. It would become my favorite summer spot, and, in weird way, lead to me getting married.

There would be time before that would happen.

I was living with a choreographer/dancer named Patricia. Typical Irish girl – long red hair, freckles, the whole nine yards Typical dancer as well – woke to coffee and cigarettes. She was tiny and slim, yet always worried about her weight. She would buy a plain muffin, then cut it in half; half for breakfast, half for lunch.

Our meeting was typical as well – typical New York artist, that is. I met her at an audition. We went out on a date, and she told me she had to move out of her place – her female roommate was a jerk. We wound up at my place, had sex, and she moved in. That was fine by me.

Roommates are a way of life in Manhattan, rents being what they are. Roommates came, and roommates left. Sometimes, you were the roommate to leave. Changing jobs. Changing apartments. Changing lovers. It was all pretty much the same.

One of those Thursday mornings, we were sharing a muffin and a copy of BackStage when I saw a notice for a production manager for a production of “The Hobbit” in Pennsylvania. After I replied to the notice, I found out it was in the Lehigh Valley. A resume sent and a brief phone conversation later, and I was offered the job.

There was never any real thought of saying no because of my relationship with Pat. As a dancer, she would take a road show with a dance company if it came along, and we both understood that. In an odd way, I had a feeling that if I left, our relationship was over. It was one of those relationships that was comfortable, but with no real sparks. We were already more like friends who slept together than lovers. As it turned out, she returned to Massachusetts and took up full time choreography soon after I left, and she sublet our place for me and arranged to put what I hadn’t taken with me in storage. While I saw Pat a few times after that, I never saw that apartment again.

So, I picked up and arrived in Bethlahem, Pennsylvania. I had never been there, and waited a diner for the producers to pick me up. They were a few hours late.

The producers were a hippy couple who had been doing a puppet show of the Ring Trilogy for years. Now, they wanted to do a live, musical version of it with actors. They were the nicest people in the world, and they took me into their home – a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Fresh air, quiet, and not a subway in sight. Talk about culture shock.

While it was different, I was liking it. We mounted the show, with kids playing the hobbit roles. I still remember our Frodo, a handsome African-American kid who was all of about 14 years old. One matinee, he had a horrible show, and the kids in the audience booed him. I thought he would be devastated, and I went backstage to cheer him up. I asked if he wanted to go out between shows and get some dinner. He was still taking off his make-up, and his back was to me as he looked in the mirror. He turned around calmly and said, “Thanks, but I cant. I have a date.” I found out later that he was doing most every little girl in the play. I didn’t worry about him much after that.

During the course of that play, I met Louise. She was a RN, who lived in Bethlehem and worked weekends at a hospital in Philadelphia, She would work two double shifts so she could spend the rest of the week with her young daughter, who would spend weekends with her folks or her dad. Louise’s ex-husband. Louise was the first, and only, woman I dated that was older than me. She was in her early thirties.

Louise loved theater, but basically thought actors and theater people were too ‘flighty’. She should have trusted her instincts before we hooked up. Pretty soon, I had moved out from the farmhouse and was living with Louise. New roommate. New room.

Louise introduced me to Charlie Richter, the theater director at Muhlenberg College. Charlie was a local legend, and he deserved to be. He was nothing short of a genius. He could easily have made a name for himself as a director in New York. He was happy at Muhlenberg, where he pretty much had free reign to do what he wanted. That was a lesson that wasn’t lost on me.

Charlie and I talked a lot about avant-garde theater, a subject we could bore people with for hours, and we frequently did. He mounted a play based on the stories of the students who played themselves, much like “Chorus Line” was conceived, except it depicted where they saw themselves years forward. One actor, who was very raw, stood out. His name was John S., and he was this big jock, but with a presence that you can’t teach.

I soon learned that the woman who ran the local theater company was looking to step down. I made no attempt to hide my desire to take over, and presented a plan for the next year. It would be entitled, “The Rock and Roll Theater of Sam Shepard and Patti Smith” and feature three one-acts: Killers Head (by Shepard), Cowboy Mouth (Shepard and Smith) and a staged adaptation of Patti’s song “Horses”. Much to my delight – and the surprise of some – they bought it. Charlie’s encouragement had a lot to do with it,

I had never directed a play, and now I was going to direct three, albeit they were one-acts, with only a handful of actors who had any training, and they were students. The project certainly had some level of pretentiousness, looking back on it, but that’s the excitement of youthful projects. They have that gutsy, we-cant-fail attitude. You see it in a lot of first feature films: rough around the edges, but exciting enough to make up for it.

Having been a stage manager for a long time really came in handy. I had sat next to some really good directors through some bad rehearsals, so I knew not to be discouraged when things got tough.

One thing about a small town theater company – they have their favorites. I was told who were the best actors and actresses were, and I pretty much ignored it. I had their “best” actor, Steve, do the one-man opening play, “Killers Head” a 10 minute or so play with a guy blindfolded in an electric chair, opening with “Yeah, today’s the day I buy the horses. I’ve decided.”

For the main play, “Cowboy Mouth”, which Shepard and Smith wrote together when they lived together at the Chelsea Hotel (and they also performed together before Patti’s singing career got off the ground), I cast John S., who I saw in that play at Muhlenberg, and a butch woman who worked for Bethlahem Steel during the day. She was great. He was, well, rough, He never had to carry a play. He was a jock, and I got into the habit of starting rehearsals by running lines while he, the actress, myself and my stage manager jogged. Not being an athlete, it almost killed me, but he got to understand pace and cadence.

The plays were certainly different for the audience accustomed to “Annie Get Your Gun.” Cowboy Mouth opens with Cavale (Smith character) repeatedly cursing our Slim, and ends with a Giant Lobster and suicide. Together with “Killers Head” and “Horses” (in which a guys girlfriend waxes poetic about him being stabbed), we had our share of walkouts. Still, we got two reviews, and one of them was very favorable. The other taught me a little lesson.

In “Killers Head”, I insisted to Steve that he should let the irony of the situation play: a guy sitting in an electric chair talking about a new pickup truck and horses and the future. The one thing I told him to do was not to play nervous – don’t play the obvious.

On opening night, possibly because of nerves, possibly because he didn’t trust me, he played the whole thing shaking – just what I didn’t want. The one reviewer that hated the evening said the following “ “The only shining moment was when director (JB) had actor Steve infuse just the right level of tension as he sat awaiting his fate.”

OF course, I had visions of staying on for a while and doing many more shows. I figured if Charlie could make a go of it there, I could build a real company there, like Mamet (and later Gary Sinese) had done in Chicago, outside the glare of New York.

Alas, it was not to be. Neither was domestic bliss.

I kind of took to being “surrogate dad” to Louise’s little girl. I would pick her up at school on Monday’s before her mom got home from Philly. Mind you, I had never had a drivers license, and still didn’t. Also, I had don’t very little driving in my life – mostly taking those lessons for a license, and practicing with my dad years earlier. I failed two road tests. When I picked up her daughter and a friend one day, her daughter said, “Great. John’s driving. Its more exciting with him.”

I failed the domestic test as well. One of the girls I cast in the other one act (“Horses”) was a busty, leggy dancer. Ah, dancers (insert sigh). I couldn’t resist.

Louise was neither amused, nor understanding. Pretty soon, bags packed, it was back to New York.

“Woah Woman, oh woman, don't treat me so mean,
You're the meanest old woman that I've ever seen.
I guess if you said so
I'd have to pack my things and go.”

- The Genius of Ray Charles

Sometimes You Shoot the Bird; Sometimes the Bird Shoots You

2009-07-05T18:36:00.000-04:00

1981.

Working in Off-Off Broadway Theater has a lot of rewards – money isn’t always one of them. This means you often find yourself in what is politely termed “support jobs”.

My on-and-off support job in the early 80s was working as a telephone interviewer for a pollster named Dick Dresner and Dick Morris. Morris you may remember from the time he was Clinton’s pollster, and then a GOP pollster, and then got caught in compromising pictures with women who were not his wife. Didn’t surprise me at all – Morris was always among the slimiest people I ever met. Dresner was a much better guy, and Anthony LaPaglia plays his character in a movie called “Spinning Boris”, which pretty accurately describes how he helped Boris Yeltsin’s political turnaround in Russia. Yeah, Dresner was that smart.

The job was great for me, because none of the people there had any interest in having a real job: actors and actresses, dancers, students, singers, and your basic non-conformists who just weren’t good at taking orders from “the man”. Eventually, I became a supervisor there, and, for a short stint when I tried my hand at a real job, Director of Operations.

My immediate boss was a woman named Barbara, who is now an ABC Consultant. Mid-forties at the time, she was a big, imposing, demanding woman. She also had a great heart. Luckily, she and I got along great, and she knew when I took the “permanent” position it wouldn’t last long. “You’ve got the job if you want it, but just tell me when you realize you don’t anymore.”

Mind you, for a “real job”, it was filled with people who hated authority. Dresner was a staunch liberal Democrat at the time, and we had people with FBI records as analysts, and a coding department run by a gay activist who used to have “leather Fridays” where the entire department would dress in S&M gear. As “real jobs” go, it was as comfortable as I was going to get.

Then, one day, I get “the call”.

“Hey, John, what are you doing?” (I wasn’t JB yet). It was Nancy J., my stage manager buddy. I begin to tell her, and she cuts me off. “ Yeah, that’s nice. Listen, I’m working on a movie now, and I need an assistant. Can you start tomorrow?”

Wow, a movie. I mean, I knew people who worked on movies, but I didn’t see myself doing it. I had never worked on one, which I explained to her.

“You never were a stage manager before I taught you, either. Its not brain surgery. I’ll show you what you need to know.”

OK, but what about my job? Nancy had an easy answer. “Quit.”

I didn’t know. Cushy job. Good salary. Benefits. Besides, I would have to talk to Barbara. How would she react?

So, next morning, I’m explaining it to Barbara, when she interrupts and calls Dick Dresner into the office. “Dick, John wants to quit to work on a movie.”

Dresner’s face lights up, he puts out his hand and says, “That’s a great opportunity. Should be fun for you.” He walks out. Barbara says, “Don’t worry. You can always come back here and supervise when the movie’s over.” I must have looked a little stunned.

“We never figured you’d last,” she says. “Just have fun, and call us when it’s over.”

I show up two days later (I didn’t want to really leave them high and dry). There is an empty desk with lots of paperwork on it.

“Hey Nancy” I say, greeting my old friend. Nancy gives me a big hug, then hands me a Call Sheet (assignments and times for everyone for the next day’s shooting. “I need 100 copies of these, with all the changes I’ve penciled in, and I need them collated with sides (the section of the script to be shot that day). The crew breaks in two hours, so we need to get them to set right away. After you make the copies, take them over to set yourself. Ask for the 2nd AD and give them to her.”

I didn’t know what a call sheet, sides, or a 2nd AD were, and she knew that. She also knew I’d pick it up along the way. Thus, my formal training in film began.

I was the Assistant Production Office Coordinator (APOC). Nice title, not many steps above being office PA. Lots of paper work, and this is before laptops, so lots of typing and Wite-Out (those of you who are younger, go to your history books).

Most of my time was spent in the office, or trading off paperwork with the 2nd AD (2nd Assistant Director) on set. Not a lot of my time was spent actually on set. Didn’t get to see much filming. I did, however, get to learn how a movie office works, and that was great experience in terms of becoming a production manager and line producer later on – better experience than I would have gotten as a PA on set.

The movie was “Q”. It was a Larry Cohen film. Larry was pretty much like Roger Corman, and did a lot of horror and genre pictures (“Its Alive”, “The Stuff” “Full Moon High”.) These weren’t art flicks, just standard stuff on a low budget.

“Q’ was about a giant bird that nests in the Chrysler Building. A two-bit, piano playing ex-con (Michael Moriorty) discovers the nest of this pre-historic bird, which has been unceremoniously eating people. He is determined to hold this information hostage from police (Richard Roundtree (“Shaft”) and David Carradine).

The first hint of the perils of working with all that movie paperwork came pretty early on.

In order to shoot in the city – any city – you need a permit. In NY, you deal with the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Television. Its one of the easiest offices to work with, but there are lots of forms to fill out, and they need to know each day where and what you are shooting, as well as what parking you want held for vehicles. If you are doing anything involving closing off streets or firearms, the police film unit must be notified.

One day, we are supposed to shoot a scene where cops are on top of the Chrysler Building, shooting at the “bird,” whose POV is shot from a helicopter. As such, if you were to watch the scene being shot, it looks like policemen shooting at a helicopter. Even in the pre-9/11 days, this would be disconcerting.

The Chrysler Building is also in Midtown Manhattan, and because it is tall, the top is very visible for miles. Since Nancy was stuck in the office, I was the office rep on meetings with the Film office (along with the location manager, or his assistant).

On the day before the shoot, we went over all the specifics again. The scene would be shot around 2PM. We would have P.A.s stationed in various spots around the building, as usual. Local precinct, would, of course, know about it – it was the job of the Police Film Unit (then known as “TPA”) the “policemen” were, firing blanks.

Standard discussion was whether police assistance (actual cops on the scene) was requested. This is standard for when “shots are fired” so people don’t think it’s a real crime in progress. In this case, however, since all of the firing was going to be on top of the building, and not at street level, the consensus was that this wasn’t necessary.

The consensus was wrong.

As with most days, it shooting ran late, and we didn’t start to shoot the scene until near 5PM, when people were getting out of work. The “shots fired” attracted people’s attention, and pretty soon, people were ducking into buildings. Others called 911, who notified precincts in the general area, and, some of whom were not aware of the filming, so, now, real cops are approaching the building with guns drawn while “gunshots” are heard above and a helicopter is flying low and “in a strange manner” (remember, we are filming from the helicopter, so the pilot is circling and maneuvering to try and get the best shot).

The end result? General panic.

We made the front page of the Daily News. The News Building is right across the street from the Chrysler Building, and their employees were among the first to call this in. The local TV news the night before ran the story. The Daily News ran the story and an editorial about how irresponsible film crews were allowed to take over the city.

The problem? We had done everything by the book. While we certainly made as many mistakes as the next film – which translates to many per day – this wasn’t one of them. Remember, the police had agreed that we didn’t need cops assigned to the scene, and since there is no fee for it, we would have been fine if they had assigned them.

Politics then crept in. Mayor Koch, one of the targets of the article, called the producers, who came down on Nancy’s boss, Paul Kurta (the production manager and assistant director). Pretty soon, we were all called into a meeting with the Mayor. I explained to all involved from our side what happened before the meeting. Paul’s basic response was to keep quiet during the meeting and let Koch yell at us, and promise to never do it again. That’s what we did.

That was not the end of adventures with “birds”, guns and helicopters.

However, Nancy knew set was the more fun place to be, so one night, she sent me over for the end of the day’s filming. She gave me some things to do – including handing out about $5000 in small bills (nothing more than a $20) in petty cash to a few people to dispense on set. In theater, this was like the entire budget for some projects, and I was carrying it around in Central Park at night.

The scene was the last scene after a very long day for the cast and crew. It was a night shoot, the day had started around 3PM, and it was now about 4AM. In a few hours, the sun would be coming up, which meant, like it or not, the filming was over.

The scene was one where Moriarty, playing the con, tries to prove to the cops, played by Roundtree and Carradine, that he can control the bird. He cannot. The bird comes down, takes a swipe at him, he ducks at hits the ground, the cops shoot at the bird. Pretty straight forward. Once again, the helicopter shot the birds POV, and would be called in to “swoop down”.

This time, we had lots of police with us. They, too, had worked a long day, and like everyone else, they were looking forward to going home.

The helicopter comes in, swoops just like it’s supposed to, and takes off. The “cops” shoot at it. All good, right? Uh, no. Michael Moriarty doesn’t duck. The scene is no good and we have to shoot again. Paul Kurta calls in the helicopter. Again, it swoops. Again, the “cops” shoot.

Again, Michael doesn’t duck.

Larry Cohen walks up to Michael and asks him if there is a problem. As serious as he can be, Michael says he doesn’t understand his motivation for ducking.

Crew members who hear this are torn between containing their laughter, and being pissed they still have to be out there. Kurta and Cohen are worried that daylight will come, and we will lose the shot. Al Cerillo, one of the best helicopter pilots around and certainly the best in NY for years, is shouting “what’s going on” to Kurta on the walkie.

David Carradine puts down his prop rifle. He walks over to Moriarty, walks him away from Cohen, and puts his arm around him. It’s so wonderful to see an actor coming to the aid of a fellow actor.

“Michael,” he asks, “if a bird with a 20 foot wingspan was hovering over your head and reaching down to grab you, wouldn’t you fucking duck!” To make his point clearer, he grabbed Michael by the collar and began shaking him.

Actor to actor, Michael seemed to come to a newfound understanding of the scene. We barely got it in the next time around.

Oh, don’t look for the scene in the movie. It was cut.

No Time To Get Confused

2009-07-05T18:22:00.000-04:00

“Do I get confused when I have a lot of things to rehearse? Nah. When I get confused it when I have nothing to rehearse.”

- Sparger, speaking to imaginary boy (Kennedy’s Children, by Robert Patrick)

Once I got my first taste of working in theater, I threw myself into it head-long.

As stage manager, I would have one play in rehearsals during the day, and be in performance with another one at night. In my free time, I’d do a shift at the radio station, and go on a voice-over audition (something I picked up from my co-workers at the radio station).

Generally, I could put together enough small checks to support my way of life, which wasn’t elaborate, but did include living in Manhattan, which was never cheap.

Late in 1979, I began studying with Judith Malina and the Living Theater. Some of you may recognize Judith as an actress – she played the little dark-haired woman who dances with Robin Williams in “Awakenings,” she is in Household Saints, was the original Grandma in the first “Addams Family” movie, and, more recently, played the nun who was Paulie’s real mother in the Sopranos (“I was a bad girl.”) Judith and her deceased husband Julian Beck started the Living Theater Company, who was real pioneers in avant-garde theater. By the time I studied with her, Julian was dead and she was married to theater partner Hannon Resnikov.

Working with Judith and Hannon just cemented the idea that I wanted to do non-traditional theater, and I wound up running in circles where I got a lot of that sort of work, both as a stage manager and, at times, as assistant director.

It was my relationship with Judith and with Nancy J. (the stage manager) that led me to two shows that really influenced my path.

In 1980, President Carter reinstated the draft. Judith was (and I imagine still is) an anarchist, and she was invited to be part of the protests that would be taking place in Washington. The idea of doing a revival of Hair came up, and Judith introduced me to Jim Rado and Gerry Rangi, the creators of Hair who also played its original leads (Berger and Claude).

The original “Hud” in the play was choreographing, and a crazy guy named Richard was directing. I was offered the job of production managing, which meant I oversaw the stage management but also did things like arranged for our travel to DC, our performances in NY, kept the books, cut the checks, etc. This would be a foundation for the work I would later do producing theater, and, eventually, doing similar jobs in film.

Hair was a blast. Rado and Ragni clearly didn’t just write Berger and Claude, they WERE Berger and Claude. Rado (Claude) was a nice, middle-class blonde kid who was quiet and all love-and-peace. Ragni (Berger) was an inspired madman. The guy who played Hud was a flaming queen. It made for interesting rehearsals, with lots of arguing, then reconciliation, and not a small amount of smoking, Both Rado and Ragni hated the recently released film, and were determined to get the play back to its “roots.”

We had a lot of young actors, and, to be honest, the production wasn’t very good. The highlight of the NY part of the production was when we lost out Berger near the end of rehearsals. We held auditions, and saw hundreds of people. If you remember Berger, he;s supposed to be like an Abbie Hoffman on overdrive.

In walks this guy, who, if you need a mental image, think Radar O”Reilly: short, wire-rimmed glasses, SHORT hair, suit and tie. No one thought we would cast him, but since everyone had waited so long, we were determined to let everyone audition.

“What role are you reading for.” I asked. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t at the wrong audition.

“Berger,” he said. People on my side of the desk chuckling under their breath.

“And what would you like to sing for us,” I asked.

“Aquarius”. Dear God, no. This was the answer we hated. It was the most popular tune from the show, it showed the least since it was a tribe (chorus) song, and everyone who wasn’t well prepared sang it.

I nodded to the piano player, who played the intro. “Radar” (as I will call him – I really don’t remember his name) begins the song swaying gently back and forth in his corporate attire, much as Pat Boone might.

“When the moon is in the Seventh House,
and Jupiter aligns with Mars…..”

He does the whole first verse like this, and then, at the end of the verse

“…this is the dawning of…”

At this point, he lets fly with a really powerful belt (voice), jumps up on the table, and proceeds to do the rest of the song barefoot and stripping down to his boxers.

He knew he was wrong for the role, and decided he was going to put us on and audition for the company anyway. It took a while before we all stopped laughing, and before he left, we welcomed him into the tribe (but not, of course, as Berger).

The highlight of the production, though, was DC. We are all on chartered buses – the whole company was on one bus. We were scheduled to perform during the protest at some point: there was a make-shift stage, and thousands and thousands of people. I was 23 years old at the time, and most of the cast was younger. The cast was a little awe-struck, and very hyped. There I was with a clipboard and my notes and my bag with all my preparations, trying to make sure everything went smoothly.

Two of our producers were a brother and sister who were radical wanna-bes They were annoying as hell, and they kept pumping the cast up more, much to my chagrin. They were thinking Woodstock – I was thinking Kent State.

Seriously. Its not like I thought anyone was going to be shot, but Kent State was very clear in my mind, and I didn’t want any of these kids intimidating anyone.

One of the organizers jumped on the bus. When he said his last name, I asked him if he had a brother in NY (it was not a common last name). Indeed, his brother was a good friend of mine from the radio station (and is still a good friend to this day). This guy would later become an immigration lawyer who had an influence on my life (more on that in a later chapter).

So, we get onstage, the amplification is terrible, we do our two or three songs, a few of the people in the crowd listen, and its almost time for us to get off the stage. The two idiot producers (they were not the main producers) jump up, grab the microphone, and start with stupid “fuck the man” style stuff. Now, our kids are more pumped up, and as one of the girls in the troop in coming off stage, she gets in the face of a DC cop who is basically just trying to direct them.

I see this and immediately put myself between them so she doesn’t do anything stupid. As is instinctive in potential “fight” situations, I put my arms up in both directions to keep them apart. The arm that kept her away was cool. The arm that wound up in the chest of the DC cop was not. That arm was shortly joined with the other one by way of handcuffs, as I was led off.

Thankfully, Jeff’s brother (the organizer) had been in the area, saw what happened, and would up getting me out of lock-up. I convinced both the cop and his superiors that I had no intention of hitting them, and, thankfully, charges weren’t filed, but it was not fun being in lock-up during a demonstration with people who were actually looking to get locked up.

The other play that influenced me during this period was a play called Chucky’s Hunch. Once again, Nancy was the stage manager, and she wanted me to ASM. At this point, I was already moving up, but she convinced me that this was a good opportunity, and the pay was actually better than some of the SM gigs I was being offered – and chances of getting arrested were minimal.

Chucky’s Hunch was a one-man show that was originally performed at Theater for New Audiences in New York, and then at the Harold Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row. (where I took over as stage manager after Nancy left). A good –and accurate – review can be found at this link: http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?_r=1&res=9F03E2DE1339F930A15750C0A967948260&oref=slogin

The play was a one-man show, and the last paragraph of the review tells you why this was such a great experience for me:

Of course, ''Chucky's Hunch'' is most of all an actor's vehicle, and Mr. O'Connor rides it for all that it is worth. This performance - presumably created in collaboration with the director, Elinor Renfield - is the best work I've seen this actor do. Speaking in a gin-sodden, sandpaper voice that occasionally erupts into mirthless, private laughter, Mr. O'Connor keeps Chucky's past and present in perfect focus. As the character drifts off into sad defeat and mad bouts of panic, his dancing eyes always allow us to see the pugnacious, swaggering and obnoxious hipster that Chucky once was. Most important, he manages to avoid any slobbering self-pity - even when, at the very end, Miss(Rochelle) Owens's script declines into conventional mawkishness. ''Chucky's Hunch'' may be a small play about a small life, but attention must be paid.

Kevin was, to steal Aykroyd’s eulogy of Belushi, “a good man but a bad boy”. He won multiple Obie Awards, and if you mentioned him to any NY actor or stage director at the time, they would tell you what a good actor he was. He lived in the Chelsea Hotel, which was perfect for him.

The good man would often act in the student films of his acting students for free as a favor, would coach them up for an audition for nothing, would do anything for a friend. The good man was easily one of the best actors and stage directors and acting teachers I have ever known. The good man would give you 50 cents if he were down to his last dollar.

The bad boy slept with some of his female acting students, hit on everything that moved, was often “kept” by older women who loved his company and would pay bills, and drank like a fish. I worked with Kevin for years after this, and he never showed up to performance or rehearsal drunk – never. But his well-earned reputation for drinking other times had developed a life of its own, to the point where people thought he worked drunk.

Let me share one Kevin story before allowing this period of my theater life to come full circle.

Years later, Kevin was directing a play that I was producing. We were auditioning, and this guy came in and did Frankie from Leonard Melfi’s “Birdbath” as his audition piece. “Birdbath” is the play “Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune” got its source material from, and Kevin had won awards for creating Frankie.

So, this guy starts, and he is awful. Unlike the “Hair” audition, this guy wasn’t faking – he was bad. It was an open audition, which meant we had lots of people and were always behind. I had turned over the actor’s picture and was ready to say “next” when Kevin started giving him notes. Kevin spent ten minutes working on the audition piece with this guy. Hey, maybe Kevin saw something I missed.

When he left, I asked if we were casting him. “Are you kidding” Kevin said, with his gruffest voice. “He was awful.”

“Then why did we just waste ten minutes with him?” I asked. Kevin looked at me a little puzzled. “We did it to make him better.” It seemed obvious to Kevin – we helped because we could. The sense of mentorship would stay with me to this day, and that theme comes up later in my life with a producer and production manager in film.

Full circle? Oh, yeah.

We did “Chucky’s Hunch” with two other one-act plays at the Harold Clurman. One of those plays was “Birdbath,” with Kevin and his original co-star, Barbara Eda Young. The director was Tom O’Horgan, who was also the original director of “Hair”. I got to work with Tom again after that play, but it was fun to exchange stories from my experience with “Hair’ with Tom’s experience with originally bringing it to the stage.

The best moment of that production also influenced me in how I dealt with the artistic process, always being willing to bring up problems even when people didn’t want to hear it. Sometimes, it cost me work. Other times, however, I formed very strong bonds with people who respected that I had their best interests at heart.

Kevin was a second cousin of Tennessee Williams, and Williams came to one performance with his “assistant” (who, not so coincidentally, was a very pretty young man in his early 20s). The producer took everyone out to lunch, and I was invited. I should point out that after ordering my lunch, I didn’t open my mouth again except to eat.

Williams ordered a bottle of Jack, which he finished most of during the meal.

At the time, he had “Clothes from a Summer Hotel” on Broadway. It had just been seriously panned. The director was a long-time collaborator of his, as were a few of the actors. People at the lunch avoided discussion of the play, but it came up eventually.

It was at that point that Williams reflected on how he didn’t like being treated like an icon, and would have appreciated feedback.

“If it was so bad,” he said, “why didn’t anybody tell me.”

This phrase would stick with me into film, and went a long way as to why I never felt awkward telling a director bad news. I learned that it was the responsibility of the people around the artist to be honest, especially when it is difficult.

Come In Out Of the Rain

2009-07-01T09:49:00.000-04:00

“I don't like when somebody comes up to me the next day and says, "Hey, man, I saw your play. It touched me; I cried." I like it when a guy comes up to me a week later and says, "Hey, man, I saw your play... what happened?"

“I don’t want my plays done at the Uris Theater. I want my plays done at some little place in the Village where the only people who see it are people who come in out of the rain.”

Jeff Slater (Bill Murray) – Tootsie

My career in theater would have made Jeff proud.

There is so much of Tootsie that resonates with my theatrical career, starting with the birthday party for Michael.

Living in Manhattan is expensive, and most of us struggling artists always had roommates, who were usually other struggling artists.

As fate would have it, I lived in a triplex (3 bedrooms on three floors, connected by a spiral staircase). My roommates were a gay woman and a gay guy – both actors. The sexual preference thing worked out perfectly, since there was absolutely no sexual tension in the apartment – none of us were interested in the other. One of our favorite times were our parties – we would invite all our friends, and then watch the wrong people try to hook up with the wrong people (i.e. – My straight male friends trying to hit on her lesbian friends; his gay male friends trying to hit on my straight male friends; her lesbian friends trying to hit on my straight female friends) .

Joe had an audition coming up where he had to present a scene, meaning he needed a partner. He asked me. I had no acting training, and no interest in acting.

“I need someone to do this with me, and my regular partner cant make it. Besides, you work in radio, that’s like performing.” He was clutching at straws. Desperate isn’t pretty, but I couldn’t really say no.

We go to the audition, and it goes well enough. A day or two later, I come home and Joe says : “We got it.” I offer my congratulations, not paying attention to the word “we.” We? Yes, they wanted me as well. Not wanting to be an actor was one thing. Ego was something else. I was in.

The play was done at a downstairs theater in the Village called the Colonnades, directly across the street from the Joe Papp’s Public Theater. I don’t know about coming in out of the rain, but a good deal of our audience were people who couldn’t get tickets to the cutting edge shows at the Public Theater.

Across the street, there were plays by David Henry Wang and Eric Bogosian and Sam Shepard and Eric Overmeyer and Richard Foreman and all the emerging great dramatists. Across the street they could see a young Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Raul Julia, Diane Lane, and Mary Beth Hurt.

At the Colonnades, they got me, Joe, and a play about Michael Servetus.

My theatrical debut was a play about the conflict between Michael Servetus and John Calvin. Servetus was a Spanish theologian who originally joined Calvin as part of the Protestant Reformation, but then broke with Calvin when he felt Calvin’s heart was “darkened by hate.”

I forget the name of the play, but it was translated and adapted from its original Eastern European by a husband/wife team who were incredibly bright. She was a fine director, and the two leads were great. The original play was almost five hours. They “trimmed” it down to a svelte three hours and forty-five minutes, much of which were theological debates between Servetus and Calvin based on their letters. On the “intellectually too deep” scale, the play made “A Man for All Seasons” look like “Rambo”. The comparison continues, as Mr. Servetus meets the same fate as Thomas More.

The Variety reviewer said he felt 'like he had sat through the Protestant reformation.'

It was an ensemble cast of almost 30 (know you know why I got cast – they needed bodies!). I played three roles with multiple costume changes, my favorite of which was a singing bartender who got up on the bar and led a bunch of radical Protestants in a song of protest.

It was also mid-summer, the air conditioning was bad, and I had to under-dress (keep one costume underneath another) to make a costume change, which meant I was dressed for Siberia in a 95 degree theater for about 45 minutes of the play.

For someone more stable, this might have been a traumatic experience that drove them from the theater. However, two things happened that actually cemented my love of theater during the brutal run.

First, in my long span between scenes, I picked up another actor’s book: The Empty Space, by Peter Brook. The book opened my eyes to everything theater could be. It was more than Broadway and fancy sets and elaborate costumes. It could be something raw and honest and powerful. This set as tone me, and the type of theater I subsequently trained and worked in.

The other event was I met a great stage manager, Nancy Juliber. Nancy was a pint-sized bundle of energy, who had become a stage manager when she was out of work and her roommate (a dancer) told her that her dance company needed a stage manager – and they were paying. Nancy lied about her resume and had stage-managed many plays since.

This played right into a dichotomy in my life. I’m a Capricorn, and between that and my Catholic High School training, there was a lot of organizer in me. On the other hand, there was a lot of flakey artist in me as well. Stage manager was a perfect blend.

Nancy and I became friends, and she taught me how to stage manager. I loved it. Even the minutia of creating a production book and marking the stage and timing scenes was great. Better yet, I got to spend all the time with the director, and learn what they were thinking and how they were preparing.

When the play was over, I worked as ASM for Nancy’s next play. I showed up the first day, and she asked me time a scene. I told her I had forgotten my watch at home. She sent me home and told me to come back tomorrow properly prepared. It’s a story too many of my P.A.s have heard over the years, but it set the tone for the level of perfection and professionalism that you were to bring to any project, regardless of how big or how small.

The years from 1979 (when I did the first play) though the mid-80s would wind back and forth between radio, film and theater, but mostly theater.

Radio Days

2009-07-01T09:38:00.000-04:00

I knew what “Saturday Night Fever” was about, and it wasn’t disco, and it wasn’t dancing. It was about getting to Manhattan.

If you grow up in the boroughs of NYC, or just over the bridge in Jersey, you fall into one of two categories – you go “into the city” on weekends, but you wouldn’t want to live with those crazy people, or the idea of staying where you are is killing you and you have to get out of the burbs and live in Manhattan. I was the latter.

So, I turned down a full scholarship to Fordham in the Bronx where I grew up to take a half-scholarship for only one year to go to New York University. The coolest teacher I had in senior year of HS was this priest who taught psychology and had gone to NYU. I wasn’t going to become a priest, but the rest sounded great. I was going to be a psychiatrist or a psychologist – I’d figure it out later.

I always loved to write, and my first week at NYU I went to the 9th floor of the student center to join the newspaper – sounded cool. Only, they weren’t in. They happened to share the same floor with the radio station, and this guy walked up to me and asked if I wanted to join the radio station. It was cooler than the newspaper, anyway, and I’d have more to do – and right away. I told him I didn’t really have the voice for radio, I just wanted to write.

“No problem. You could write the news.” It was 1976, and Woodward and Bernstein were still big heroes. I thought this could be cool. When could I start?

He looked at his watch. “We have a 4 o’clock newscast. Can you start now?”

The salesmen was the station GM, Richard Roth, who is now the UN correspondent for CNN. Richard influenced me over the years in more ways than one – he was a big horse player, and used to have high-stakes “marble races” at his apartment. It was something he had constructed with nails and rubber bands when he was a kid, and it had fans over the years who would bet as much as $10 or $20 a race on a “marble”. More on that later.

So, the vision I had for my future was reshaped forever. See, I thought that being a psychiatrist was all about Freud and Jung and cool stuff about the mind. They never told me about med school and statistics. By my third stats class, I was lost.

Radio, on the other hand, was cool. I worked on the news, but soon got into music, too. I did recorded features – my first one was on Genesis with Peter Gabriel, I think. I’d say they were sophomoric, but I was only a freshman, so they weren’t that good.

Soon, I got the hang of it – and it was addictive. Like many people at the radio station, I was spending more time at the station, and less in class. I got an afternoon music slot, and then became the program director. It was great, but if I wasn’t going to flunk out, I needed a new major. I looked through the course guide, and there it was, like a big neon light with a come-hither finger saying “C’mon in.” Dramatic Literature.

Let me get this straight: all I have to do is read plays and write reports on them? I could do that in my sleep. Anything below a 95 in English in HS was a bad grade for me. I loved it and I was good at it – and no statistics! I was in.

The short story is that the Drama Lit got me into plays, and that got me into film, but first a little about the radio days. They were crazy times, but this is just a quick summary.

It was the beginning of the punk movement, and if I wasn’t at CBGBs, I was at the Mudd Club or the Bottom Line (a more traditional club”. I soon produced our weekly live series, “From the Bottom Line” (original title, huh?”)

I got in good with the record company people, and because I was receptive to new music, I got in everywhere.

My first on-air interview was James Cotton, one of Muddy Waters harp players who had struck out on his own. I asked him a long, convoluted question about the evolution from blues to rock to disco. The entire rest of my interview was going to be based on his answer to this socially-important and powerful question.

I lost him halfway through the question, and he said, “Times change. People change.” The rest of the interview didn’t go too well.

I interviewed David Byrne before their first album, when they only had “Love Goes to Building on Fire” as a single out. He hated being referred to as punk, and the term “new wave” wasn’t out there yet. He talked about how McDonalds represented the proletariat. He talked about art. Tina and Chris sat on the floor during the interview like disciples listening to Jim Jones.

While interviewing The Runaways Cherry Currie started flirting with my engineer and wouldn’t answer my questions, and Joan Jett kept blowing bubbles,

I once set up Lyle Mays (keyboard player with Pat Metheny) with one of our interns, and had to run back and forth between the two because he was too shy to ask her out.

All this almost led me to a paying job working as Northeast Promotions Director at A&M Records. Remember the Paul Schaeffer character in “Spinal Tap” who screws up the in-store. He tries to convince the band its not their fault, and offers them to kick him to make themselves feel better? Well, the job was much better than that, but just as crazy.

The scene in Spinal Tap when the manager has the cricket bat – that’s real. The guy was a manager for the A&M group Squeeze. The lead singer locked himself in my office right before a lunchtime meet with all the big NYC radio guys. I was dying. Well, then manager yells into the room “you coming out, or am I coming in?” Expletives were exchanged, at which time the manager proceeded to try to break the door down with said bat. Thankfully, the door opened before it was complete cinders.

I was convinced I would be in the record business. I was dating a girl named Sheila, a childhood model whose mother was a neurotic former model herself and her father was a co-founder of a major record company.

Things changed when Sheila and I broke up. I started dating a girl who worked publicity for Columbia Records – it was all very incestuous. Our dates were known as “Plus Ones” because, when they would leave tickets, it would be “JB +1” in order to leave open the possibility of bringing anyone at the last minute.

Cathy, (the publicity girl) and I would often have to see each other after we each attended different gigs to support our groups. One night, we had the rare night when we both had no gig to go to, and we had what I hoped would be a “normal” date with no shop talk. I made a point of this to her, and after about three words of “how are you” she goes into some new act they signed. The rest of the date was a blur – I just knew I was bored with the whole business, but didn’t know what I was going to do.

It was not long after that I found myself in theater.

Living in My Oblivion - A Foreword

2009-07-01T09:29:00.000-04:00

“Every time I finish a novel, I decide its time to write my autobiography. Then, I start to get bored, and I lie about the people in my life. Then, I get more bored, and I decide to lie about the people around me. Pretty soon I have a novel.” John Irving.

Why?

I'm not so sure that my life is all that interesting, but since I cannot see it with any objectivity, I figure I will just put my experiences out there and hope that a morsel here and there are entertaining, informative, or at least insightful.

As I began approaching this, more and more of my past came back. I kept going further and further back to be able to give some perspective. I skidded to a halt at the beginning of college, since this is really where the path begins.

When I write, I spend a lot of time editing. Online posts are one thing, but if I was going to do a series of articles, I had to make sure they were worth your time reading.

I first thought of just doing interesting anecdotes from movies I worked on, but as I started putting it together, it began to dovetail with something I’ve been working on – a book about a life making indie/low budget films.

Here is where we get into the problem.

As the quote above suggests, when approaching something like this, my biggest fear is a term like “autobiography”. In the me-crazed, reality-television, myspace/youtube world we live in, the idea seems to be that not only are each of us entitled to Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes, but also a blog, a website, and maybe a movie-of-the-week.

Cristine Vachon wrote a great book about doing what I do – line producing and producing films. Its called “Shoot to Kill;” inspired by the name of her production company, Killer Films. It’s perfect and brilliant. I always thought: “gee, she’s done more than I have, who cares about what I’ve done?”

My fear here was that, really, why is what I do more interesting than what anyone else does? Sure, these stories are funny to people I work with, but will people here care? Is it pretentious of me to think they will?

The only way I can do this is to put things in perspective, so some chapters may not be as funny or interesting as some of the better stories I’ve shared. I also have a brevity problem – but if know me, you know that.

I hope the overall effect is one that will not be about me, but about a way of life, with some social history for some of the younger people I have the pleasure of working with. I lived through a lot of interesting times working in film, theater and the music industry in NY, and it starting college radio at the beginning of the punk movement.

Where there is name-dropping, hey, these are not brag posts, Anyone who does what I do has worked with name actors, directors , etc. It just goes with the territory. It doesn’t mean these people are my best friends or I get seats to the Oscars (or even the Indie Spirit Awards). As Joan Cusack says in “Working Girl,” : “Sometimes when I’m at home I sing in my underwear. It doesn’t make me Madonna.”

To those who read it and think “eh”, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The title – Living in My Oblivion – comes from the title of the movie that most closely represents the films I’ve worked on – Living in Oblivion. If you’ve seen it, no explanation is needed. If you haven’t, it chronicles the adventures on a low-budget film. Way too much rings true, even where it is exaggerated.