The Unattainable - Part 4 - Groundhog's Day

"I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank pina coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over...?"
-Phil (Bill Murray, Groundhog's Day)

What's exciting about making movies is that every one is different. What is enervating about producing or line producing indie films is that you answer so many of the same questions, and see so many of the same things over and over and over.

None, I assure you, involve pina coladas or making love like sea otters.

Every department thinks that you are giving money to every other department except theirs.

DP: "But look how many people you have in the art department."

Art Department: "I saw that camera package. Now I know where all the money is going."

Gaffer: "Those curtains alone must cost you $5000."

Costume Designer (looking at back of G/E truck): "I never saw so much equipment on an indie film"

Key Grip: "Those costumes must cost a fortune."

Probably why I like sound and makeup. Sound recordists are usually quiet with dry senses of humor. Makeup folks are love and hugs.

At the end of the day, every department head fights for their department to have the resources to make the director happy, to make a good movie. As my gaffer one day told me when I was waiting on lighting, "We're making pretty pictures."

As if I didn't care about pretty pictures. It's all about getting the money on the screen, but everyone's idea of what part of the screen needs to look good is slanted by their department.

The same "what about me" mentality takes place during the production meeting. Every department needs more time for their answers; every department gets bored when you are taking that time with another department.

Except for production, of course. We just carry the water and try to make sure everyone else gets what they need, if not, necessarily, what they want.

Then there is the schedule.

As a guy who has been AD on more than my share of projects, I respect the hard work that goes into the schedule. For most others, it's a piece of cake.

Locations wants to know why you can't shoot this great location on the day it is available. Casting wants to know why hiring an actor with conflicts is a problem. Art department can't see why you would be silly enough to put two hard sets to dress together.

People look at the one-liner and say, "Why can't this go there?" as if they were doing a crossword puzzle that was a few levels too easy.

It is the AD who knows that each move has consequences, and if you saw something simple, they probably did, too - as well as why there was a conflict you didn't see.

These are some of the big issues. Then, there are the annoying little things.

Water bottles.

Here's the thing: no matter what you do, you have a lot of half-water bottles. Logic would say to buy the smaller water bottles.

Except people then drink half of the smaller water bottles.

I'm not exactly sure why. Every shoot starts with a lot of people putting initials on their caps. By the end of the first week ,reality sinks in.

There are going to be a lot of half-full water bottles, and that is not some glass-half-empty-glass-half-full analogy. It just is.

While we are in the kitchen, there is catering. I did a long post on the subject; suffice to say here that crew will tire of the best caterer, and will have bigger issues with most. Personally, I did not drink one cup of coffee on this set that I didn't bring myself from outside, and that is the case with so many caterers. The world of food allergies, moral choices, religious restrictions and the dreaded gluten-free has meant that the simple act of providing meals to the crew now requires endless attention.

On almost every project, I insist that we have multiple copies of the keys to the vehicles. On a Teamster shoot, of course, this is not an issue - there is a transportation captain. On small indie shoot, there is usually that dreaded moment - usually when one of the crew vans is going home at the end of an overtime day, when someone says, "Who has the keys to the van?"

It's one of the many reasons I love Living in Oblivion. It had me from "Who has the keys to the grip truck?"

On this shoot, the streak was broken. We never had to wait a moment on keys. A first for everything.

No department has enough walkies. If there is an intern to the intern in the department, somehow, it is crucial that person has a walkie.

As a production person, I understand the need for walkies. I also understand that I always have to save somewhere, so if  the grip department's intern doesn't have a walkie, they will live.

Then, there are the call sheets. Everyone needs them, and half barely look at them. Sides are done and distributed, and most get lost or discarded after the first shot. We all know that these things are important, but the truth is, most don't look at them or look so quickly that it hardly matters.

There are other truths.

No matter how well Day One goes, Day Two will have issues. Everyone is geared up for Day One. Everyone is on the alert for problems.

Our Day Two was completed as scheduled, but without the extra time I thought we would have for voice overs.

The person dealing directly with Screen Actors Guild (now SAG-AFTRA) will be exasperated. It's not the money. It's the paperwork, and the penchant reps have for losing paperwork. They just do.

On one shoot, my producer's assistant, who I normally have compile and handle the paperwork, was an all-smiles, sweet Southern gal. One day, she walks into my office in full Tourettes mode. She had faxed/sent/scanned something like her third copy of something, and the rep said they could not find it.

To paraphrase the advice the detective gets at the end of Chinatown: "Forget it, Emily. It's SAG."

We all love and appreciate ambitious and alert PAs. There seems to always be one, however, who tries a little too hard, and gets on people's nerves. I usually forgive these folks. They do the hardest work for the least pay.  They work silly hours and no one notices them unless they make a mistake. Still, sometimes I have had to suggest they tone it down a bit.

The above are examples from this and other shoots, and, as previously stated,  I get that people's intentions are good, to do the best job possible, even if that sometimes is not the way production sees it.

Whenever anything goes wrong, it is always production. My oft-used quote from Christine Vachon, "It's all my fault. Now, can we just move on?" is still my mantra.

People will bring the most ludicrous requests and problems, and expect production to solve it. It doesn't matter who caused the question. We need to have the answer.

People who are perfectly capable of dealing with simple problems at home will ask production to do things that they can simply solve themselves.

That is part of the job, whether you go the AD path or the UPM or line producer path. If that bothers you, find a different department.In the end, it doesn't matter if it was your fault - it's your responsibility.

Again, from Groundhog's Day, as Phil realizes he is experiencing the surreal and living the same day every day, he approaches Rita.

Phil:      "I am not making it up. I'm asking you for help."
Rita:      "Okay, what do you want me to do?"
Phil:      "I don't know. You're a producer. Come up with something."






N.B. I'm sure every department feels they have to deal with the same things every shoot. Please, leave a comment as to your "Groundhog's Day" experiences.

The Unattainable - Part 3 - The Seat of Wisdom

Scripty Extraordinaire Melissa

"She comes in colors everywhere,

She combs her hair

She's like a rainbow.

Coming, colors in the air

Everywhere

She's like a rainbow."

-She's a Rainbow, Rolling Stones

My admiration for script supervisors was made clear in a previous post. When it came time to hire a script supervisor for The Unattainable, I reached out to Andrea, who is pictured in that post.

She was not available. I explained the complexity of the script; that we would be shooting in digital and 16MM, that the script would be broken down into present, past and voice-overs that were part of the lead character's imagination.

She gave me one name - that of our scripty above, Melissa.

I spoke to Melissa briefly, and then sent her out our latest copy of the script at the time.

At the time, we had not published a script, which was undergoing constant revisions, and continued to do so right up until and after filming.

In order to keep track of changes in all paperwork, starting with the script, a color code is used to distinguish revisions. In the case of the script, the line producer, AD and script supervisor will confer on whether the changes are few enough to just color code certain pages, or go to a new color entirely.

The guide we used was: white, blue, pink, yellow, green and goldenrod. The standard color code includes more colors, but in order to save us the cost of buying even more reams of different colors (remember, this same code is used for paperwork such as schedules, vendor and crew lists, etc) I cut it off at Goldenrod.

Coming, colors everywhere. It is, indeed, like a rainbow, with a wash of different colored paperwork.

This being a very low budget project, I had originally budgeted one day of prep for script supervisor, which clearly was not going to work with our complex script.

For one thing, there was establishing a timeline. Designers needed to know what happened when, hair and makeup needed to know if this was our leads now or five years ago, the AD needed to schedule so as to not constantly having us change set dressing and the rest during the middle of the day.

The director had a very clear timeline, and it was laid out on index cards along one of her walls. She would show it to anyone who wanted to reference the timeline. When I say it was laid out on a wall, it was an entire wall, floor to ceiling.

The prospect of carrying around the wall was, well, not very enticing. We needed something simpler.

We needed the right person. After getting Melissa's initial response to the script, I knew she was the right person. I knew we had to have her, and looked to get her together with our director as soon as possible.

Below is a somewhat edited and redacted (national security, proprietary information, and all that - very hush hush as they used to say in the spy movies) version of her first email explaining how she broke down the script.

I have attached my Short Form Breakdown by Scene Number below.  .  Everything after Sc11 is supposed to be chronological 

A few notes: 

1952 = Harry's birth year

1970 = Harry goes to Vietnam

1956 - 1975 = Vietnam War

10/1/2000 = FEMALE & Kevinbegin dating

10/15/2003 = Our story begins (Sc31)

2004 - 2006 = FEMALE & KEVINPAST

2010 = FEMALE & Harry's PRESENT

I will fill in the other details later.

Please let me know if you have any questions/comments/etc.

Best,

Mel

Here is the chronological list that (directors assistant) made yesterday:

LIST OF SCENES BY TIME

PAST: (x)scenes

PRESENT:(x)scenes

ATEMPORAL/IMAGINATION: (x)scenes

TOTAL: 124 scenes

The Short breakdown she refers to starts like this

Scene Location Characters D/N Date Time 1/8s ERT

Scene Location Characters D/N Date Time 1/8s ERT

Scene Location Characters D/N Date Time 1/8s ERT

1 EXT. DOCK BY THE SEA (FLASHBACK) - AFTERNOON D10 Sat-10/08/2005 12:36P

1 EXT. DOCK BY THE SEA (FLASHBACK) - AFTERNOON D10 Sat-10/08/2005 12:36P

1 EXT. DOCK BY THE SEA (FLASHBACK) - AFTERNOON D10 Sat-10/08/2005 12:36P

2 INT. PRISON VISITING ROOM (FLASHBACK) - DAY D11 Sun-10/09/2005 2:10PM 2 5/8 2:37

2 INT. PRISON VISITING ROOM (FLASHBACK) - DAY D11 Sun-10/09/2005 2:10PM 2 5/8 2:37

2 INT. PRISON VISITING ROOM (FLASHBACK) - DAY D11 Sun-10/09/2005 2:10PM 2 5/8 2:37

3 EXT. DOCK BY THE SEA (FLASHBACK) - DAY D10 Sat-10/08/2005 1:43PM 2/8 0:15

3 EXT. DOCK BY THE SEA (FLASHBACK) - DAY D10 Sat-10/08/2005 1:43PM 2/8 0:15

3 EXT. DOCK BY THE SEA (FLASHBACK) - DAY D10 Sat-10/08/2005 1:43PM 2/8 0:15

4 CREDITS OF FILM Z 1/8 0:08

4 CREDITS OF FILM Z 1/8 0:08

4 CREDITS OF FILM Z 1/8 0:08

5 INT. APARTMENT, EAST VILLAGE, NYC - DAY D17 Mon-09/20/2010 3:43PM 7/8 0:53

5 INT. APARTMENT, EAST VILLAGE, NYC - DAY D17 Mon-09/20/2010 3:43PM 7/8 0:53

5 INT. APARTMENT, EAST VILLAGE, NYC - DAY D17 Mon-09/20/2010 3:43PM 7/8 0:53

6 INT. BAR (IMAGINATION) - NIGHT Z16 Sun-09/19/2010 10:33P

6 INT. BAR (IMAGINATION) - NIGHT Z16 Sun-09/19/2010 10:33P

6 INT. BAR (IMAGINATION) - NIGHT Z16 Sun-09/19/2010 10:33P

7 EXT. HALFWAY HOUSE - NIGHT N16 Sun-09/19/2010 11:28P

7 EXT. HALFWAY HOUSE - NIGHT N16 Sun-09/19/2010 11:28P

7 EXT. HALFWAY HOUSE - NIGHT N16 Sun-09/19/2010 11:28P


This is a small part of the work Melissa did.

As we moved forward, Melissa's understanding of the script became crucial to every aspect of the shooting, and I have to say she was more involved in helping to get coverage and tell the story than most supervisors I have had the chance to watch work.

One day in particular that I remember was our Day 2. It was all meant to take place INT THEATER. At one point, the DP got the idea of shooting one section EXT in order to break up the shots and give us an intro the those scenes.

What time of year was it? Was she wearing a coat? If so, how heavy?

As our first team was discussing it, Melissa calmly looked at her notes and said, "It's January 20th, 2011."

End of discussion.

Her daily notes continued to not only help for editing, but helped me know details about what was happening during the day that would have been impossible for someone else to keep up.

I've waited some time for script supes to get me notes in the past; Melissa's were usually within two hours of wrap. She gave credit to some software she said she was using - I think she secretly created the software and just didn't want us to know. After my AD, she was the second person I would seek out when I came to set to get a sense of what was happening.

As with most movies, the color wheel kept on turning, with schedule revisions necessitated by actor availability (we were sharing our male lead with a TV show filming in LA) and locations.  My small but incredibly efficient production office kept us constantly with the proper color, as "Megan, what color vendor list are we on?" would be answered with something like "Pink, but don't publish that one yet - we're still revising it."

I often wonder if we make making movies too hard, if we secretly enjoy it more if it's more of a challenge. Somewhere, people work with those simple, boring scripts I referred to in the start of this series. As my long-time AD once said when we were doing a complicated dolly shot through every room in a house on an Indian-American co-production a few years back, "JB, remember when people used to point the camera and shoot? What ever happened to that.?"

Maybe it's me, and I'm just drawn to more challenging scripts, having become numb to the endless stream of scripts that just regurgitate the same, worn-out plot lines and characters.  Indeed, sitting through trailers for upcoming films the other day, I wondered if I was in a revival house, watching movies that were just remakes of older movies, either clearly or inferred.

What I do know is that on this film, on this script, I was glad to have this lady.

"Have you seen her all in gold(enrod - my edit)
Like a Queen in days of old
She shoots colors all around
Like a sunset all around"

For this shoot, no, I have not seen a lady fairer.

The Moving Target - A Line Producer Looks Back at 2013

I have decided I am no longer going to produce films for my living.  To do so requires me to deliver quantity over quality. Or to not contribute as fully as I like since I won’t be fairly compensated.  Or to make something that is virtually guaranteed to not have the cultural impact it warrants.  Those are three things that I am refusing to be part of.
-Ted Hope, Truly Free Film

Last year at this time, as my birthday approached, I offered this somber look back through the words of Neil Young. This year, I reflect back through the words of Ted Hope above, and also my own experience this last year.

Much as I lamented last year, the business is still changing; more specifically here, I am referring to the business side of our business, the side of raising money and selling movies. My own small part in this process over the years has been as a line producer helping folks to raise money for a film.

This process is confusing to many people. The answer to "how much will it cost to make my movie" is not a simple or straight-forward one.

My first response is always, "How much can you realistically raise?" Without that answer, the rest of the work I do is meaningless.

On the indie scale, most scripts presented could be done on any one of a number of levels. There is the bare-bones level, the full-blown budget (if you had everything on your wish list), and any series of numbers in between. The answer usually lies in the middle somewhere, and I often discuss it in terms of the different levels of the different unions, if one is to even use union workers.

The union that is relevant to most projects is SAG, which has modifications of it's guidelines for New Media (web series and such), Ultra Low, Modified Low, and Low. A quick check of the SAG INDIE site will explain all this in more detail; suffice to say here that you can still work with union actors for less than general scale, depending on your budget.

The important numbers for this year to me are as follows: 34 budgets prepared, none has yet to raise the money. The other important number is 1: one feature that I actually shot this year, which I refer to here as The Unattainable, raised it's money from a budget prepared by the producer on the Modified Low Contract.

I know how people used to sell films on the indie level: regular investors, pre-sales, direct-to-video, etc. I don't know how they do it today, with distributors seemingly only being interested in no-budget projects they can pay insultingly-low fees to acquire, or larger budget films. One of the producers on this movie assures me there is a path in between, and I hope she is right, as she has done it before.

What all of this means is that work for folks like me is scarce, at least as it comes to actually line producing a film. I have no interest in line producing a film on a budget that requires me to bring on mostly film students and get almost everything for free. Additionally, one of my maxim's is that the work is just as hard on a bad movie as a good movie, so you might as well make a good movie. Too many of the extremely-low budget projects are just not very interesting projects, and at my age, if I'm going to put the effort into it, I want it to count.

On many of the budgets I prepared this past year, the numbers kept moving; hence, the moving target above. People would hire me to prepare a budget on one level, then get investors who swore they were ready to invest if they budget were either higher, or lower. For some people, they experienced both.  In almost all these cases, after chasing this moving target, the so-called investors did not come through.

As Ted Hope regularly points out, this is no way to sustain either an investor class for film, nor encourage experienced producers to make their living producing features. Almost all have the need to create some other form of "content" to keep afloat.

Two of the young people on my feature have approached me on learning line producing. Sad that they are afflicted with this dreaded disease to actually do this for a living, I will help them anyway.

Most crew seems to thinks producers make lots of money for less work than they do; on this level, in fact, the exact opposite is true. The producers on this film would have made more money and worked significantly less days and hours if they had worked crew. Money cannot possibly be the motivation for them; it is that determination and possibly-naive belief that this may be "the one," as a love-lorn friend of mine used to describe almost every boyfriend she dated for more than a few weeks.

In this atmosphere, I feel lucky to look back at my 55th year to have worked on one great feature where I worked with a great team, read some incredible scripts (which I still hope get produced), had the opportunity to work with some great actors and actresses and directed my first project, a short. My producers and director on the last project proved they valued experience that comes with age, and that was a nice thing to see.

This, for me, is what qualifies as glass-half-full. If it sounds less than optimistic to you, then you don't know me very well. The folks from my last film characterized me and my production coordinator with this picture below, from Despicable Me 2.

My coordinator was a cheery redhead. You can imagine which one I am.

Cheery is not the description of a person whose role is to very often say, "no," as is the case with a line producer. Crew thinks you give them too little; producers think you give crew too much.  Making people happy? Not as often as you like.

Every year, I wonder, as Danny Glover's character used to say in the Lethal Weapon series, if I'm getting too old for all of this. Every year, I find myself like Michael Jordan, threatening to quit more many times before it actually happens.

As Michael Corleone once famously said, "Just when I thought I was out, they PULL me back in." I expect I will be pulled in a few more times next year.



NB: Yes, I will still finish the Series "The Unattainable." I am trying to put a little distance between the end of the project and when I look back at it in order to have perspective, and with the added difficulty that as a line producer, NDA or not, so much of what I do is proprietary and I feel it is a breach to share, even if I don't mention the film or people specifically. Still, there are stories I can share, and I will in the days and weeks to come.

A Smile To Go Before I Sleep

"Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
-A.A. Milne. Winnie-the-Pooh

First, my apologies for not following up on the series based on the film I just line produced, which I called, "The Unattainable." As it is for all production people, especially my hard working fellow producer (who is never afraid to drive a vehicle herself, help lug equipment or remember to thank people for their work), the days seem to never end, and the weariness persists even once the shooting stops, as there is the dizzying process of wrapping.

Though I knew that there was not going to be the time to do my full posts, which I like to make as thoughtful as possible, it was my intention to do short missives as we went along.

Even this proved to be difficult, as if I had a moment to write such a short note, I felt guilt at the idea of using that time to write an indulgent blog post, as others on the team were working hard to keep us going and get work done.

We have wrapped principal photography on that project, and I will now look back at it with a little perspective and try to relate the experience while it is certainly much fresher in my mind than the other projects from my past.

Before I get into that process, I will offer this lesson that good things, indeed, do sometimes come to those who wait.

There was a period around 1994 where I almost worked on three seminal indie films of the 1990s - Welcome to the Dollhouse, Spanking the Monkey, and Mall Rats (not a seminal movie, but Kevin Smith is certainly one of those filmmakers who define that era).

One post discusses my disappointment in not getting to work with Todd Solendz, who I consider a genius.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine - the actress from my play and short film - asked me to First AD a trailer for a short film.

She had done the play and the film for free, and I felt it only fair to return the favor, even if it meant working the day after we wrapped our film office on the feature. I was intrigued when she mentioned that one of the actresses was Heather Matarazzo, the lead in Welcome to the Dollhouse.

As my previous post on the subject tells, I felt there would be two difficulties shooting Dollhouse: finding a school that would agree to be represented in the movie, and finding a young actress at that delicate stage in our development when our egos are fragile enough to begin with who could handle the psychological abuse the lead character experiences.

When I saw the movie, I knew that the second problem proved no problem at all. Heather Matarazzo was brilliant in that movie, as good as any teen actress in any movie ever. As her career continued, she proved that this was not freak luck, that she was not only talented but willing to keep taking on challenges as an actress.

As with anyone who has been around as long as I have in this business, I've worked with many name performers, and names don't impress me. My Facebook page does not have the all-too-forced photos of me with these actors. This may not be true, but I always found it a little unprofessional to treat a fellow worker the way a fan might. Again, many of my co-workers do this, indeed, it is the norm, and this is probably just another one of my many personal quirks.

What does impress me is talent, and Heather is a unique talent. One fear of meeting someone whose work you admire is that they disappoint your higher expectations, that they are difficult to work with and not the special person you think they might be.

Luckily, this was not the case with Heather. She proved to not only be a wonderful actress, but a real trooper, dealing with the difficulties of working with a super-micro budgeted trailer and a very small crew in a very tight space.

After doing a feature where we had a big crew and a lot of equipment, working with one grip/gaffer/AC, one person who line produced and 2nd AD'd, one PA, and everyone else doubling and tripling up actually felt like a relief. Furthermore, having to not worry about the budget and just making the day proved, if not relaxing, a pressure that seemed less stressful.

Meeting and working with Heather made it all the better, and I did relate to her the story of almost working on that project many years ago. I did so very late in the day, so as not to take away from her focus on the work in front of us.  At this point. she had volunteered to discuss other acting projects, so I felt it would not be inappropriate.

In a nice surprise, I found that we were both touched in the same way by a film that was ostensibly made for children, but touched every adult I know who has seen it: The Last Unicorn.

All day, she agreed to do things like stand-in for lighting or do things herself that would be done by others on a bigger set, and her input into the scenes was always spot on.

The day before, I had spent a day in my office doing Purchase Orders and getting out last minute checks as well as managing money, a line producer's biggest responsibility. Last night, I got on a LIRR train home, exhausted not from the day but from the collective work and hours of the last two months, but it was a good tired. The producer (the friend previously mentioned) and the director (a new friend) could not have been more appreciative, the crew worked well together with nary a complaint (something I cannot always say on bigger crews) and the experience made me feel good about what film-making, on a very small level, can be.

When I agreed to do the gig yesterday, it seemed crazy, and as I rode out on the train after closing the office, going over the shot list, planning the shooting order, what sort of masochist was I? Wouldn't resting be a better use of my time?

Today, as I head out to my Zendo to return to a little bit of normal life, I realize that there will be time for rest, that we who work in an field we choose and get to keep working in a field we chose are blessed, that every project, even if it is only for a day, presents an opportunity to experience something new and wonderful.

I am reminded that on every project. whether it goes well or not so well, good things happen, good people are met, there are reasons for smiles. Yesterday, on a shoot that was over for me in less than 10 hours, meeting the the talented Heather Matarazzo and working with some truly selfless, easy-going people brought me a relaxed smile as I drifted off into sleep on a Penn Station-bound Long Island Railroad car.

The Unattainable - Part 2 - The Real Digital Revolution

"The telephone. which interrupts the most serious conversation and cuts short the most weighty observations, has a romance all it's own."
-Virginia Wolfe

When my mentor, Stan Bickman, died, his daughters sent out a memorial postcard. It was of Stan at a payphone, smiling.

For years, most pictures of any producer, especially a line producer, would involve a telephone. Whether it was talking to vendors or agents or staff or potential locations, there was always endless time spent on the phone.

The advent of the cell phone meant that a line producer was not tied to the office, that the phone time could also be spent heading to location or doing other things. I specifically remember a drive to Long Island from Manhattan where my assistant and I got into the car, said hello, and then were on the phone, never disconnecting, hitting the call-waiting button for a trip that lasted over an hour. We did not speak to each other again until we got out of the car.

For line producers of old, this probably seemed impersonal. I am sure many of them preferred to talk in person, and rued the day that telephones did as much to keep us apart as to bring us together.

Stan always said to always have cash on you when trying to lock a location or holding area. Psychologically, it is harder for someone to turn down cash in front of them than a location agreement or a check.

With one notable exception (Alex, from Handheld Films, who I have dealt with since he got there but have NEVER met - we both now feel its a sign of good luck and we don't break this) I have always made a point of meeting my vendors in person and shaking hands.

Having become accustomed to the phone. I am now just getting used to weaning myself off of it in favor of email or text.

Email makes sense: it means I have a "paper trail" of all conversations, which is helpful a)because it's easy to forget the details of one of `100 conversations per day, and b)well, it serves as CYA (the first two being "cover" and "your") if someone says they did not know.

Texts are quicker, though I hate them. Fat fingers and the need to put on my glasses.

My last feature was about 2 years ago, and even though much of my communication on that one included email, etc., I still dealt a good deal on the phone.

When things would get hectic, the constant ring of the phone - and of all the phones in the office - served as the ambient soundtrack to production.

Today, that sound is replaced by keyboards clicking. The way I used to dread answering the constant calls, I now dread being in a meeting for a half hour or more, and then coming back to "refresh" my email - I know there will be dozens. and there is no chain I am in that I can ignore.

This goes for everyone in production. There are nights my last email out would be at 2AM, I would wake up at 6AM, and there would be 10 emails. When does ANYONE sleep?

The communal response in the office is often something like this: I will be reading an email cc'd to others, and hear "Oh, my" (or often something stronger - a film office is not Mayberry RFD). I will know that my producer or coordinator is reading the same email, and reacting how I feel.

While the need for digital copies, shared dropbox for filing, etc. is absolutely essential, there are times (such as looking over a call sheet or production report, or reading a scene, or going over specs) that I still like to have a hard copy in front of me.

In many ways. fewer calls are a good thing. It's faster. Still, it does sometimes feel less personal to me, and then there is always the issue that level of disassociation allows people - myself included - to sometimes go into rant mode in an email they would not if they were just talking to each other. It's the same as flaming on the internet - people say things they would not if they were facing the person.

Tone is lost in an email, as is often sarcasm, a mode I likely go into too often when shooting. It is my way of keeping things light, but is easy to misinterpret. I'm learning.

I love the digital "paper trail." I really like being able to do a meeting with my tablet and not having to lug around my laptop (who ever thought that carrying a portable laptop would be described as a chore!).

So many of the digital improvements have made production better. However, I cannot help but be a little sentimental for the phone lines we used to set up in the office, with a "hunting" feature so that if the first number was busy, it would "hunt" to the second, etc ("Hunt" is a term the "Phone company" used to use). All of this is completely unnecessary in an age when everyone is on their cell.

Much as digital technology has made filmmaking more accessible, though I still think with something lost in celluloid, the digital world has many improvements, but with that intangible something lost. I find that people not only like what the technology offers, but seem to sometimes almost resent being called on the phone, or doing an in-person meeting. Who responds to voicemails anymore? If you want someone to get back, text them.

Alas, I never thought I would become nostalgic for the telephone, that original link to others. While my tablet and smartphone give me access to my crew, staff and set at all times, it also means that there is no time when I am not accessible. Not always a good thing, the inability to be out of touch even for a moment.

To use one of my absolutely favorite movie lines, one I think of often, and have used here before, from Inherit the Wind:

"Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it.  

Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, "All right, you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance.

Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat.

Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."

If old Henry Drummond thought that the telephone causes one to lose privacy and the "charm of distance," I can only imagine what that man behind the counter charges for our current digital age.

The Unattainable - Part 1 - That's Not What Productions Are Made for

The script for our feature is based on a novel; more precisely, a book of aphorisms.

Aphorisms have a long and distinguished place in literature, going back to the Ancients. Wiki describes them as "an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic( concise) and memorable form."

This original script had a few key, diverse characters who muse on life, and centered around a main female character who is a  writer. We will call her Justine.

Justine has two important men in her life; her ex-husband, who we will call Kevin, and her long-time lover, who we will call Harry. By the end of the story, she has found a third man in her life, a theater director.

She loves them all in one form or another, and each fills a place in her life. Together with some fellow writer and artist friends, she explores on the nature of love and relationships and why we do - and need to do -what we do.

All of this is beautifully laid out in the book. Presenting this on screen is slightly more difficult.

When I first read the script, I was intrigued by the wit and depth of insight. Many of the scenes were two or more characters presenting their struggles through these musings. The play had been originally scheduled for 18 days, at a modest budget (budget numbers always being confidential, even without an NDA). While it seemed a challenging schedule given the script pages covered, I thought we could accomplish it, as scenes with two to three characters talking, no stunts, etc. tend to be rather easy to film.

My first hint that this would not be the case was my first almost 3 hour meeting at a coffee shop with the director, A bright, organized, prepared woman with an incredible visual sense and background, she revealed her visual references. While there would be the literal action of the scenes, there would be sub-text, presented through voice-overs that were more "temporal," to use the words of my amazing script supervisor.

Every draft of the script improved the movie exponentially. Following Murphy's Law that No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, every improvement made the script more difficult to shoot. Additionally, the producers and director had hired an experienced Director of Photography with an ability to bring exactly this type of movie to life, but also wanting and needing the proper time to get the beautiful shots I have since seen in dailies.

Additionally, constant changes right up until beginning of shooting make the schedule a moving target; never a good thing for production.

Here is an irony I have learned from years of making movies. Boring scripts are easy to shoot. As someone who has budgeted 34 scripts in the past year, the easiest for me is when there are few characters in few locations mostly talking. For the line producer breaking down a script, two characters talking for 6 pages in one location - preferably something simple like a park bench or their apartment - means a quick breakdown, budget and turnaround of both.

It also makes for a movie most people will sleep through.

The nightmare in breaking down a script is many short scenes in many locations. You are adding many more sheets, and scheduling becomes difficult because of company moves and the difficulty shooting out performers.

This makes for a fast-paced movie people that will keep people sitting up in their seats.

So, there's the rub. Boring script; easy for production. Challenging, engaging script; challenging for production.

All this got me thinking of the quote from John Augustus Shedd that a DP friend of mine keeps in her room: "A ship is safe when it is in harbor, but that is not what ships are built for." It's the challenge we are always presented with, whether we realize it or not.

On this film, we are definitely not in harbor.



N.B. Because production has kept me insanely busy, I have not been keeping up the blog as I had hoped. With luck, I will catch you all up over this holiday break.

The Unattainable - A New Series

"Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors"
-Aldous Huxley

These pages have been blank for a longer period since I restarted the blog a while back because I am currently, once again, line producing a feature.

The changed world of indie films is not a pleasant one for line producers. While digital has made filmmaking cheaper, it has not changed the fact that certain costs - food, gas, tolls, vehicles, etc - are inevitable and have not gone away. Additionally, I refuse to do a movie with unpaid interns in paid positions. There is a place for interns, where they can learn and move up and you can utilize them in places you cannot afford to hire. That should not be your key grip, or, for that matter, set PAs.

The combination of good scripts being unable to raise the proper amount of money, bad scripts being done for silly figures, and scripts being shot in a range I am unwilling to work on, I have turned down more work than I have taken the last few years, making my living mostly preparing budgets and breakdowns and doing shorts.

This all changed when I got a call from producers who had just been greenlit for a film on the SAG MODIFIED LOW budget. As I consider budgets proprietary, and I also have an NDA, I will not and will never discuss budget publicly. It's low, but not so low as to fall into that bottomless pit known as "guerilla filmmaking."

Needless to say, about the only moment I have not been working the past four weeks - we started shooting yesterday and were in prep until that point - have been the few hours when I sleep. Not being a martyr. The same can and should be said for my producers and the director, all of whom have been great partners and, just as important, incredibly good human beings.

Not always easy to say about the people you are working along  side.

I will catch you up on prep, and then do a day-by-day diary. Unlike my long, winding posts on the past, the present will fly by, a brief thought here or there to let you know how it's going.

Those posts will start tomorrow - hope they give a little insight into what a line producer thinks and does