This Gun for Hire - Part 2 - The "Real" Job

"Seize the day. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart."   -  Erma Bombeck*

Even as I was making the transition from freelancer, some things would remain the same, and some old habits would die hard.

Part of my job still involved handling finances,  something my ex-wife would find amusing. The irony that someone who was never very good at handling his own finances could track a film's finances was never lost on her.

Yet, here I was at a "real job;" the type of job my mother always (not-so-secretly) wished I would get, and the type my ex was sure I never would.

Technically,  I reported to the new president of the company,  who we will call Mark, because he reminded me of someone who thought of himself as a Mark Cuban-like entrepreneur.

I should explain.

First, I need to put the times in context. It was the turn of the Century, and all you heard was that 'content is king.' In many ways that, from my admittedly limited and brief perspective,  was one of the problems at Shooting Gallery. They were near the end of an era where they were "incubating " projects, including web series.  A lot of folks with an idea and not much more were given free rent, free access to equipment, phones,  etc. The idea was they would develop content that Shooting Gallery could later sell and reap the profit. In theory, it could have worked. After all, they had helped develop successes such a You Can Count on Me and Slingblade.

Of course, it's never that easy. In reality, at this point, only the production and post-production division was making money, and that was, from what I could tell, in large part due to Dave Tuttle's stewardship. Although Dave was second to Mark in title, it was in title only. Mark's successes came in other fields, and, from what I could tell, he was brought in only because he brought with him an infusion of cash.

The financial reporting I did came from within,  and from the other cities where Gun For Hire had expanded to Toronto, LA, Vancouver and Miami.  Only New York's Gun for Hire division seemed to be making money, which was part of the problem.

Still, in the beginning, things didn't seem to be that bad. In my early days in theater and film, I had temped to pay the bills, and I was always surprised at how much money big companies threw away as opposed to the low budget projects I worked on, so I just chalked some things up to the sins of largess.

The more mundane part of my job was as facilities manager - things like making sure the custodial help had enough cleaner. Not all that exciting,  but I knew it needed to be even done, and it wasn't that hard.

The upside was some client contact. Our biggest client that was still shooting was a film called Changing Lanes with. Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson.  Like a guy on the romantic rebound who still pines for his ex when with the new lover, I gravitated to spending some time with the line producer,  but no so much as to be a nuisance.  It worked for both of us, as I made sure he was always happy, which, after all, was part of my job.

Remember we were in two buildings that were in prime real estate in downtown Manhattan - 609 Greenwich Street and 110 Leroy Street, which is where my office was located, I spent a lot of time going back and forth, probably a remnant of my former jobs,  wanting to be hands on.

Another remnant of my old freelance production work was staying until the job was done. While  I always preach to coordinators not to burn themselves out and leave at some point because you could never finish everything,  I still slept better if all of my financials were done.

One night,  Dave was leaving a little late and I was still working.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

I pointed out I didn't want to leave without getting my financials done, even though they weren't really due for another day and a half.

He chuckled.

"You've got to get used to your new life, brother.** There will be time to do that tomorrow.  Go home."

As a former line producer, he knew exactly what I was doing.  I eventually changed my routine to include leaving pretty much on time, with the exception of always asking Dave if he needed anything if he was working late.

Those were the good days. For the first time since my days at the political research company, I was soon going to have my health care paid by my company. Sweet.

I could not have known then how quickly they would come to an end.









*More Titanic references to come.

**Of course, all these years later, I am paraphrasing from memory. I do remember him saying something like "brother." More on this in the next article.


The Village Voice did a great article with a lot of research, as did a documentary. All of my articles on this are based from my perspective which, while from the inside, did not include access to interviews or conversations with key ;players like Larry Meistrich, nor was I in on meetings where key financial decisions were made..  

Five Things That an AD IS Not

The list could certainly go on, and there is certainly nothing more wonderful  than a list, instrument of wondrous hypotyposis" - Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

If you have a Facebook account (and who doesn't), you have come across an increasing number of links to - for the lack of a better word - "articles" that count down some random list.

You know the ones.

"Seven Things You Never Knew About Kale"

"Six Actors You Never Knew Were Episcopalian"

"Eight Things You Should Never Ask A Hot Dog Vendor"

They are usually the internet version of those magazines you grab at the checkout counter that alternately tell you of a new cure for cancer, or how they know your favorite TV celebrity is actually a visitor from another galaxy.

Sadly,  more and more of them are now part of more respected sources of news.

I used the terms articles in quotation marks because most of them are the type of off-the-top-of-your-head jottings any of us could come up with,  and often do, in places like this - blogs.

As with everything else I do, I probably over-think this blog. I pour over every word, research,  and scratch ideas that fail to come to full fruition.

That does not make this journalism, or high art. However,  if you're going to ask others to use their minds to read something,  you should use yours first.  Yet, these "journalists " who are getting paid to offer up something, are satisfied with these frills - or, really,  no-frills - offerings. As someone who had the pleasure of working with future CNN correspondents, PBS news hosts and network news execs* in college, I find this a soft-core excuse for journalism

This will be one of those.

One of my regular First ADs and I have been friends for many years, and we occasionally share an adult beverage  (or more), as well as our incredulity at the lack of awareness of what a First AD does.

Now, there are a few great blogs on being a First AD (like the one offered by my blog-sister Michelle ), so rather than offer five things your AD does, I will offer five things that you should not expect from your AD. (I use the male pronoun because AD in question is male; your AD's gender may vary.)

#1. First ASSISTANT Director Does Not Mean He Should Help You Direct.

Inspired by my AD's latest experience.

In a group email, the producer asked the director if he had sent a shot list to the AD, who he had just hired.

Now, they had just fired their last DP. The director asked if he were to send it, could AD put the shots in order of shooting.

AD was brazen enough point out that could not happen yet, as he a)had never been on a scout of the location (s), b) had yet to meet the DP, and c) had yet to speak with the director.

Director was upset and decided to go with another AD.

It is my belief that misconceptions about what an AD does start in film school,  where the AD is inevitably someone who, as the t-shirt suggests, just wants to direct. As such, they love having long conversations about the perfect angle, blocking,  mise-en-scene and any other aspect of directing.

In Europe,  I understand that being a First AD is a path to directing. In the U.S., that is not true, and ADs who offer directing advice don't last.

Now, most experienced First ADs have been around the block enough to be helpful when needed in that department. More often, they should be focused on keeping things moving.

Which leads me to #2.

#2 A Good AD Can Lead You to Set, But He Can't Make You Shoot.

This goes for the director and the DP. Let's deal with the director first.

The director must have the scene blocked, and then be ready to shoot. Directors generally call action on takes, and ultimately must decide if they are satisfied and ready to move to the next set-up.

When faced with an indecisive director,  good ADs will employ a series of tricks to keep them moving. Some will anticipate and start to call the roll when they sense the shot is ready but the director is still wavering.  Stan used to encourage me to do this, and let the director stop me if they weren't ready. This was a tactic only to be used as last resort, as it has the potential to cause conflict and undermine one or both.

One of my favorite versions of this was a tough-talking, chain-smoking Mama of an AD who, when she wanted to push a director to move on from one setup to the next, would call out, "Movin' On. You don't want to put your foot through a Rembrandt. "

As for trying to get a slow DP to move faster, suffice to say you cannot ask a DP to shoot when they are not lit or when they don't have frame. I've pissed off enough DPs that I will leave it at that, as I've covered this ground before.

Yes, keeping things moving is part of the ADs job, but that doesn't mean ...

#3 The AD is (Not) A "Grip With An Attitude"

This was the exact phrase a producer once (incorrectly ) used to describe a good AD.

A truly good AD moves the crew along with communication,  and, not unlike a good sports coach, will use various means to encourage a crew to move as quickly - albeit still safely - as possible.

Most crews want an AD to keep everything moving quickly,  as they don't want to spend endless hours on set when they can get home. In those rare occasions where a crew is slow or, let's face it, just a bit lazy (hey, it can happen ), private discussion or talks with department heads are options.

This does not mean screaming at them like the above drill sergeant. 

Past high school football,  this technique rarely goes well. I always remember, and have often reminded more vocal ADs,that we in production may be figuratively be doing some heavy lifting,  but the crew is literally doing it.

Speaking of grips, I once saw an encounter between a bellowing AD, and the grip whose face he decided to get in, which is right on point.

The grip put down the equipment he was carrying,  took a breath, and said,  "I have two speeds, and if you don't like this one,  you definitely aren't going to like the other one. "

#4. The AD is Not a Script Supervisor

I have waxed and swooned about my love for the skill and.craft of script supervisors here. Suffice here to say that it requires laser-like focus on the action, which is impossible if you are also trying to make sure the actors for the next scene are through the works**, checking with art department if the next set is dressed, directing background action, and setting lock-up.

Yet, while no reasonable producer would double the 1st AC job with Best Boy Grip, I still see "keeping script notes" as duties listed in low-budget AD ads.

Somehow, smaller crews means "cut production people " first to many digital producers.

This leads to an even more common pet peeve that is becoming all-too-common.

#5. A First AD Cannot Prep Call Sheets.

The First AD is responsible for the schedule and everyone knowing said schedule. Long ago, in a movie - making galaxy now far, far away, call sheets were invented to distribute this information.

A proper call sheet is a work of art; a finished symphony; a perfect diamond. It also has a great deal of information to fill out, much of which can change right up until it is published. My favorite 2nd AD created a call sheet template (not the one listed below) so perfect that I would hire just for the call sheet alone, if not for the many other fine qualities he brings.

The First AD makes the major decisions on call times and what will be shot, but it is the 2nd AD who must get all this info loaded into the call sheet, in addition to all the other things he is doing. The call sheet is time-consuming and requires some free hands.

Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion shown above, vowed to not rest until he had saved all sentient beings. He struggled to meet the needs of so many, and his head split into eleven pieces. Amitaba Buddha, seeing his plight, gave him eleven heads to hear the cries of many, but when he reached out to them all, his two arms shattered, and, to once again aid him, Amitaba Buddha blessed him with a thousand arms.

Many a 1st (and 2nd) AD can attest to feeling like their head was going to split into eleven pieces, but all are limited to two arms, and as line producer, I do not have the power of Amitaba Buddha to give them any more.

More and more, First ADs are hired, and then told there will be no budget for a 2nd AD. This means often training a PA, which almost always mean it will be wrong for at least a few times - and teaching call sheets should not be part of the AD's job.

Now, on a very small shoot, with a very small crew, if everyone is fine with gathering everyone and just telling them where, when and what tomorrow, great. However, there is a reason for call sheets, and not having them will cause some level of confusion. 

You can have a proper call sheet and a 2nd AD, or a First AD alone and you do the best you can. You can't have both. Just don't go screaming at your First AD when the Best Boy Electric (I've been picking on grips too often) shows up at the wrong time or the wrong place.

I'm sure every department has it's own complaints. If you ever wondered about the types of things ADs bitch about when they need to blow off some steam, this is a small sample.

*Richard Roth of CNN, Ray Suarez formerly of the PBS News Hour and now with Al jazeera America,  and Bernard Gershon, ABC News and now Gershonmedia.

**Hair, Make-Up and Wardrobe

Eye of the Beholder

"The more I see of men, the more I like dogs"
-Clara Bow, silent-screen siren

Maybe only America Ferrera, whose introduction to us was as the title character of Ugly Betty, had as ignominious an introduction to the entertainment public as Heather Matarazzo.

Heather's first major role was the "unattractive" pre-pubescent lead, Dawn Weiner in Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse. Early on, we learn her nickname has become "weinerdog."

I've told the story before that when I was up to line produce the film (I didn't get it-check out links), I thought finding a girl at that impressionable age who could handle the negativity would be challenging. As Heather has pointed out more times than she cares to remember in interviews, she just saw it as acting.

Movies are illusions, and the illusion works both ways. Lucille Ball was known as a comic, so she always toned down her looks; I've met a few actors who met her in person when she was younger who said she was a knockout. That didn't work for her comic image, so we think of her a lot plainer.

Phyllis Diller found a hard time getting work as a woman and a stand-up comic until she decided to make herself look unattractive and thus unthreatening. Again, she was far more attractive in person.

Subsequent roles for both Heather and America have shown off their beauty.

I was lucky enough to work one day with Heather on a short, so I was happy when I saw that she is starting a blog, and, in true honest fashion, she starts with a bang. A woman who spent a good deal of time doing inversion training so she could hang upside down naked and come to an unpleasant end in Hostel II was not about to pull any punches in her inaugural post, linked here.

In it, she tells of being a 19-year old who had been attached to a film project for two years, only to find out she was being replaced a month before production because some investors felt she was an not, um, an object of their desire.

Heather puts it much better - but I won't even try to steal her thunder.

It's certainly not unheard of, and sometimes can even apply to men. I did a short once with a very talented and nice gay male director who, when casting his lead man, wanted to know if he was attractive to women.

One after another, he asked female members of our staff, "Would you fuck him?"

However, as men are still the predominant power players in film, it is women who have to not only be pretty enough, but desirable enough. This goes back to the silent days, when Clara Bow was referred to as the "it" girl, with little doubt as to what the "it" was. Our great-grandparents weren't as prudish as we would believe.

Girl-next-door works for rom-coms; for meatier female roles, it is preferable that you look good in tight clothing.

Anyway, I won't go on about women and casting here. My point of this impromptu post was to introduce you to a blog you may want to follow. Heather has had an interesting career, and after years as a New Yorker, has just recently made the movie to LA. I've never seen her be boring in a movie, and I doubt her blog will be.

I will add it to the list soon. In the meantime, check it out.

This Gun For Hire - Part 1 - My 19th Nervous Breakdown

"The dark night of the soul is not restricted to holy people. It can happen to anyone. I believe that in some ways it happens to everyone." Thomas Moore, Dark Nights of the Soul

While Stan and I often joked about how we went into retirement after every film - another gold watch -  it was also sometimes true that a particular project would be so emotionally draining as to leave my faith in film in taters.

My overwhelming disappointment on how Town Diary turned out and the loss of my dear friend JR left me in such a place.

To call it disillusionment suggests almost a morose state of ennui. This was not the case. This was full on anxiety and burning doubt.

"This is not what I do.  This is who I am," I would sometimes share with women in my life who were important to me, including my (now ex and) future wife. 

If this were true; if harnessing the various creative forces was the core of my being,  what would it say if I now thought all of it for naught?

Moore again:

“During the dark night there is no choice but to surrender control, give in to unknowing, and stop and listen to whatever signals of wisdom might come along. It’s a time of enforced retreat and perhaps unwilling withdrawal. The dark night is more than a learning experience; it’s a profound initiation into a realm that nothing in the culture, so preoccupied with external concerns and material success, prepares you for.” 

What happens when life shatters the great "what if"? 'What if' I got to see my screenplay done, and not these inferior screenplays I have worked on? 'What if' the director was a friend and someone I respected, and someone who respected me? 'What if' I was able to surround myself with the crew people I most respected?

'What if' I did all that and it didn't work? 

As with a more recent experience, the darkest part of this place was that I found myself adrift in windless waters, motionless sails, the middle of the metaphysical ocean; mourning the safe shores of what was the heartbeat of my life for so long, unwilling to head towards the safer shores of a "normal" job.

So it was that I came upon a tiny but magical island, one whose flora and fauna were comfortably familiar, but whose landscape seemed so much more hopeful, more settled. Yes, I could use my knowledge of my fading land here, while maybe planting fresh and wonderful seeds that could grow with stability, without the insanity of long, pressure-filled days. Here, there would be the comforts of security and normal work hours and nothing but happy people who could help art be made but not be burdened by all the hang-ups I found on set.

Behold, this beautiful land, this blessed place - Shooting Gallery, or, more precisely, it's operation division, Gun for Hire.

The opening was for a Director of Operations for Gun For Hire, which helped managed two facilities in the Lower Manhattan at 110 Leroy Street and 609 Greenwich Street. In many ways, the position was less film production and more chief maintenance person, keeping track of day-to-day operations assisting VP and Head of Operations for Shooting Gallery and designer of Gun for Hire, Dave Tuttle, one of the smartest and most forward-thinking production people I have been honored to meet in my life.

As I mentioned in the linked article, meeting with Dave for this position was such a great experience. Dave had been a line producer himself, and understood that I was burned out. I was going to love it there, Dave told me, and, for the most part, he was right. There were many good things about my time there.

But I wasn't looking for good. If I were to let go of one dream, I wanted it replaced by another.

Xanadu. Shangri-La. Narnia. The Garden of Eden. No matter how old and jaded we get, deep somewhere in us is a happy child that wants to believe. As we get older, it becomes Camelot, where all that is good and true can exist.

Students of history and literature know that these shining places have a shelf-life. As it turned out, I landed after the apple had been eaten, the final battle of Salisbury Plain was already underway.

In the following posts, I will describe my brief but important time at Shooting Gallery and Gun For Hire, and my personal view of the Misfire.

At the beginning, though, I was sure I had arrived. After all, I was at the home of Slingblade and You Can Count On Me. For sure, I had come out the other end of Moore's Dark Night:

"It is precisely because we resist the darkness in ourselves that we miss the depths of the loveliness, beauty, brilliance, creativity, and joy that lie at our core.

The Color of Money Isn't Always Green

"When making a business decision, the only color that matters is green."
-Dom Pagnotti, He Got Game

(NOTE: I try to keep this blog to the world I know best - low budget indie filmmaking from a production perspective. Sometimes, however, my knowledge of that world can shed light on topics in the news. While I have no intention of having this blog become a "soapbox" from which to make broader assumptions, some things need to be said.)

Worrying about who does or does not get nominated, no less wins, awards in the movie business is pointless. Opinions are like that anatomical feature where the sun don't shine - everyone has one.  Or, as William Goldman once famously said, "In Hollywood nobody knows anything."

So, when Ava DuVernay was not nominated for her direction of Selma, I was neither angry nor surprised. Let's remember that Alfred Hitchcock never won an Academy Award for a motion picture he directed*, and many talented directors have been passed over. Odd as it may seem, directors of nominations for Best Picture are often passed over

All of this suggests that there was no grand conspiracy on the part of the voters to snub Ms. DuVernay, nor was there a conscious racial or gender bias. I cannot imagine many - if any - of those people saying "I'm not voting for this Black female director."

Still, I was forced to reply when I read a comment in reply to a Forbes article by Scott Mendelson (who was angry about the snub) that said 'I have worked in Hollywood, and the only gender that matters is talent, and the only color that matters is green.' This person was making an assumption that is logical, but untrue, either in Hollywood or even in the indie world with which I am more familiar (more on that later).

Yes, the folks in Hollywood WOULD hire talent blindly, IF they knew it when they see it. They do not. A look at the tremendous number of box office failures each year tells us that.

The way the money people in Hollywood keep their jobs is by making safe choices. If you make a blockbuster movie and hire George Clooney in the lead and it fails, it's unlikely you will lose your job. Monument Men, anyone? If you hire a heretofore unknown in that same lead and it fails, everyone looks for your head. "How could he be so stupid?" Especially on the studio level, keeping your job is more important than making money, and, as you are talking about a world of OPM - Other People's Money - the two do not always go hand-in-hand.

What that means is that track record matters, and, thus, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You hire those you know because its safe, so they keep getting to make movies, and their track records get longer, and so it goes.

Even if Selma were to sweep the Oscars, the studios (which is where the big money is) would STILL say that Ms. DuVernay only succeeded with Selma because it was a "Black" movie, and argue that she could not direct some subject matter where race is not an issue. To paraphrase Robert Evans, in Hollywood, there are 100 reasons to say no and very few to say yes.

If Hollywood is so gender blind, why was an Oscar winning actress at the height of her talents and looks - Charlize Theron - being paid $10M less than her male co-star before the Sony hack?

In the days when I was still trying to raise money for indie projects, one "fact" I was told in terms of casting is that, regardless of the popularity of the lead actress, the financing depends on the male lead. I was once raising money for a project where I had another former Academy-Award winner attached (Best Supporting Actress) and investor after investor told me that it "didn't matter," and why didn't I get someone like Eric Estrada attached for the much smaller male lead (it was the 90s, and Estrada was one of the go-to names you always got as a 'sure-thing' when raising money).

Since posting this, David Carr wrote a very good article in the NY Times with much the same theme. He points out - as others have - that the Academy, in the last few years, is 93% White, 76% Male and an average of 63 years old.There were a number of articles that popped up today about how many movies about White men won nominations today, and how skewed the nominations seemed.  

It's worth noting that Director nominations come from the DGA - not the Academy, and that Best Actor Awards come from SAG, a group  that is much more diverse. He mentions what may be even a bigger problem - that  Paramount had planned its push for Interstellar much longer, and belatedly got behind Selma , doing so only after it received critical acclaim. This seems more important to me. Anyone who followed the difficulty a member of the "club" - George Lucas - had getting  Red Tails financed tells you that in the halls of power, where the money is, there is still a belief that movies that feature women or people of color are "niche" movies and don't have a wider audience. 

There was never any proof of this myth of money and gender, but it was a perpetuated over and over again for years. While I hear it less often now, it clearly has not gone away when it comes to money and gender equality.

If anyone thinks gender and race have nothing to do with who Hollywood entrusts it's money to, then they likely also think we live in a post-racial, society.  I suggest that they look a little closer.

Even in terms of my smaller world of indie film, gender matters. Race matters. In fact, everything matters.  I have been told - more than once - that a certain African-American would be a bad "fit" with a certain director (in one specific case, a famous TV actor who was directing his first short). I have been asked if a female First AD could "handle" a difficult director or situation.

There is no doubt that there are more opportunities for not only women and people of color today in the indie film world and Hollywood, but for folks from all walks of life and backgrounds. I can remember when producers would question my hiring of a female gaffer or female assistant camera, asking if the "cute little things" could carry that heavy equipment (in the film days, carrying heavy mag boxes was part of an AC's job).  That rarely comes up anymore.

It's also thankfully true that awards don't guarantee future funding or hires, and lack of them does not preclude those possibilities.

Sometimes, the bias can even be worked to a filmmaker's advantage. I worked as line producer on an obscure film by a first-time female feature director that raised a good deal of it's money from women who were attracted to precisely because of it's female perspective on love.

Maybe if we stopped making believe that we did not see differences in people, but rather acknowledged it and tried to deal with it, we would make progress toward that post-differences world a little quicker.  In the meantime, let's at least stop being so surprised when it happens.









*Hitchcock did, of course, win a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance*, (or, There's Something About Actors)

"We Do Not Rent To Theatricals"**
- Old Rooming House Sign

(SPOILER ALERT - While discussing  the film Birdman, I will try not to give away too much of the plot, and definitely not the ending. That said, it's hard to write this post without discussing what happens in the movie, and that can certainly sometimes harm the experience. If you haven't seen the movie and would like to - you have been warned.)

Do not fear. I have no intention of deviating from the course of this blog, which is the insanity of a career on the production side of low-budget independent film, to indie film criticism. Many folks do it just fine right now, and, on the other end of the spectrum, many more people already do it badly, and I have no intention of competing with either crowd.

This is similar to my early forays in the world of the arts, which was as a writer and actor, a profession that had a similar spectrum. That side of my career when I came to a not-so-different decision that the world did not need one more mediocre actor, which I imagined was the extent of my talent.

My viewing of a matinee of Birdman  came on the heels of  finally finishing my series on Town Diary. Thank you, holiday time in New York, for providing an elder production person with ample free time to go to matinees.

It was only two short posts ago that I mentioned that my original plan for that script was not unlike this one, about the insanity of the backstage life in the theater. Of course, this is a path with deep tread marks in film, going back to the very early days, from the "I've got a barn. You've got the costumes. Let's put on a show" musicals to backstage back-stabbing in movies like All About Eve, to neurosis of the characters in Tootsie, which, while it covers soap operas, is filled with earnest, honest, true ac-tors from the theater world. Both Birdman and Tootsie are filled with characters determined to stay true to their pure art and eschew the crass and commercial (soap operas in the case of Tootsie, and the deluge of comic-book movies in Birdman.)

In fact, many of the characters in Birdman have sympatico companions in Tootsie. Ed Norton's insistence on the truth, and nothing but the truth, has echoes of Bill Murray's playwright ("I don't want my plays done at the Uris Theater. I only want my plays done in a little theater in the Village where the only people who see them are people who come in out of the rain")*** and of course, Hoffman's vain actor ("Nobody does vegetables like me!"). Teri Garr's neurotic actress would be right at home with this group. Where Garr's character famously tells Hoffman of the role he eventually takes, "I can't play her - she's, she's - she's a woman", one actress in Birdman comforts another in this scene.

Lesley: "I wish I had more self-respect?"
Laura: "You're an actress."

Indeed, Birdman is the movie that every film person who comes out of the theater world wants to write and/or direct. When done right - and this film is, for the most part - it offers a world where people are at the same time funny caricatures and real people who demand that you care about them. I got the same belly-laughs out of this that I got out of films like Tootsie and Noises Off and, on the film side, Tropic Thunder, The Player, and, of course, the inspiration of this blog's title, Living in Oblivion.

We are, after all, like family. We will defend our frailties, eccentricities and foibles to the death to the outside world, but among ourselves, we love nothing more than to pick at those same oddities. Undeniably, there is also the shadenfreude of watching others suffer as we have suffered.

Birdman does a very good job with the genre. Still, as I pondered it on the way home (yes, having all this free time leaves me time to not only see matinees, but ponder about them), the question that always troubles me about these films comes back. Sure, we love them but do "civilians" love them as much as we do?

To some degree, this can be said of any profession. If I search the internet, I'm sure there is a blog post of airplane pilots wondering this about Airplane. As with Tootsie, if they are broad enough, of course any audience will enjoy them just as much.

That is a problem with an "indie" film like Birdman. It spends so much time dismissing the crass commercialism of blockbusters that it would be an abject failure if it was broad enough for that audience, where as a film like Tropic Thunder can wear over-the-top blockbuster like a badge of honor.

Here, I started to think that Jack was right; that if we had done, this, it would have had limited appeal. We both loved Waiting for Guffman, but if we were going to be an even more obscure version of that film, there wasn't much chance of success. OK, so in the end we did not have any commercial success with Town Diary, and only limited critical success (Jack and I shared a screenwriting award from a very small L.A. festival).

I have a hunch that a lot of the critical acclaim and love for this film in the indie world comes exactly from this familiarity, and for many festival voters and indie film critics rooting exactly for this type of film and a character like Michael Keaton's Riggan Thomson. Keaton is an easy guy to root for and the parallels to his actual career (walking away from a third Batman the way his character, Thomson, walked away from "Birdman 4") make this a natural for him. The cinematography helps as well, accentuating every line and crease of his face, his receding hair line, the bags under his eyes, his sagging physique (though I would take it - he doesn't look that out of shape).We feel his pain.

Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed this movie, and I'm fine if he and this movie gets awards. It entertained me. What more can I ask? If this was a review, it would get both of my thumbs pumped high in the air like celebratory fists***.

The more I thought about it, it was better than the outline I wrote for that comedy, so maybe, on this point, Jack was right. Maybe the world didn't need another one of these films either. In the end, though the fruit was sweet, it was of the low-hanging variety.

NB - Keaton won a Golden Globe, as did the screenplay






*This is the subtitle for the Birdman, in case you didn't know. Does a movie title really need a subtitle?

** I used to have one of these signs, and I remember them being popular in the homes of my theater buddies. I have never done the historical research necessary to say whether they were authentic or just another self-depricating reference. If anyone out there knows for sure, please leave a comment below.

***Some of the Tootsie quotes are from memory - I love those lines, but some were not on IMDB quotes and I don't have the script. If they are off by a word or two, don't shoot me.

****If you are too young to remember, this is a reference to the old Siskel and Ebert review show, which became a template for so many of those shows to follow. As you might imagine, this show, which began on PBS, had much more insightful criticism than most TV review shows today, yet it was incredibly entertaining. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were reviewers for competing Chicago newspapers, at a time when newspapers still mattered. Neither was very TV savvy in the beginning, and the resulting spontaneity was much more fun than the more scripted shows today. We lost both of them too soon.

All in the Family: The Making of Town Diary - The Final Cut

"I don't try to guess what a million people will like.  It's hard enough to know what I like."
-John Huston

After JR's death, there was a definite mourning period. He was cremated, and we got together on a beach in New Jersey and spread his ashes, joking as we could amid the tears.

Of course, Jack and I were as determined as ever to finish the project, and we collaborated as much as we could with Jack in Chicago, where JR's editing suite was located, and me in New York. Jack did the editing with JR's assistant editor, which added another dynamic to the process. In theory, it was good to have a fresh set of eyes. In reality, since he had only been an assistant editor, it meant Jack did the first cut pretty much the way he wanted to do it.

My first reaction to the first cut was that it was slow, but that's not unusual. I assumed that we could pick up the pace. I knew the problem started at home.

From the first reading of the script, through listening to sides at auditions, it occurred to me that, despite my best efforts, the script was too "talky." I have a great love for dialogue, and ever since Town Diary, I have pushed myself and the filmmakers I produced to pare down the words. Talking is great on stage, but it is hard to sustain it in film.

There are exceptional writers who can get in a great deal of dialogue and keep a story moving; Aaron Sorkin is my hero in this area. The difference is that the dialogue is always active, always moving the plot forward, and he does a great job of having his characters on the move as well.

Our story was about a filmmaker with regrets, battling his own past and that of a town's. Too often, I felt the scenes were telling and not showing. Worse yet, they often were reflective, which works better in novels than it does on screen.

Part of that was Jack's rather straight-forward style of shooting, which made the dialogue too precious, but I have to take responsibility for laying that foundation for him.

One scene in particular bothered me. The main character, Brian, has a strained relationship with his father. At one point, he discusses it with his mother. This is an adult man in his 40s trying to come to terms with his relationship with his parents.

It worked on paper, but when I watched it, I realized that it was not only reiterating something we had already established (his issues with his father), but it was at a point in the film where we were following a mystery, and it stopped it dead in it's tracks.

I asked Charlie, our cameraman and now de facto DP, to take a look, and he agreed, not only with the scene, but with the pacing as a whole.

Jack and I were past the arguments - JR's death made all that seem trite - and we tried to work out the problems. Jack agreed with some changes, but he felt that the mother-son scene was too good to lose. It was odd - a writer protesting to a director that a scene should be cut, and the director responding that the dialogue and performance made it indispensable.

In the end, the biggest change for Jack was that certain scenes just didn't work, and we needed to do a reshoot. I wasn't sure, but Jack  raised the money on his own to do it. 

We did the reshoot the following June, with Charlie as DP. The scenes we reshot certainly were better than what we originally had, including one in a newspaper office which I completely rewrote. We never found a good location for the original newspaper office, and built it in a studio. It looked awful (not the fault of our designer - there were budget and time limitations).* This time, we found a little underground newspaper office that was perfect. We also cast a long-time character actor named John who I knew from, you  guessed it, West Bank Cafe.

An aside on John.

John had one of the more revealing off-screen lines during the shoot. Word spread on set that Jack Lemmon had just died. When John, an older character actor, heard, his droll response was, "It's just as well. His work was going downhill." John wasn't kidding. He really felt that, if an actor didn't have his work, there was not much reason to stick around. Tells you a lot.

Back to the movie.

Shortly afterward, we had a screening at Tribeca (we rented the space). A table was set up with photos to honor JR, and certainly, much of the party afterward was a celebration of stories about working with JR, as it should be.

The screening itself? I sat with my assistant on the film, who knew me and my feelings better than anyone. She was the one who had to listen to all my complaints about how Jack was missing the main points of the film, how our lead was wrong, etc. Bless her, she helped me get through the entire thing.

The final product, in my opinion, is slow. I sat there, proud to see my name in a writing credit for the first time, but disappointed.

The film you screen is never the film you shot, or the script you wrote. It's rare that it is everything you wanted under the best of circumstances (see "Director's Cuts" and the Coppola's endless retelling of Apocalypse Now); and low budget films are never the best of circumstances. There is a line - and each individual has to find it - where the film that you screen is a true expression of the story you were trying to tell, or it is not. For me, it didn't make it across that line.

That experience has propelled me as a producer. I work with a lot of first-time directors, and, on low-budget, there are always compromises. A point I always stress is that you really need to know what things you would like and what are essential, and fight for the latter.As a line producer, it's a hard balance, but I really have fought on every film since not to have another filmmaker have that sinking feeling watching your baby and realizing that she is not as pretty as you thought.

* Here is a lesson I have learned more than once on low budget: when in doubt, go with a real location. It always sounds enticing to build to your needs, but if you don't have the budget, manpower, and time, too often, the result looks cheap.

N.B. This could have easily been three posts - one on the aftermath JR's death, one on the reshoot, and one on the screening. This series has run the better part of this year, with interruptions and I thought it was time to move on, both for myself, and those who are good enough to follow this blog.