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

The Great Man Directs - Part 2 - The Best and The Brightest

"I feel my job is to create an atmosphere where creative people can do their best work."
-John Frankenheimer

I love the picture and quote above for so many reasons.

Along with Billy Wilder, John Frankenheimer is one of my favorite directors. His work in the early days of live television dramas in series like Playhouse 90 was about as good as it gets, yet his work never got bogged down in one period, he was constantly growing and changing, so while his career starts with these old anthologies, they go through a film career that starts with classics Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May, and go right up to Ronin with Robert DeNiro and Reindeer Games with Ben Affleck. While he was best known as an action director, the drama in his films was what was most compelling, and no two of his films look alike.

Oh, and he directed one of my dad's favorite films, The Train, with Burt Lancaster. My dad would scour the TV Guide (no "channel guide" on the remote - and no remote!) for it, and, much to my mother's dismay ("How many times are you going to watch that movie?") he would never miss it when it played on one of the old movie channels (then WPIX and WOR in NYC - this was WAY before cable).

He also started as an assistant director, and is one of the rare folks who went the route from AD to director in the US, a path much more common in other countries.

Next, I love the classic pose. In today's WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) world of film-making, one can trust the monitor to tell you precisely what you will see. I remember DP's in the 35MM age telling directors not to worry about the lighting because the monitor didn't show that. No more.  There was a time a director had to collaborate and work with his Director of Photography and then trust him, as the only one following the image was the trusty cameraman, and that through the small eyepiece.

In those days, figuring out shots could work by using your hands as a "frame," later, viewfinders did a better job of that.

This leads to the quote, which gets to the heart of filmmaking, which is collaboration, and, in turn, trust.

One of my motto's for successful filmmaking is :"Hire good people and let them do their job."

Most people would nod at the first part of that statement, fewer take the second part as seriously as I do.

I've spoken of my process of choosing crew as well as casting; because, in this case, as it would be very small, there were fewer concerns, but they were more important.

The casting decision had been made when I did the play; I cast a woman who I had worked with on her short film, a film she wrote, directed and acted in called The Retreat. I was also very impressed with her in a short called Resolution of Two, in which she played a much different character.

The female lead, Elizabeth, was crucial, as she drives the story. I was sure Chelsea was perfect for it, so I saw no need to audition people for the role. Was there possibly someone who would impress me more in an audition? Surely. However, how would I ever really know what they were capable of the way I did with Chelsea. Watching someone work, you know so much more.

She had done a lot of film, and no stage. That didn't bother me; I had directed stage and knew I could work with her on those things she needed. She turned out even better than I could have imagined.

For the role of her husband, she suggested Jimmy. After he auditioned, I thought he was a good fit. The fact they had worked together was a big plus for me. Before I made my final decision, Chelsea shared that they were a couple, and living together. From my perspective, that was only a plus, but I appreciated her professionalism in being straight about it. He did have stage experience, and also worked in the business as an editor.

From my perspective, and that of just about everyone who saw it, the play had been a success. That is why Dennis , the executive producer of the series, asked if I wanted to shoot it as a short. I had worked with Dennis on a reality show a year earlier, and on one of them, I was story producer. When I first cut it, it was a good, professional, story - and not too exciting. We discussed it, and, though not convinced, I re-cut it as a reality show, and from the first moment, I knew he was right. I knew there was a better story there, and Dennis pushing me helped bring it out.

A sample below - it is in multiple parts on Youtube if interested.




Dennis was the impetus behind making this a short, though I also have to thank Deepika, who did a great job producing the play, and Laura. the master organizer working with Dennis.

I said in the last post that I had been a snob about how I would direct my first project, that I would want a full crew. So, why did I let go of my resistance to a small, almost-no-budget project?

We were shooting what amounted to two scenes (I added a scene to the play) in one location with two people. I saw how it could be done if we had the right DP, and that right DP was Adam Richlin. I had worked with Adam as a producer, but never as a director, but I really believe he is one of those young DPs who is going to be a star.

He has worked other positions on crews for me, including AC and gaffer, and that was even more reason why I liked him. Some people dabble at a lot of things and are master of none. Adam has, in the (relatively) few years he has been doing this, made himself as master at every position. which only makes him a better DP.

Too many DP students come out of film school calling themselves DPs, when they haven't worked their way up. Adam is just the opposite. You know how baseball announcers always pine over players they call "throwback" players, guys who remind them of the hard-working players of the past? In the best sense of the word, Adam is a "throwback" DP, old-school, call it what you want.

He gets it.

With all of that, he also is as sharp about the latest gear, and how things work, as anyone. In that respect, he reminds me a little of my old friend, John Rosnell, who we used to jokingly call "Geppetto" after the fictional character who tinkered and made Pinocchio. Adam knows the ins-and-outs of gear as well as anyone I know.

He brought with him two amazing folks,  a gaffer and an AC, and together, they were like an army.

I sent Adam two things - a script lined with what I saw as my shots, and an example of how I wanted to do my singles. which, in many cases, were more like dirty twos, favoring one character. The example, from Frankenheimer's directing of Days of Wine and Roses for Playhouse 90, can be seen below.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXysWxsFtUg

This is a style Frankenheimer employed in other shows as well, singles that clearly favored one character but still had the reaction from the other. Profiles. Done badly, it looks like clunky, stagy soap opera. Done well, and cutting well, it can tell more of the story in a fuller manner.

I actually thought Adam might fight me on it, as it's an odd framing. He made it work, and got why I wanted it immediately. However, when he thought it didn't work, he would push for clean singles, and in at least a few instances, he suggested it just as I was thinking the same, that this style wasn't working for these lines.

That's collaboration.

Trust was important, as we only had the on-board monitor, and once I saw the original framing, I had to trust that Adam was getting what we discussed on moving shots, or with character movement. This may seem like heresy to those who only know digital, but monitors are not as old a convenience as many might think. I love video village as much as the next guy, but I worked many 35mm films where the DP would get to see the shot through the camera lens, then leave it to the DP.

The shot list was a guide for me. Knowing what I wanted. Adam and I went back to my age-old favorite method.

BLOCK. LIGHT. SHOOT.

This does not mean I do not encourage people to do shot lists or storyboards - it is essential homework. For me, however, once that guide is established, I like to leave room to see how it plays in the room. This is a truly personal preference, and, admittedly, I am always thinking of how best to capture the performance and tell the story, not "how can I get the coolest shot."

A story is a living, breathing thing, and I think forcing actors to stick to pre-determined actions can lead to losing some spontaneity.

I'm sure the above will be misinterpreted as "you don't need a shot list or storyboard." I encourage you to read what I said again, but will accept what comes.

It is, in part, why the DP earned the respect they get - they were not just an extension of the director; they were, indeed, directing the photography. I think I asked Adam to see playback three times all day, and one of them was for the final shot, which had many moving parts. I had to know that I had my ending. Other than that, I trusted him, and looking at the footage now, I know I did the right thing.

If I regret anything, it was not bringing on a script supervisor. I have preached the importance of one, and yet, at the last minute, thought I knew how I wanted to cut well enough that I could work without one.

It was a mistake, one I realized early on in the day. It is not that I was concerned with continuity - I'm sure we got that - but rather, that one more objective eye, and notes for things you can't remember.

Still, my theory of how I wanted to shoot prevailed. Hire the best and brightest. The phrase was made popular by the title of the David Halberstam's brilliant book on President John F. Kennedy's cabinet. and it referred to the strong belief of our youngest President that bringing the best informed leaders from academia and industry would lead to good policy.

Halberstam's title was meant ironically, as he felt these "whiz kids" relied on great theory rather than practical application, and that those choices led us to the war in Vietnam.

I use the term genuinely, and with genuine thanks to those I try to have around me, and to trust their choices.

More about the shoot in the next post. 

The Great Man Directs - Pt.1 - The Long Road to Overnight Sensation

"Movie directing is the perfect refuge for the mediocre."
-Orson Wells

My first job on a film set was as a production assistant on the 1981 film The Fan (the one with Lauren Bacall, not to be confused with the 1996 version with Wesley Snipes). My first directing job came on a short called The Yellow People earlier this month.

Thirty-two years from PA to Director. Think I'm rushing things?

We all know that by-now (in)famous expression, "What I really want to do is direct." It was quite the popular t-shirt for a while, and even wound up as the title of a book.

I had a PA wear one on set once; I really really wanted to fire him, but could not come up with a good enough excuse.

When you've worked in film as long as I have, you invariably get asked things like, "Have you ever directed a film?" and, if answered in the negative, "Don't you want to direct?"

Especially if you  have worked on the production side, as producer and assistant director, the question comes up.

I've never really had a good answer, short of a sidebar answer, which was, "I'd like to direct my film, not someone else's," by which I reference all those folks I see on set, from PA to producer, who seem determined to tell the director how to do their job.

As both First AD and line producer, I have walked my share of first-time directors through the process, and sometimes even a little more, but I always made a point to offer advice when asked, or, if it were a matter of keeping a director from making a mistake, offering the advice in private. As I said in the article linked, the crew must believe in the director, for better or worse, and if you do anything that undermines the director, even if unintentional, you undermine the movie.

More importantly, the director is the one who will be judged on the final product, and I always figured if they were going to be taken to task for problems with the film, they deserved to be judged for decisions they made, not those made by others.  Besides, I have often seen "mistakes" turn out to be creative and compelling, so who is to say.

Alright, that doesn't quite answer the question.

What attracted me to the arts in general was writing, not directing, and I've had two scripts of mine produced as features (albeit one was ghost-written). Another is in development. That has helped to fill the artistic side of me.

Then again, I have directed theater, and, for a while, back in the Eighties, directed a good deal of small, Off-Off Broadway and regional theater. That transition, from actor (very briefly) to stage manager to director, was much quicker.

In large part, the reason I did not have the same path in film is simple: money. The reason I work more as a line producer than a producer is that I have neither the inclination, nor the stomach for, the money-raising side of the business. My few attempts have been frustrating and unsuccessful.

Theater was a little different. There always seemed to be some small production looking for a director, and once I started, I got more offers. In film, the chicken-and-egg Catch-22 - if you want to direct, someone needs to see a reel, and how do you get a reel if you haven't directed - is in full force.

As costs have come down in the digital age, I could, of course, have just gone out with a friend or two and shot something on some low-end digital camera.

Frankly, I am too much of a snob for that. If I had done it, I would be a hypocrite, having often described these ventures as self-indulgent ego stroking.

Now, before you hit the keyboards and spew venom at me while explaining that you have done just that, and I am just being a snob, let me remind you that I already said as much. If I did something, I wanted it to look professional, which means I wanted a real DP and a real crew, and for it to look up to my standards. I will fully admit that this is my hang-up, and I say more power to those who have done it and who find it fulfilling.

I would not.

I learned this about two years ago when I tried to work with two friends to get a web-series off the ground. Web-series can be done very inexpensively today, and often are, and, to me, many of them look like it. When I budgeted how I wanted to do the web series, it came out to $20K per episode, with all crew paid something, if not a lot, and solid art direction.

My partners, two dear friends, pointed out that this was ridiculous, and, in hindsight, they were surely correct. They could not see spending anywhere near that amount of money, and I could not see shooting it any other way. Again, you shout "Snob!" and, again, I reply, "Guilty!"

Hey, I'm a Capricorn, and one of my favorite descriptions of Capricorns is that they aren't stubborn, they just know they're always right. It is exactly this sort of winning personality that explains why I'm divorced (from one of the most patient people you will ever meet) and have not directed previously.

So, how did it come about that I wound up directing a short on an incredibly micro-teeny-limited budget? You notice, I cannot bring myself to say "No-Budget," a term that is so mis-used that it is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

I am, by trade, a line producer, the guy who does the budget. You bought a prop? That's money. You paid for a hard drive? That's money. You bought expendables? That should be in the budget. As such, I cannot call something "no budget" when any money was spent on it.

We did, however, spend very little, and that is in part a tribute to the producer, and the kindness of some very professional people who did it for a song.

This all came about, oddly enough, because of my involvement over a year ago with a reality show, and a producer on that show who spends very little time talking about getting things done, and a puts a great deal of his time actually doing things. He is a one of the real good guys, the type of people who always saw how something could be done, optimists; basically, the opposite of me.

I worked on a reality show over a year ago, and through that connection, he offered me a slot directing a play for a one-act festival, and that play became the short that I directed. How unlikely that reality TV, never one of my favorite genres, and theater, my first love, came together to provide my first film directing effort.

That's the short version of the "how it happened," though, as usual, I took long enough to get to it.

In the next post, the people who made it happen, the script, and how it all came together. For once, I will be able to share information about the actual shooting, like the script, set pictures, etc, and, down the line, when the editing is done, I will share that here as well.

Oh, and for those of you who think the title of this series, "The Great Man Directs," is self-aggrandizing, I direct you to the film on which it is based, a really good 1956 film called The Great Man, itself based on the novel of the same title by Al Morgan. It is \a less-than-flattering portrait of a successful television and radio show host who turns out to have been quite a bit less than the sum of his parts, played by the wonderful Jose Ferrer and rumored to have been based on Arthur Godfrey. Links provided because if you work in the entertainment business, you should know who these folks were, especially Godfrey, who, while it seems not than a wonderful person (my dad never forgave him for firing singer Julius LaRosa - on air live!) was an influential figure.

Arthur Godfrey

Jose Ferrer, in probably his most famous role, Cyrano

Hopefully, I won't wind up like Joe Harris.

A Blast from the Past

For those of you who have followed this blog from the beginning, or who have gone back and caught up, you will remember the series of posts about a very influential period of my life - when I was the First Assistant Director on Lucky Stiffs. The link should help you catch up ow if you like.

Our sound person - Bill Kozy (in the back - second from right) sent me this Polaroid (yes, you read that right - Polaroid) which was taken by our 1st AC, Lorelei (kneeling next to camera and razzing someone OS).

This was the first crew I worked with regularly; this was JR's crew.

I wrote a lot about the DP, John Rosnell (JR), including how close we were for many years.

I don't know why I was not in this photo

Floating: A Swim in the Woods - All's Well That Ends Well

"Love All, Trust a Few, Do Wrong to None"
-W. Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

There are skills we start out with, skills we acquire, and skills that are a little bit of both.

I don't know if it's time, or being worn out over years from conflicts important and trivial, or just a part of my personality, but I have long since stopped carrying grudges.

Everyone comes to projects with baggage, and sometimes your baggage and my baggage make for a bad combination. Crew people have been screwed by producers; producers have been let down by crews. For every person we worked for who was appreciative, there were those who hardly noticed.

If you carry all that baggage with you, you carry a lot of regret and anger, and, frankly, it's just not worth it. I explained this recently to a director who thought certain crew and cast "disloyal." Maybe he was right; maybe not. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, or, at worst, just assume I will not work with them again, and let it go at that.

I've documented the difficult relationship William, the director, and I had on Floating. It was business, and, at times, it was personal.

After Mary came on as line producer, things definitely got better. At the very least, we were not antagonistic to each other; at best, there were times we would share a good moment. In between, we were civil and respectful to each other.

On the last day for key crew or cast, the AD will do "send-offs." announcing, "That's a wrap on (fill in person here)." Everyone claps, sometimes enthusiastically (for those we love) or at least politely (for those who we loved less).

On the last day of principal photography, the AD gets to say "and that's a wrap on (name of movie)." Emotions tend to run from regret that you would not see these people again soon (or maybe ever), to mentally dropping to your knees that this travesty is over.

When I did the wrap for everyone, and got to the end, William and I looked at each other. We could have just shaken hands, fist-bumped, or given a polite wave. We did indeed shake hands, and then, simultaneously, we wrapped our arms around each other and hugged.

I don't know why we I did it, and I don't think he knows why he did it. It just seemed right. One of the grip/electric guys actually said "I need a picture of this." That produced a genuine laugh from all of us.

Hey, it wasn't Nelson Mandela raising his hands with the representative of his former persecutors, F.W. de Klerk, at the end of Apartheid (pictured above) or one of the symbols of the U.S. during the Cold War, President Richard Nixon, who had been a Cold War Hawk since his Senate days, reaching out to Mao Zedong, China's leader and as much as anyone the symbol of Communism (pictured below).

History is filled with such reconciliations. Perhaps it is in our biology. Scientists have suggested that the physical responses we associate with anger - adrenalin rush, etc -  last approximately two seconds; yes, that is two SECONDS. That means that in order to remain angry, we have to work at it. As such, it seems only natural that we try to find a way to make our lives easier, to let go of anger.

Still, given what we had been through, it certainly came as a surprise to many, and probably to William and I, that we had let go to that extent.

Often in these pages, I have made the point that, at the end of the day, the final film is not necessarily reflective of the time on set. Films that are fun to make are sometimes awful; films that were brutal can be great.

If I am fair, this is a very good movie, William is to be commended. I highly recommend it to anyone, and especially to those who are current fans of Norman Reedus and his work on The Walking Dead, or older fans from The Boondock Saints.

Speaking of that latter film, which helped to propel Norman to a bigger audience:

Before we knew that it would be a good film, we were determined to have a good wrap party, and William and his dad provided a good one. The celebration went to the wee hours of the morning, and everyone was full of that combination of joy at the culmination of work done together, and, well, alcohol.

As the sun came up, Norman had to leave, heading off for his next film. He left with a few of the other guys who played his friends, but only Norman was going to his next film  that day, while the rest would be able to crash and rest.

We put Norman on a plane directly from the party; he said he would sleep on the plane(my first phrase here was "crash on the plane" - I thought better of it). Wow, I thought, what will the next project think of him, as their first peek at him would inevitably be less than flattering.

That film, it turned out, was The Boondock Saints, and if the film, it's cast, and the stories that came out of it are any indication, they knew Norman would fit right in.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. Given the pressure that time, money and reputation, as well as the fear of seeing a dream die, that this business produces, not a bad philosophy at all.



N.B. A busy summer lead to a slow time with this blog; my apologies. In return for your patience, the next few posts will be something a little different - posts of some of the current projects that have side-tracked me. Then, we will go back to all of those intervening years that I still have to cover!