All In The Family: The Making of Town Diary - Cancer is Not Funny*, Well Sometimes

"Dark humour is like cancer. Not everybody gets it."
Anonymous cancer joke

Cancer. Among the scariest words around, because almost everyone has been touched by it, either directly or through a close relative. I lost my dad, grandfather, and two uncles to cancer, as well as many friends.

JR, my longtime friend and business partner in Town Diary, as well as our DP, was a cancer survivor, having beat the disease back in the 1980s, before I met him. Now, JR found out it had come back, but that the doctors were optimistic they could keep it under control.

Whatever JR's level of concern, he did a good job of hiding it. Because he knew he would be undergoing chemotherapy again, and that it would make him weak, we discussed hiring an operator. As a DP, JR had always been his own operator, so we knew this would be tricky.

JR was open to the idea, but it had to be the right person. The first and only person that came to mind was my old friend, Charlie Houston, the gaffer on The Rook and my DP on Plaster. (Follow the linked words for some of the fun Chalie and I had in the past).

Much like me, JR was a man of habits. He liked one wine - White Zinfandel (something I teased him about endlessly). He had a favorite restaurant, a little Italian place down the block from him on Carmine Street called Alfredo**.

JR was truly the Godfather of Alfredo. When he made a reservation, we got the best table in the house. He knew all the busboys. I could not kid JR about the food at this place, which was the wonderful, authentic, Italian cuisine.

So it was that when JR and Charlie would meet, we set up a time for them to do so at the restaurant. Stacey, JR's girlfriend, and I waited at his apartment down the block. It was like a waiting for a mob conference to take place.

One hour. Two hours. It was a good three hours later that JR got back. How'd it go?

It seems it was bromance at first bite. They liked each other immediately - the rest of the three hours seems to have been them talking DP geek stuff and movies endlessly. Obviously, a good fit.

My AD was Chris K. who had been my 2nd AD on Lucky Stiffs and 1st AD on many commercials and other gigs. A big, brusque Irishman, Chris K had started out as a stock broker, left a very successful job to work in film. We met when I was taking my Certificate in Film at NYU after my operation.

Chris K and I had some interesting adventures together. Years earlier, we had started a company that would produce music videos. One of our first meetings was with a record company on 57th Street, and we came out feeling certain that we would get it (um, we didn't).

Years earlier, a girlfriend of mine from a wealthy family had an aunt who used to take us for Royal Afternoon Tea at the Russian Tea Room. We got through the traditional parts of Tea pretty well - the mini-sandwiches, blinis, dessert et al - but then we decided to celebrate with small drinks of vodka. Mind you, we did not do shots - we sipped very good vodka in a very proper, gentlemanly manner.

Only, sadly, too many of them. Don't ask how many. All I remember was getting up to leave and thinking how far the door was from our table and how was I going to ever traverse such an expanse.

Chris had earned my never-ending admiration when he quit a shoot after a well-known actress (I won't mention her name, but her dad, a much better human being, was Detective Mike Logan's second partner on Law and Order) slapped a make-up artist, and told the producers Chris should apologize to her for pointing out that it was she, and not the makeup artist, who was wrong.

It was Chris who had nicknamed my crazy PA Satan's Child on Lucky Stiffs, and Chris who had this wonderfully dark and ironic sense of humor I loved. I walk with a cane, and on one children's PSA I was producing in Central Park on which Chris was the AD, I would tap my wrist (the sign for tapping a watch, or 'look at the time') as I feared we were behind. Chris did not take well to micromanaging (and he knew he was doing alright but I was having a little fun pushing him). He grabbed my cane, threw it as far as he could, looked at me and said "Oh, go fetch."

As the clients looked on astonished, I could only laugh as the horrified children scrambled to get it back to me as quickly as possible. That mean man!

So it was that one afternoon we were sitting in our production office, discussing a production meeting that had transpired in the morning. In the office was the production coordinator, Alison, and a few other crew members who were left over from the meeting. Keeping with the family theme, Alison was a friend from West Bank cafe who had a background in event management. If you're counting, that is one cast member (there would be another), the producer's and director's assistant, and the POC from West Bank Cafe.

The moral of that story is make sure your local watering hole has talented people in your industry. Or not.

JR had not been able to make the production meeting in the AM, having undergone chemo. He showed up as soon as he could in the afternoon.

Understand that Chris had worked with Jack and JR and I on a lot of ADA PSAs, and other projects, so we all went back a long way. Chris looked at him and said, "Hey, JR where were you this morning for the production meeting?"

JR informed him of the chemo session, which triggered one of the funnier very non-PC moments I have experienced.

In his very deep voice, Chris bellowed, "Gee, I wish I had cancer so I could skip production meetings."

Much like my reaction when he tossed my cane, JR immediately cracked up laughing. Going back to my early days with JR and his crew, a constant ribbing was how we got through 16-hour days on sometimes mindless movies with sometimes more mindless people. I started laughing right afterwards, and, after the shock wore off, so did JR's girlfriend (who had been my assistant, POC, and 2nd AD on various shoots).

Anyone who knew JR well knew the last thing he wanted was people's concern or worse, pity, which he ranked up there with sympathy.

The rest of the office, who did not share our past, had the more anticipated reaction - shock, horror, dismay and outright disapproval. Their reaction started with Chris' comment, and moved to these people actually laughing at it.

It's one of my favorite moments with, as well as memories of, JR (who sadly lost his battle with cancer shortly after the film was finished). It was a snapshot of group of friends preparing to embark down the dark river that is film, on the usual boat, the one whose last nail has been put in just as it was about to leave the dock on it's maiden voyage. Each new one is a maiden voyage, like the regulars on Starship Enterprise embarking on some newly-commissioned ship because the last one got destroyed by angry intergalactic neighbors. In our own insane way, this was the image of the crew smiling on the dock, all hope and good wishes.

As Star Trek fans (and JR was a big one) know, they don't make movies about the easy missions.





* It isn't Alfredo, but when I checked a Google map, it seems the restaurant is no longer there. It is something like that, though.

Cancer is Not Funny is a wonderful site that wields one of the most powerful weapons against the biggest fellow enemy of cancer, despair. Laugh on, please.

Plaster - Part 1 - Don't Let the Honeymoon Fool You

"Don't Believe What They Tell You at Denny's"

I mentioned the quote above in a previous post to highlight how easy it is to be enticed by the good first meeting, to believe that the folks you are about to work with actually get it, that they will listen to you when the time comes.

The reference further suggests that at first meetings (often at Denny's in LA at that time as I understand) everything seems peachy and cool.

In many ways, this is not unlike a honeymoon. Honeymoons are accepted as the happiest times for a couple, but if you examine them closely, even the best of them have hints of problems to come. Whether the couple gets past them is another story.

My mom tells a story of taking a vacation in Florida with my Dad, and that my father would chat with other pretty women and allow them to give him their numbers. She would often say, "I should have left him right there." (Note: They never divorced - they were married right up until my Dad's death). My Dad's version of the story is a little different; that he was just being "polite"and that my Mom over-reacted. Knowing both of them, there is enough truth in both; my Mom was overly-jealous, and whether he followed up on it or not, my Dad really enjoyed flirting.

The truth is that the hint's of problems usually exist right from the start, but the warm handshakes, jovial laughter and nodding heads of the producer/directors coming on the job lead you to believe what you want to believe from the bottom of your heart. These are the right folks; this is the right script, we can do this together.

When I met the producer and the producer/director for Plaster*, they had an interesting script, which basically took place in and around one run-down apartment building in the Bronx. As I think back on it, the script was a little cliched, and a little generic, but I thought it had enough going for it that a director who understood the material could bring it out.

Both the producer - we'll call him Joey, and the director - let's call him Jean-Baptiste, were excited to have me on as line producer. I had been referred by folks as having experience doing low-budget, urban films. 

The origin of these reps are interesting. Later in my career, I happened to make a mob film or two, and people thought that was a specialty. The rep here came from doing Walls and Bridges and from my relationship with John Rosnell, who had done Matty Rich's Straight Out of Brooklyn.

At one point, it had gotten confusing enough that, while in LA, I was called to a meeting for Assistant Director in an area of LA that was mostly Black and Hispanic. When I walked in the door, there was surprise, which I soon learned was from the fact that I was not African-American. This was an assumption the folks made. There was no bias - just surprise, enough so that they insisted on driving me home (not driving, I took the bus) out of fear for my safety walking in their neighborhood. I found this odd, that they were making assumptions about me walking through the neighborhood I would never make. I explained that I lived on the Upper West Side in a mostly Dominican neighborhood in NY, and did not ever consider it a problem, but driving me home made them feel better, and, hey, why turn down a free ride.

My understanding was that Joey and Jean-Baptiste were co-producers. Later, Joey would insist that only he was the producer and that Jean-Baptiste was only the writer and director.

Here, a seed was planted for a problem to come. They had a production company set up, an LLC, as is required, but had not had the the production company option the script. In cases like this, where the writers were also principals of the production company, often the option would be just a token formality, like buying the rights for a dollar.

For those new to the business side of film, unlike other forms of writing, once the film is optioned, the production company - and not the writer - own the copyright. As far as I know, film is the only art form that does this, and it says something about what the industry thinks of writers.

Formality or not, it must be done. SAG insists on seeing a Chain-of-Title (to know that the company signing as signatory is indeed owner of the property). Further, you never want a writer to be able to pull the product later.

While they claimed not to have a problem with this, actually getting an agreement signed took weeks. The more they put it off, the more I sensed there was some hesitancy on both parts, to settle on the terms of the agreement. They would up signing a very vague agreement just to get the chain-of-title done, but one that would later lead to disagreements between the two.

They knew that I was friends with Charlie Houston, who was the gaffer on The Rook. Charlie and I had done some commercials and shorts where he was Director of Photography, and I knew him to be a brilliant DP, as well as a great guy to work along side. I was more than happy to bring my old friend Charlie onto the project, and also brought his wife on as production manager. I had worked with Sally (not her real name - for her protection, not because she wasn't fantastic) before, and thought the fit would be good.

I never regretted hiring Charlie. If anything, when the bad days came, it was nice to have him at my side. Charlie was the first person to sense trouble. Among his favorite expressions was that, in this business, if you aren't paranoid, you aren't paying attention. How true this has turned out to be.

For my First AD, I chose a guy - John was his name (real, but hey, there are a ton of "John's" who are ADs, so it hardly reveals who he is.) John and I had been a great team on a previous project, and I thought we would be on this one as well.

That turned out not to be the case. More on that in the next post.

Both Joey and Jean-Baptiste had backgrounds in acting. They were also friends. Joey considered himself an equal creative partner; I don't think Jean-Baptiste always saw him that way. Joey assumed Jean-Baptiste would have little say on the financial side; needless to say at this point, Jean-Baptiste felt differently. Oh, he was fine with staying out of the day-to-day financials, but he wanted definite input into budget as it affected his pay and where money was to be spent. 

How much of Joey's money was tied into the project, I don't know. Clearly, he brought most of the money, though, again. Jean-Baptiste often claimed that his rep as an actor (no, he isn't famous) attracted some of the investors.

If there was a lesson to this post, it is to look honestly at potential problems right from the beginning; not to be fooled by the sense of comradery that arises at first impressions. If there is a question or concern, deal with it, if not at that first meeting, very soon afterwards.  I am much more of a skeptic now than I was then, and Plaster is certainly part of the reason.

This is a delicate balance. If you offer them nothing but negativity and suspicion in initial meetings, they would be right in being leery of you. The challenge is to earn their trust - and earn it quickly - so that when you push them to make decisions they are putting off, they understand the need.

If the seeds of discontent were sewn early, as we got into pre-production, casting, and hiring, ominous and threatening saplings sprouted everywhere, as we will discuss in Part 2.

* As mentioned in previous post, names are changed here, except where indicated.