Floating: A Swim in the Woods: Why Can't We Be Friends?

"Can't We All Just Get Along?"
-Rodney King

When you're an only child, as I am, being liked is important; sometimes too important. With no siblings who are required to spend time with you, a lack of social skills insures a lonely childhood.

However, as I have observed and discussed with only-children, there is also a fierce sense of independence (not to mention a need for alone time, but that's an issue for another day).

No one is loved by everyone, but this is a business where you are going to work with all types, so if you cannot adjust, cannot let things go, then life is going to be hard. I know producers, ADs, and, for that matter, crew people, for whom every situation is a battle, a test of wills.

It's a rough way to get through a career.

All this by way of trying to understand why Bill, the director on Floating, and I just never got along, not from Day One. The simple answer was that I was always right and he was always wrong; that I was a wonderful, open human being and he was a spoiled kid with a sense of entitlement who had rarely been told "no" in his life. That would not only be simple - it would be a gross oversimplification, and not really the answer.

Part of it may have been the age difference, and the natural tendency of those fresh out of college to have a disdain for authority, on his part, and a lack of patience for explaining why things need to be done a certain way on my part.

The truth is, there are people who rub us wrong. In most situations, you can just avoid that person; as AD and director, that is not an option.

Early on, Bill took a certain delight in defying me on simple procedure. I remember a day when I was getting the keys in motion for one scene when, over the walkie, I hear the wardrobe assistant announce that another scene is coming up next. Yes, the wardrobe assistant.

When I calmly and politely went into HMU (translation: stormed into HMU) to find out why the wardrobe assistant took it upon herself to announce the next scene, and to ask her in a reassuring and loving tone not to do it again (okay, maybe not so loving and reassuring a tone), she quickly pointed out that Bill had just been there, and asked her to announce the next scene he wanted to shoot. When she pointed out that was not what was on the call sheet, he told her that he would correct me later.

Needless to say, Bill and I had a discussion about how things run on set. There are a million reasons why the schedule needs to be the domain of the AD, mostly because he or she knows all the little details about why a specific order works. That is not to say that someone else, say the DP, can't point out to the AD why something else might be good right now, and certainly, if the director really wants to change the order, this is a discussion with the AD, and every attempt should be made to take his needs or concerns into consideration.

The moment I tried to explain this to Bill, it became a "because I said so and I'm the director" moment. Bill had a lot of those, which, when this is the first thing outside of class you have ever directed, is not a good attitude.

From that moment on, we went from a mild dislike to a test of wills. If you have ever been on set where something like this starts happening, it makes things difficult for everyone. I leaned on my professionalism, my experience, and just being older, to try and make it better, but, in retrospect, I'm sure I could have handled it better as well.

One area I was not going to give in on was safety, and Bill (who, BTW, was also an only child) liked to ignore this as well. Being buddies with the three guys playing the locals (Norman, Jonathan and Josh) was really important to him, and so he took every opportunity to show them how cool he was.

There was a scene where Norman's character (Van) rides a motorcycle, and does so quite fast. Norman didn't have a license, which didn't particularly bother me, as we were in the middle of the woods. He also didn't seem to have extensive experience riding, though he insisted he did.

Norman really wanted to do his own motorcycle stunts; he was a hard worker and I respect him going for the reality. So, there was me, and there was Bill and Norman. I chose what I thought was a reasonable middle ground; I would leave it up to our stunt coordinator, who was a seasoned stunt rider.

Our stunt guy told me that he was okay with Norman doing standard stuff, being the guy to ride off, but absolutely not for the stunt. Neither Norman nor Bill was happy with the decision, but I literally stood in front of the bike, legs straddling the front tire, hands on the handle bar, explaining that I would not let Norman start the scene unless he agreed to stop as soon as he cleared frame and to let the stunt rider do it.

He begrudgingly agreed, but, after having clearly discussed it with Bill on the side, took off to do the stunt once he started going as Bill encouraged the DP to keep shooting, making it clear he had planned to ignore me all along.

That night, Bill and the producer (his father) and I met. I was prepared to quit, and was sure he was prepared to fire me, which was fine by me.

However, my 2nd AD, Christine, was instrumental and making it clear to me that it would be a mistake for me to quit, and assured me that I was helping in ways I didn't see. I was fed up, and not the least bit concerned that if I lost the respect of the crew, if it seemed that I was not in control, there was no point in me being there, and it would even be detrimental.

To Bill's dad's credit, he handled it great. He made it clear to Bill that I wasn't going anyplace, and that he (his father) had put a lot of money up to get this done, and he wanted someone with my experience.  Bill was going to learn to work with me.  He also realized that one of the original producers who was trying to do everything was not strong enough, and that without that, Bill and I would always be bucking heads, that I was making too many of the production decisions.

It was at this point that he brought in Mary Feuer, who I had worked with in different capacities on other films. I respected her, and was happy to have her on. That didn't mean she always took my side, or always agreed with me, but the day-to-day got much better, and she was the right person for the job.

Having gotten that pretty much out of the way, we still had an idyllic setting filled with dogs, airplanes, and construction, weather that did not cooperate, too much time in the water and finishing the film on time to get Norman off to his next project. More on those in the next post.




NB: Sorry for the delay in getting this post out - next one should be sooner. Thanks for the patience!

Floating: A Swim in the Woods - A Touch of Hollywood

"You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard

Some that you recognize, some that you hardly ever heard of"

Celluloid Heroes

Ray Davies, The Kinks

Having trudged many years in the world of indies, there has not been a lot of "Hollywood" in my career, but Floating certainly had a little, not just from future star Norman Reedus, but with his co-star, Chad Lowe.

Chad came to Floating off a successful run on the TV series "Life Goes On", where he won an Emmy for portraying an AIDS sufferer. This was at a time when AIDS was still a death sentence, and also came with the stigma of being gay, which Chad was not. Blessed with boy-next-door good looks, those same looks led to unfounded speculation that he was gay. Worse, he had gained the attention he had not sought from gay audiences, who embraced him as a symbol.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with being gay, and its great that actors today feel comfortable coming out and not worrying that it will cost them roles. America was not quite there at that time, and it brought some hardships for Chad. Gay characters on television were either sterotypes or objects of sympathy, because, well, didn't everyone know all gay people got AIDS? There were not the positive gay characters we see today.

He had dealt with paparazzi on other projects looking for pictures of him nude or near-nude. As he played a swimmer on this film, shirtless a lot of the times, he tended to have one eye over his shoulders in those scenes. He had some brief nudity, which he had agreed to before the film, but which he  was now reconsidering, for exactly this reason.

Chad's character on this coming-of-age film develops a physical attraction that is unrequited by Norman's character, although his character doesn't think of himself as gay.

It was with this backdrop that I mention some of Chad's quirks, one of which became apparent shortly after we started shooting and his then-girlfriend Hillary Swank showed up. Chad took every opportunity to steal a kiss, hold hands, or anything else to make clear this was his GIRLfriend. (How ironic that Hillary would later win an Oscar for a transgender role.)

Chad was not, at all, a prima donna, worked really hard, had a strong Method background, and took his acting very seriously. Like many Method actors, there would be a lot of questions, sometimes bordering on questioning, of our first-time director, but, otherwise, he was a team player.

Still, growing up in Hollywood the younger brother of a matinee star like Rob had its affectations. Chad would try to do something nice like send a PA to the nearest Starbucks and pick up the order for everyone. The problem was that Concord was not LA (or NY) and there was not a Starbucks every few feet, and I would lose PA for a while.

We were sitting around one night trying to think of someone for a certain as yet un-cast role. When someone suggested a name Hollywood actor that none of us thought would do it, Chad said he could call "Liza," whose number he had on his phone. Yes, that Liza, as in Liza Minelli. Chad had a lot of ties to that old Hollywood (I only recently read that Charlie Sheen, son of Martin, was a childhood friend). Chad was probably the only guy I ever met who had Liza Minelli's number in his phone.

Then, there was Norman Reedus.

If there is something called industry hot, Norman was it. All I heard from producer friends of mine was, "You're going to work with Norman Reedus?" The thing is, at the time, he hadn't done anything of note, but everyone in town wanted him in their film, and we had him.

Of all the great things I had heard about Norman, there was one second-hand rumor I heard from someone that was not, and I foolishly chose to believe it. I won't dignify it by repeating it, because it proved absolutely untrue, but it had me worry about his work ethics, which was ridiculous. The first few days on the film, I probably keep an eye looking for something that wasn't there.

What was there was one of the hardest working guys I ever had the pleasure of watching work. His work was every bit as good as advertised. Besides his talent, Norman had something you could not teach, a combination of swagger and vulnerability that has made earned him the following he has today.

Although he became good friends with the other actors who played his friend, he partied less than any of them, often leaving to go back to his room and work when he had to be up the next morning while the other actors went out.

It would be in some of the scenes in the water that I would gain the most appreciation of Norman's determination, and for those water scenes, I was glad to have as key grip "Dusty" Keith. He was not only our key grip, he was our water safety person, certified as such, and he made me confident that with all the swimming Norman and Chad had to do deep into the lake, he would always be close enough with a boat to get them out safely.  Dusty was key, and I would have bring him on again when I did Man of The Century,

The role of the father was crucial. It was the father's alcoholism that had lead to his losing a leg, and to Van (Norman's) mother. If Van's friendship with Chad's character (Doug) was central, it was because of how it reflected on Norman's relationship with his father.

I am glad that we did not get any of the Hollywood options, and instead cast Will Lyman, who I would later cast in a film called Matty Fresno and the Holoflux Universe.  Will has a solid career as a voice actor, but he had exactly the depth needed for Van's father. He kept him human without making him a monster or the object of sympathy - just real.

Our DP was Wolfgang Held, who has gained much of his notice for his work as a documentary filmmaker. He has worked on some amazing documentaries all over the world, and a few years ago did the Sacha Baron Cohen film Bruno.  Working in rugged terrain, Wolfgang often would go to handheld, and it was handheld that matched much good steadicam work (though we had a great Steadicam op as well, Will Arnot, who was our dolly grip as well).

Wolfgang and I became closer the farther apart Bill, the director and I, grew. While he never took sides, when there was a problem, Wolfgang often came up with solutions that worked for both of us.  Many of these had to do with safety, which definitely became an issue with the terrain, some motorcycle work, and the swimming.

Along with Norman, Josh Marchette and Jonathan Quint, who played Van's friends, became like three amigos, and their chemistry together was great.

The guys

Before I move on to stories about the film, I should note the work of Christine McMillan, my Second AD. Christine was close to my age, and a mother, and was great to help with the actors. There was one scene, in particular, where she helped. When had three young girls (of age, but early twenties playing teens) who had a skinny-dipping scene. I had done many nude scenes with men and women, but given the age of the girls, I thought they would be more comfortable with Christine on set.

There had been times in the past when I had a 2nd AD take the set, but this was one time I thought there was a good reason. Also, because walking on sand was difficult for me, as was the terrain, letting Christine run rehearsals meant I didn't have to make multiple trips that were physically difficult for me. She was a real partner on this film.

As for my relationship with the director, I will talk about that when we get to the film. On films I line produce, I usually have the director meet a few ADs, because even though anyone I recommend can do the job, personality is important. In our case, Bill and I did not have compatible personalities to begin with, and it only got worse when we got into safety and procedural issues.  A large reason I did not quit - or get fired, which was likely - was the even-headedness of Bill's dad, who had put together the financing for the film. More on that later.