The Indonesian Job - The "Thank You" Dinner

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough"
-Meister Ekhart
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Those who follow this blog have seen pics like this before from the "Thank You" dinner.

The "Thank You" dinner actually started a few years ago. For years, I was able to avoid bringing on unpaid interns as the digital age drove budgets lower and lower. On The Unattainable a few years back, I had to bring on an unpaid intern as my assistant (she was here on a student visa from India and could not accept pay, and was being supported by her parents) and we brought on an APOC, Tasha on a flat rate stipend of $1000.

Near the end of the shoot, my POC, Megan, suggested that she buy the APOC a gift and I buy my assistant a gift and we take them out for dinner. We did that at my old haunt, The West Bank Cafe.

A year later, when I did Keep my Brother on even a lower budget (under $100K) I brought on Tasha as my POC and two interns as PM and APOC. Again, we did the dinner, and then added the one paid PA who stayed through the entire shoot.

On this shoot, visa and talent schedule issues threatened the entire shoot. Rini, the Indonesian-American producer, was in Washington DC for most of prep and put in the impossible position of being told by me and my staff on one end what we needed from Jakarta and from their end what they wanted from us, which was often very different.

My staff faced several moments when it looked like the shoot would not happen, including almost a week long hiatus while we waited on visa answers and then whether the key investor would make a transfer of funds. In that time, many production people would have looked for and taken other work. I offered all of them the opportunity to go out and do just that if they needed to.

Not one of them did, turning down sure work to stay with me and "what if."

On top of their talent and their noble efforts, that sort of thing just doesn't happen. There were tense days when I worried almost the entire day about the "what if'" their loyalty to me cost people I dearly respected and, yes, to some degree loved, money.

Thankfully, it worked out, and I took all of them out for a delicious (and drunken!) dinner.

There are many heroic tales to share in coming posts, but let me introduce you to my own Band of Brothers and Sisters.

Left to right above are Rini, who I mentioned above; Arneece, who came in with little film office experience and rose from APOC to POC by the end, Aliki, who is, herself, a producer and line producer and agreed to work with me as production supervisor, Leigh, also a producer, who was my UPM and Locations Manager and oversaw US casting, doing three jobs, two of which were impossible on their own and made harder by our changes; myself, Patrick, our great 2nd AD who worked with a lot of green PAs, and the Big Man, the one and only Brian, our First AD, whose praises I have sang to the heavens often on these pages.

On a shoot where so much could have gone, so much went very right. We came in on schedule and under budget, and it only happened because of the folks pictured here.

I have individually worked with many very good production people, but the good feeling among this entire crew and the Indonesian creative team was so wonderful that in the few wrap days after the film, there were various get-togethers. Aliki and kept marveling at how, on a difficult shoot, everyone had such a great attitude and there was such good cheer.

On a shoot that had huge challenges every day, we all felt very good about getting to work with each other. This is Right Livelihood.

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.

All in the Family: The Making of Town Diary - Cast What You Know*

"The first thing you should do with an actor is not sign a contract with him. Take him to dinner. And take him for a walk afterwards." Elia Kazan 

Jack, our director,  was very much of the Kazan school; that you should cast people who are close to the type of character they are to play. I have always thought that a good actor can find the character in themselves regardless of how they lived their everyday life. In some of the roles, we had both.

The script I wrote was meant as an ensemble piece, with the two leads, David and Veronica,  being the two roles we thought might attract name actors at some level.

I've talked about putting together cast on the Modified Low,  and how you can sometimes attract quality actors you might not have thought you could on the reduced salary, which then was in the neighborhood of $248 a day or $800 plus per week.

Even before we started casting, I enlisted the some of the talented folks I knew from my local food and watering hole, West Bank Cafe. Located right on NY's Theater Row, it was a regular hangout for talented actors as well as behind-the-scenes folk.  The Stillers (Ben, Jerry, Anne et al), Eli Wallach and wife Anne Jackson,  the late John Spencer (West Wing), many of The Sopranos cast (who bartender Kaleda had dubbed "The Perfume Mafia")  as well as many other talented stage and film actors made it their home, a nice atmosphere that had a greater energy without ever being loud.

Joe W, one of the bartenders,  was an actor looking to get into the production side. I brought him on as Director's Assistant (not to be confused with Assistant Director).

For myself assistant,  I brought on a regular named Christine. Like Joe W, she was young, bright, enthusiastic and charming,  the latter a trait in men or women that sometimes can help secure needed items. With Jack, JR, and I all over 40, it also insured feedback from another generation,  something I also think is important.

Experience is important,  but, as I've said here before, it's easy for experienced people to fall into patterns that sometimes need change, or at least challenging.  Joe W and Christine would provide that often. Both also had small roles in the film.

I had never gone on a walk with talented  actress Angelica Page, but we knew each other from both drinks and dinners as regulars at West Bank Cafe. Angelica is probably best known for her role as the mother who poisons her daughter in The Sixth Sense.

The daughter of late Oscar-winner (A Trip to Bountiful)  Geraldine Page (who presenter F. Murray Abraham called "the greatest actress in the English Language) and Rip Torn (Men in Black) Angelica is a versatile stage and film actress from a family that imbued her with a strong personality and, in a mother who was not only a fine actress but legendary acting teacher, a strong sense of responsibility to the work.

One of the characters in the script explains how she, and the sheriff at the time of the young girl's drowning,  had gotten rich on viaticals.  Jack was the one who made me aware of this rather morbid practice where, at the height of the AIDS crisis, people would buy out the insurance policies of AIDS patients at a fraction of the dividend. Those patients, who basically had a death sentence at that time,  needed the money now. As the rather cold character tells the documentary filmmakers,  "They needed the money, and we made a nice profit. Worked well for everyone. "

Angelica would not need it explained to her that while she had to come off as chilling to an audience,  she needed to also genuinely be convinced of her own "noble" actions.

Jack took my word that she could do it, but both she and Jack wanted to discuss the role over the phone.  Jack called her while she was in LA and we were in Chicago. The call lasted almost an hour, with Jack's end of the conversation being mostly one word responses to her ideas for the role. When he got off the phone,  I asked him how it went.

"Good," he said.  Then, he smiled. "I think she is still letting me direct."

We both laughed. Angelica knows her craft, and prepares meticulously for every role. She can also be intimidating, which made her even more perfect for the role. She would be having her person doing a wig for her, something she offered to do at her own cost because she knew we were on a tight budget.  That is her level of professionalism.

While we had ideas for the other roles, we knew we would need a Casting Director.  More on that and the casting process in the next post.

* A reference to the old writing advice, "Write what you know."

N.B. Some of the names here, and moving forward, are changed not because they did anything wrong, but rather to protect the privacy of folks who I did not seek permission from to use their stories.