The best remedy for a broken heart is time and girlfriends.
Gwyneth Paltrow
***
My life can be summed up in one word –BUSY! I think I had a weekend,
but I was working too hard and long to notice! I am glad it’s Monday
and I can relax a bit and reflect. Both Saturday and Sunday I worked
on film projects. Both experiences were so different. Both
days I learned so much. Both days I was physically and mentally exhausted
to the point of tears by the time I got home.
Saturday I worked on Joseph’s shoot. I was so happy to help him. I think he is such a sweetie and I love his scripts. I was delighted he asked me to run his camera. I am happy to have my first cinematographer credit! Next I was happy to go because Joseph is using the same older actor I am, Jason. Jason keeps telling me he’s 85. He's such a tease. I think he’s between 65-70. He has lots of movie and TV acting credits. He’s in Dumb and Dumber if you wanna check him out. When Dumb or Dumber…I can’t remember which one pops the cork and it flies out and kills the owl, Jason is the old man standing next to him and looking astonished. I will tell you about my movie as soon as I get the final draft of my script. Anyway, Joseph’s movie is about an elderly man who wants to teach a small dried up mining town that they shouldn’t wait for happiness to find them, but they should make their own brand of happiness. He and his grandson plan a ‘revolution.’ The town’s folk are quite sure this old man has lost his mind, but he stages a parade for the town to celebrate just being alive. We film the parade next weekend. The whole town of Eureka, Utah is going to stage the parade for the movie. I can hardly wait!
We filmed in a Norm Abrams worthy shop. It was spacious and clean and just perfect for a set. As usual, we had equipment problems. But with every shoot, I get more and more techie with this equipment and it’s quirks. I just love advice like “ Well unattach the crystal sync motor, tap it gently on the back and reattach. Try it several times. If it doesn’t work after that, YOU’RE SCREWED.” LOL. The most frustrating problem of the day was airplanes. We were filming in Midway in Heber Valley. It was so beautiful. Tipannogas is still snow covered. I guess every yahoo in the west was out flying around the valley. We constantly had to wait for “Amelia Earhart” to run out of gas. I wonder if small planes can see people flipping them off from the ground…
The next day’s shoot was like a bad movie itself. It was down
at the U in a large conference room dressed to look like a television set.
This movie was the Thesis project for Rulon. I’ve only known Rulon
for a couple of weeks, but I’ve heard of him for a long time. We
had some film discussions while I was editing Gunsmoke and have become
friends. He came to pick up the equipment from Joseph’s shoot and
asked me if I knew how to run the nagra. I said I had run it on our
class project and felt very comfortable with it. He asked me if I
would come and run it for him. How could I refuse? I was going
to ask Rulon to run camera on my shoot. Now he owes me!
Okay…blah blah blah right? Let me tell you the plot and then
I will tell you what transpired for the 12 long hours we rolled camera.
Warning* I am going to use strong language in a minute so if you can’t take my talking a like a sober sailor, run to the exits now.
The plot stars an egotistical, self centered, self-important, coke sniffing, bastard, asshole, jerk, sexist producer. He is in charge of a TV show called “Miracles and Mermaids.” Tonight’s interview is a homely Alanis Morriestte look alike (and played wonderfully by a girl named Bethany) who has recently had a vision in which God gave her a message. So they roll tape to see what the message is. The Message is LIVE WELL. Too dull for TV. So the jerk producer who can’t remember her name gets her to embellish it. Of course she won’t. So anyway at the end of the program we get to see a pile of jump cuts pieced together of her stating that the world is coming to an end and Jay Leno is the antichrist. It’s such a cute little short. It was going to be such a delight. I thought.
We show up early and I get the nagra threaded and ran some checks. I met the boom operator for the first time and we got our relationship worked out since he has to obey my every command. Heh Heh. Linda was there…thank goodness and kept the sound log for me and held my cords and led me around when we went mobile. (I have my eyes on the levels the whole time.)
So the let’s get started call happens. This fellow, Ryan Williams (referred to from now on as P of P for the Prince of Pricks) claps his hands and starts hollering “listen up people.” He then launches this opening remark about how we are going to make a wonderful movie and that he expects all of us to be ready to stay for 20 hours. If we can not be there for 20 hours he wants us to leave right now. And he suggested that we find another profession. I look at Linda. She says, he’s the producer as well as the actor. And then she guesses that he’s staying in character. So I figure he’s doing some Andy Kauffman act. I guess I understand. When the P of P finishes his little dictator’s rant, he called for “Mr. Nice Guy.” Rulon got up looking like he didn’t know what had happened and addressed us in his normal attitude. Everything went all right for several hours, but everyone was looking at each other trying to figure whom this bastard producer/actor thought he was. There were constant conflicts between him and cast members that he created. The PofP insisted on being God and doing everyone’s job. I must say, he was respectful of Linda and I. I figure it’s because he had no earthy idea how to record sound. When I would discuss his line delivery with him he would say, “I will work with you again. You are someone I want to work with again. You are very professional.” Gee this was HIGH praise. I told him I’d work for him for money. But honestly, during the last hour of the shoot, I resolved never to walk on the same side of the street as the P of P.
We did two very long mobile improve scenes of Ryan walking down a hall talking on a cell phone and then walking on set and greeting everyone around the room several times. It was about 4 minutes each time we did it. Rulon shot it hand held. The Arrisflex BL is HEAVY and the shoulder mount wouldn’t let you look through the eyepiece. Then the boom guy had the boom over Ryan out of frame and Linda came next holding the cords and leading me with the nagra on a harness strapped to my chest. My boobs kept getting in the way. LOL. But I managed to get some pretty decent levels…I don’t know how the walking with the nagra is gonna sound…but it was an adventure. I hope it all works out.
Rulon was out of film and had to change the magazine. I have to change reels every time he does this. So Ryan tells everyone to take 10 minutes and then be ready to shoot this improve scene once more. Then without telling anyone the P of P disappears for 45 minutes. We wait. We wonder if he just went home. It was snowing big time out all day. It was late. We were hungry and very tired, all 35 cast and crew. We start shooting some things we didn’t need Ryan for. We get all the jump shots done. People start saying they really need to go home. There was a foot of snow on our cars.
Then the PofP shows up. He has a take-out dish a fragrant Mexican dinner. He stands in front of the whole cast and crew of 35 and eats this and says, “Listen up people. So far we have a great student film. But from this point on, we are making a festival worthy film. I expect you all to stay here until midnight or more until we get this thing done.” A nasty exchange between Rulon’s wife Nancy and PofP erupts. She says Ryan hasn’t invested a penny into this movie and she was relieving him of his authority. It’s Rulon’s movie. Oh man. Ryan turns UGLIER. She hurls obscenities. He laughs and mocks her. I join in the Ryan heckling, as did a few others. So Ryan finally says: Either you all commit to staying ‘til midnight or I am going home and we aren’t gonna film this last scene. Threats. He started threatening 35 angry people. What a prick. We said let’s film shot by shot. Do this scene and we’ll decide. He said no and went home. End of story. The funny part was he came back and wished everyone a safe ride home. Several men escorted him out to the door.
Linda and I went to dinner after we broke set just to calm down. If it hadn’t have been Sunday I’m sure we both would have had a drink to help our nerves! We were so angry with this man for ruining the whole atmosphere. It doesn’t have to be like that. Ryan watched one too many movies featuring out of control moviemakers. Rulon was naive about who he was dealing with. This was a lesson learned about how a director can lose control on his set due to strong personalities. I also need to learn to keep my mouth shut when I’m a crewmember. But in this case, I think I had to back up Rulon’s w ife. She was right.