That Bike
Movie
Day 02 - Sunday
Even though my roomie has defective Breathe Easy, I
need no help sleeping hard through the night. I wake up in the
same position I fell asleep in.
At base camp in front of the catering truck, Jane
stepped up for breakfast and was uneasy about cutting in line, which we
assured her was completely understandable. On big shows, the PAs
get breakfast for
her, which she prefers because she doesn’t like butting in front of the
line (actors have to go through wardrobe and make-up and occasional
rehearsal run-throughs before shooting, so they’re the last people who
have time to wait in line for food). I opened my script notebook
on the table, closed it and saw a smashed mosquito on cover “Hey!
This is a good sign!” I announce, killing a mosquito without
trying. “Or a bad one,” pointed out Art Director Scott,
suggesting the ease due to numbers.
Today’s location, the killer hill up a wooded
country road. The medic kept warning us of the dangerous
poisonous oak and poison ivy lining the side of the road, hard to see
through the other flora and mosquitoes. The road itself is a
steep twisting incline for which the actors will kill us when they see
it (DP John is the first to point this out, and I agree—we really
should save nasty hills for times when the actors piss off the
crew. Plus Props had to get another bike for a bit part
character, because her
cute motorized bike wasn’t built for this incline). In addition,
the camera can use the whole road, but we’ll have to leave one lane
open for emergency use or the police will kill us. But the police
are friendly (AD Bob told one of them that his partner “came up
and I told her where to go.” The policeman said, “Yeah, I tell
her that all the time.”)
The plan: This killer hill
scene is a humorous bit that shows how tiring it is for some of the
out-of-shape and inexperienced characters on this bike ride, struggling
to ride their bikes up the hill. At one point, another rider
points out they're in the wrong gear.
So Richard and Jane arrive, see the hill, and
Richard
pulls Alfredo aside and says, “You know what I think would be
funny? To see us pushing the bikes up the hill.” And Gregg
the writer says, no way, it blows the joke of the gear change.
But Richard insists that going from their previous scene to
them pushing the bikes is funnier. And we can still have the bit
part player
show the gear. And we can have more than one take out of the
actors, because that hill is death. Alfredo is convinced, Gregg
is soothed, and we set up the scene.
So it’s the "another rider" bit player’s turn to be
master biker,
and we start
her way at the bottom of the hill while Richard and Jane push their
bikes from mid-hill. So Alfredo and I sit behind the monitor,
watching the take, and it’s pretty obvious we’ve started this take from
way too early in the scene. Wait and wait and wait for her to
get up the hill to Jane and Richard. Jane’s saying her line and
the
player finally
pushes into microphone range and says, totally out of breath,
“a-hew-hew-hew-hew You know hew-hew-hew girlfriend –hew-hew-hew you’d
do better –hew-hew-hew if you hew were--!” and nearly
crashes into Jane’s bike.
Following takes start the player at mid-hill, ending
with
her final take just out of frame and 2nd AD Michael pushing her into
the shot.
Camera moves!
Now we’re way over on another hill, the location for
where Thomas's character is waiting for a ride. So I’m snapping
all kinds of pictures of the SAG van (the
support van, not associated with the Screen Actors Guild) for future
scenes, and I land in my chair next to an unidentified guy who tells me
not to worry, he’ll take care of me. Seconds later he introduces
himself to me – Ricardo something, the actor playing the van
driver. I recall stories about him from wardrobe (legendary—he
was more difficult for wardrobe than any of the leads). So I sit
down, furiously working on my notes, and he asks me if I’d “run some
lines with him.” Say what? I haven’t even had a chance to
offer to run lines with the leads, and this guy…? So I say Okay,
and I look at my script, and realize Thomas’s only lines in this scene
are out of breath “wait…uh…no…” Fortunately, picture’s up,
I get to leave, and we roll. Thomas does his scene in one
take. Alfredo flatly says, “Print the second one.” I’m
thrown for a second, then smile – right before he does.
Then Evil Alfredo possesses nice Alfredo and picks
up the camera – all handheld shots, no monitor, no discussion with the
script supervisor. What’s he shooting? I don’t know.
What’s in the frame? I don’t know. What’s the action?
A handful of crew, cable wranglers, boom operator, ADs and God knows
who else are between me and the action, so I don’t know that either.
Lunch!
This time, I’m near Thomas and crew for lunch, and
when Line Producer Lonnie makes one of his legendary announcements
(“Tomorrow we will be leaving at approximately…where we will then…and
we will travel for…”). Thomas smiles and says, “This guy is like
a
stewardess.” Later I discover Ricardo star has twisted his ankle,
and may not be able to finish his big scene where he drives past the
camera.
Back to work.
New location, hill top.
While 1st Unit sets up for their next big scene,
Todd takes B-camera down the hill for a point of view shot. So I
go with them, and when someone asks if this
movie is going to be released in regular theaters, the sound guy says,
“Straight to video.” I challenge him, commenting on all the stars
involved and how good everything looks. He looks at me and
replies, “Don’t count your pages until
they’re shot.”
So Todd finishes, and we return to the top of the
hill with 1st Unit. We pick up our first series of shots, where
Harry's character is all ready at the top of the hill, and Richard and
Jane's characters
arrive. This scene involves all
sorts of helmets being taken off and put on and re-gearing up for a
bike. For example, Harry isn’t wearing his shirt, sunglasses,
helmet or gloves at the beginning of the scene, but he’s putting them
on during the scene. Richard never took off his gloves, but the
helmet and sunglasses get put back on, and Jane has her helmet on
before
she gets up off the ground. All this happens in one master shot
at different points of dialog, and I’m thinking “Here is the place
Marilyn was fired” – my brain is exploding. Suddenly Wardrobe
Tracy hurries to my side and says, “Okay, I got Harry putting on his
shirt, then glasses, then helmet. In that order on the last
take.” Tracy saves my life. I call out to Harry the order
he needs to put on his stuff during his close-up. He cries out,
“Geez! The helmet, the glasses--” as if he’s being horribly
inconvenienced and I feel like I’m just rocketing to the top of his
disdain list. So I sing-song call out, “Harry hates me!” and he
looks at me and smiles a little. I kiss Tracy all over, and she
assures me that it’s easy when wardrobe is the only thing you have to
keep up with.
We wrap Jane and Richard and keep Harry for more
footage. Harry masterfully rides to
the top in three strokes and the bike promptly flips out from
underneath him, landing on its side a few feet away while he lands on
his feet. He smiles, “Okay, something went wrong there.” A
successful take, and we move on.
Next we’re about to film the scene where Harry's
character dumps his water bottle over his head, and I’m
concerned about how we’re going to get Harry’s hair to look like it did
for this sequence we just shot with Jane and Richard, which takes place
after the hair-wetting scene. I go to Enya for hair advice.
She says, in her Polish accent, “Oh, no, no, he’s got so much gel in
his hair, I don’t think the water will hurt his hair, it will be like,
you know, water over a goose.” So I say, “Should I just get him
to run his hand through his hair so it will look basically the same?”
and she says, “Yes.” So I go to Harry and start to discuss this
with him, and Enya walks over to us and says he doesn’t need to worry
about that. Thanks, Enya.
Back in the hotel room, Gina and I talk boys, a
little actor gossip, and the hierarchy of good-looking guys on the
set. “Like?” Gina asks. “Well, there’s the
spooky-looking but cute guy.” “Oh! Justin!” Gina tells me.
Then we laughed and laughed and the phone rings. It’s for Gina,
always (set accountant always in demand), and she hangs up the phone in
amazement. “Oh, my
God! They just fired Bob.” The AD! So we’re both
amazed
and she says, “I bet it’s because he told you to sit down and shut
up!” and we laughed and went to bed.
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