That 4
Friends Movie
Day 05 - Wednesday
I face the morning with dread. How can I face
Todd? And how can I calmly talk to Gregg and maintain calm after
days of tension building up and all I want to do it hit him and make
him go away? So we pile into our van, Gregg climbs in behind me,
and we ride to base camp. I reach a moment of clarity, turn back
to Gregg and calmly explain to him what my work involves (a speech I
practiced on Gina earlier). I compare the having to remember the
shot description and immediately writing it down after the director
says Cut to reciting a phone number over and over and dialing it before
anyone says anything and it’s lost. If I’m furiously writing, I
need to be left alone until I’m finished. He gets it. I
know it won’t solve all, or most, my problems (he’s who he is and he
can’t help it), but it’s a start. Gina nods when I glance at her.
We return to the mission parking lot for base camp
and get ready for the first shot. Unbelievably, it’s an overcast
morning – perfect for the scripted weather. Today’s scene leads
up to a huge cloudburst that drives the four into a hotel room for the
night. When reading the script, I couldn’t imagine how they were
going to fake a blue-sky California summer sky into cloudburst weather,
but the heavens were helping out.
This morning we did a couple of tracking shots with
Richard and Thomas riding their bikes alone. We (the camera crew,
Alfredo, the medic, me and Stills Don) rode in the back of a non-cinema
truck while Richard rode behind us. We changed camera filters
half-way through so it would look more like overcast dusk, then we
changed bike riders. Except for the bouncing, which makes writing
neat notes difficult, I love riding with camera on trucks.
Everyone else on the crew has to sit around and wait for us to get back.
We return, getting ready to set up the next shot
down the road at the field, featuring Thomas, Richard and some migrant
farm workers in a field. 2nd Unit was going to take Jane and
Harry
and do their solo bike riding in the rain, but the 1st Unit crew has
those set-ups memorized, so we trade camera crews and leave them with
it. But before they leave, Todd asks me to make sure Harry and
Jane are right continuity-wise and to give 2 AC Mario the right slate
numbers for the camera. So I check with Marcy for wardrobe, she
tells me to check with Alfredo about jackets and sunglasses, and I
check with Alfredo (the sunglasses are a pain because the actors might
not be sure when the camera has the filter in it and they wouldn’t have
the sunglasses in the dark, and the jacket thing is also a mock chilly
weather issue). Alfredo says no sunglasses, yes jackets for both
of them. I go to this Harry guy and tell him no sunglasses
and yes jacket, and he shakes me off and calls to Alfredo over my
shoulder does he want him to wear a jacket? No, right?
Alfredo says No, and Harry looks at me like Uh-huh, that’s what I
thought and walks on. Thanks, Alfredo. First Enya with his
slicked hair, now Alfredo with his no jacket.
So I join the group down the road and watch Richard
and Thomas rehearse and block the scene. The three of them joke
about something, either Richard or Thomas comment that Gregg would have
laughed at that, Alfredo says “Gregg laughs at an empty water bottle,”
and it’s my turn to laugh. Thomas wants to change some lines,
they
block some more, and Alice arrives and asks about putting a line back
in and Thomas nearly loses it. He says “No! We get together
every night and rewrite scenes and we’re on the set now and you can’t
keep throwing stuff at us!” Alice, who clearly feels like she’s
losing control over the set (since she’s writing this one with Gregg,
her producer/writer title has pretty much lost the producer power to
Todd and now Gregg’s rewriting scenes with the actors and there’s some
power struggle going on there). So she pulls out the “I’m the
producer” card and Thomas immediately counters with the “Well, I’m the
actor!” trump card (a gentle reminder that these actors are being paid
dirt and must be kept happy in all other venues), then softens it with
a diplomatic “And it’s my face up there on the screen saying that
line. And I can’t say that line.” They go over it a little
more, there was a misunderstanding, she and he don’t want the same
line, happy ending.
So we’ve finished lunch and we’re back to the
“migrant farm worker scene” as we call it. It was still pretty
overcast and windy, and it became sound boom guy’s turn to garner the
attention of the time keepers. The boom is the microphone on a
pole that he has to hold over the action during the shot, as close as
possible to the actors to get the clearest sound quality without
crossing the line into the camera frame. This becomes
increasingly difficult when the camera changes its shot during a scene,
like pulling back to make the shot wider between actors and he’s not
sure how much room he’s got before the microphone is in the shot.
This was going to be a long take with increasingly widening shots and
the camera moving in a half-circle from a pretty close-up shot of
Thomas, moving with him to Richard and finally ending on a big shot of
three men and workers in the background. And the gusting wind was
making it increasingly difficult for him to hold the boom steady over
all this action (plus it was covered with a furry Tribble-looking cloth
to cut down the wind noise, so it was much bigger than usual).
The boom guy was trying to figure out the best way to get the sound of
actors he couldn’t reach (the camera was now on a dolly track, so it
was not only moving in the half-circle between him and the action, it
now required more people around it to do the pushing). I
innocently suggested radio mikes attached inside the actors’
clothes. He looked at me like I had 12 heads and asked me, “Are
you crazy???” which I thought was nostalgic because I haven’t actually
heard anyone use that phrase in years. Everything was just
about working, and then the sun came out, which created another problem
for him – now he also had to avoid his boom shadow from being seen in
the wide shot, so he had to move all over again. Then Peter, the
sound mixer, had to re-load (something sound usually has to do less
than half the number of times camera does), and the phrase “another
costly sound delay” was born, much to everyone’s amusement.
Meanwhile, there was the bathroom situation.
We were just far enough from base camp that you had to catch a van ride
back to go to the bathroom, a genuine concern since a sponsor had
supplied the production with lots of free water and we were taking
advantage of it. But AD Michael was one of those ADs who was only
concerned with trying to make his day (i.e. get everything accomplished
on his scheduled shot list - the job of an AD), and asking him when
would be a good time to go, especially on days like these when it was
taking forever to get set-up and we had lots to shoot, was usually met
with a sarcastic smile. He told me to forget it. Maybe 45
minutes. I’ll try to be brave. 45 minutes turned into 2
hours, at which point I saw two vans take off for base camp without me
and Thomas being in one of them for a bathroom break, one of those
times
you know you could have been spared since the camera wasn’t going to
roll without the star. Someone even altered the Cuba Gooding Jr.
phrase to “Show me the bathroom!” It was beyond impossible for me
to concentrate on the final shot, especially considering how cold it
was which made you tighten up all the more, and the moment they said
“That’s it, let’s go,” I got into a waiting van and instructed the
driver to leave NOW! Then four people, including the DP John,
threw themselves into the van with the same single-minded
enthusiasm.
Base camp offered a second meal “snack” of
McDonald’s burger and fries to tide us over for the big drive to
Kingsport, our third hotel home. Roomie Gina and I rode with
Lonnie, who stopped for gas and returned with tasty ice cream snacks he
used to eat when he lived near this area. I’d been really good
about avoiding junk food, but I succumbed and it was a nice break,
considering the cryfest from the night before and the basic stress of
not killing the AD for the previous 3 hours. Then Lonnie
reattached the cell phone to his ear and starting talking with Todd
about finding a new 1st camera assistant, assuring him that the people
riding with him (us) were trustworthy. I got uneasy again.
They’ve all ready fired the first 1st AD and now they had their knives
out again, planning to hit the camera department. And I was
worried about Todd before hearing this. Lonnie hung up and told
us
this information doesn’t leave the van…and DP John’s probably on his
way out, too. I tell Lonnie, “I’m afraid I pissed off Todd last
night.” He said, “No, Todd’s not pissed at you.” I'm not
convinced, but it is nice to hear.
We get to the hotel and move yet again into our new
rooms. The catering truck is in the parking lot serving
hamburgers, which we just had for a snack. No biggie. I had
snatched a baby-box of cereal from breakfast and ate that
instead. Gina had just gotten her cheeseburger and was walking
away when some guy was talking to her. Suddenly she threw her
plate on the ground and walked away, crying. There were only a
few of us around, so I picked up the food and no one said much of
anything. I asked someone if they saw it, which I didn’t, and she
pointed out the doomed camera assistant previously mentioned in the van
ride as the person talking to Gina. I gave her some time, then
found her in the room and asked her if this breakdown business was
going to be a tag team roommate thing. I thought maybe she
couldn’t handle being around a guy who didn’t know he was going to get
fired, because Gina’s really sensitive. Just the opposite, she
starts telling me how this guy is really annoying and kept at her and
kept at her about being paid a certain way about something after she
told him she was really tired and couldn’t deal with it right
now. I told her this was the guy who was going to get fired, and
she said Good.
So I decide poor Gina needs a margarita, something
maybe we both needed, and I agree to accompany her to the bar next door
where a lot of the crew was hanging out. Late evening, cigarette
smoke and alcohol. Gina knew this was a rare offer coming from me
and jumped on it. But we walk outside and hear some crew people
saying that it’s really just a diner and everyone’s getting a couple of
vans together to go to downtown Kingsport to a real bar and won’t be
back until one or two a.m. Pass. So we decide to try the
little diner for a cup of coffee or something. We had a choice of
walking through a scary-looking field or around the sidewalk next to
the heavy-truck trafficked road. We pass on the ominous field,
opting for the safer looking sidewalk and Gina promptly twists her foot
and falls down. “Are you all right?” I ask. She tries to
get up, but says she’s in pain. I tell her to sit down for a few
minutes on the sidewalk, which she attempts. “Ow! Ow! Okay!
Ow!” Suddenly she freezes, “Oh, wait! Are there any bugs?
No?” She resumes pain mode and sits, “Okay, ow! Ow!”
She’s not better, so we hobble back to room, where I
ply her with candy and drinks and make her alternately freeze and hot
water soak her ankle.
That 4
Friends Movie
Production
Journals - On the Set
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