That 4
Friends Movie
Day 12 - Monday
Today we’re way down San Pedro, known to me as Power
Ranger Land, with a zillion extras to shoot the big opening
ceremonies. The deal with extras is they are very important as
background, they’re not paid very much, they generally eat lunch after
everyone on the cast and crew, and they have to sit around a lot,
pretty much ignored, before suddenly being commanded where to stand or
walk or sit down or not. So we’re setting up a shot with all the
extras, having them stand behind the four principles while Guest Cameo
Matthew
greets them, and they’re waiting and waiting. Jane, acknowledging
their existence and patience, begins to entertain them. She
smacks on an imaginary cigarette like an old-timey agent and tells
them, “You’re not extras, you’re SEXTRAS!” and they applaud and cheer
her.
I start the very early day looking for my notes,
which are supposed to be waiting for me, courtesy of Jessica, in the
production office. I ask Jodie, who asks me incredously if I
really gave my notebook to someone? Who? Jessica? Are
you kidding? Same reaction from Jennifer, 1st AD Michael, and
2nd AD Steve. And Art Dept Scott. And Art Dept Stewart, and
anyone else within earshot of
Scott. Apparently Jessica isn’t on the top of their lists of
getting work done. And if the notes are lost, it’s not her fault,
it’s mine, because I shouldn’t have trusted her. Finally Steve
calls her, leaving a message that we’re waiting on her. She shows
up a few minutes later, telling me oh by the way, she didn’t have time
to copy my notes, so much for her to do this weekend. She’ll get
to them later today. Yeah, right. Fool me once.
So we set up the first shot, Jane and Richard
walking
toward Harry with all the extras crowding around him, and it’s bike
placement, helmets, sunglasses heck. We move our stuff in for the
reverse, people, chatter, rearranging, and people start joking about
who wants whose job on the set. Harry commands everyone’s
attention by loudly saying, “The one job on the set that I don’t want
is MARILYN’S job!” and he’s smiling at me, looking impressed.
Then we hear Steve mutter jokingly, “Oh, her job’s easy,” and the crew
goes up in a playful collective “ooooOOOooooo!” which amuses me.
And Harry steps up again, saying, “Not on this movie!” and he’s still
smiling.
And there’s excitement in the crew for the upcoming
lesbians kissing each other in front of Thomas scene – generating more
excitement and audience than the much discussed Griffith Park shower
scene. I tell Alfredo that Keri is going to be the one who kisses
the girl and he immediately calls out to Carrie to come over. I
hurriedly say, “No! Keri the assistant production
coordinator! Not this Carrie!” and he says “Why not this Carrie?”
and I say, “Because I don’t think this Carrie likes kissing
girls.” So she comes over and he tries to talk her into the
scene, and she smiles and walks away.
While setting up some shot and the actors sit off to
themselves, I steal Harry away for the perfect shot of him and me
together. I figure with this sunset, the lighting will be
perfect. Scott takes the picture, after telling Mike Bike and
others to stop giving us rabbit ears.
We shoot the lesbian kissing scene, immediately
followed by the start of the race, racing the sun for the last three
shots of the day – the start, which is supposed to be morning, Guest
Cameo Laura
waving to Richard which is supposed to match the blinding bright 2 p.m.
sun of our Santa Monica shoot, and coverage of the lesbian kissing
scene which will have been shot brighter on the first take than after
the sun drops, and that whole thing where we’ve hired an actor and
props built this chariot looking bike and we’ll never get to it.
So we grab the opening and Laura, and wolf down second meal of Taco
Bell before they announce forget the lesbian coverage, that’s a wrap.
I’m freezing, hungry, needing to go to the restroom,
and Mario had said something to me during the hurried opening of the
ride shot regarding a mismarked camera roll, and Karen comes by to
confirm that I’ve got a date with her in the camera truck.
So everything’s nuts, the ADs are checking out the
extras while wardrobe’s getting their clothes back from the extras (if
you want your driver’s license, give back the wardrobe t-shirt!), and
way more than one person is telling me that camera is looking for
me. So I finally finish the part of my paperwork that can’t wait
and go to camera, who tries to hand off two camera reports with the
same film roll number on it and tell me, “We’ll just turn in two
reports
with the same number on it,” and I say, “Oh, no, we won’t.” So I
make them go over the reports and film rolls over and over, what’s
missing, what’s slated certain scene numbers on the roll differently
than what my notes are telling the editor (for example, if my notes
says Scene 64 takes 3 and 5, Harry’s medium shot, are on film roll
A47, that’s the piece of film they better be on). Mario asks me
more than once if it wasn’t ME who made the mistake calling the roll
something different, am I sure the scenes I’m talking about really
exist? I assure him that the gravel is still embedded in my knee
from when Alfredo had two cameras split their coverage on Richard and
Thomas, Jane and Harry, and I had to balance myself under the lens to
see
what was going on without casting a shadow in the shot. The
missing roll has Jane’s close-up on it – find it! So they look,
and they’re tired. I finally say, Look, after we do this, I’ve
still got to finish my editor’s log and notes and do the production
report before I can go home and go to sleep, so let’s get this done
now! And that puts everything in perspective for them and they
get serious. Lonnie noses in every once in a while, asking how
long will it take us to find the answer, nearly using his authoritative
useless mode to bully us, then he leaves. The problem solved,
Karen had the missing report in her pocket, we’re done.
At this point, production is pretty gone and they
tell me to bring the paperwork in the morning. So Carrie waves
bye, she and I go in different directions, I discover I left my lights
on in my car this morning and the battery’s dead. Thank God the
security guys
jumped it off and I went home.
That 4
Friends Movie
Production
Journals - On the Set
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1997-infinity