That 4
Friends Movie
Day 14 - Wednesday
I wake up this morning more than drained after going to
sleep more than drained. I realize somehow that GC Matthew
drained me of all kinds of energy and I worried about what crew people
would say about me laughing at all his jokes. Plus I check my map
and realize the location is a LOT further away than I thought it would
be.
So I get to the set, and everyone is equally
drained. The whole shooting in the non-AC room did it for a lot
of people, and Alfredo let me know that GC Matthew is draining to
everybody. Cool. Then I get to meet Hollis, who’ll be
playing a cameo. Alfredo immediately introduces us because her
friend is taking, ta-da, the script supervisor class at AFI and she
believes I know the teacher, and she was wondering if I minded if she
came over today and watched me. Great, sure, no problem, my
pleasure – and if today doesn’t work, another day is fine.
So we caravan 12 miles to a pretty ranch area for a
scene with Jane and Hollis.
We arrive and boom guy refuses to leave the
van. He knows there will be a lot of walking around and waiting,
and he’d rather nap in the second row of the van. So I stay in
the third row and do paperwork. Then we hear the rent-a-cop
watching the street yell in an overly official voice for our people to
stay out of the road! Stay out of the road! I’m not going
to tell you again, stay out of the road! The next time you get in
the road, I’m going to give you a ticket! Both boom guy and I are
voicing our displeasure at this noise when stand-in Teresa stumbles
up to our van and voices her displeasure at this walking noise.
She was late, she missed breakfast, and she’s in a very bad, very
drained mood. Eventually we’re called over to our location, on
the other side of the road, which forces us to call out, “How do we get
to the other side of the road if we must -- stay out -- of the ROAD?”
So we’re setting up a shot and I tell Peter Sound
and 2nd AC Mario that the next set-up is 111-Apple so they can mark
their sound and film to match my notes for the editor.
“Why is it called that?” Marcy asks.
I explain – each scene’s first shot is called the
scene number. Additional shots, like close-ups of the actors or
different angles is called the scene number plus A, B, C, etc.
“What do you do when, like, what we did those two
takes? What do you call those?” Gregg asks.
“Take 1 and Take 2,” I answer flatly.
By now, we hear the laughter of far more people than
I thought was listening. Gregg nods, realizing his faux-paux
immediately.
Marcy is up for the whole lesson and asks, “Why do
you say Apple if other says Alpha?”
“Different styles. Peter uses military, so he
says Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. Movie people usually say Apple,
Baker… And Sound’s mad at me because I don’t use Gs so he can’t say
Godzilla or gorgonzola,” I tell her.
“Why not G?” asks Marcy.
“It looks like a six. Os and Is are out for
everybody because they look like zeros and ones.”
Peter turned around. “I had a director once
who didn’t like Bs because they look like 8s. And one script girl
who didn’t use a letter because it was her ex-boyfriend’s initial.”
We move in closer for the shot – our schedule this
morning is flying because it’s just Jane and Hollis and they’re not
suggesting any philosophical or blocking changes. At breakfast,
Hollis requested one real change – to drop the actual age she’s
supposed to say about herself. She’d prefer “old” so people – and
agents – don’t tag her with a specific age for future roles. No
problemo.
Crew guy asks, “Steve, is there a bathroom here?”
2 AD Steve responds, “Yes, I see (looking at trees)
one, two, three, four…” he counts to 16. “And I didn’t turn my
head.”
Crew guy challenges him about the need for excreting
certain bodily liquids - oh, but ADs don’t do that, do
that?
Steven assures him that ADs are far too efficient
for such needs. They just recycle. It goes down and comes
back up.
“That would explain your vocabulary,” I reply, but
they didn’t hear.
“I heard that,” said Gregg with a smile.
I smile back.
That 4
Friends Movie
Production
Journals - On the Set
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