That 4 Friends Movie
Day 15 - Thursday
7 a.m., I get to Venice Beach after thinking that I’m
driving to Santa Monica Beach, and the parking lot is practically empty
for everyone who’s gone on to set. So I nervously eat breakfast,
chatting with Wardrobe Marcy, and PA Craig assures me if I break my
neck to get to
set, I’ll discover that they are no where near ready. Stand-in Teresa,
on the other hand, is in a great mood because SHE gets to play the sexy
woman Harry's character is going to cuddle up to in his opening scene
(a shock to Marcy’s system – new characters? No one told
her! Hope I’ve got extra clothes…)
The first shot is 12:21 p.m.
Before that, Medic Maureen, a few others and I are
sitting around, joking about stuff. I ask new Camera Loader Zeke
why we
call him Zeke when his name is Michael and his last name isn’t
Zeke. He tells me in his deadpan expression this story about how
his grandfather was in Pappy Boyington’s squadron and Pappy gave him
the nickname, so it’s passed down the generations. I’m laughing,
still loopy from my conversation with Sterling and Maureen and I wasn’t
expecting a WWII story, so I think he’s joking and he’s not and he
walks away, annoyed. Uhhh….
We go into the bar, and PA Gabriel is working
furiously
on the bottles of alcohol. Even though we have clearance on
several labels, they don’t want their product in any outright gay
scenes, and this scene, they think, is a gay bar (it’s not). (I'm
told that Coors is about the only beer company that doesn’t mind, but
they’re unliked by the gay community so they know the gay community is
all ready keeping their name from any settings). An hour or so
later the stars show up. Harry’s trying to get into character as
a bar charmer.
Teresa shows up in cheesy barfly dress and make-up,
and she and Harry rehearse. He steps toward her, hands her a
drink, swigs down his own and leans in for a killer kiss, which Jane
interrupts by pulling his head back. Rehearsal over, the actors
step away for last minute camera stuff, and Teresa runs to me and
stand-in David in a flurry and says “He was coming at me with his mouth
open and his tongue – oh, my!” We laugh.
By now we’re on Day 15 of the actors joking with
their joke “schmacting,” a playful way for them to make fun of their
acting abilities, ducking out of a scene by saying “Schmacting time!”
or “Let’s start schmacting now!” Harry, Jane and Richard do their
scene, and Jane announces “You can take the actor out of schmacting,
but
you can’t take the schmacting out of the actor!” which Richard follows
up with “Or something like that.”
We wait on poor PA Brady to hit the smoke
button. “Another costly smoke delay!” announces 2nd AD Steven.
The scene wraps up and Teresa’s husband shows up on
set to visit. Harry comments on what timing he’s got, walking in
to see his wife looking like that doing what she was about to do.
“He knew something was up this morning! He saw her eyes and said,
IIIIIII think I’ll drop by the set today and check it out…”
Then we move on to one of my favorite things, a
Shotmaker set-up. This is a special truck rigged for camera and
crew to film actors driving around, today in Venice. The script
says night, we thought we’d fake it, and it turned into a “day for
dawn” shot. So they’re rigging the car and truck for filming, and
Tracy asks me where I’ll be. I tell her I’ll be on the truck, and
she tells me she’s jealous.
The whole car issue…
It’s Transportation’s responsible for getting the
vehicles for the movie, not just the trucks that transport stuff and
trailers for the cast and crew, they have to get vehicles for the story
line. Once we finish our stuff in the bar, we’ll be moving to the
beach, where we’ll rig up the Shotmaker to precede Richard’s
character’s Jeep transporting three characters. First thing in
the morning, the producers and director are not happy with the Jeep
(it’s aged too much since the photo Jay showed them). So Jay and
Tony spend the next couple of hours driving
all over town trying to find a nice non-white Jeep. There isn’t
one available. Not even the lot down the street would let them
borrow one for money. So he finds a convertible, which the
producers told him would work, but he drives it back (the crew is due
back at 2 and it’s ten minutes ‘til 2), and the convertible won’t work
because the window isn’t slanted correctly for them to shoot
through. Fine. No time, no car. Then Jay sees a guy
in the parking lot in a nice Jeep, and he walks over to him and says,
“Hey, buddy, how’d you like to make $100 and take the rest of the day
off?” And that’s the Jeep we used (the guy just moved into town
three days earlier, and his Jeep’s in the movies).
Second meal – this time McDonald’s fish sandwiches –
and we go home.
That 4
Friends Movie
Production
Journals - On the Set
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