That 4
Friends Movie
Day 22 - Friday night
Back at the park, tent city for the third and final
night. And once again, Stella has taken me under her make-up wing
and made me beautiful. And now pieces of the crew are catching me
in the chair! Oops!
I meet Loader Zeke’s fiancée, and I hear
Richard call to me, asking me about the number of years referenced in a
line of dialog. I tell him I caught that, too, and asked Alfredo,
and laid out the explanation Alfredo gave me for why the number is
correct. Richard’s as surprised to hear this version as I was,
but shrugs, if that’s what Alfredo wants, that works. I thank him
for double-checking with me and he says, “Well, I thought about it
today, and I thought, oh, Marilyn will catch that, and then I thought,
well, what if she doesn’t? What if she misses it?” I smile
and tell him I always appreciate a double-check. “I might have
gotten fired,” I tell him. “It would have ruined the whole
movie!” he cried, “We would have had to re-shoot the whole movie!”
A little later, Richard sat down by me and I asked
him just what this new beach scene they’ve been talking about for a
couple of weeks is about. He said, “Well, I’m the bad guy
now. Everyone’s mad at me. Then Harry comes in and says
‘Blah, blah, blah, blah’ and I say, ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah,’ and he
says ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah,’ and then Thomas comes in.” I throw
in, “He says, Do I have to say ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah? Can’t we
say blah, blah?’” Richard sleepily returns, “He’s
simplicity. He’d just want to say ‘Blah.’”
So Thomas and the big-eyed beauty from the
read-through day have their big scene, and she’s marvelous, never
missing a mark, never dropping a line, and her performance is
amazing. But my goal between set-ups is a fun picture with
Thomas. He’s wearing a dark sweatshirt and I’ve got a
near-turtleneck with trench coat, so I hand my camera to Gabriel and
ask him to play along. “Cologne ad,” I tell him.
“Thomas?” “Yes, darling?” “Will you play with me?” I ask
him, “I want to do a fun photo, like a cologne ad.” “What for?”
he asks, pleasantly but a little confused. “For the hell of it,”
I tell him and lean in looking serious. He’s totally game,
turning his back to me and leaning back into me. “Beautiful!”
says Gabriel, smiling.
I go straight to Stand-in Teresa, who’s standing
with Satnd-in David,
and just as I'm about to tell her about my photo shoot with Thomas, 1st
AC Linda pulls a tape measure almost across my nose, and I realize “Oh,
you’re working!” Then I noticed the gaffer and grips
and camera are setting the lighting.
Tracy and I sit together, waiting for the coverage
of the scene we just shot, and Tracy’s working away on a little
pine-straw doll, which she tells people is a voo-doo doll, cementing
her reputation. “Who is that?” asked Marti. “I can’t tell
you,” Tracy deadpans.
“Two and a half hours of filming, Alfredo,” called
out Todd, as clock-work, pointing out the countdown before
sunrise. When you hear the Todd, the time will be exactly one
minute after it was the last time you heard the Todd.
While filming the party dance scene, we’ve got the
dolly up on a very high track, stacked on apple boxes and wedges.
It looked extremely precarious, and Martin the
Dolly Grip, who built it for safety, played on the fear and asked for
everyone to bow their head in the prayer for the dolly. So it’s
an establishing shot with people dancing, extras crossing in front of
the camera as it dollies and suddenly we see 2nd AD Steven crossing in
front of Jane and Thomas. No big deal, he’s played extras
before. But then suddenly there’s Alfredo in the monitor crossing
the camera. Then I hear giggling and laughing, and Todd and
Lonnie
are walking through the crowd together.
It’s a fun night – a party atmosphere, good feelings
all around, plus really happy lighting which brightens the
environment. All the actors are sitting behind me, and everyone's
telling stories. Excellent.
More scenes, and I hear Richard is wrapped, even
though we don’t do a key transition scene for him. I run to AD
Michael asking if we’re not doing the establishing shot of
Richard? He says Alfredo said no, and I run to Alfredo and remind
him he needs it, otherwise, it’s boom who’s that in the tent oh it’s
Richard's character and … Alfredo thinks, then says yes, we do
need to film
that. I turn to Michael and say “Unwrap Richard!” and he’s
disgusted - welcome to not getting a straight answer - and they unwrap
and I feel for one moment a tinge of power on this four-week
shoot. Richard asks me if the bug was down on his tent the night
before when he climbed out of it, and I’m looking at him blankly.
Finally Alfredo says, "Yes!" And he points to a flap and says,
“That’s the bug.” And I say, “Oh! I didn’t know what you were
talking about!” and Richard smiled.
That 4
Friends Movie
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