That 4
Friends Movie
Art department
meeting
The art department called an impromptu meeting that
a bunch of us non-art department people attended. It was a good
group to hang out with -- I'm making a close relationship with art dept
(especially props and background continuity) and wardrobe. I
figure the more I know going into the movie, the better I'll keep up
with the bits and pieces of stuff the actors will have or won't have or
should have during scenes.
The director of the movie, some European guy who
used
to be an art director so he knows exactly
what colors he wants things to be, explained to Wardrobe his philosophy
of colors that was his philosophy and didn't have anything to do with
anything else, but that's the way we're filming it. He discussed
his view of the spectrum of colors and what they mean to him and which
characters should be wearing them during which parts of the
movie. For example, blue is a "mature" color, so Richard's
character, the gay lover, will wear mostly blue. Harry's
character is young and fun and reckless, so at the beginning of the
movie, he'll wear a lot of red, but not at the end. The very
helpful producer Alice (who co-wrote the script with the other producer
Todd) pointed to
that bright putrice green I hate that's really in right now and said "I
see Harry's character in this" and Alfredo snapped "No! No one will
wear that color in this movie!" so I think I'm going to like this guy.
The discussion over bikes was interesting as
well. Props and Wardrobe looked over a bunch of catalogs that
Props brought from product placement companies he works with. One
looked the bike of choice for political (working relationship)
reasons, but its appearance stands out too much to slide in as bikes
for all four riders.
So the discussion turned to which rider or riders
uses the sponsor bike. Alfredo stuck around long enough to say
Thomas's character should ride a silver bike instead of black, then he
had another meeting to go to. Alice and Todd went back and forth
over should just Harry's character have the flashy sponsor bike, or
can conservative Richard's character have one too? I pointed out
Richard's character could have gone shopping with him, Alice jumped all
over that (“Absolutely! Harry and Richard both!”), and they
decided the closing ceremonies bike should be more
average-looking.
During all this flamboyant discussion of what bike
looked perfect for who (Alice was “totally married” to one bike for
Jane's character even though it couldn’t be part of the package), the
very young product placement rep woman quietly tried to take in
everything being thrown at her. Props pulled me aside and told me
not to worry about her—she just left her partner from a meeting they
were having over product placement for Blues Brothers 2000 at
Universal. The partner should be over any minute and close up
everything just like that, which, to my understanding, he did. I
left the helmets and additional bike accessories discussions to Props
and Wardrobe.
It was great meeting for me as Script &
Continuity to attend, since it was making me extremely aware of bits
and pieces of props and wardrobe and when, why and where.
That 4
Friends Movie
Production
Journals - On the Set
The
Marilyn Website home
Copyright Marilyn Estes
1997-infinity