Filming a Movie in a War Zone…

Film makers are passionate obsessive folk, often oblivious to the perils of shooting in foreign parts. We are driven by the belief that each project is the Holy Grail. Let nothing stand in your way, is the mantra. In 1988 I was being taken to survey a location two hour’s drive out of Manila for my Vietnam war movie THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA, accompanied by First AD Carding Guzman, and Production Designer Toto Castillo.

We passed a guard tower at a cross roads, its elevated platform cocooned in netting, conjuring the image of a robot bee-keeper.

“What’s the net for?” I asked.

“Grenades, sir.” was the deadpan reply from our driver.

Yes, of course. In 1988, the Philippines was still in the grip of two insurgencies, an Islamic one in the South, and the communist New People’s Army  (NPA) on the main island of Luzon where we were. So an hour‘s drive out of  Manila we were already crossing the perceived border beyond which lay NPA contested territory, and we had an hour’s driving to go.

“Don’t worry about the NPA, sir, they are the Good People.”

I mistook this for character evaluation. In fact it was an item in all Philippino movie budgets at the time. Ostensibly, it referred to security staff for locations outside Manila. Indeed, who better to protect you from the NPA than the NPA themselves? I was told that they were better than the Philippino military. They did not get drunk, or bring their cousins demanding they get paid as well.

We arrived on a hill with a good view of surrounding countryside, an ideal choice for the firebase. We discussed the lay-out of the defensive perimeter and bunkers while awaiting the arrival of the NPA representatives. A pick-up truck approached and parked. Two armed men with bandanas round their faces got out. Apart from a moment of frisson at the sight of a real loaded gun ( I was unaware at that point that two of my three Philippino companions were also armed.) I did not feel I had anything to fear. I trusted the judgment of my Philippino crew. And indeed, cordial conversation in Tagalog took place, a deal was made, and the NPA were on their way again. We would pay $5000 for each month of our stay in their territory. They would protect us, ensure that local bandits did not strip our firebase set each night, etc. They even volunteered to be in our battle scenes, and bring their own rifles. They had Armorlites, we needed AK 47’s which were in abundance in Manila. The well trained Viet Cong women you see in some battle scenes are NPA.

Their only stipulation was this - when we brought in the Philippino Army helicopter gunships for the strafing and bombing scenes, we would give the NPA notice so they could make themselves scarce. The Army were grateful for this too. They did not want an unnecessary fight either.  This was indicative of a level of popular support for the NPA, purported champions of the poor in the Philippines, where social inequality had reached obscene levels.

Although we were a little late in paying one month, the NPA honored their deal throughout. During a tough night shoot I wandered away from the lights of the set, so I could gaze at the brilliant stars in the sky, and recover some inspiration. One of  the NPA security people at our perimeter told me not to go any further.

“But you’re the Good People,” I said.

“There are good Good People, and there are bad Good People, particularly at night,” he replied in good English, “best stay back.”

OK. Got It.

But I do not think that I really Got It till the night we were relaxing having dinner in the only American style bar in the tiny town of Pagsanhan ( where a lot of APOCALYPSE NOW was shot). At the only street lit section, this bar was right next door to the police station. 20 yards walk from door to door. The Police Chief entered the bar. He wore a side arm, a sub machinegun hung from a strap around his neck, ammunition pouches and grenades  dangled from his belt. All this firepower to go 20 yards!! Grenades! Was everywhere outside of the walls of the police station a free fire zone?

Later outside the bar, two of his men monstered one of our cast Clyde Jones, who plays Shortwave.
“What are you doing in the Philippines?” they demanded.

“ I’m making a movie!” tried Clyde, with the biggest shit-eating grin he could muster. “

“What do you do?”

Clyde felt confident in his reply. “ I’m an actor.”

One cop snorted and turned to the other officer. “ An actor? Shoot him!”

For a few heart pounding seconds Clyde really thought they meant it. Two liquored up cops, thousands of miles from the US, in a town with three street lamps…who would ever know what really happened to him? At that moment life in Detroit was looking pretty good to Clyde. Then they roared with laughter, and let him go. Clyde Jones, being the ballsy guy he is, did not catch the next plane home, but continued giving a great performance and dodging pyrotechnics till we were done. Incidentally, our chief pyro guy Danny “ Boom Boom” Dominguez, as he was known locally, told me that we ultimately let off more explosions than HAMBURGER HILL!

When the army helicopters were scheduled for the strafing and bombing sequences, we duly informed the NPA, who duly melted back into the jungle. But the helicopters were 5 hours late. The Captain in charge apologized. They had been on a mission against the NPA 100 miles north.

“We will now change to blank ammunition.” he said.

“Excellent idea!” I quipped. The army guys laughed. But my quip masked a sharp twinge of guilt and sorrow. We were doing simulated war, while further north people were dying in real war, people who were compatriots perhaps of the local NPA who had treated us well. When they might easily have held us to ransom.

This strengthened my resolve to maintain the underlying theme of the movie, that wars are fought by brave dutiful people on BOTH SIDES. I had to fight the distributor on this issue who felt this point of view was “unpatriotic”. But enough evenhandedness remains in the picture, which has become a favorite of a lot of Vietnam vets. Check out their postings on IMDB. It’s a mystery to me why MGM does not bring it out on DVD. The entire US Marine Corps, to whom R. Lee Ermey is a god, would buy copies. One fan even started an on-line petition to MGM . As yet, no response.

Back in Manila one night I staged the 1968 Tet offensive attack on the US Saigon Embassy, at a run down Foreign Businessmen’s Club, a passable  match to the actual building in fact. After Take 1 of the initial assault, with Viet Cong shooting up the sentry box and driving in hurling grenades, we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by police and army units. It turned out that President Cori Aquino and General Ramos were meeting in an hotel a couple of blocks away. Their immediate thought, upon hearing the explosions and gunfire, was that another revolution had broken out. We were shut down for 2 hours while I persuaded the authorities that I had no plans to overthrow the government of the Philippines.

A deep basso profundo TV announcer’s voice should now intone: “There are 8 Million Stories in the Naked Jungle. This has been one of them.” More on THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA another time.

Here is a homemade trailer I found on youtube that someone put together of the movie:

I’ve Found My Morgue!!!…

(Yes, I know I am a sick puppy…)

And what a beautiful morgue it is too! Free from the aroma of formaldehyde. Because it is  A SET ! Conveniently located near Culver City, or there’s an identical one in Santa Clarita. It comes with a hospital corridor, wards, an operating theatre, full of gleaming new medical equipment. All courtesy of a truly helpful film industry entrepreneur Bruce Schiller, the owner of MAJOR MEDICAL PROPS/POST MORTEM/ SETS IN THE CITY. Check out his website www.majormedicalprops.com
He has a bunch of other standing sets too, which is great news for all of us who want to shoot in LA. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more accommodating set rental company. You can tell Bruce has a wealth of knowledge and really loves the process of making films.

A set will allow a much more comfortable nurturing atmosphere during that day of shooting. Location morgues are no fun at all. They remind cast and crew of their own mortality, something of an obstacle to finding your inner child, and letting the creative aspect of your function flower, which, to me, is what making scripted drama is all about.

The Toronto morgue I used for my whodunit ESCAPE CLAUSE, had a chilling atmosphere; that is until the sound department requested that the fridges be turned off before each take. Then, cumulatively during the hours of shooting the atmosphere changed to something that was hard on the nostrils. Some people had to leave.

The only person it worked for was Andrew McCarthy, who gives a stunningly truthful reaction, when called upon to identify his wife’s body: and the audience does not know whether or not it was he who actually killed her. Fantastic moment. He’s a great actor.

When I surveyed the morgue, I was warned there was an autopsy in progress on an unfortunate man who had been stabbed in the chest during a street brawl a day earlier. You could wait an hour till it was over, my Canadian guide offered. No, we’ll do it now, said I. You might feel faint, he warned  I’ve done lots of blood and guts, said Mr. Macho, I’ll be fine.  No worries, mate.  In like Flynn.

The door opened, and there before me was a masked and gowned man, lifting a 12 inch square section of ribs off the body, to calculate angle and depth of the knife’s penetration. Suddenly, like a blow to my entire nervous system, I did feel queasy. Light headed. Tingly… My experienced Canadian guide, who had, no doubt, seen a bunch of directors slam to the tiles at that point, suggested that I watch by looking at the reflection of the autopsy in the stainless steel surface of the adjacent fridge. As soon as I turned my eyes to that reflection, which widened the distance a bit, the queasiness started to recede. I was suddenly at second remove. I was not really there. Soon it was controllable, and I could stride around the room, choose my angles, and depart upright, rather than on a stretcher. Thank you, Canada. (They’re not being passive aggressive, they’re just being helpful in a pointed way…)

(The director on survey with male lead/co-producer CHRIS CLEVELAND.)

More on our webisode pilot, a smart sci-fi police procedural created and produced by acclaimed FARSCAPE writer Ricky Manning, after the shoot. Webisodes are a burgeoning future strata of production, where greater creative control will remain in the hands of the truly creative people. Ain’t life grand!

How My $1.6M Leprechaun 4 Movie was made.

INT TRIMARK CONFERENCE ROOM DAY

Executives have convened to hear the pitch for number 4 in their series of LEPRECHAUN movies. A spoof press ad at their Christmas party had put the Leprechaun on Apollo 13:
“Trimark, we have a problem…“ A joke quickly became a sequel concept.

But the Director of number three, Leprechaun in Vegas, the highest selling direct-to-video of 1995, had a different concept.

His chief supporter within the company had summoned him in, along with his producer, to pitch it in front of their boss Mark Amin. There are other executives around the table who favor the original concept. This is not a slam dunk. Mark Amin enters, dressed dapper casual, and exuding a quiet authority. The Director notes the general change in body language around the table as Mr. Amin sits down.

 

SUPPORTIVE EXECUTIVE
Over to you.

The pitch begins.

DIRECTOR
APOLLO 13 is a very small environment
for the Leprechaun to wreak his havoc.
Why not use ALIENS as the matrix?
Space marines hunting down a creature,
which happens to be the Leprechaun, still
going strong after thousands of years.

 

MARK AMIN
Tell me the best scene.

The Supportive Executive and the Director had not discussed the latter’s vision for the movie beyond an overall framework that could be achieved for the budget. The pitch was now veering into unknown territory. But the Supportive Executive felt confident. This Director never seemed to be at a loss for words on the subject of film. In fact it was sometimes hard to get him to shut up. He would think of something.

DIRECTOR
There are so many great scenes to chose from…
but how about this? If you are going to do an
ALIENS homage, well, you’ve got to have a scene
where the creature bursts out of a
character’s body, right?

 

MARK AMIN
That scene’s been copied many times.

 

DIRECTOR
But not like this. You see..

A rival Executive sees an opportunity to display his insight.

EXECUTIVE 1
( interrupting )
The Leprechaun is 3 foot tall. How does he get
into the man’s body without him realizing it?

Another Executive grabs the coat tails.

EXECUTIVE 2
Are you going to do the whole face hugger
thing? We’re looking for originality here.

Oh, you guys are a tag team. You want originality? OK.

DIRECTOR
OK. The Space marines ambush the creature
on a desolate planet, blowing him to pieces.
Then, in a gesture of marine pride, the most
macho marine decides he will piss on one
of the body parts. So we do this shot from
behind his spread legs…

The voltage in the room goes up a notch. The golden shower of Farelly Brothers bodily function comedies had not yet rained down on Hollywood. But the director charges on, oblivious.

DIRECTOR
The actor squirts an unseen tube of amber
fluid down onto, say, a dismembered leg…

In the morality of Cinema, severed limbs are not offensive. Urine streams are. The Execs steal glances at the Boss, who remains attentive, but impassive.

DIRECTOR
But what the marine does not see,
and we do, courtesy of our CGI guys,
is a tiny glowing green ball travel
upstream, so to speak.

Oh, Boy. The Supportive Executive’ jaw tightens. His rivals lean back in their chairs, suppressing smirks.

DIRECTOR
So, the pay-off comes back on the ship
when this guy and a sexy lady marine
find a quiet corner to get it on. She’s got
her hand in his pants, and suddenly he’s
saying not so rough, you want to take
it home with you? And she can’t understand,
because she has a diploma in hand jobs…

The Rival Execs have that ‘glad You brought him in, and not Us, pal!’ looks on their faces. The Director is in the zone; the scene is playing before his eyes.

DIRECTOR
Suddenly he recoils backwards, his
pants start to bulge and pulsate
- via tubes and bladders, of course -
Then he sinks to the floor, so special effects
can get access from below. He screams as
the Leprechaun erupts out of his pants on an
invisible wire, flies through the air
and lands in front of them both. “ Next time,
m’ lad, you should use a prophylactic!”

The last line comes in thick Irish brogue. Stunned silence.

The Rival Execs are ready with scornful rebuttals, lest they too will be held collectively responsibility for letting this lunatic into the building. They look to the boss. His expression is studious.

MARK AMIN
So the Leprechaun comes out…of the
man’s penis?

DIRECTOR
Yes!

Pause.

MARK AMIN
Ah, huh…

Another pause.

I like it!

A massive reversal of body language ripples through the Executive ranks. Followed by an explosion of Rapture at the Brilliant Scene! A Great Idea! They always liked it. Even before they heard it. The Supportive Executive has trounced the opposition.

And that was how LEPRECHAUN (4) IN SPACE was green lit. Green being the operative word. I have always felt a debt of gratitude to Mark Amin for following his gut instincts and allowing me to make, unfettered, my wackiest genre cocktail. Multiple ingredients include FULL METAL JACKET, DR.CYCLOPS, RICHARD THE THIRD, HENRY THE SIXTH PART 2, THE FLY, LAND OF THE GIANTS, TERMINATOR, THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN, etc. See how many you can find.

How often does a CEO in the low budget arena have the courage to allow a passionate film maker with a totally out-there vision of a formulaic subject to follow it through to the end So, thanks Mark, and my endlessly supportive producers at the time, Jeff Geoffray and Walter Josten of Blue Rider Pictures.

It helped to have a clever, funny script from Dennis Pratt. We wrestled with how to deliver the obligatory topless scene, while at the same time mocking this habitual distributor’s requirement, by contriving the most absurd reason ever for a girl to bare her breasts. I think Dennis’s solution is hysterical. He also gave British TV star Guy Siner (‘Allo, ‘Allo!) great material with which to play a DR. STRANGELOVE mad scientist who become a giant spider person, craving flies. And Guy consumed the role and the flies with gusto.

The elaborate prosthetic make up effects from Gabe Bartalos were awesome. Particularly for a $1.6M movie.

But it is Warwick Davis who brings impeccable timing, and an impish sense of fun to each dark deed. His charisma carried the series for two more sequels.

You have to be in the right frame of mind for a LEPRECHAUN movie; they are not for everybody. They play best to a pre-pubescent thru high school male mentality. The exploding penis scene was, as I predicted at that meeting, a regular talking point at the middle school level after the film came out.

Foreign markets never quite got the LEP franchise sense of humor. In England, they did not release LEPRECHAUN 2 - originally developed as “Bride of Leprechaun” - as a sequel. They tried to pass it off as a black comedy entitled ONE WEDDING AND LOTS OF FUNERALS. There’s even a SPACE PLATOON poster I came across, selling No. 4 as straight Sci-Fi Action Adventure!

But gradually a cult audience for LEP has developed internationally as well in the US. (Ireland is probably an exception…begorah!)

A movie that revels in bad Sci-Fi, exults in its own absurdity, has an enduring shelf life, by virtue of being such an oddity. People tell me it’s an hilarious guilty pleasure for a bunch of sci-fi literate guys around the twelve pack or the bong. Coin from internet download will be trickling into Lionsgate coffers for a long time to come.

Die Hard fans of the Leprechaun genre are divided over whether they prefer LEP IN VEGAS or SPACE. Of the two, SPACE is certainly broader in comedy style, more of a pastiche. I’m too close to tell. They both have their hits and misses. You can find a trailer for SPACE here.

http://www.benetonfilms.com/temp/lep4preview.wmv
.

Tales from the world of LEPRECHAUN will follow in a future Blog.

I need a morgue…( Yes, I know I am a sick puppy)

 ” I NEED - IN LA - A MORGUE OR MORGUE SET, OR DRESSABLE EMPTY LARGE COLD ROOM, PREFERABLY ADJACENT TO A PARKING STRUCTURE  FOR FREE FOR 12 HOURS BETWEEN THE EVENING OF FRIDAY JUNE 27 and SUNDAY JUNE 29. THIS IS FOR A WEBISODE PILOT WHERE EVERYONE IS WORKING FOR FREE. 

“Revenue from initial web display goes to the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund, assisting non-WGA members, including IATSE, Teamsters and other below the line crew members affected by the strike.”

IF ANYONE CAN HELP/RECOMMEND SOMETHING WE COULD MAKE INTO A MORGUE.  PLEASE EMAIL PRODUCER LEA-BETH SHAPIRO: lbs13@aol.com 

The title is “FUSION”  A SCI FI/HORROR POLICE PROCEDURAL. YOU KNOW I CANNOT RESIST A GOOD GENRE COCKTAIL.”

Making a Film with your Bare Hands…

IS THERE A DISTRIBUTOR WITH BALLS AND SALESMANSHIP OUT THERE?

I am departing from my regular format to single out, for special praise, a piece of balls-to-the-wind film making from Australian director Kriv Stenders. Because his achievement is extraordinary.

BOXING DAY is told in real time, and shot as a single 80 minute take!

Chingow! This film riveted my attention despite having just consumed a cajun pizza washed down with good red ned. The intensity of the drama and the chutzpah of its creative vision ruled out a post-prandial snooze in a warm dark theatre, which a lesser film might have induced.

No, I was totally sucked into the minute by minute depiction of events one afternoon in the life of Chris, a recovering alcoholic, alienated father and jumpy ex-con. Living alone on home detention, Chris is preparing a traditional Christmas meal for his teenage daughter, when an old but dangerous friend turns up and exposes the disturbing truth about his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. The film documents in painstaking detail the harrowing journey of a wounded family teetering on the brink of destruction, yet healed at the last moment by the re-discovery of unconditional love. So vividly authentic is the writing and so truthful are the performances that I found myself, along with the whole audience, totally bonded with the luckless hero, appalled by his escalating series of dilemmas, and quite unsure of the eventual outcome.

Isn’t that the essence of good drama? How many Oscar touted films deliver something so real, so devoid of artifice? And this fueled by a budget best described as the smell of an oil rag.

Current and future directors might find Kriv Stender’s approach to the material interesting. For a year Stenders and co-writer/central character Richard Green wrote a “scriptment”, something midway between a screenplay and a treatment. Then a cast was chosen, a mixture of professionals and non-actors. The Probation Officer, for instance, is a real Probation Officer. Two of the actors have served prison sentences.

They were encouraged, after researching their characters, to improvise responses to each beat in the story, over an extended workshop/rehearsal period. More elements in the screenplay became written in stone, but not everything. As Kriv Stenders elaborated in the post-screening Q & A:

“At any given point during the rehearsal period we saw the film coming to life, and were able to immediately address any dramatic issues or problems that we encountered. Each actor was given the freedom to make the most out of their characters before final filming and to imbue them with their own innate sense of individuality. This direct, active method of writing also enables me to accurately refine and tune the tone of the film as we created it, and allowed me the opportunity to elicit particularly realistic and candid performances.”

The actors became the characters. (In her first film role 13 year old Misty Sparrow will melt your heart.)

Then came the three week shoot period. The first week was spent, with a mini-DV Cam operated by the director, whose initial training in the biz was as cinematographer. He blocked and further refined the content of each scene in the actual location: the house, the street, the back garden, the adjacent vacant lot, the circumscribed universe of a parolee wearing a home confinement ankle bracelet. With the device of foreground wipes, as the camera moved with the characters, the seamless transitions from one take to the next were choreographed. Of the eleven soft cuts, I was only aware of three. And I’m a one time editor. But I was not really looking, because the story had me by the throat.

In the second week, the camera was upgraded to HD, and a full dress rehearsal was recorded in the 80 minute late afternoon period each day that the story required. The director had time to get used to the increased weight and size of the camera he was holding, and make necessary re-positioning adjustments. I was very impressed by the way new snippets of visual information were layered into the eavesdropping camera movements. Seemingly random in placement, but in fact deliberate and well structured. This dry run was viewed by the cast and creative team, and further refinements were made. By now everyone had a complete grasp of the film as a whole, and as a series of working parts. A Cinema Play in real time.

Then came the final week of warm up rehearsal followed by magic hour shoots in sequence, recorded onto hard drive. Last chance for the theory and preparation to gel into dramatic chemistry. What they shot was what they got. Paint would finally hit the canvas.

On the second to last day of the shoot, disaster struck. The cast and crew arrived to find the location had been burgled; a sliding door smashed, another door kicked in, the house ransacked, the screen continuity of every room disrupted. Props had also been stolen; the thieves had even unwrapped the presents beneath the Christmas tree. The break-in, far from crushing their hopes, seemed to galvanize the entire cast and crew. They repurchased props and completed the clean-up in record time. According to Kriv Stenders, the cast took the break-in as a personal violation, so it had an immediate impact on their performances.

“the actor’s energy level was lifted up several notches and they began to do some of their best work to date. If I had known what an impact the break-in would have on the cast, I would have arranged the break-in myself earlier!”

Shooting completed on schedule that Friday evening. Apparently Kriv brought a rough cut of the film to the wrap party later that night.

To attempt to combine Mike Leigh style development with the social realist focus of Ken Loach, then shoot it with the technique of Russian Ark is a bold idea. Then, to takes characters from the underclass ignored by mainstream entertainment and make their moral dilemmas relatable to a mainstream audience is a remarkable achievement. Critics across the world have agreed.

“Harrowing, edgy and utterly assured…each scene plays out with a fierce, improvised urgency, yet Boxing Day never feels loose or meandering; there is a powerful logic to the characters and their actions…”
“Raw, immediate, but rigorously constructed.”

Phillipa Hawker, The Melbourne Age

Selected as one of the 5 “Films to Watch” at the Melbourne International Film Festival

“…startling evidence of the director’s forte for intense drama…it’s an exercise that works…it warrants much more public exposure.”

Geoff Gardner, Senses of Cinema

BOXING DAY does merit a wider audience than the Festival circuit. It is best viewed - just as it has been shot - in one continuous unbroken gaze at the screen. No bathroom breaks, no pausing the DVD. You have to give it 15 minutes for the tension to build, you have to give it your heart, then you will find yourself right in that house with those characters, worrying about the outcome.

Variety’s review said the film will need a committed distributor to achieve hardtop bookings prior to disc release. So far no one has picked up the US rights. Perhaps they are intimidated by the strong Australian accents and slang. Nothing that a few subtitles wouldn’t fix. There is considerable precedent for subtitling English language films. 30 years ago, as a young trailer maker, I worked on Ken Loach’s KES. In the US, KES’s impenetrable Newcastle accents were translated by subtitles just as French art house films were. But BOXING DAY does not need wall to wall translation. Just moments like: “ He’s a rockie “, which is short for “rock spider“, the prison term for child molesters, require clarification for the American audience.

There’s a way to build a campaign for this film, so I urge niche market distributors out there to take a look at it. BOXING DAY is a very satisfying piece of character driven entertainment. It stays with you. How many movies do that?

Many thanks to the Directors Guild of America in collaboration with the Australian Directors Guild for making the screening possible here in Los Angeles.

Directing Episodic TV

INTERIOR. EPISODIC DIRECTOR’S OFFICE - EVENING

The Director stands in the open doorway, staring at the neatly printed paper sign that has replaced the previous designation: DIRECTOR’S OFFICE.

It now reads: DIALOGUE & BLOCKING CO-ORDINATOR.

He considers tearing it down, but restrains himself. Turning towards his desk, he sees another neatly printed sign mounted on the wall behind it: COVER EVERTHING BUT DON’T SHOOT ANY FILM.

Hmm. Is his producer trying to tell him something?

INTERIOR. PRODUCER’S OFFICE - EVENING
The Producer, (El Grand Chingon) and the Associate Producer have the Director on the mat.

PRODUCER
Every day you shoot more than the budgeted
allowance of raw stock. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
Like 1000 feet more. Don’t you realize what
that means in extra telecine time?
So why are you doing this?

 

DIRECTOR
Well, these are 10 page days, a lot of chat,
multiple characters in each scene, each with
a different agenda whether they talk or not; if
you want to make it interesting, all these reactions
have to be covered.

 

PRODUCER
It’s your job to make it interesting with the stock
allowance you’re given and that’s all. Just feed the
last sentence of each speech to the unimportant actors
if they have a line in reply. Just cover that moment.

 

DIRECTOR
Which are the unimportant actors?

 

PRODUCER
I didn’t say actors were unimportant. All actors are
important. Just some actors are more important
than others.

 

DIRECTOR
Animal Farm.

 

PRODUCER
What? We have animals in this episode? Shit!

 

DIRECTOR
Sorry, just an Orwellian reference.

 

PRODUCER
You trying to be clever.

The Director knows he is doomed.

DIRECTOR
No, I would not dream of doing that.
So please tell me - for which actors I should have
limited the coverage.

 

PRODUCER
Well, Tossle, for instance. He had one line in the
party scene. You covered him through the whole
thing.

 

DIRECTOR
But shy, quiet Tossle is the real killer. The audience
know this, the other characters don’t. It builds tension.
The audience needs to see how he is scooping up
information.

 

PRODUCER
The audience doesn’t NEED shit. I don’t give a flying
fuck what they need. This is television. Video wallpaper.
It’s just product. When Joe & Mrs. Sixpack get tired of
fantasizing about humping the lead girl or lead guy,
the show gets cancelled. And we move on to another show.
What I NEED is the stock ratio to come
down so I don’t get some accountant at the network
with a bug up his ass calling me about the cost report.
What I DON’T NEED is a lot of artsy fartsy bullshit.
For the next 3 days, shoot less. Do a bunch of “ oners “ .

 

DIRECTOR
The actors will notice.

 

PRODUCER
Actors are children. Short attention span.
They’ll get over it.

 

DIRECTOR
They’ll lose faith in me.

 

PRODUCER
Am I supposed to cry now? It’s your job to
manage them. And remember the “oners” are your idea,
not mine. Tell ’em it’s a brilliant concept that was
always your plan for these remaining scenes,
they’ll love it when they see it, etc.
I don’t want them whining in my office. I have
to live with these people everyday for the rest of
the Goddam year. You’re just a visitor.
And if you want to visit again, get the stock ratio
back on budget by the end of the episode.

 

DIRECTOR
I’ll do my best.

 

PRODUCER
You do that.

 

The Director leaves.

The Producer turns to the Associate Producer.

PRODUCER
Take a Polaroid of this guy.

 

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Why?

 

PRODUCER
Because you’re never gonna see him again.

***************************************************

Somehow I lasted one more episode because the show runner liked my stuff. But the day I left, my Polaroid was in the rogues gallery of the forever Departed. Episodic TV in the early nineties. The Quick and The Dead.
What does not kill you makes you stronger. All TV directors must expect to get beaten up in a producer’s office at the end of a long hard day at some point in their career. But you must not let it destroy confidence in your creative spirit.

In truth, El Grand Chingon is a combination of a few producers and UPMs, who collectively said all those things. And posted those signs. They were right in some respects. You stay in business by keeping the manufacturing cost of “product” down, watching the pennies and being profitable. But at the same time I believe, as film makers, we have a duty to the audience, all those people out there in the dark, investing their time and money, whose expectations deserve to be met. The best produced shows allow a little wiggle room in the balance between Art and Commerce.

The pictures that accompany this blog are frozen moments in a TV director’s day. Make a decision every 15 seconds. In fact, they are not from an episodic shoot. But the crew size and budget per hour was comparable. They are actually from my 14 day shoot - LONG LOST SON for Lifetime, starring wonderful actors - Gabrielle Anwar, Craig Sheffer and Chace Crawford, a young man in his second role at the time. I predicted a big future for him, and it is starting to happen. I was greatly aided by my New Zealand AD team from IN HER LINE OF FIRE, Quentin Whitwell and Olivia Holmes. A good AD department is a director’s savior. And they were. What fun we had on Grand Turk Island in the Caribbean! And we got an unusually high rating for a zero publicity premiere. It doesn‘t get better than that.

( My apologies for the full frontal nudity of the aged director. He was having way too much fun. And, no doubt, shooting too much stock. )

The happy snaps were taken by a talented photographer Liane Hentscher, who volunteered to be Gabrielle’s underwater double. It was that sense of teamwork that made LONG LOST SON such a joyous experience.