Mr. Van Sant, May I Call You ‘Gus’?

It looks like Gus Van Sant is really and truly going to make his latest film happen up here in Oregon.  I had planned to interview a friend of mine, Jerry Alden Deal, about his progress with completing his “totally independent digital feature film”, Dreams Awake, which we filmed during the summer of 2007 in Mt. Shasta.  It was my third film as a production designer and I’m cheering Jerry on as he gets to the finish line for this amazingly difficult and ultimately rewarding project.  Jerry’s blog has described so many of the problems (and solutions) that can be encountered on the way toward a film’s completion and release that I have recommended it to a local university professor who teaches filmmaking.  I hope at least a few of his students—and anyone else out there who wants to know the inside take on filmmaking from start to finish—take the time to peruse Jerry’s blog at Indie Film Blog.

However, I procrastinated on calling Jerry until this morning, so I may not get the interview down in time for today.   I know! Procrastination is a hideous and annoying habit.  And I missed last week’s blog, too.  What can I say?  I’ve mentioned before that it’s all about me, all of the time, and this time, for the past week, I have been trying to find and then purchase a house while whittling down the price from the bank that owns it.  So I’ve been busy trying to establish my real estate empire (of one 900 square foot house).

This is where Gus Van Sant comes in.  By the way, I’m going to have to add his name into my word processor’s dictionary because it is constantly changing the capital ‘V’ to a small ‘v’ on his surname, and I will be writing to him soon, so I don’t want to misspell the first thing I say to him.  I thought I would write a series of blogs that describe the actual process of me getting on to a movie, from beginning to end.

So this is the first stage in that process.  And remember, working in film is a chancy thing, where skill is usually at least somewhat tempered by luck.  That’s what I’m going to tell myself, anyway, if I don’t get on the show.

So here’s what has already happened:

Last week I talked to my scenic artist friend Kenny, who told me that a Gus Van Sant show might be coming to Portland, so I read the trades, find out that there’s something called Restless that he has been trying to get started up here.  I then call my union Business Agent (don’t know if that should be capitalized, but I will capitalize it just in case my Business Agent reads this).  He says they’re trying to get the green light, because they have to go into production (start shooting) by November 2^nd, but there are “ownership issues”, so my BA isn’t sure what’s happening.

Meanwhile I wait, pretending I’m not broke and worrying about my next paycheck.  I fret about the book excerpt I sent out to an agent who is reading it on her Kindle and has had it for a while, and wonder if that’s a good sign (Sure it is! Probably…).  I start looking for cheap, cheap, cheap bank-owned properties that a) aren’t contaminated top to bottom with deadly black mold; and b) aren’t thoroughly demolished by their former tenants, apparently a family of angry apes.  I give my BA a week or so, then call him to see if the Gus Van Sant show is a reality or a pleasant mirage.

That second call was this morning.  The film is a sure thing!  My BA is on his way to the production office as we speak on the phone; hoping that they have gotten their phones set up and can give him an email address for resumes.  He asks me to call him this afternoon to get the info.

At this point in the job search, I look at my options.  I would love to work on this show as the production designer.  But this is union, and so far on union jobs I have flown straight into that glass ceiling, and after crash landing back on the “standby painter / scenic artist” floor (which is covered with old latex paint, varnish, grime, and reeks of noxious fumes), I have to shake off the stunning headache and reorganize myself.  So far, this show doesn’t yet have a production designer.  But this afternoon, I may find out differently.  So, I wait for news on that front.

If they don’t have a designer yet, I’m going to go in person to the office and personally, as a real person, hand in my resume to whoever is running the show up there right now, hoping that it is someone I know who may be called a true friend.  Then I will hope that he or she, my true friend, will send my resume and my letter, a carefully crafted literary marvel that presents me as experienced, assertive, creative and confident, but not arrogant, pretentious, and riddled with imposter’s syndrome (see my earlier blog on this terrible psychological disorder that most often afflicts women), on to an Important Executive Person that Matters.

If they do have a designer already, I will have to weigh my options, which should only require a gram scale, since I don’t have that many.  I will debate on the feasibility of presenting myself to the designer as a potential art director, or as a potential scenic artist.  There are disadvantages to both.

Both positions have been filled before on Gus’s other shows up here (see how I’m already calling him Gus?  That’s confidence in action, following rules from The Secret!).  The positions have been filled by local people in my own union, who probably really know Gus well enough to use his first name.  I am a nobody to him right now.  But this is where the magic happens—in the very near future, I, too, may know Gus.  If I get hired as anything on this show, that is.

If I decide to go for art director, I would have to count on luck: the previous art director is busy, or the job wasn’t his in the first place; plus, my letter would have to be actually read by someone who has the authority to hire me and likes what he or she reads.  They would also have to be free of the prejudice against painters and women who consider themselves art director material.  There’s a great deal of luck involved there, no matter how fantabulous my letter is.  My resume is exceptional, but I’ve come to suspect that they don’t even look at those.

If I present myself for working as a scenic artist, I may end up working for Kenny, since he is the lead scenic that Gus has had on his other shows.  Which would be great, except that if there’s not much painting, I won’t be more than a day player, which provides just enough work to screw up unemployment, so that after taxes you get less than if you’d stayed at home painting your nails.  I would probably be the go-to girl for standby painter on the show, but with their budget I don’t think they have the money for a standby.  Even though, for the record, a good standby painter can take your film from Awful to Oscar.  You don’t have to believe me, but when experience speaks…

In any case, I’ll go up to the office in person, with my stupid little letter of self-proclamation, my extensive resume, and my clumsily hidden self-doubts.

I will keep you all informed of the next steps and you’ll get an idea of the process I usually endure (I mean enjoy) in seeking a position on a feature film.

Wish me luck, and let’s hope that within a few weeks’ time I can actually call Mr. Van Sant ‘Gus’ with impunity and authority because he now knows who I am because I now work for him.

And meanwhile, to keep the job-related fretting to a minimum, I’m staying busy.  I’m getting a home inspection for the property that I have bargained for and bought, hoping (believing!) that luck will be on my side and not on the side of wood-destroying pests, angry apes (who stole all the appliances and tore up the floors, but seemingly let the house survive mostly intact), or Oregon’s biggest cash crop: deadly black mold.  But first, I’m going to go downstairs and re-watch The Secret.  For Gus’s sake.

On Location, or, It’s Beautiful in Hell

“On location” means different things to different people. If you have a family and a sweet little nest back home, being on location is a necessary evil, one you have to suffer through, sneaking back home on long weekends or flying your loved ones or significant other out to be with you so you don’t forget about each other or contemplate straying from your fold.  If you’re single and free, and you like to travel, location can be educational, fun, and even life-changing.   Of course it can be all those things even if you’re not single and free, providing you have the right attitude.

But being happy on location is dependent on at least one basic platform for anything else to work: your accommodations.  If you don’t have those, “on location” means “in hell.”  Like adding the phrase “in bed” to fortune cookie fortunes, if you don’t have a decent place to stay, you can substitute “in hell” or add it just about anywhere you would normally say “on location”.  As in: I just spent three months without a hotel room on location + (in hell).

A few years ago I was the set decorator on a low budget show where the producers had decided to film in a small town in Southern Oregon.  I’m not sure how the powers-that-were arrived at their decision.  Perhaps they felt that the best location would be a one-street town at least fifty miles away from civilization (and any kind of furniture, hardware, décor, or other sort of store).  Or they may have based their decision on the fact that there was one and only one hotel in that town, and that it was $180 a night.  They wouldn’t pay for the art department’s lodging, but the PA’s and the producers and the actors all got their rooms, which filled up the hotel, anyway.

The location itself was absolutely beautiful, although the kinds of landscapes where we ended up shooting could have easily been found just outside the city limits of Ashland or Medford.  Like many other facets of that show, reason and logic apparently had no bearing on any decision-making process.  One of the most obvious examples of this was the decision that everybody below the line was sent to stay at a single three bedroom house, which had no furniture or heat, even though it was November up there in the mountains.

I value my privacy more than just about any other aspect of my lifestyle, and I had brought a tent for the purpose of camping outside the house so I could at least have a “bedroom” to myself.  However, that didn’t change the fact that I would be sharing a shower and bathroom with a dozen or more grips, electricians, the production designer, the prop master, and the craft service team.

When I’m doing a job higher up in the art department hierarchy, like set decorator, I expect to be working endless hours to make a show happen, but I am one of those individuals who simply must get away for a few hours a night and decompress.

If I don’t get that opportunity to privately recharge and relax, I don’t know what might happen.  I don’t want to find out, either.  I’m good argument for gun control when I get into heavy traffic, and my level of profanity during such times has reached a zenith few humans could approach; so I’m guessing it wouldn’t be pleasant for anybody if I lost it on a show because I hadn’t gotten my private time or enough sleep (see my entry on “The Sorry Syndrome” for the medical evidence of the risks involved).

The first two nights of the show, one of the producers let me stay in a room in the hotel that had been reserved for an actor who hadn’t come into town yet.  I luxuriated in the warm, wonderful room with HBO and a view of the river both nights after work, and realized how great my good fortune was on a visit to the Big House where those other poor crew members were staying.

Six grip and electric guys were playing Halo or War and listening to bad ‘70’s rock at jet engine decibel strength, and there was a miasma of smoke in all the rooms.  It was a party 24/7, but that can wear on the nerves. There had already been some territorial disputes, and the prop master was threatening to ditch the show, so tensions were high.

Oh, I did so not want to give up that hotel room.

Well, one thing led to another, and what with my tipping the maids $10.00 a night, they helped me move from empty room to empty room throughout the show.  William Windom was late getting in, so I got his room.  Then he left, so I appropriated his room again.  Then I moved into Dee Wallace’s room after she left, took over Orson Bean’s room a week later, and then, when the director decided to give up his two room suite with kitchenette for a quieter room on the river, I slid into his two room suite after he departed.  And so on, switching from room to room until the show wrapped.

I don’t know if I could have lasted out the show if I had been forced to stay at the Big House, even living in my little privacy tent outside.  The prop master left her fiancé, who was another member of the crew, walking out on the show in the middle of the most prop-heavy scene of the film, because (like me, probably) she couldn’t stand the lack of privacy and zero get-away time at the Big House.

The only sticky part of the “musical hotel rooms” strategy was when the film’s lead actor asked to talk with me about how he wanted the upcoming set to be dressed.  He said he’d meet me in my hotel room after wrap that night to go over the details.  That night I was in the director’s fabulous ex-suite, and the actor came in, saw the fancy digs and said, “What the hell did you do to get this room?  I’m the star and the executive producer of this thing and my place is half this size!”  I backpedaled, hemmed and hawed and then, in an inspired moment, graciously offered to switch rooms with him.  He moved into the suite and I got his room, which had a balcony overlooking the river.  I stayed there for the rest of the show.  It wasn’t bad.

So, my apologies to William, to Dee and to Orson—and to you, leading man who won’t be named.  It may or may not have been underhanded.  But I really needed that me-time.

Lights, Camera, …Uh Oh

Lighting can make or break a movie faster than anything else.  Before the actors even speak, before the plot thickens, the lighting says it all.  Even the most brilliant set design, painting and decoration can be lost under the flattening glare or murky dark of bad lighting.  That’s why it is important for a standby painter to have a rapport with the director of photography, who is responsible, along with his minions (the gaffer and the best boy electric, and the other electricians) for what the lighting does to the set.

The set is what you are responsible for during filming; specifically, the overall look of the set.  That may sound like a broad category, and it is.  You might have to darken too-white trim on doors or wainscoting, patch holes left by lighting mounts, wax the floor, or un-wax it, if the floor is too shiny.  You may have to repair scratches on furniture, or even label hospital glass doors with Victorian lettering (did that on Twilight).  You might have to paint in shadows where there are none but there should be (did that a great deal on Untraceable).

As a standby painter you never know what life is going to send your way throughout the filming day (and night).  That’s why my standby kit is so large and so varied.  In a future blog I will detail the items in my kit, but today I would like to relate an interesting story that involves the lighting component of filming.  And I mean ‘interesting’ in the sense of the Chinese curse that says, “May you live in interesting times.”

Years ago in a small town in Wisconsin, while working on a movie about bugs that transformed themselves into facsimiles of people; we were scheduled to film in a lovely house on location.  It was in the Wisconsin neighborhood equivalent of Beverly Glen in Los Angeles, and it was a spotlessly maintained home with a lovely designer interior (although somewhat dated by about 15 years, which will figure prominently in the events that follow).

The production designer wanted to put up our own wallpaper in the civilian home’s foyer, and the owners gave their okay with the absolute, unbreakable promised requirement that we would not damage or remove their original, pink and gold foil damask wallpaper.  In other words, our wallpaper would have to go up over their original paper and then come off easily enough to leave no trace behind on their original wall covering.

This requirement, which I took very seriously, initiated my research into the best way to solve the problem.  I tested various strengths and types of wallpaper paste and found that when they were removed, they all destroyed the samples of original damask wallpaper I was given.  I then ordered five special kinds of low tack double-stick tape, aiming for a “Post-It” quality of the most fleeting, temporary attachment.  We set up five sample boards with a first covering of the original damask paper and a second covering of the production designer’s wallpaper using each kind of tape.

All of the tape samples except one came off the damask wallpaper fairly easily.  However, they would be on the wallpaper for five days of filming, so we extended the test to five days, after which we tried to remove the tape and new wallpaper.  This left us with only two versions of double-stick tape that still came off the damask without damaging it.  I chose the least offensive, least expensive tape and ordered enough to cover the hallway.  We put up the new wallpaper and went on to the next set, then returned to the foyer five days later to remove it.

The tape wouldn’t come off the damask wall paper when we tried to gently coax it.  I got out my hairdryer and tried heating it up.  The tape wouldn’t budge.  I got rubber cement thinner and tested a small area for color fastness, and it seemed to work—-sort of.  I bought another large container of the rubber cement thinner and we got to work.  The outermost edges of the new paper came off, but nothing else budged.  I got another solvent and tried that one, without success.

During all this, the owner of the house, an impeccably coiffed housewife wearing a satin dress that seemed to have come directly from a 1952 Neiman Marcus couture collection kept an eye on our progress.  She kept up a lively narrative as we worked.

“We really love that wallpaper.  I hope you haven’t done anything to it under there.” She mentioned again how important it was to keep that wallpaper unharmed.  She reminisced about how she and her husband had chosen it and ordered it specially from New York on their designer’s recommendation.  How that wallpaper had seen off her daughter and her son’s first prom dates; how her husband loved to come home to that wallpaper every day after work because the colors were just so perfectly matched to the carpet it was a wonder to behold and a pleasure that meant: “This is home.”

She mentioned that the wallpaper had seen her first grandchild come through the front door, and how it never had faded in all those years, which was a testament to the kind of quality you just couldn’t find any more in today’s slipshod, modern world.  The very first time she had seen that wallpaper in the sample book, both she and her husband (who normally couldn’t have been bothered with such things) both agreed that this wallpaper would complete their lovely home’s entrance area and establish exactly the right sort of milieu for greeting guests and family over all the years to come…

Four hours later, the new wallpaper was still clinging to the old wallpaper in every spot but the one inch edges of each seam.  The housewife had touched on many of the most memorable moments in her family’s interesting history with the wallpaper in the foyer, but eventually she had covered the entire span of the wallpaper’s life up until the present.

After discussing it, we all decided it was time to call the production designer and suggest that the painters (there were four of us, who after the first two hours of hellish failure had been trying our hardest to stop from either screaming or dissolving into hysterical laughter) were all getting punchy and that it was getting late, and maybe we could figure out how to get the paper off tomorrow, when we were fresh.

But I knew in my heart that tomorrow wouldn’t change anything.  The lighting and the intense heat from it over five days had managed to fuse the wallpapers and the tape into one indivisible unit.  We had inadvertently discovered a new method of lamination.  Not that we needed such an invention.  It was an obvious disaster, with our only option to somehow find that old, original wallpaper and order it, then steam the entire mess off the foyer walls and begin again.

Thus I began the second phase of research.  I contacted the designer who had worked on their house, got a set of possible wallpaper manufacturing companies’ names from him, looked them all up in New York, found the right one, called them and asked about ordering twenty double rolls of “Damask Woodland Rose”.  Which they had discontinued a decade ago.

Through wheedling and eventually pulling out the “movie card” (“We’re working on a movie with Ed Begley Junior and we could really use your help—”) I finally found a warehouse in New York that specialized in vintage wallpaper.  I could get “Damask Woodland Rose” sent out to Wisconsin by the end of the week.  Flush with victory, I told our production designer and he relayed the wonderful new to the house’s owners.

The production designer called me back that afternoon and said the owners had fallen in love with the new wallpaper and wanted us to return and glue down the loosened seams for them.

So we did.

But sometimes, late at night, I feel regret at how it all turned out.  The original wallpaper is gone, and it’s not coming back.   However, I will never forget the stories I heard that long (really long) afternoon about the life and times in a Wisconsin home’s foyer under the watchful, beautiful benevolence of walls featuring “Damask Woodland Rose”.