THE AMAZING DRAWING MACHINE…

Well,I missed the last few weeks with you my friends, do to an onrush of work.

Ihad been working on the remake of DEATH AT A FUNERAL (because two years betweenversions is not too soon) for the better part of a month. It was a lot of funto work with Neil Labute, whom I’ve known about five years and the D.P. RogierStoffers, who was a joy.

Neilwas busy re-working the script and so I worked directly with Rogier (pronounced“Ro-hair”).  He likes to shot listbut he certainly gave me some creative room. Rogier very smart  and generous, and knew what shots hecould not do because of time and logistics.

Andexample would be a shot I had where a character (played by Luke Wilson) gettingout of a car. I had designed a camera pulling out of the car window. 

Well,as Rogier told me, the car would be on a rig (where the actors only pretend todrive as the car is pulled on a platform. I then redrew the frame with astationary camera and the character would move out of the camera frame, butstay on the platform.

I wrappedthat film last week, and started my fifth Adam Sandler (known for now as “THELAKEHOUSE PROJECT”) the next day! Director Dennis Dugan and I have workedtogether ever since my two day stint on “BIG DADDY”. We have developed a great shorthand in between our “playing the dozens” and generally goofing around.

Dennisalso has a baseball prodigy son named Kelly, who will be tearing up collegebaseball very, very soon.  Kelly isa nice of a young man as he is a baller.

“Doogie”doesn’t really shot list with me. We’ll discuss a scene thoroughly, and thenDennis will let me go off and do sketches. Then, a day or two later I getnotes. Then I do changes as I do finishes.

Nextweek, I’m starting yet another film. More on that…