THE AMAZING DRAWING MACHINE…

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

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

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

And example would be a shot I had where a character (played by Luke Wilson) getting out 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 to drive as the car is pulled on a platform. I then redrew the frame with a stationary camera and the character would move out of the camera frame, but stay on the platform.

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

Dennis also has a baseball prodigy son named Kelly, who will be tearing up college baseball very, very soon.  Kelly is a 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 then Dennis will let me go off and do sketches. Then, a day or two later I get notes. Then I do changes as I do finishes.

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