Movie diaries...seven.

[mapsedge]

A Knack For Directing

Our Producer/Director is not, as I at first suspected, a first-time filmmaker. Turns out he's done training films for the military and two, count 'em, two documentaries. He can, apparently, set up a scene, figure out how the lighting is supposed to go, and point the camera at the activity and capture it to the recoding media. It became abundantly clear, very quickly, that he'd never worked with actors before. Not real actors, anyway: actors with minds toward motivation, and character development, and the minutia of making a fiction come to life. To borrow a phrase from Stephen King who I'm pretty sure borrowed it from someone else, we've taught our minds to misbehave. Take away our script, and God only knows what you'll get.

Remember that the original idea of the film was to keep the actors in the dark until the last possible minute, providing the scenario and salient points that needed to be covered by dialog, if there was to be any, just before shooting. Ostensibly, the purpose of the practice was to keep things "spontaneous and real", but I think that was a reflection of the director's lack of experience and trust in his cast. Given those circumstances, we actors did what any good actors will do.

We took over.

I believe that the movie we're making is not the movie that PD was working toward. I think, given his obvious taste in digital trash, that he wanted a B-grade horror flick, with beautiful tits and ugly villains and at least one digital monstrosity whose only function was to eat extras in red uniforms. What he got was a cast who took the premise seriously, and is producing some really, really good cinema. We are, with one sad exception, good actors, capable of performing a scene like an olympic volleyball team: one actor sets, another spikes. If the set isn't there, one steps into keep the ball in play until a set is possible. We're also not afraid to step onto an empty court and start our own game, if none is forthcoming.

In the basement. The setup is simple. The team finds a man, critcally injured, in the basement of the abandoned hotel. Kate and Murphy get into an argument about what to do with him. They can't take him with, and it wouldn't matter if they did since he's already dying. There are more ghouls waiting in the wings who want to eat the team. It's supposed to be a dramatic scene, but no one's scripted it out. The discussion between Murphy and one of PD's assistants (no, PD is not, himself, there) goes on for quite some time, and the rest of us are, shall we say, sitting on our thumbs.

Guys, guys? I cut in. I gesture at the group. May I? Cool, okay.

I got to work.

"We've got one camera to capture all this action with. Murph, you and JD are there, and...there. JD, you're watching the ghoul pack, waiting for the charge, unwilling to fire. Murph, you too, but you've also got Kate to deal with. Who's the guy on the ground? Fred. Okay, we got an actor for him? Still working on that. Shit. Okay, I'll be him for now. Doc, you're standing there, by his feet. Kate, kneel down beside me, here. No, open toward Murphy a little. Good. Cecil [our cameraman], you're there. Little to the right, you've got Doc; center, you've got the guns and ghouls; left, you've got Kate and Fred. We good?

"Kate, Fred's dying, pure and simple. You can't just leave him, but have to, and you know it. You're looking for someone to lash out at, and that's Murphy. Murphy suggests that the best thing to do is shoot him up with Morphine. Get up, Kate, get in his face. You can't do it, you scream at him. Murph, you're unmoved. Not unsympathetic, but a realist. He's already dead, his EKG just hasn't figured it out yet. At that moment - ghouls, are you listening?! - the ghouls attack. JD, you start shooting, shouting things like We've got to move, Goddammit! and Whatever you're going to do, do it fucking now!!!. Here's the important part: Kate, turn your back on Murphy, and let the camera see you do it. You've just split with him philosophically, the audience needs to see it happen physically as well. Kneel down, start rummaging in your bag. Setup the injection. Set the needle, hesitate.

"Fred, here, he's Hispanic, therefore probably Catholic. He's going to ask for a priest - we don't have one handy of course. Kate, you've got all the talismans, so get him a rosary. Wrap it around his hand. Look in his eyes as you kill him - yours is the last face he'll see, and the first kindness he's had in twenty years. When he dies, you hold him until the last possible second."

We ran the scene, and it was fucking awesome. I overheard Kate say, "If it goes down like that when we shoot it, I'm going to cry."

Afterward, waiting to go eat lunch, I was sitting in the lobby at the Elms Hotel. The rest of the cast was on their way upstairs; Doc was the first to arrive, JD right behind him. Murphy joined us. Doc says, "If you see anything I need to be doing differently, you tell me. You've obviously got some experience at this." JD nods. "Yeah, I'll take direction from you anytime. You know what you're doing."

I couldn't not notice the ever-so-slight emphasis on the word "you" in JD's comment. Murphy just grinned and nodded. "That's why I wanted you on this project, Bill."

It was a good day.

As it happens, the day of the actual shoot, we were running low on ammunition and it was late in the day. We had to get the scene in one take, and ended up rushing through it, and it ultimately lost some of the drama we'd rehearsed it with. The actor playing Fred, a terrific young man who looked the part and who, I suspect, would be a pretty good actor, was never given the time to work out the details. Just look cold, bloody, and then die. That's what happens when the director (the real one, who was not there for the blocking) gets involved.

That's okay though. Another scene, supposed to be a blow-off moment for a little exposition, completely changed the tone of the film and PD's expectations.

Comments

[found-wilson.livejournal.com]

but are you actually enjoying the creativity? :)

Kate ( the former dormer )

[billthetailor.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, without a doubt. I haven't done any acting for almost ten years...last time was Pelinore in Camelot, with Danny and Beth as Arthur and Guenivere. It's just really frustrating sometimes. Are you familiar with a "seagull" boss? In this case we have a "seagull" director: there's no sign of him until things get interesting, then he flies in making a lot of noise and dropping a lot of shit. He's getting better about it, and I'll write about that as time goes on.