Movie diaries 12

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How far we've come

...since the early days of filmmaking. Gone are the days when there was no electricity and we had to build our sets outside and pray that the wind wouldn't pick up. No longer do we have to hire a kid whose only function is to stamp out the embers created by the Klieg lights, an innovation made possible by electricity, so we don't burn our interior sets down. Gone are hand cranked cameras. We no longer have to edit using glue pots and scissors. No more cue cards for the audience saying things like, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch..." in elaborate script.

Duct tape? Well, that's something else, isn't it?

It's a high tech world we live in. Lights that put out hundreds of lumens of brightness and never got hot enough to heat a coffee cup beyond lukewarm. Digital video cameras less than a quarter of the weight of their ancestors that use no film and can make a sunny day look like cloudy twilight and vice-versa . Off the shelf software that makes any amateur with a few hundred dollars into a home-grown George Lucas.

And duct tape. Can't forget duct tape. In this world where all it takes to make a 40 minute Star Wars fan film better than Episodes I and II is a few thousand dollars and a two-car garage, you can't make a movie without duct tape.

Case in point.

Most of my character's action takes place inside a van, where he sits in front of a video console with two keyboards and two monitors, a microphone and a headset, watching and talking to the team from a safe distance. Our set guy, with a sense of humor that knows me pretty well, even installed a coffee maker. It's a panel van with shelves and just enough room for a man of average height to stand upright. You seen hundreds of these vans before, with "Wonder Bread" or "Snake'n'Rooter" or "Fix yer Pipes Plumbing" on the side. Ours bears the name of a local construction company.

We borrowed a bar stool from a defunct coffee shop adjacent to our principal location and secured it by means of large drywall screws through the steel base into the floor of the van to provide me a place to sit. Not comfortable, but we actors suffer. Should Kate read this she will undoubtedly remind me that there's a world of difference between sitting for fifteen minutes on an uncomfortable chair and carrying fifty pounds of costuming and props for six hours. That's true, and I sympathize, but this isn't about Kate. Nor, for that matter, is it about my uncomfortable butt.

It's about technology, and how it's made the world of filmmaking what it is.

It's about duct tape.

A quick lesson: Next time you watch a movie, note how faces are lit. Men are almost always lit harshly from one side; the lighting on women's faces is a little more dead on, so the shadows aren't so pronounced. And there's almost always bounce light coming from somewhere, to fill in opposite the principal light.

Lighting the interior of a 6' x 6' x 12' box for a movie is not an easy proposition. The McCandless rules don't have room to apply; the best you can do is put some fairly bright lights in a spot where the action can be lit and hope you don't get glare on the camera lens, which in our case meant a pair of halogen shop lamps on the accessory deck on the dashboard up front. Worked well, except that as I'd reach up to type with my left hand my arm would cast a shadow on my face. We also needed fill light from below, to eliminate the shadow under my chin.

The solution? A shop lamp, one of those that clamps on to any sturdy surface and has the aluminum reflector. Except this one only had a forty watt bulb, didn't have a reflector, or anything to clamp to for that matter. The light needed to be about waist high, close enough for the low wattage bulb to light me, but low enough to be out of camera range. With nothing to clamp to, it was time to get creative.

It was time for the duct tape.

That day, I spent six hours with a shop lamp duct taped to my leg. This was a very dramatic scene, the part where Bill gets the injury he later confesses indirectly to Kate: I'm sure my scream during the branding scene could be heard all over downtown Excelsior Springs. I'm trying to concentrate on my lines, all the while the thought is playing in my head like the continuous reel of a nickelodeon: Jesus, that light bulb's getting hot. Between takes I'd reach for the switch to turn it off; before takes, I'd push my wallet - in the leg pocket of my BDUs, directly under the lamp - between my flesh and the lamp.

In the end, we have to reshoot all those sequences anyway, at night. This time, I'm bringing my own lamp, with a brighter bulb, a reflector, and something to clamp it to.

Something high-tech. Maybe a plastic bucket.