"Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?"

Turns out, it was the beginning of our troubles. The fat lady may be doing some vocal warm-ups right about now. I get a call from Manny on Sunday saying that Penny's allergies are acting up again and maybe we should shoot at 6pm instead of 8. 20 minutes later, I get another call from Manny saying that the three of us should meet at Starbucks in 30 minutes to talk about "the future of the project". Uh-oh. When Dad calls a family meeting, you know there's trouble.

So...at the meeting, Manny lays out the situation and the situation is thus: the film is in trouble. Penny isn't getting any better after trying a pharmacy's worth of allergy meds and allergy shots seem to be the last, unpleasant alternative. The hotel shoot (due to her problems and time constraints) has turned up very little usable footage (or at least footage on par with the quality of earlier shoots) and would prohibitively expensive to repeat. The budget looks close to blown already and we've only completed 15 to 20% of principal photography. I scoffed at that figure at first, since story-wise we've filmed about half of the script. But logistically, the scenes we have left to film will require much more time, manpower and organization than the scenes already in the can. And worst of all, Manny seems to be losing enthusiasm for the project. That's what worries me the most; all through filming, highs and lows, Manny has always been positive and seen this as the first of many great projects. Now he doesn't know if he even wants to do another one.

We talked about solutions. Firstly would be recasting Penny. Disastrous, as it would essentially invalidate most of what we've shot so far, but Penny's other committments (including a permanent move to LA in the fall) mean we either have to get this done soon or not at all in its current form. With a new female lead, we would have the leisure to film when able and the budget could regenerate to a degree. Not a tempting prospect, as Penny is irreplaceable, but Manny has a few other available actresses in mind if it should come to that. Another option would be to shorten the film, cutting several scenes and making it a featurette OR expanding the dancing scenes, both of which reduce the amount of filming time with me and Penny. Quitting altogether was floated, but no one really wanted to consider it. One idea from the bottom of the barrel was casting two or four more actors and splitting the movie up into thirds, following the same storyline but with different actors in the lead roles to show the universality of the conflicts that blah blah blah whatever...maybe a good idea if the production was designed around it but it smacks a bit too much of "Bowfinger"-like desperation to me.

It ultimately comes down to Manny being overwhelmed by the magnitude of the project and us being faced with some obstacles that may be killers due to the tight schedule we're on. So we're going to think about it. We cancelled the shoot for that night (it was a short car scene so no big deal there) and decided to take 30 minutes or so and rehearse the scenes we're scheduled to do this weekend. And they were awesome. I'm not the script's number one fan, I think the story as a whole is a bit precious and clunky...but when those words come out of our mouths, I want this thing to see the screen. I feel like Penny and I embody and have tackled our characters in a way that really elevates the material and makes the script complete as a story. And that's why I want it to go on. We'll see.


Oh and here's a quote/pic from a MALE actor. I realized I had some kind of gay icon thing going on previously (unconsciously, natch), so before I got to Cher in Moonstruck, I figured it was time to get the mans up ins.

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

ow, so…big day last Saturday, our only day of shooting for our 2^nd weekend. On the docket (agenda? shooting schedule, probably): an on-road car shoot in downtown St. Paul and a shoot in a suite at a major hotel downtown. Call time? 3:30pm. Wrap time? 3:30am. Crazy time? Definitely.

We began in a car in St. Paul. Manny's original plan was to capture the scene in three shots: one side apiece of both Penny and I and a sort-of cramped two-shot that would take in the back seat (where some plot-related props were). He constructed a suction cup camera rig that affixed to the inside of the windshield so we could drive and film at the same time. One problem: when it's set up to film the passenger side all the driver can see is camera. Manny anticipated this but in practice the problem was a lot worse than he envisioned. So, I didn't get to drive when I wasn't on camera; I just sat in the back (out of shot) and did my half of the scene. He figured that if we wrecked or got stopped by the po-po, he'd rather take the blame than me. And for some reason, the police were EVERYWHERE that day. Several times, we took a quick right turn into an alley to avoid a cop coming the other way. I'm not sure if they would have even cared about what we were doing, but we stressed about it still. It was a little less stressful when it came to my turn, but still no walk in the park. It's harder than you'd think to simultaneously drive, act, remember your lines and look out for baby carriages and crates full of chickens in the road. After a few parked pick-up shots to be inserted into a Penny/Groos scene to be filmed later, we wrapped and I headed to Harriet Island to a friend's birthday party. We played bocce ball, drank sangria and ate bruchetta and basically had a great time on an absolutely beautiful day. I had to walk back to the hotel for the shoot after only 90 min. or so, but it was a lot of fun.

So, the hotel shoot. There's a lot of information here (and it was a looooong shoot), so this may break down into bullet points eventually. The set-up is that this is the big love scene in the film, when Gal and Guy are out-of-town at his friend's wedding. They haven't been intimate yet and after they check-in to the hotel, one thing leads to another and you get the idea. We shot in a suite at one of the upscale hotels downtown…I won't say which one because we technically didn't have permission to do what we were doing which, in turn, led to a few interesting situations that night. When I got there, Manny was setting up the equipment and stressing a little about the layout. The room was very nice, but not your typical hotel room set-up: the bathroom is immediately on your right as you come in and a long hallway on your left leads you to the main part of the room, which was actually fairly compact. The suite had a king-size bed and I'm going to say it right now…it was impossible to not feel like we were shooting a porno. The cameras and lights set up around the bed, the way no one sat on it or even wanted to look at it and all of this before a single take. Penny was extremely self-conscious about the whole thing which surprised me a bit but I understand why she was. We've done weird, uncomfortable things on stage before, but the entire mise en scene of the shoot was a definite loop-thrower. Rivers of snot and off-label uses for painter's tape to follow…

As Penny got ready for the shoot, we shot my half of the phone call scene, a scene where Guy calls Gal from a hotel when she's at home and the Other Guy is with her. Pretty standard stuff… there's only so much you can do with a phone call. Since Penny was there, I got to play the scene with her rather than having Cameron (the AD) read the lines off, so that was nice. It left Cameron time to help ME with MY lines because I didn't know them! Ok ok, so the original plan was to shoot Penny's inserts of her getting ready for bed first and that's when I was going to review the phone call lines but instead I had to go first and struggled with them. We got it done though and I think our performances were some of our best yet. I keep thinking I'm being too quiet during emotional parts (which comes with the territory) but Manny assures me the mics get it all. Comes from being a stage actor, I guess. It's nice to be able to act honestly and not have to make concessions to a theatre audience.

After that, though, tragedy struck. Penny had a massive allergy attack that kept coming and going which meant that we had to shoot off and on and she had to keep reapplying her makeup (which slowed things down more). Cameron ran down to the hotel store for some Visine for Penny's reddened eyes, but it was closed. One of the concierges offered to take her down the street to Holiday, which was a nice gesture that turned into a nightmare when the guy started (innocently) asking why she was staying in the hotel. She ended up telling him some BS story about a college friend and her allergies and she was visiting…something, I dunno but that woman can lie like carpet. Inexpensive carpet.

Cameron bought way too much food for the shoot and since we were all nervous, we ate like starving hogs. I think you'll be able to make out the Dorito dust on my face in the film. Also, the sangria and salsa I had earlier were doing a number on my digestion so I was able to add possible puke aroma to the garlic pizza I had had for lunch. Hold your nose, Penny. It's love scene time.

So yeah, because of the allergies, Manny decided to go Hitchcock and shoot everything one angle after another. Essentially, he'd set the camera up and we'd film every take he needed from that angle, out-of-sequence. Then he'd move the camera and we'd get everything else he needed. It's not as smooth as shooting the whole thing from one angle, switching angles and doing it all over again, but it's quicker, in theory. The only problem was once we started doing it, we were locked in. Things got so bad for Penny at one point that Manny wanted to call off the shoot, but because of how we were shooting, we didn't yet have enough material for a complete scene, much less the particular shots he wanted. We were stuck. Also, at the start of the scene we're in dress clothes and at the end we're naked, so we had to dress and undress in varying stages like 50 times. Blah.

And so it went. We had fun but man was it uncomfortable. The first time we had to kiss, Penny totally snotted on me (lost take) and then giggled about it every time she kissed me thereafter (3 more lost takes). The whole crew was pretty jokey the entire time (lots of bad Woody Allen impressions and "oh my God! Shoes") which helped. I got in trouble because I couldn't unhook her bra for one shot. I'm not a two hander! But when I did the cool one-handed take off for the next take, I got in trouble again. Mr. Director is very particular about his pornos. Then I found out what the painter's tape was for: covering nipples. Painter's tape? That must be comfortable. I should've worn painter's overalls. I was the most naked one in that scene, I think, with just a pair of boxers. Oh, it's different for men. Is it? I think we're both very brave actors. Who are apparently loud kissers. We got a note after the first take that we were kissing too smacky, so of course, the next 12 takes we're trying to kiss as quietly as possible which makes a weird situation even weirder. Just mute the audio in post, dude! Let me be smacky me!

Funniest part of the night: so there was apparently a wedding party or two and a loud business convention in the hotel, and all night we heard people in the hall outside, upstairs, downstairs, etc. We're in the middle of a take, Penny's on top of me topless and we hear "BOOM BOOM BOOM" on the door. We freeze like deer making a porno in the headlights. Manny goes to answer the door and thank God for that wacky room layout, because of which the hotel employee who has been sent to yell at us can't see the camera or monitor or equipment or the bed. Manny only had the door open a crack and the guy was going on and on about how if we wanted to party, we needed to keep it down or go down to the lobby, guests are sleeping etc etc on and on and the whole time I'm looking at the monitor which is showing two frightened girls and a guy in bed in various states of undress and I'm telepathically trying to tell Manny that if the guy comes in we're going to have to kill him. We weren't even being that loud, but I think we got lumped in with some other rowdy guests on the floor. Profiling, man.

We finally finished and Penny whooped that she had achieved "underwear acting" (okay). She got to leave (this was at like 3am) only she had to go right to the airport for a flight out of town at 6am. I had to stay to finish my inserts. We had fun doing them and Manny and I worked really quickly to get them done. Then at 3:45, I got to go home and wonder if that night was the beginning or the end of our troubles. I have to say, Manny really handled several obstacles extremely well. That was our first big challenge of the shoot, in my opinion, and I think we nailed it. (in a manner of speaking)

"Would you like me to seduce you?...Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

Rehearsal for our 2nd weekend of shooting tonight. We went overtime by 30 min. because the rehearsal turned into a detailed discussion (and slight reworking) of parts of the script. Nothing serious, just a bit of clean-up to make it fit us (the actors) better. I think Manny is feeling relieved that he picked two actors who can give him exactly what he wants...and are brave enough to tell him when what he wants doesn't work.

This weekend we're shooting the "love scene" and we had an interesting discussion about getting ready for it. Not getting ready like losing weight (which I wish I would have done), but discussing what was going to happen and what we were comfortable with. Manny detailed, shot-by-shot, what he'd like to see in the scene and it was strange to hear him discuss intimate things in such a clinical way. We decided that it would be best to have the set be closed to unnecessary crew (which is easy because we really don't have much of a crew) and that our AD (a female) be around during filming for extra representation. I'm not really looking forward to it, not because I'm embarrassed (it's really pretty tame; hardly PG-13) but because love scenes in general are just a pain. You take something that you're really supposed to enjoy (like making out) and then you do it with someone you don't know at all (which is awkward) or someone you're really familiar with and can't imagine doing it with (like Penny). It's like kissing your sister...your hot, platonic sister.

Also of note, after shooting the hotel/love scene, we're going to turn right around and shoot my half of the "phone" scene...one of those scenes where both characters are in different rooms and on the phone with each other. It's going to be a looooong day (and night). Generally with those scenes, the on-screen actor is there and one of the crew or the AD reads the other half of the scene, but Penny has volunteered to be there to act her half (even though she has an 8am flight the next day). I think she's crazy but I appreciate her commitment.

"Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

First weekend of shooting down. Blah. It went well, but I'm definitely still acclimating to the whole process.

Friday night we shot in a condo in Uptown, a large, beautiful loft-style place with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking...well, a lot but things are still developing in that area. Waaaay too nice for Guy's place (a line about it being a "dump" had to be changed) but it was a good find. We shot around to make it look smaller; I'm still not sure how that's going to work. There was a lot of going down a hallway and pretending it went somewhere else. I'd be hard-pressed to try and draw a "floorplan" for Guy's place without using non-Euclidian geometry. Nerd alert!

The couple that owned the place was very accomodating and Manny did everything he could to respect their space. We shot from 6 to 11pm and took a pizza break in the middle. There were two basic setups for the scene with a few angle switches included. We shot the second part first, which was a conversation on Guy's bed. The bed in the condo was in sort of an enclosure that helped sell the closeness of his place. The second part of the shoot was the dish-washing scene, where Guy and Gal wash dishes and she tells him a story about a kooky co-worker. We ended up having to shoot it around twelve times for coverage from different angles. We both had some shakiness on lines when we started but by 11, I could've told that story in my sleep. The dishes, too, were sparkling. Sparkling.

My first impressions of shooting are that I have to shed the self-consciousness I feel when being filmed. It's hard for me to relax like I can when I'm in front of people and yes, I know that sounds insane. Hopefully, that relaxation will come from exposure and I already felt more able to just "do it" on Sunday. Manny's got a lot of cool equipment, some of which is his and some that might be missing from a TV studio somewhere. We are shooting on miniDV in high-def and no, that doesn't mean you'll only enjoy the film if you're high or deaf (wokka wokka).

On Saturday, we shot in Loring Park for the final scene. Before I arrived, Groos and our two dancers were shooting some pickups in an alley near Joe's. It's apparently a very picturesque alley because while we were there we saw two separate photographers and models doing shoots for something or other. The main part of the shoot for us was on the walkways of Loring Park. We shot near sunset so we had to be efficient, but we managed to get a half-dozen takes in, plus coverage. It was a pretty public area as well and several bystanders gathered to watch the filming. Strangely, having an audience felt more natural to me than not. We wore body mikes for the scene because it involved some long shots and I was extremely warm and sweaty in my rockabilly costume. Lots of forehead dabbing.

Incidentally, this was the proposal scene and somewhere between the 5th or 6th knee I took for the camera, I realized that I'd never proposed to anyone before, onstage or off. I feel like the girl who's never kissed anyone before and gets cast as Juliet.

Sunday, we shot the first date scene at Azia. They were extremely cool about letting us shoot off hours and as such, I assume they're ok with me name dropping them here. A few friends of the production showed up to be extras and the setup focused soley on the booth we were sitting in. Manny had an idea for a neat tracking shot thing, but as we had to shoot in the afternoon before the place opened, he decided it wouldn't work with the obvious daylight outside. The shoot itself went well and involved eating way too much luke-warm ice cream. Also, Penny made her terrifying pig noise a couple of times and told a coke story or two. Hollywood!

"No wire hangers, ever!"

Ok, rehearsal. we're basically rehearsing one day a week, just to get things together and we're shooting all weekend. This isn't Hamlet, which isn't an insult to the script...it just means that Penny and I, two Midwestern twenty-somethings, don't need much character work to play two Midwestern twenty-somethings. Mostly, we're working on timing and getting the lines down and basing the characters mostly on ourselves. Manny made a good point the other day that the person Gal eventually becomes (a relaxed version of herself that is bonded to Guy) is just like Penny, while the nervously smarmy guy calms down into someone who is thoughtful and jocular like me. Type-casting works.

After rehearsing, we work on wardrobe. Manny has said directly and indirectly that Guy is based on him, but the clothes make the man...or in this case are the evidence of that statement. 75% of the clothes I wear in this thing are mine, but there are some decidedly "Mannyish" items in there. For the final scene, he's got me in this black-sleeveless T with a black western embroidered button-up and tight dark jeans. That's a lot of black. I felt like I was going to a Rockabilly funeral. I looked like Jackson Browne died. Or is that "country rock"? Whatever; the comparison stands.

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

Ok…so, I have no idea what I should be writing about here. I guess I can start with how stressed I am about the whole production. I've never done anything like this before and I'm starting to wonder if it's even something I WANT to do. I really don't enjoy seeing myself on film, so embarking on a film endeavor seems a bit ill-advised. It's partially insecurity, sure, but a lot of it has to do with my critical nature. When it comes to theatre, I want to do things right, but there's many different versions of right for a stage play. The show changes depending on the audience, how the actors feel, what time it is...whatever. You can do better or worse, but if it works as a whole, it's golden. For film, you get one shot (so to speak) and that's it. Yeah, you rehearse a bit and you do multiple takes, but what goes in the can is what people see...it's the evidence of what you did, forever. At the audition, the director and I talked about the transitory nature of theatrical productions...how, once a show's over, it lives only in the memories of the cast and the audience and that film was plausibly superior because it never goes away. The flip side, though, is that describing a show to someone who didn't see it or fondly remembering a past show tends to make it seem more precious, while a bad movie never stops being a bad movie. So yeah, I'm worried I won't be any good. The director is a patient guy (mostly) and my co-star is a bonafide veteran, so hopefully I'll be able to draw on them for the strength to get through this.

Ok, enough about me. /whining
My friend Manny (the director) adapted a screenplay from our friend JG's play. Manny has been involved in theatre and the arts for a while and he recently started a film production company. This will be the first dramatic feature under his new label. The story is about a guy and a girl who like each other and want to make it work but it can't work and then it works…or something. Mostly, it's about modern love and growing up and figuring out who you are. It chiefly centers around two characters, played by me and Penny. Penny is a Minnesota theatre girl who moved to California a few years back to make her fortune and did just that. Well, maybe not the fortune just yet, but she's been pretty successful. She's done a few films (long and short) and was a main character on a cable show. She's also going to be in an upcoming movie with a bunch of stars that you've definitely heard of...trust me. This is an intimidating person to work with for several reasons. Firstly, she's a real movie star. I'm sure she'd demure at the title, but she's talented, driven and gorgeous. I always said "if anyone was going to hop a bus to LA and 'make it' out there, it would be her'". Contrast this with the guy who has to psych himself up to step out his front door, and you've got a good picture of our cast. Second, she's a fairly forceful personality. It makes her good at what she does, but it's hard to match her level of intensity and if we're mismatched on screen, this isn't going to work. Third, I've been mentally conditioned to be afraid of her since our first meeting. We met doing a play for Manny a few years back. In the show, she plays a rape victim and I play a guy who her husband invites over for dinner and whom she becomes convinced is the man who helped rape and torture her. Halfway through the first act, she knocks me out, ties me to a chair, and spends the next 2 1/2 acts beating the living shit out of me. It's a weird situation in an industry of weird situations: "Hi, nice to meet you. Now I'm going to pistol whip you and grab your balls." I have a lot of stories from that show, but the quickest one I can tell is that during the run, I tried out for another show in St. Paul. It was winter, so I wore a sweater over a short-sleeved shirt. While waiting with the other auditioners, it got pretty hot so I took the sweater off...and was greeted by a chorus of gasps and "oh my Gods". I was covered head to toe in purple and yellow bruises and scrapes. It never occurred to me that getting tied to a chair and beat up every night for 8 weeks (and the subsequent marks it leaves on a person) was anything particularly strange, which either says a lot about the victim mentality or about the mind of an actor. Not sure which. The net effect, however, is that I had to learn not to crap my pants unconsciously every time I saw Penny after that. She's really nice, though!

This is dragging out so just one more cast profile. The "Other Guy" is a character in the script who is Gal's ex and is supposed to be Guy's (my character's) opposite. Guy is nice, unassuming, funny (at least he thinks he is), broke, musical and a bit of a geek. Other Guy is rich, handsome, well-dressed, rides a motorcycle and knows what wine goes with dinner. I think I speak for most men here when I say that many of us live in fear of an "Anti-Me", someone who has all the qualities we lack that is going to steal our girls out from under us. An older actor friend of mine once told me that as you get older, you don't worry so much about your girlfriend or wife being sexually drilled by some other man so much as her meeting someone more cultured than you, someone who can identify with her better than you when you can't even understand her half the time. Other Guy represents all these fears and he is embodied to a "T" by Groos, the actor cast in the role. Groos is hot (a former underwear model), suave...he may not be rich (he's an educator), but he looks good. He's the kind of guy I have nightmares about. He's also nicer than a nun kitten, which distinguishes him from his character somewhat. He can't ride a bike for shit, though. Ha ha.

I called Manny out on a bit of cinematic cryptoamnesia with this character. In the film "The Money Pit" (and if you haven't seen it, shame on you), Tom Hanks is a likeable schlub who is renovating an old mansion while trying to keep his new marriage afloat. Not helping things is his wife's ex, a suave, ballet dancer played by Boris Gudunov (RIP) who keeps hanging around the proceedings. He's everything Hanks' character isn't but like Other Guy, he ends up being a positive influence in the couple's relationship. Manny seemed surprised at the correlation, but admitted the similarities (he loves the film, too). He chalks it up to an unconscious homage. Tell it to the copyright judge, buddy.

"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night."

Hi and welcome to my production blog for the movie…ah ah…you almost got me there. I'll be changing names and titles for the blog, just to keep prudent separation between the worthy people involved in this production and the hordes of screaming fans who will undoubtedly want to break down their doors, maul them to death and adopt their children afterward once this film is released. For now, let's just call it something ominous like…"the Project". Ooh, ominous.

The goal of this blog will be to record the trials and travails of producing a low-budget (but high-quality) film in the Twin Cities. Our "Project" will involve about eight weeks of principal photography, resulting in a feature that should run just under 90 minutes. There are 3 actors and two dancers in the cast and the production will involve both dramatic sections and interpretive dance scenes (it's not as arty as it sounds).

I've never done anything like this before, so I won't lie: I'm scared but excited to get this thing done. Wish me luck. I'll be back with more later.