February 2002 Archives

France Location Day 5: Fred and Thomas went back to Paris Wednesday night. The rest of us stayed until Thursday morning. We got up at 7:00, checked out of our Twin Peaks castle, and rushed off to reshoot the approach to Thiepval. I wrote earlier that God was our co-pilot? Wrong. He was our key grip. The sun was at the exact height, with no clouds at all. As we drove up the empty hill, it came straight in the window of the car (Weíd sent the light kit back earlier, so as not to get hit with another dayís rental.). One take. Then we just popped over to the Memorial to see if we missed anything. Took a couple of fixed shots, on axis, very basic but very important.

As we finished, the caretaker for the Memorial came over and asked if we were filming for TV. Technically, no, so we didnít need permission from the War Graves Commission. Then he offered to take us up to the top of the arch. (We had to leave the big camera behind, but I took my Elph digital camera, which shoots AVI movies.) A million spiral stairs later, we got to the top, where the whole countryside came into view at once. Crystal clear, with maybe 15-20 other memorials and cemeteries in view.

The contrast between this pastoral landscape and the hellish condition it was in during the four years of fighting was amazing, but hard to visualize. Farmers and villagers moved back to pulverized villages within months, and restoration, reconstruction, and recuperation of the area took place on a massive scale. The resemblance between wartime accounts and photos and todayís rural farmland is extremely faint. Just as the red zone in Manhattan shrank and the skyline reset itself in peopleís minds. Do peopleís accounts and memories themselves become the real markers when the site of a cataclysm is reclaimed?

With questions like these, I feel like Iím writing a combination of Band of Brothers and Sex in the City.

The day ended there, basically, as we jammed back to Paris to settle up, get equipment back, etc. Everything will cost 50-100% more than you first thought. The Gursky show at the Pompidou was much nicer at first because it was more spread out than at MoMA. But it became apparent that it was smaller and less satisfying, too. The Madonna picture he did has a monitor with the NY Skyline in it, a seeming homage to the city he shouldíve been shooting on September 13.

Music possibilities: Tough. So much is uncertain for me. Right now, Iím considering Gabriel Orozcoís ìClinton is Innocentî and Ennio Morriconeís track, ìMichelangelo Antonioni,î by Caetano Veloso, which WNYC said was for the soundtrack of Le Professionel, starring Jean Paul Belmondo (but it's not). Last night at dinner, a friend suggested Bjork, which seemed an immediately excellent and natural option. Weíll take a listen. Any suggestions? [That spate of namedropping ought to lure a few people from the search engines.]

France Location Day 4: The big day, by default. We still have to shoot the major locations: the Crater at La Boisselle and the Thiepval Memorial itself. In addition, we need to pick up more montage dialogue in town. Iíd say the weather was perfect, but for production, ìperfectî means ìthe same the whole time,î and it most certainly was not that. It was brilliantly sunny, no clouds, and slightly cold.

Lochnagar Crater: We jammed over to the crater, where weíd also planned to shoot scenes with neighbors of the crater itself. There was a bus full of students when we got there. (Weíd joked earlier that Wednesdayís School Group Day at these places; it ainít funny.)

Shots 51-57 went really quickly and well. The sun was actually great. Glidecam worked well, and we got fixed position shots as well. The ground was extremely slippery and chalky (actually, it was chalk.), so we decided against climbing down into the crater to shoot up. Instead, we just did some lines up top. (After typing ìshoot up,î I had to make a cheap joke about doing lines. This will go down on my permanent record.)

While we were shooting on the edge of the crater, a pair of French fighter jets suddenly flew just overhead. They continued to circle for about half an hour, flying in and out of the storm clouds that were moving towards us. Iíd never known what a flashback was like, but the sound of those jets put me straight back in New York in the days following the attack. It was wrenching. After almost six months, Iíve been able to not think of the attacks every time I hear a regular plane. Can we ever know in advance the triggers for our memories? Does knowing them help ease the shock or the surprise? How many Proustís madeleines are lurking out there for people in New York?

Then Ken, the caretaker arrived from Dover, along with a writer friend. They hit their lines and then some, adding details of the bombing and the first morning of the attack as well as how the memory of the war stays alive in England. ìEvery family was affected directly,î Michael said, ìso even three generations later, people have a personal connection to what happened.î This relation between who a memorial is made for and its efficacy seems important. They also talked about the places that remain unaltered, like Lochnagar Crater and the nearby battlefield known as Glory Hole. As time passes, they become rarer and rarer, and gain importance as reminders. During their scenes (58-61) an icy storm broke; huge black clouds approached the camera rapidly, as if on some cue (donít look at me). Within ten minutes it was over. This is going to be a pain to edit.

Albert: With the light back and the sleet gone, we headed back to Albert to pick up some insert shots and more dialogue scenes (36-39). Got some solid stuff; replaced the boulangerie with a Coke machine for scene 37. Lunch and some insert shots of the sky.

Thiepval: It was around 4:30 when we got to Thiepval. The sun was low, with strong shadows across the lawn. People have commented before how the memorialís scale defies photography. Weíll see if lone figures walking toward and around it help. There was some kind of emptiness, though, in the place. Itís got a very transparent, old-fashioned sense of awe-inspiration, but I confess itís hard to tell if itís really moving. While we were there, a couple of cars pulled up, people got out, walked maybe 30 meters down the approach (still a good 150m away from the arch), and went back. Just checking it off their list, I guess.

We got a variety of Glidecam shots, following the man around the place, and some fixed shots, too. Good, but we were losing light fast (another cloud bank took at least 30 minutes off our usable light). The last driving/approach shots ended up too dark to ever match the scenes at the monument. They looked beautiful, but again, unusable. The running joke was, we were shooting for the dream sequence, where nothing needed to match or make sense. Shot didnít work? Itís for the dream sequence. It was a rushed, hectic end to a very good day, and was the effective end of the location.

Today; it was announced that the Towers of Light will go on display March 11, six months after September 11.

Feb 26 was the nine-year anniversary of the first bombing of the World Trade Center.

France Location Day 3: Weíd planned to shoot driving scenes and dialogue in the car in the morning, when we expected clouds and rain. Of course, it turned freakishly sunny, pumping the contrast between interior and exterior light too high.

We did exterior driving shots instead, and we found a great scene when we were looking for the single roadside grave mentioned in shot 31 in the script. It was very windy, clouds and shadows moving rapidly across the fields. At the intersection, the man jumped out of the car and searched for the grave, climbing the embankments, looking around. The light was beautiful; the scene was pretty spontaneous, and the camera was great.

Weíd set up a Glidecam, a counterweighted mount for smoothing out camera movement, and it worked pretty well. (As the shoot progressed, it became a challenge to NOT become addicted to the Glidecam; itís smooth, but moving shots are not the only game in town.)

Into town to shoot 35-42. We added a montage of the man asking questions/directions of several people, not just the woman in v2.0 of the script. The woman (and her husband) were pretty good. They hit their lines in the script, with an unusual sense of urgency and concern. Light and wind were problematic sometimes, but thereís definitely usable stuff.

After the scene, the couple was heading to lunch, and the woman said to me, ìNow, in New York, theyíll know what itís like here. To live surrounded by all these cemeteries your whole life.î I wished weíd caught it on camera. And the conversation afterward, when they met their friends at the table as well. There was a sense of real sympathy, but tempered with resignation. In addition to their own experience, locals have the 85-year stream of mourning/remembering visitors to deal with; the Somme has essentially professionalized the remembering business.

Shot scenes in the car after lunch, including the third phone call between the couple (34), and various driving and approach shots (30, 32, 36, 43, 46, 49, 50, 63). It went pretty well. Weíre not going to lack for dramatic landscapes or smooth driving shots, thatís for sure.

France Location Day 2: We wove our way back to the gas station, the first place the main character stops for directions. Got lost on the way several times. No rain at all; a glorious sky, with deep, textured clouds like a huge softbox diffuser. You can't buy clouds like that in LA (well, you can import them in post- now, I guess).

The Total station was more perfect than I remembered. It's occasionally eerie; the degree to which aspects of this trip approximate my own experience, which is still so different in many ways from the script. The gas station owner readily agreed to the shoot and hit almost all his lines perfectly. What he changed, we can easily live with.

Headed into Paris, to the office of Sycomore Films, our local production partners and frequent lifesavers. Jonah rigged up a narrow plywood sheet with screws threaded in at various points; it's now our camera mount and steadicam in one. Works perfectly in the car, espectially in combination zith the memory foam.

A quick lunch (well, quick for France, anyway), and we were on our way to pick up the Miniflow light kit, which throws just enough natural daylight to even out the exposure within the car. AND it plugs into the car's cigarette lighter. All this time hit us, though, as we raced to get dialogue scenes done on the autoroute before the sun went down at 6:30. (Of course, Jonah kept shooting in the cloudy Magic Hour, which looked fantastic but doesn't fit into the story at all; it's supposed to be a single morning/afternoon, no dusk.)

Location Day 2 (actually; Day 1 in France): Things are off to a good start. NYC crew arrived a bit early, as did I, so we began shooting in Charles deGaulle immediately. The French crew (prod. exec. and sound engineer) arrived an hour or so later, by which time we'd covered everything that didn't require dialogue/sound. Fred, the sound guy, got set up on a luggage cart (standard equipment on a shoot as faar as I'm concerned), and we were off. Got it done with no problem, really. CDG shoots so well, too; beautiful concrete, lots of reflections, very interesting.

Hit the road with the intention to shoot --in sequence zith the script, basically--the phone calls between the couple. Unfortunately, the Audi didn't have the glass roof it was advertised with, so it was too dark to shoot inside, even in daylight. AND the camera was a bit unstable for dialogue, anyway. The memory foam pillow I'd brought to use as a car/hood mount proved invaluable for cushioning the camera, though, so we got great driving shots.

Oh, did I mention the rain? It started out blindingly sunny on Sunday morning, then turned to downpour for the rest of the day. We'll have to work it into the story somehow; it's supposed to rain all week. We're staying in Albert at the Best Western; it's a classic hotel box with stone facing and turrets all over--a prefab castle. We were the only guests on Sunday night("Just like The Shining," I told the nervous clerk.)

The landscape is tremendous; flat, featureless fields, slight rolling hills, narrow roads with large embankments blocking the view. There's a banal easy sublimity/awe which is tempting but difficult to capture. And it can kill a film. Town after town, all with buildings from the Twenties and Forties. Once you know the styles, you can't help noticing them everywhere. Everything dates to one of two distinct waves of (re)construction.

Early dinner and a night reworking the schedule to fix the light and vibration problems and to make it through the rain.

France Location Day 1: Iím not in France. Crewís not in France. (Granted, Jonah and Alice are scheduled to leave Saturday night. I left for JFK Friday night, intent on getting to our production companyís office in Paris Saturday, to touch base with the equipment and sound folks.

After five-hours, waiting on the plane and then getting regurgitated back to the gate, Delta canceled the flight. Grabbed a car and headed back to Manhattan at 2:00 AM. Now, Iím taking the lead actor, Dodgeís flight through Washington, and getting in just a couple of hours ahead of the crew (on United this time). The moral: Every day of production will involve me staying up past 2AM.

Thereís an upside, though. Or several. Iíll be able to see my wife, whoís working through the weekend in DC. Moral: when the Lord closes a door, he opens a window. You just have to have all your luggage hand-searched before you climb through it.

And I changed my camel coat for a microfiber one. (The forecast in France next week is for intermittent rain.) As I put the new coat on in our storage space (where itís been hanging for how long? Youíll see.), I reached into the pocket and found a Carambar (the French equivalent of a Sugar Daddy) and a small sheaf of receipts dated February 2000. The last time I wore this coat was in Paris, on the trip where I first visited Thiepval (the memorial in the script). The totemic role we now ask objects like these to play.

Yikes. I wrote that at LGA, then read the NY Times on the plane, including Barbara Stewartís article, ìCapturing for Generations the Agony of a Single Day.î Historians and archivists are gathering hoards of objects, large and small, momentous and mundane, betting that theyíll find the right ones to effectively ìembody the horrorî of September 11th. The last paragraph quotes Mike Wallace, author of Gotham :

Itís tempting to say that this massive roundup of objects is overkill. I suspect weíre doing this as much for ourselves, to come to terms with it. Thereís a sense that things will serve as markers, and itís a human thing not to want to let the moment fade.

Our memories are not fixed or static. They are dynamic, reflecting selves that are constantly changing. So the act of remembering, of looking back at the past, is by no means redundant or negative. Rather, it challenges us to evolve and mature. The recreation of memories allow the dead (i.e., characters in the film) to come to terms with the past, affirming and accepting their lives in the process.

[posted from Dulles using Mobilestar, which could become addictive.]

...

I just got home from our first night of locations, here in NYC. First, thanks to everyone. It went extremely well, even if it took over twice as long as I'd originally planned. Some headaches/highlights:

This morning I was researching changes we may need to make to consent/release forms to enable us to shoot in France. I was reading through the WIPO site, when I searched across a memo written by an old friend and former roommate. He works at the MPAA, so in a sense, he's the boss of the WIPO. If I didn't know what a tough lawyer he is, I'd sing It's a small world after all.

Oh, and I haven't found any analysis of how a babelfish-based translation of a legal document holds up in EU courts. We may be the test case.

Yesterday's B&H Photo haul (Total cost: around $400):

Another way things have changed: I made the bed. Pulled the long, blonde hair off the charcoal wool blanket. It's just like the one on the floor. On that Jil Sander coat over there. On the seat belt strap when I got into the car for the first time in a week. Ubiquitous little signals of a life shared. And now I think of them as potential sources of DNA. Such as those the families of the missing only wish they had more of. [NYTimes, full article requires purchase]

License plate spotted out and about yesterday in NYC: WTC TWIN

Spent the last few days reworking the script, adding New York scenes. As Jonah suggested, it would be stronger to show the wife's own search as well, so we set out to find an actress who would do well on camera, not just via voiceover.

Yesterday, I scouted out some friends' apartment, which is perfect; they graciously have agreed to let us shoot there this week. It's in Tribeca, and they have a great art collection, so it'll shoot really well, I think.

v2.0 of the script is available, which will be substantially the same one we shoot from next week. Here is a corresponding version of the location and shots list, where most of the scene/shot numbers changed after I added NY scenes. It's another heinous MS-generated html page.

Friday night we went to another friend's opening and then to dinner following. At dinner, MoMA Architecture Curator Terry Riley told us about speaking about the history of the WTC rebuilding debate recently in Colorado (story from Denver Post).

Last night I went to the opening of German painter Gerhard Richter's retrospective at MoMA. Over 500 people shoehorned into dinner, while another 1500 or so poured into the galleries. It's the last major exhibition before the museum closes for a three-year renovation. In his speech, Glenn Lowry, the Director, likened the show (and the artist) to the museum's landmark exhibits of Cezanne and Picasso.

Even at such a weighty, important, and exciting occasion, it didn't take more than one course before our table was engrossed in sharing personal experiences of September 11. (Don't look at me; I was talking about Nazi-stolen art and the growing imperative for schools to ban dodgeball.) The stories were familiar, similar to ones we all had/heard, but it didn't matter. We apparently still need to remember these things.

Found this on Slate: An interesting proposal for a World Trade Center memorial by Fred Bernstein, an architecture writer (for the NYTimes, among others, it seems). Basically, it's twin tower-sized piers with the names of those killed placed on the appropriate "floor." The piers would be oriented toward Ellis and Liberty islands.

While I'm dubious of the mirror-like conceptual similarity to Maya Lin's Viet Nam memorial, which we visited last weekend (i.e., the orientation, the name placement mechanism), the simplicity and outside-the-Bathtub siting/thinking are very welcome. [q: Why is there no search function on NewYorker.com?] I will not discuss (or link to) the hothouse proposals on display at Max Protetch Gallery.

I got on the web in 1993. So what? In my almost nine years, I have never published an uglier, more bloated, less web-credible page of html than the one created by MS Office, the location & shot list, which originated as an Excel spreadsheet. This maps all the shots/scenes from the script to their respective locations. I'm using it to build the shooting schedule, which is tight. very tight. I may have mentioned that before.

Had the first reading of the script with the main actors (more about them later) to see how they fit/relate to the parts. It was unexpectedly nervewracking to hear the words I wrote being read by someone else as their own words. Would it suck? Would it sound likeme talking to myself?

Turns out, it felt and sounded good. As they settled into the roles, and we talked about the characters between readings, they kept getting better and better. By building familiarity with the characters, not just the words, the actors started getting into the roles. Interesting process. And the presence of outsiders (i.e., people other than me) who didn't cringe or seem to struggle for something to say was also encouraging.

On another front: I put together a detailed list of locations and corresponding shots. It included time estimates for each setting and getting each shot. THIS then rolled up into a shooting schedule, which is D*#M tight! We're looking at shoehorning 30.5 hours of shooting (including setup) into 4 days. Given the sunrise/sunset in France in February, and the difficulty shooting outdoors when the sun's at strong angles (early and late), there's not really 7.5 hours/day available. It'll be close. stay tuned. Fortunately, we don't have any Project Greenlight-style swimming scenes.

My daily Baz Lurhman and Martin Scorcese encounter: They're both in this NYTimes article about rampant botox injections "playing havoc with facial expressions."

One of many priceless quotes, this one about the only-temporary effects of treatment:

"You could marry a woman with a flawlessly even face," one doctor said, "and wind up with someone who four months later looked like a Shar-Pei."

The writer, Alex Kuczynski, formerly of the Times' business beat and the NY Observer, which first broke the Botox story (to me) five or so years ago. She's turning back the clock on her writing subjects, and she's never looked better!

Update: Met with DP two nights in a row, discussing casting, scheduling, the script (which may go through another revision very soon), and some ideas for adding a shoot day in NYC. We're also going to do some readings/camera tests to help finalize casting. Alice, friend of Jonah's was along tonight; look forward to her joining. She's got some good experience, connections, and her french is excellent. The script's been downloaded far more than I expected (I never download pdf's).

Other: DV audio tips search turned up another film weblog, this one from Dallas-based Bare Ruined Films.
And it turns out the master of the no-budget blockbuster, Robert "El Mariachi" Rodriquez, beat us all to it with his book, Rebel Without a Crew, which includes his daily production journal as well. There's a webring around here somewhere, I can feel it...

10 downloads (and a few failed attempts. the link should work now.) And I just broke out a separate index for highlights from the short. New visitors, thank you for your confusion and comments.

YIKES. Within five minutes of posting the script, I see the opening scene of IFC's With the Filmmaker: Martin Scorcese by Albert Maysles, where The Man says:

The worst thing when you're preparing a film, is the endless stream of opinions and suggestions you get; people talking and talking. You can't concentrate and hear the one voice you need to focus on--your own.

Considerations made in posting the script for this short, called (for the moment) Souvenir: