Last night I went to

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

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

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

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

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

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…

YIKES. Within five minutes of

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.

My automatic (deadpan) reply: “Are you talkin’ to me? Are you talkin’ to ME??”

Considerations made in posting the

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

  • Adequately guarding intellectual property (Joe Eszterhas’ Souvenir, rated NC-17, opening May 15″)
  • Having to deal with a wave of comments and suggestions (“Loved your script. I’ve got a few notes…”)
  • Having to deal with deafening silence & lack of reaction (“monthly traffic report: 2mb/ monthly allowed: 10000mb”)
  • This script under construction (it’s currently v1.5.1, sure to change many more times within the two weeks remaining before shooting)
  • FID (the writer’s version of FUD, swapping insecurity for uncertainty)
  • Not really knowing what the impact on the viewing experience will be of disseminating the script (at least) months before the film is available.

    Anyway, here is the first complete shooting script in pdf format. [note: I fixed the link; ome people with old skool browsers reported problems. Also, I noticed that the title shows v1.4, not 1.5.1, and the footer is screwed up. OTOH, I converted this .doc to .pdf for free on Adobe’s site. Thanks, Adobe.] Do with it what you will (as long as it isn’t appropriation, unauthorized publication or use, outright mockery, or plagiarism).

    • I’ve found a DP (director

    I’ve found a DP (director of photography, or cinematographer, variously), Jonah Freeman, a brilliant artist who works in video and installation. Very excited.

    The last week has been spent rewriting and looking for a lead actor, who’ll have to carry the whole thing, basically. The actor I wanted first, Ed Norton, just started shooting a new Hannibal Lecter film two weeks ago, so he’s out. Jonah and I are meeting with some people today who he’s worked with before. Stay tuned.

    FWIW, I started a storyboard based on the latest version of the reading script. (See a brief discussion of shooting and reading scripts here,) As we start blocking out the scenes and building the shooting schedule, detail will increase. I’m using Google Images Search to approximate the composition of shots I have in mind. Never seen this done before; if you have, please let me know where.

    Saturation Blogging: While I’ve liked

    Saturation Blogging:

    While I’ve liked Tim Cavanaugh’s [note: courtesy link] work for years, I can’t believe I dare link to his article, “Let Slip the Blogs of War,” an insightful-and-meticulously-linked-up-yet-looong article about the weblogworld’s echo chamber. It’s a cogent examination of how easy-to-use weblog technology has creates a “million cable news war pundits on a million typewriters” effect on reporting.

    Written in devastatingly accurate blogstyle, it (inadvertently?) shows the pressing need for easy-to-use tools for blog editing.

    The last two weeks, I

    The last two weeks, I have been consumed by the task of writing a screenplay for a short film that has been percolating/eating at me/distracting me since the late fall. ( You do the math.) I’m thinking of posting either an in-process or a finished version of the script here soon; we’ll see. Shooting should take only about three days.

    The format a short film takes–as dictated by various film festival submission requirements and a group called The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences— is proving to be at once constraining and liberating, maybe like writing a sonnet or something. There’s enough structure to give ready shape to the ideas and story I’ve got in my mind.

    The movie is set in France (thus my last post about rental cars in France), and explores the lives and views of people living in the aftermath of World War I. It specifically looks at the Battle of the Somme, which was one of the most devastating, prolonged, and–in some ways–pointless acts of violence in the century.

    At the time (starting in 1916), it was extremely difficult for people to adequately comprehend the scale of the killing that took place, and it was supposed that nothing could surpass it. Such views were, of course, proven wrong in WWII and since.

    While The Somme lives on in metaphor and has specifically been invoked to describe Ground Zero and the killings of September 11, I think the contemporary view is quite removed from the experiences and perspectives that prevailed “in the wake” of 1916.

    Hellfire Corner is a tremendous source of current and historical information about The Great War, which still seems to resonate in the UK far more than in the US (as far as I’ve seen, anyway). When I was visiting the UK for some friends’ art opening last October, I saw many Londoners wearing the Flanders Poppy on their lapels, a sign of remembrance for those lost in battle that seems to proliferate in the Armistice Day/Veteran’s Day season.

    It’s odd and unexpected how this writing and pre-prod process is having such a cathartic, mind-clearing effect on my other, “main” project. Like gauging and mapping out a boulder that has been blocking the (clear, I thought) path.

    A sign that 2002 is

    A sign that 2002 is starting out to be a great year: I was looking for rental cars in France (more about that to come), and I found the site for Voditi, a specialty car rental company near Paris. Through their partnership with Europcar, their cars are available at other major French destinations as well. So what? They rent Citroen 2CV’s, the world’s greatest car. Here is a link to a usenet discussion thread in 1996, which was a fruitless search for 2CV’s for rent. Ahh, I remember it well. (PS I finally bought my 2CV in 1996 on Minitel.)