07/06: Old D.E. Randall interviews

We just completed our second weekend of filming.

The first weekend was an exterior shoot, in 102 degree weather, no shade. This past weekend was in interior, but because the AC could be detected on our sound, we had to shut it off, so it was a hot shoot anyhow.

We used our producer's frat house from when he was in college.

The place was a big fat dump. Ants crawled everywhere. The kitchen smelled like steaming piles of dog feces. It was all pretty foul. Nevertheless, I think I just did my best work as a production designer.

The scene we shot was an ongoing interview that narrates the bulk of the script, so overall these scenes would take up about a third of the film. The film is all about parallels, and the interviewee of a documentary set 30 years from now who's spinning a tale about the worst film ever made and how it got made, present day.

The livingroom I created around our character Old D.E. Randall is a fricken visual masterpiece, given what I had to work with. It took me four days to design and two long days and nights and three PA's to set it up.

The set itself I kept three basic colors: white, beige, and black, with lots of exposed wood. Everything that was black was either in pairs or was parallel against a light background to make the contrast strikingly visual. The film is entitled "11" which is a parallel in of itself.

The interviewer, Kendell, sat in a black leather computer chair facing his interview, Old D.E. Randall, in an overstuffed easy chair in beige. I tacked a blanket on the side facing the camera that was light brown with three black stripes on the end, I tacked it so the lines led straight up to Randall. On the wall in the background was a large window I covered with a dingy white blanket and tacked black material I had cut into strips to the blanket, at a diagonal, so in the wide shot the lines in the background and the lines in the foreground (on the easy chair) all lead the eye to Randall.

The only real color was the wardrobe. I dressed Randall in a deep red polo and Kendall in a bright green tee. It was my humble homage to Amelie's production design, as the foreign film is saturated with reds and greens throughout. But everyone on the crew is getting their subtle nods in, our director for instance has a line referencing the Princess Bride, our Producer originally named a character after a part Brandon Lee played in a film, and I forget what our DP's deal is. The pool of red on the right side and the pool of green on the left side against the dim beiges and blacks looked ex-cel-lent.

There's me on the right, making sure the actor's make-up is ok.

In addition to the 45 degree parallels that led to D.E. Randall as the puppet master spinning this tale set in present day, I had straight verticals in pairs to play up the numeral 11. There were two black bookcases on either side of the white window in the background, fillled with every type of book imaginable as D.E. Randall is an extremely well-read old man. There were halogen free-standing lamps in the background, in black of course, against a light beige wall. Randall wore black pants and black boots so even his legs were a 45 degree angle that led up to himself.

Everyone was so happy looking into the monitor as we shot. The wide-angle was just gorgeous.

I got maybe 2 hours of sleep over four days, but to hear my director and DP say, "Alessandra, we're glad to have you on board," at the end of it made it alllll worth it.

Our next scheduled shoot runs from July 11th through the 17th. I have so much prep to get finished!! I really think I have discovered a bonus calling. I mean, I know I was put on this earth to 1. write and 2. to care for poor and underpriveledged children. (I sponsor a child in Ecuador through children.org, donate regularly to UNICEF... and fully plan to adopt someday. I really wish I could do more right now.)

But production design has been incredibly rewarding, in college as an art director for student films I had a lot of fun with it, but now, wow. To analyze the character and read so much into their dialogue and call the shots on what these characters would wear and the things they would put into their livingspaces, to populate their world through design, to add so much more to the words in the script, it's like this incredible Rubix Cube I get to turn over and over and figure out. Theory and fundamentals of color and the elements of design...I feel like a conductor waving all of these things into a visual opus, creating a three dimensional oil painting that wraps around the characters and their words and actions and reveal so much more about them, to add subtle visual foreshadowing, to weave all of these things together to build a rich environment for the plot to unfold and thrive within...it's soooooooooooo fun.

What can I say? I *love* my job!

Now, our actors, that's another story altogether. For one, I abhor SAG actors. They are so...out of touch with the art of filmmaking. They have to be fed filet mignon and they can only work a certain number of hours a day. Whatever happened to the love of art? They have to be flown in and put up in posh places and bark at PA's, "Bottle of water, NOW." I just have less and less respect for "on-screen" talent. I think the real magic happens BEHIND the camera. As in, production design....

Our D.E. Randall was a James Earl Jones type, in his 60s, deep chocolatey voice....had the script for a month and didn't know a single line. I spent three hours in the dog feces smelling kitchen writing up cue cards for him with a Sharpie instead of by the director's side looking into the monitor and making sure everything looked perfect. It really pissed me off. I admit I got pissy about it. I mean, SAG actor. Read your f-ing script.

(Standing right behind our character 'Kendall' in green on the left is a PA holding up large cue cards, just out of the frame. And that is our script supervisor, Sarah, getting as frustrated as the rest of us. ) This just made shooting take twice as long because now we have to hide the cue cards and have PAs hold them so they are at the other actor's eye level so it appears somewhat that he's actually talking to his interviewer. Turning them over creates noise that can be detected on the boom and we have to reshoot and the PA's arms get tired and the words are right there on this cue card that is adding unecessary fill light onto the wrong part of the set so the DP has to adjust the lights and still the actor can't read the cards at a certain distance so modifications must be made to the shot list. GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

 

He was such a sweetheart, though, that even in the stale hot livingroom he was easy to forgive. Very easy. He was a really great guy.

I sincerely cannot wait until next week. We're doing a lot of bar scenes in southern Virginia so if you want to be an extra, the beer's on us!