Larceny diary, day 4

On the set of Scary Normal

Whoa, here's a serious Oblivion moment: one of the lead children in the cast is down here in safe, chill Champaign for the shoot with her mom, from their home in big-shouldered serious city Chicago . . . and we just got word that their car was stolen. Naturally, she's called for all the early shots today, but it's kinda hard to prioritize the inconvenience to the director over the bummer for the family.

Also, it just started to rain heavily, contrary to the forecast until this a.m. As is her wont, the director is dealing.

Scary diary, day 3

On the set of Scary Normal

Ahhhh, deep breath. Late call today, so I will actually have a chance to disperse some stress with a good long workout, as soon as the director gets home & passes off her house key to me before she passes out altogether for a bit.

Yesterday pretty damned amazing. Confronted by a roadblock such as we slammed into, I would have gone ballistic, then probably catatonic; Jen just dealt, rewrote, moved on. Some nice symmetry and a couple of funny bits had to be sacrificed, but as she put it, what was lost was icing, not cake. She kept us on point and on schedule; she is my hero.

And with as much objectivity as I can summon, I gotta say, I think we've got something here. I already knew and liked the screenplay, of course, but this has been a pretty thrilling object lesson in seeing smart direction and sharp acting breathe real life and humanity into the pages. I expected this to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and regardless of what happens days 4 through 18, I can put a checkmark next to that.

OK, time to go sweat.

Scary diary, take 2

On the set of Scary Normal

Our second Living in Oblivion moment: an actor fails to show for a scene. I was going to write "the unflappable director is even now in the next room rewriting him out of the scene so that we can keep moving," but in the time it took me to write the first sentence, she put that verb into past tense; a nice piece of action is unavoidably lost, but we're moving on, and it'll all be fine.

Scary diary

On the set of Scary Normal

OK, seriously, this slavedriving director is working us around the clock; I have time for this post only because I don't work out on Sundays, and I'm writing this under the covers while pretending to still be asleep before going upstairs to get my Sunday muffin & then walking to the New York Times store.

Two days in, we've had our first disaster and survived; we've stayed on schedule and put about ten scenes in the digital can; and no one has died. I have been--no smarmy Chambollywood bullshit here--stunned by the professionalism and the high skill levels of the actors and production people, and overwhelmed by the complexity of the script supervisor/continuity czar's duties. I was lots better at my job on the second day than on the first; I'm hoping to ease my way to marginal competence by the time I fly home.

Anyway, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, click on the title link up there and go read about the film and the director's philosophy. There aren't many things I'd give up three weeks worth of going to the movies for, but I'm am even more proud and excited than I am exhausted (though it is early in the shoot) to be involved with this project. I'll let you know more if I have time sometime.

Dwarf dreams

Living in Oblivion

(1995)

Yeah, I don't know: watching a film about the disasters that can undermine an independent film seemed like a good idea right before heading to Illinois to help my daughter make an independent film. What better way to learn how, as director Nick (Steve Buscemi) puts it, to "just roll with it"?

A habit that sticks

Få meg på, for faen (Turn me on, dammit!)

Crit

Alma is a delightful, horny Norwegian 15-year-old with the misfortune of having spent her early years in such an armpit of Scandinavia that she and her friend Sara flip off the town-limits sign every time they pass. Sara has a plan to get out: move to Texas and work for the repeal of capital punishment. Alma's only escape is phone sex with the sympathetic Stig. Then the schoolmate she fancies, Artur, pokes her fully clothed thigh with his dick outside a party at the social hall, and when she reports (not with outrage but with bemusement) this episode, he denies it and she becomes a pariah.

At this point, the film could have taken a dreary Scandinavian turn, but instead it retains its good humor even as it gets sadder. Notwithstanding an unconvincingly simple denouement, this is a lovely coming-of-age story--the sort my daughter is about to tell in a film the making of which will take me away from the movie house and probably the blog for the next 3 weeks.

A hard rain's gonna fall

Key Largo

(1948)

Sorry, I've been distracted, and I have to get up early, so I don't have time for much, so two things. First, this is probably good enough to keep anyway, but there's no way, given the second thing, I'm deaccessioning this.

Two, a trivia quiz: name the boat that Edward G. Robinson's Johnny Rocco forces Humphrey Bogart's Frank McCloud to pilot his gang to Cuba in. If you know me well enough to know what has distracted me tonight, it'll be pretty easy to guess.