Map's Edge Media - Low and No-Budget Filmmaking

April 27, 2005

The Grand Vision

The movie has a simple premise: Cops meets X-Files meets Blair Witch meets Night of the Living Dead meets Aliens meets Uma meets Tarentino. It's to be filmed like a documentary, we're told, in the first person, so that the audience believes that they are watching reality. The actors are not to be told what's going on until just before their scenes are shot, so that everything is "spontaneous". No script, just a situation and an outline of the salient points that have to be introduced.

Sorry, love. Slipped up there. Did I say "simple?"

All of this was explained to us in the first meeting I attended. Met the producer/director, whom I shall refer to as PD for the purposes of this journal. He was forty-five minutes unapologetically late.

Before he arrived, a few reunions and introductions. A reunion with "Kate", whom I hadn't seen in nearly eight years. Sean of course, who got me involved in the first place. Met the other cast members: Gunslinger, Scholar, Irish Witch 1, and Irish Witch II. The last two will probably get their own entries, or entry, as they are two of the most interesting and annoying people I've ever met. We all settled in with coffee and munchies.

I thought for a while listening to the admins talk that I was going to end up as set crew, or altering clothing for costumes, and if that had been the case I was prepared to walk; I wanted to be in front of the camera or not involved at all. Nothing narcissistic at all there: if I'm going to add another stress to my life, I want it to be for something I don't already do day after day.

PD had been there an hour without acknowledging me, talking to each of the actors in turn, tossing ideas and notes around like a decorator with a stack of carpet squares. As I had yet to be addressed, I was reaching for my jacket and car keys to leave when he looked at me and said, "...and we need you for the quarterback." He turns to the production manager (PM) and says "Put him down for the quarterback." No audition, not really even an introduction. The rest of the night was spent talking about various production points, defining what "quarterback" means in this context (think Tom Arnold in True Lies), ironing out the many logistical pieces that constitute "pre-production."


As we're all getting our jackets on, getting ready to leave: Oh, by the way Bill, can't believe I forgot to mention this... You're just a voice, like John Forsythe on Charlies Angels. The audience doesn't actually see you until the end of the movie.

"Ah."

And, since you're quarterbacking, I want you to design the control console for the truck. You know, buttons, screens, dials, all that. "Kewlness...what kind of truck?" What kind? "Yeah...Econoline 150...350...conversion...panel..?" Don't know, we don't have one yet.
So, I'm to design a fairly intricate set piece for a space whose dimensions I do not know, that the audience will never see?

I left wondering what I was involved in. A movie obviously: an ambitious faux documentary with only a few people on the cast and crew that I knew personally. Like many independent films, it's being made up as we go along, "cross that bridge when we come to it" is The Logistical Reality.

I'm a late entrant, painfully aware of that, angst-ridden and unsure of my place in the universe. Still, I drive home that night, buzzing with possibilities and making up dialog. Which I thought was what I was supposed to be doing...