May 3, 2005

The Oirish Witches

My friend Donal, a native Dubliner with a gregarious (sometime annoyingly so) personality and a great love for things technical has a phrase he uses to describe Americans who try to act Irish: "Irish with an 'O'." It refers to the awkward, Hollywood pronouciation of the long "I" sound, "oi", and the fact that most Americans pronounce it wrong, and really have no idea what Irish really means. I'm proud to say that he told me one that I was one of the few Americans he's met that "get it": I don't wear green to celebrate my irish-ness, I don't wear a kilt on St. Patrick's day, and I never, ever mention leprechauns in conversation.

This is all just exposition...

Written into the plot of the movie were two female characters, both Irish, one a born mage and the other a technical mage. It doesn't matter which was which since, as annoyances go, they were pretty much interchangeable. And while it is admittedly unfair to judge someone by appearances alone, you couldn't help but join the looks to the personalities and say to yourself, "Ah. No wonder."

We'll call them W1 and W2.

Forty-ish, W1 had that underfed, over-mascara'd look that is all the vogue in trailer parks all over our nation. Tight jeans, sweatshirt over a close fitting T, black beret with the little string-y thing on top, and platinum blonde hair with dark roots. She spoke little to the other members of the cast except to condescend. She had eyes only for PD.

W2 is harder to quantify and the subject of today's story (W1 gets her own, later). An uneasy mixture of Margaret Hamilton, Billy Burke (15 years after the bubble ascended out of the Emerald City), and the Mayor of Munchkin City. Electric red hair, maybe not pushing 60 but definitely pulling 45 with a really long rope, short-ish. She was also obsessed with Leprechauns, which is the worst Oirish bit of BS as far as native Dubliners are concerned.

The real danger was this. When she spoke it was always at nearly ninety decibels, and she needed only one inducement to speak: someone within range, listening or not.

I engaged her in conversation the evening we met, because she seemed like an interesting person, and because I didn't know about all the rest. The subject of coffee came up, and she name-dropped Bewleys. The one on Grafton Street, or St. Christophers? I asked, feeling her out to see if she really knew what she was talking about. (There is no St. Christophers that I'm aware of in Dublin) Ohhhh, she said in a singsongy "Oirish" tone, the two story one there on Grafton Street. Earned some points there - that's the place. They're closing it, I told her, Starbucks has come to the British Isles. We talked about that for a while.

What I hadn't seen before this was Murphy's look of warning: Bill, do not engage! Do you read me? Do not engage!

You see, once started, a conversation with her became this unbelievably large gelatinous cube, sliding unstoppably along, unheeding and unfeeling of the creatures being crushed under the onslaught and dying in the stickiness of it. Several times I tried to extract myself from the conversation, but the tendrils of - no, not conversation exactly, since by definition a conversation requires the participation of more than one individual, which in her case is entirely unecessary - talk, then, would extend outward, grab me by the ears and drag me back in.

Thank God PD intervened with some questions for me. I stood, held my finger in front of her nose in a "hold on" gesture, and excused myself. What I remember seeing was the electricity switched off on an automaton: the tape ran down, the sound faded and died away, the eyes unfocused and the light went out, the machinery returned to center.

Waiting for the next Tarantella Dancer to begin the music, no doubt.

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...

April 25th, 2005

The challenge will be to tell the story without revealing too much of the actual plot, not that anyone who reads my stuff here is is in much of a position to spoil the surprise for the Wal*Mart-Discount-Rack-DVD-buying public. Plus, it's not like we're all going to be wearing enough makeup to hide our identities. A single look at the production stills'll give that away. Still, you never know.

So, this email arrives in my Inbox. "Hey everyone, there's this indie film going into production, and we need people to work on it. Need actors, set builders, costumers, makeup artists. If you're interested, drop me an email at..."

I look at my schedule, the many irons I've got...so many that I'm going to have to consider building additional fires for them. I think, sounds like fun, but. I delete the email and move on.
A week later, I get a phone call from a friend of mine, Sean. "Bill," he says, "I'm working on this movie, I'd really like it if you'd work on it, too." He goes on to explain the premise, and I listen politely, having already gotten the rundown but unwilling to take the pleasure of the telling away from him. He stops to breathe.

"No fucking way, man. Not happening. No time, no money. No."

Okay, that's what I thought. What came out of my mouth was, "Damn, that's a great idea. I would love to work with you again."

Such is the force of Sean's personality. Bastard's impossible to say no to. Got cast in the last remaining role on the Good Guys' side. Got the Big Picture at the first meeting, got the more honest picture in subsequent meetings.

In short, in the director/producer we have a man of great drive and ambition who appears to have a really good handle on what he wants to do and has surrounded himself with good people who have the ability to make that happen. Now, if we could just let the recipe cook without over-stirring the pot...

Starting with a little biography

It is easiest to describe myself as a filmmaker who had a brief but passionate affair with renaissance festivals and costuming. I have since returned to my first love, and...

Well, here we are.

When I was eleven - facinated as all children are with animated shows, particularly the Rankin-Bass christmas shows that seem so dreadful to me now as an adult - I begged my father for a Super-8* movie camera. He fought me on it, figuring that the investment would go to waste. Having worked making training and medical films - including a couple of animated commercial spots if I remember right - he figured I’d give it up as too much work and he’d be stuck with a camera.

He was wrong. Hoo-boy, was he wrong.

We made a deal: I’d save up half, and he’d spring for the rest. We went to a camera shop in Brookside and he bought a used Bell & Howell Super-8 camera. My only reqirement was that it be able to expose one frame at a time using a cable release - you know, for animation. This camera (which I wish I still had but short-sightedly sold when I replaced it in my high-school years) also shot at 32fps, nearly twice normal speed, for a sort of (not really) slow motion, and 9fps, for no reason I could ever find a use for.

I took that camera to the basement and disappeared. I started cranking out short films as fast as I could process the roll and buy another. At only 3-1/2 minutes per roll, I went through a lot of rolls. Or, more accurately, cartridges. I spent the next several years making bad movies and reasonably good animation.

Then, when I was sixteen or so, I met Kent and Kevin.

To be continued…

* For those of you too young to remember, 8mm film was developed in the 1930’s as a cheaper alternative to 16mm film for consumer use. The film stock was 8mm wide (some stocks were 16mm wide, used for 1/2 then flipped for the other, then split and spliced for one 8mm strip. This was sometimes referred to as Double-8.) In the 1960’s, Kodak introduced Super-8: the stock was still 8mm wide, but the exposable portion of film was larger, grain size was reduced, and the overall quality of the image greatly improved.