Some Trailer Park stuff

Here's an article from the Columbus Dispatch about the film:

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2009/03/28/1_TRAILER_PARK_--_somewhat_l.AR0_ART_03-28-09_D8_LEDCFLM.html?sid=101

And here is a video shot on a day I wasn't there-- you can tell because the weather is nice...

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/multimedia/audio_slideshows/2009/03/movie/index.html

 

Bad Gigs

Last year, during the run of Macbeth in Schiller Park, a cast-mate announced she'd booked a commercial, and after accepting the general congrats all around, smiled at me and said " I apologize, Mark"

This took me by surprise. Then I realized she must have heard me sound off about commercials at some point. She wasn't really apologizing, of course, just acknowledging that she remembered my opinions of the subject. Which are, when all is said and done, complicated.

First of all, I condemn no one for doing commercials. I recognize they are a necessary evil, and allow actors to make some extra cash, and in some cases, amazingly good cash. No problem with that at all.  They're just not for me.

It's just that I didn't get into the performing racket to sell someone's products. I lack the acting talent, I suppose, to be enthusiastic about the Olive Garden, or auto parts. I admire those who can, but I wonder, also, if they aren't wasting their time and talents. Every time I see a douche commercial (and why must I be subjected to a douche commercial??), I look at the actress and think "Four years undergrad, two years MFA, all to sell douche products. Hey mom, your sacrifices for my college tuition finally paid off"

And it isn't really acting, is it? Actors can delude themselves into thinking it is, but it isn't. The objectives are entirely different. Many actors I know have to invent some sort of playable objective so they don't have to face the knowledge that they were not hired because they were talented--they were hired because they had a "look", and that "look" is to be used entirely in service to a dancing doughboy, or a Honda Civic. 

However, commercials are one step ahead of the gig I resent the most--the walking costumes. People who hire actors to be in costume at their parties...this chaps my ass! It lacks dignity, and encourages the belief that actors are not "people of parts", to use the old Tudor expression. And yet so many actors are eager for the gig--so you'll see a wonderful actress, for example, with a four octave singing range, one who has trained in the best schools, wearing a Cinderella costume at a Disney party for some spoiled little brat on her 7th birthday. I burn when I see this.

Maybe my sense of dignity is too high. I don't even like taking photos in costume, in character, for publicity purposes. It feels undignified. If the paper wants my picture, they can use my head shot. Or a still from the play--one that wasn't set up for the camera, but rather was filmed while the action was going on.

It's all about money, I know. But that doesn't fly for me. Wait tables, drive cabs, work in call centers...these are honest labors, and don't dilute or cheapen the art form you've chosen to to do. I have been asked several times, recently, if I would be interested in starting up acting classes, and while I like the idea of it, I would feel like a failure if a student of mine ended up performing in a commercial. Maybe I could make them sign a pledge not to, before accepting them as students.

Trailerpark - Guinea Pig Folly

The crew recording guinea pig sounds--from last fall

Trailer Park #7

Saturday the 21^st was my penultimate shooting day. I don’t return again until April 12. It was a short day, compared to my other days. I arrived at 2:30 and was on the road home around 8pm. The good thing was that, other than the dinner break, there was little waiting around. Things moved along quite speedily, which is to my taste. I would have been perfect in an old Hollywood film, or a Roger Corman picture—just keep it moving, is my motto. Probably wouldn’t have been good for a Michael Cimino film, or one of those 70s auteurs… too much waiting, too many takes.

 

I met one of the main characters for the first time. Merri Biehler plays Flora, the character with all the guinea pigs, who eventually burns down her trailer. Odd. I’ve been on this picture since February, and she since January (she was in the first scenes shot), but we’ve never been on set the same time until now. I’ve filmed a number of scenes where I am supposed to be looking at her from my window, but of course I was just looking at an eye-line point, or a freezing grip.

 

Merri is a very sweet woman, and quite meticulous in her approach. Our styles on set are quite different. She constantly asks questions, seeks clarification, discusses all aspects of the shot and the set-ups, while I usually ask very little. I tend to stay in my own head. Most of the questions I do ask have to do with whether I can change a line, or asking where the frame line is (in other words, what is actually being seen in the shot. They say Brando was a master at acting within the frame—if his left arm was out of the shot, it remained at his side, while the right arm did all the gesturing. He also tended to wear only the costume pieces needed—if he was being shot from the waist up, he wasn’t wearing any pants.)

 

For Merri and me, it’s just a matter of style—neither is correct nor incorrect.

 

The guinea pigs were the stars of the day, actually. There were a number of cages set up in the trailer belonging to Merri’s character, and the guinea pigs were being shuttled in and out from their own trailer to the set trailer, presumably to stay warm. They were much noisier than the hamsters from a few weeks ago, and more skittish. Merri and I went to their warm trailer to get acquainted with them, and most protested at being held. One, however, only a few months old, was quite happy to be held and cradled. He made a shimmering, soft, purring sound as I held him against my chest and stroked his fur. He also started chewing on the earpiece of my glasses, which were in my shirt pocket.

 

While the crew were busy setting and focusing the cameras and lights on the guinea pig cages, the rodents were endlessly entertaining—chasing each other round the pen, scratching and grooming in their high speed ways, yawning and stretching and whistling-- in short, being all a guinea pig can be. Yet, when “action” was called, they all sat there, quietly chewing, resting, doing nothing at all. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I heard the Michigan J. Frog song from the old Warner’s cartoons “ Hello my honey, hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal.”

 

I suspect very little of my close-ups will be usable from this day’s shooting. My left eye inexplicably swelled up a few days before shooting—looks like Rocky after the fight. Dunno why. Probably pink-eye, which is going round Columbus, or so I hear. Though the eyeball itself isn’t red, but the lid is badly swollen and rimmed with red along the lash line. I used what makeup I could, but it looked like I had a week old shiner. Sheesh!

 

Tonight, my dad makes his film debut. He’s an extra in the bar scene, and will get to be in a bar fight. I told the directors he is uniquely qualified for this role. He is very excited—I warned him that there will be lots of waiting, but he said that was OK, he was interested in watching the process. There was talk that someone would be leering at a girl, which starts the fight. Dad reeeaaally wants to be the leerer.

 

I wish I could be there to see it all—but I have a medical procedure (ok, it’s a colonoscopy) in the morning, which requires the usual preamble of fasting and laxatives and misery, so no visiting the set for me. He was really hoping I’d come down for it, and we’d go golfing on Friday. But I’ll be anticipating quite a different kind of hole-in-one. OK, TMI…moving on…

mark's aphorism

Was watching a show tonight in which a character said he wanted to "die on his own terms", and I got to thinking...no one ever really dies on their own terms, do they? They died on the best terms they could get that day. And the terms get worse and worse. 

Slightly Unfocused Political Ramblings

Ok, it is time someone said it—bi-partisanship is dead, Mr. Obama. I appreciate the attempt, but the fact is, no one wants it. Not really. You were elected to lead. Your party was elected in a sweeping rejection of Republican ideas, ideals, and practices. They are on the refuse heap, politically, for perhaps a generation (more likely just a few election cycles). Keep them there, Mr. President. They have no leaders, not one. When a party sees as its standard-bearer a bloviating radio commentator like Rush Limbaugh, it has officially, terminally, and in a way, sadly, bottomed out. And when a newt like Bobby Jindal is seen as the next Great Brown Hope, well, my dear elephants, in the words of the great Harold Hill, “ Ya Got Trouble.”

 

Of the last 28 years, Republicans have held the White House for 20 of them. Of the last 15 years, they have controlled Congress for all but three of them. And look where we have come:

 

Internationally hated (at most) or disrespected (at least) by countries who were nominally our allies. Torture as policy. Civil liberties bent over the table and rogered senseless. A lack  of transparency in governmental affairs so pervasive it makes the Nixon years seem like a hippy vegetable co-op. Domestically—need I say more?

 Yet the Republicans seem to blame the Democrats for it all. I laugh whenever I hear this, but it is a bitter laugh. Remember how every problem during the Reagan and Bush I years were blamed on Jimmy Carter’s measly four little years? How the Bushies blamed their malfeasances on Clinton? I have heard, recently, Republicans blaming part of the country’s ills on the Clinton years. Ha! Last time I looked-- while stipulating to the personal douchebaggery that has always been a blight on the Clinton terms-- the nation’s economy in those years was strong, the federal budget was balanced, and there were no foreign wars. Former (and boy do I love using THAT word) Vice President Cheney, in a recent interview, performed a most amazing reverse backward jackknife and double somersault dive in the pool of “what the fuck???” by laying most problems America is facing either on Clinton’s doorstep, or on Obama’s. He forgot a certain period of time that occurred, oh, let’s see, between 2000-2008. The man, obviously a student of the Big Lie, knows if you say it loud enough and often enough, it creates an echo, and people start to think they’ve heard it from several places, when in fact it is coming from one source. That’s the way he ran his own secret intelligence shop. One piece of raw intel, repeated endlessly until it began to sound like a whole host of buzz. And then you end up with “yellow cake from Niger.”

 

Mr. Obama, you’ve only been in office for some 40 days. I appreciate the tone you’ve tried to set. But the Repubs are incapable of gratitude. And really, they can’t be seen as grateful. That would make them seem ballless to Rush Limbaugh. So they have to continue along in their tone-deaf way, rejecting any attempt at economic stimulus as “tax and spend”, which, when you think about it, is a far more responsible way to do government business than “cut taxes and spend”, which is what the recent 8 years of Republican rule accomplished. I think every time a Republican legislator says that phrase, someone should hold them up to the light (and I promise you by doing so they will cast no shadow). Someone should say, “ You, advocating fiscal responsibility??? PLEEASE!”

 

Soon now, Al Franken will be installed as the Democratic Senator from Minnesota. And the Dems will have 59 votes. 1 vote away from the 60 needed to stifle Republican stall tactics. And I think it will be fairly easy to sway 1 Republican. Easier than if you had to sway a few, though common sense would suggest the opposite. With one guy to get, all you do is say, “ I have one bridge in the budget…, who wants a new bridge in his state? Anyone? A new hospital, named for him?” And the ones who were too slow? Well, their hometown papers will get many stories about how their guy wasn’t taking care of business. Names should be named.

 

Lately, it’s been reported that Repubs who voted against the spending bill are now touting the projects that are coming to their districts. They are claiming that they’ve been bringing home the bacon. Maybe I am missing something here. These guys put in earmarks for their people, then voted AGAINST the bill, then brag about how they got money for local projects?? Isn’t that sort of like seeing that your kid needs an inhaler, but you refuse to take him to the doctor for it, and then your neighbor hears about your kid and buys the inhaler for him, and then you take credit for making it happen. I know the shame meter is pretty low in Washington, but goddamn!

 

Mr. Obama, it’s time to take off the gloves. Be ruthless. Demonize the demons and reward the Republican quislings. Frame the debate as a referendum on Americanism. The Repubs have behaved in a most un-American way—shafting the people in favor of the greed of the few, pre-emptive wars, trampling on the Bill of Rights—what’s more un-American than that? Get messy, sir. Get your hair mussed. Your hero Lincoln, and your other one, FDR, were masters at it. Offering discredited thinking a place at the table is irresponsible. At what point do you imagine they are going to come around? Sad to say, but some dogs can’t be rehabilitated. Some dogs are too damaged, and have to be put down. You don’t have to like it. But that’s why you get the sort of big bucks.

The Pope

The Pope came out today four-square against sexual violence, so, you know, there's that.

Sonny as Optimist

My 5 year old Golden Retriever Sonny is the definition of optimism. I was watching him sleep earlier, twitching, making baby noises, and then suddenly his tail started wagging, and it thumped so hard it woke him up, and he rose and trotted to find me sitting at the kitchen table, and laid his head on my lap for a scratch. He wakes wagging, sure it's going to be a great day of head-scratching and "good dogs." He never ever wakes up like me, bleary, first words of the day something like " oh fuck." 

Dollar a year

I was shocked to learn that Vikram Pandit at Citigroup and Edward Liddy at AIG have pledged to forgo their huge salaries and serve as $1.00 a year CEOs. The question I have is, how are they going to support their families on a dollar a year? That's insane! Now, I'm not much of a mathematician (or philosopher, or scientist or cosmetologist--I'm not much of a scholar at all, really, just an English major) but even I can see that when you factor in food, gas, water, electric, rent, high-speed internet, Netflix subscription, limo service, and haircuts, $1.00 just isn't going to get it done. Are these men insane? Even it was a dollar a week, something is going to have to give. 

It's obvious their kids are going to have to drop out of school and find work to help support the family. When your dad only makes a dollar a year, you have to do your part to chip in. The younger kids could hold bake sales and erect roadside lemonade stands. Mom could take in laundry from the other tenants at the Dakota, as well as from their summer neighbors in the Hamptons.

Not to belabor the obvious here, but just think about how far you'd have to stretch the whole dollar a year thing: there are 52 weeks in a year. It's a complex formula, so try to follow along here--52 into a dollar is...ok, say he was making $1.04 a year. That's 2 cents a week. And there is state, federal, city, Social Security, and FDIC deductions from that. Oh, and health insurance. That's probably 30% of his pay. 30% from 2 cents is...that's going to be at least...you know, I bet it would be more like a  50% bite when you think about it. So these guys are going to be left with a penny a week. Hardly worth cashing the check, but of course, these guys probably have automatic deposit.

I remember, when I was 8, I made a dollar a week in allowance. That's 52 times the salary of the CEOs of two multinational corporations! And that was a 1967 dollar! And I had to feed the dogs and take out the trash-- and maintain a C average in school! The pressure was unrelenting. I remember never making it to Friday with any money left. Too much week, not enough dollar. 

Maybe these guys could get a part-time job to fill the hole--something in the 2-3 million dollar a year range. But those jobs are hard to come by. I myself have had no luck even getting an interview for one of those jobs. But then, I live in Ohio. I bet the New York Times has tons of those jobs in their Help Wanted section. 

Hats off to Messrs. Pandit and Liddy. I've been there. I know they'll make it through, somehow!

Mark-ology (or rather, Mark-opathy

Questions from a Facebook Note:


What is your salad dressing of choice? 
You mean you get a choice? I just always get Ranch, so the waitress won’t hate me.

What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? 
Don’t know that I have a favorite—the ones I used to like are all gone now—I like Cap City Diner, because my doctor’s office is next door, so if I get a bad clam, he’s just a jog away.

What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? 
Pretty much anything with gravy on it…

What are your pizza toppings of choice? 
Meats and more meats

How many televisions are in your house? 
Three—and there are only two of us in the house…

What color cell phone do you have? 
silver

Are you right-handed or left-handed? 
right

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? 
tonsils, wisdom teeth, gall bladder, heel spurs, polyps, tumors—racking up quite a pile-I wear them in a medallion around my neck like Eric Estrada did his son’s umbilical cord

What is the last heavy item you lifted? 
Well, this morning when I went to the bathroom…no no…won’t go there…actually, it would be a 4x8 platform, which is why I am eating Aleve today…

Have you ever been knocked unconscious? 
A few times…when I was a kid, I rolled off the top bunk and landed on my head, and spent a few days in the hospital…in college, I was playing a pickup game of tackle football, and faded back to throw a pass, and woke up on the sideline with my brother looking in my face saying “ Man, your eyes are red”—I was hit hi/lo and dumped on my head…had a mild concussion from that, but played in the 2nd half anyway, seeing triple, and trying to tackle the guy in the middle…


If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? 
Who says I don’t already? My birth certificate has an expiration date.

If you could change your name, what would you change it to? 

Yes, it would be Marc Mann

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? 
Yes—hell I’d do it for another bottle of hot sauce…

How many pairs of flip flops do you own? 
50 year old men who wear flipflops deserve our scorn

Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
I have had a few contretemps with the Highway Patrol over the years, but as a former cop myself, I don’t consider them cops—they’re just taillight chasers. My beefs with them probably arise from the undisguised contempt with which I treat them.


Last person you talked to? 
Dani, obviously. Other than that, I would have to say the clerk at the Certified station, though I don’t know if “ Pall Malls” “ Credit or debit?” “ Credit” “ Thank you” “ mmmph” counts as scintillating conversation.

Last person you hugged? 
Dani. Other than her, I try to keep the hugs down to a minimum.

Favorite season(s)? 
Spring, summer

Holiday? 
Christmas, fourth of July

Day of the week? 
Friday

Month(s)? 
June

Missing someone? 
Not much these days

Mood? 
My mood ring says mellow.

What are you listening to? 
My Golden Retriever making Scooby noises.


Watching? 
Just finished watching Breaking Bad.

Worrying about? 
My summer plans…everything is still up in the air…

First place you went this morning? 
Certified Station for weeds.

What's the last movie you saw? 
At the theater it was Doubt—other than that, I watched Watchmen online a few nights ago.

Do you smile often? 
I think I smile all the time, but I’m told I don’t. There used to be an actor in town who did an impression of me directing a comedy--he'd stand there with his arms crossed, scowling, as if watching a bit of comic business, , and then say " Hmph--keep it" and walk on...

Do you always answer your phone? 
I rarely answer the phone.

Favorite on-line game?
Don’t play them much to have a favorite.

Its 4 a.m. and you get a text message, who is it? 
My brother Erich, who will send me a pic of himself on the beach in Florida—usually when its snowing here….

What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic? 
Can you ask for Bourbon?

Do you own a digital camera? 
Yes

Have you ever had a pet fish? 
Yes. When I was a bachelor. That’s what bachelors do, they raise fish. When I got married, I broke up with my fish.

What's on your wish list for your birthday? 
Too far away to start with wishes.

Can you do push ups? 
Only if there’s a bet involved, or, you know, a bottle of hot sauce.

Can you do a chin up? 
I think, to be accurate, you’d have to call em “chins up”

Does the future make you more nervous or excited? 
I notice “dread” wasn’t one of the choices.

Do you have any saved texts? 
No

Ever been in a car wreck? 
Yes—the last one was in the late 80s, driving a Chevy POS van whose brakes went out, and I screeched into an intersection, was t-boned by a station wagon, and driven into oncoming traffic and where I hit some little Japanese car head-on, and walked away without a scratch. I had expired tags on the van, and an expired drivers license, had run the red light, and when the cop came, I invoked the brotherhood of all former and present policemen, and got off with just a $75 red light ticket, which I paid quite prompty.

Do you have an accent? 
When I was a kid in southern Ohio, people thought I was from NY…when we moved to northern Ohio, they thought I was a “hilligan”. So I guess I am in the middle somewhere, though the Appalachian comes out when I am tired.

What is the last song to make you cry? 
Watched a clip of a little English girl singing Ave Maria for some Britain’s Got Talent show, and got verklempft

Plans tonight? 
Going to see Dani’s show, and as usual when I am at a musical, take out my program and check off each song. I do this when I go to church too—“ Ok, we’ve done the first reading from the bible, sang the hymn…what’s next…let’s keep this thing moving, people”

Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? 
I’ve not only hit rock bottom, I’ve bounced from the impact and hit it again.

Name 3 things you bought yesterday? 
Groceries, cigarettes, gas

Have you ever been given roses? 
Yes (eyes rolling, give me something that doesn't die in a day)

Current hate right now? 
Currently pretty pissed at the Dispatch downsizing of arts reporters, but there are so many other hates I am nuturing…it's a full day of hatred...

Met someone who changed your life? 
Dani gentled me. But really, everyone changes your life in subtle ways. Each person is a chip on the stone that results in the sculpture of who you are. Yuck, how wussy was that!

How did you bring in the new year? 
At home, making fun of Dick Clark, and realizing I have reserved a spot in hell for doing so…

What song represents you? 
Dunno, I should commission a theme song…it would have to be driving and upbeat, like a theme to a 70s detective show, and I would walk into rooms and vault over a chair.

Name three people who might complete this? 
Al McClintock, Tim Browning, and Lori Cannon…and all three will do it screaming and kicking ☺

Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? 
Only if I could bring collectibles back with me—I’d like to go to Ford’s Theatre in April 1865, and suggest to Lincoln that he stay in and rent a few videos instead…

Have you ever dated someone longer than a year? 
A few much longer than a year. A few for a year that seemed much longer than a year.

Will you be in a relationship 4 months from now? 
Unless Dani wises up, yes.

Does anyone love you? 
Yes, though I wonder sometimes how in God’s name is that possible…I’m no picnic…

Would you be a pirate? 
A video pirate, maybe, but that’s about it. 

What songs do you sing in the shower? 
I am embarrassed to admit that more often I recite soliloquies in the shower. My soapy Othello is currently a long running hit…

Ever had someone sing to you? 
Yes 

When did you last cry? 
Actual card-carrying, snot running crying? Other than as MacDuff last summer, I can’t remember a real weeper lately. But I get verklepmft daily.

Do you like to cuddle? 
Yes, but I can’t sit still long. Like a cat that way. Other ways I am like a cat is that I'll sit on the TV and stare at you.

Have you held hands with anyone today? 
Not yet

Who was the last person you took a picture of? 
A bunch of the kids at Coffman after Scapino closed…

What kind of music did you listen to in elementary school? 
My dad’s records, which were folkie stuff like the Chad Mitchell Trio, and for some reason, march music…I can still hum the Stars and Stripes Forever, every note, including the piccolo…I also had a 45 of She Loves You by the Beatles that I played the grooves off...

Are most of the friends in your life new or old?
Actually, a nice stew of both

Do you like pulpy orange juice? 
Ack! No! Each morning I pour half a glass of juice, and fill it the rest of the way with water to thin it out, and listen to Dani saying over and over “ Drink your juice!”

What is something your friends make fun of you for? 
There is absolutely nothing I do that is mock-worthy, goddamnit!

Have you ever ridden a on an elephant? 
No, and wouldn’t if I were offered. No point whatsoever in doing it.

What are you saving your money up for right now? 
Saving? Did you say saving? SAVING???

When is the last time you ate peanut butter and jelly? 
Last week. Oh yeah, I am saving up money to buy REAL FOOD...

What were you doing 12 AM last night? 
Reading my American Heritage magazine…yes, Ann, I know what you are thinking...

What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? 
“ Shit…Saigon…I’m still in Saigon…”

Babies make terrible spies

I was chatting with my buddy Brett a week or so ago, and he was mentioning how his house smells of baby shit all the time, and I mentioned that would probably disqualify them as spies. I say it again, should any spy agencies be monitoring this blog (you know who you are)--you must not, under any circumstances, employ babies as operatives.

This should go without saying, and yet I do say it. Babies, while cute and cuddly, make lousy spies. First off, they know no languages, and this seems to me to be a failing of the first rank. They can't understand anyone they're spying on. I don't know a single baby who can speak Russian, or Farsi. You can say a few words in Chinese to them, and they'll smile, but you know they're faking. They don't even know English!! This makes the reports they file utterly useless.

And they cry, often at the worst moment imaginable. There you are, with your new baby spy partner, and you are listening round a corner to some secret meeting between peace protesters, and all of a sudden, your partner starts crying, for no other reason than that he's cranky! And you have to pick him up, if indeed you weren't already holding him, and gently jiggle keys over his face until he quiets down. This is a partner who is not pulling his own weight. Indeed, is incapable of pulling any weight at all. His physical strength is negligible, so forget about any backup when the peace protesters, having been alerted to your presence, start kicking your ass!

Then there is the smell. Anyone who has smelled baby doo doo never forgets it. And there is no predicting when your partner will let loose, either. Actually there is. It's going to be about every 2 hours. Every two hours. You can set your secret combination GPS tracker/flashlight spy watch to it. You will be making a secret drop of spy photos, and your partner will be making his own drop. Count on it. And his will smell much worse than the developing fluid on your microfilm.

The list goes on and on. He is not going to outrun anyone. His analytical skills are laughable. His sex appeal actually runs to negative numbers (even if you have loads of sex appeal yourself, his poor abilities as a wing man resets the meter to zero). He is incapable of playing most games, like baccarat or bridge. He simply lacks the attention span to think even one move ahead. 

You can't even use a baby as a prop. He is unreliable in that capacity. You can dress in hemp clothes, cover yourself in henna tattoos, twist your hair into dreadlocks, and put your partner in a baby/daddy sling, and blend in with the other protesters outside the WTO meeting, and just when you are about to draw out from one of them the top secret master plan for liberal world domination, your "partner" will choose this time to point at you and to coo his first word "SPY!"

So, please, for the sake of us all, do not employ babies as spies. Thank you.

Trailer Park #6

This past weekend was my last full weekend on the film…I have 2 days left of shooting, March 21, and then mid April. And then this boy is done.

 

Saturday night’s shoot was late, extremely late. My call was 6pm, and when shooting wrapped for the day I made it to my dad’s house at 5am (he lives about 75 seconds from Lake Snowden, so I was crashing at his place this weekend). Of course, DST kicked in during the shoot, so it was really only 4am, so that was OK. I have always heard of pre-dawn calls for film shoots,  but very rarely pre-dawn wraps. But this may be due to all the prep work the crew puts into the location since they only shoot on weekends. I suspect that’s 90% of the reason. I think the other 10% is that college-aged people do nothing at 6am, except crawl home from parties. Actually, this is fine by me, as I am not a morning guy myself.

 

Saturday night was full of scenes of dialogue, which was fairly new for me on this shoot. There are lots of scenes where I stare out windows, or glare at people, but not much of me talking. So it was nice to do some scene-work. Nate Bigger, who plays Leon, was the only other actor called, and we filmed 4 scenes together—one in my trailer, 3 in his. It felt a little odd being the only actors there, as before I have been called with most of the cast…

 

The weather has been terrible on all the other shoots, but Saturday was a radical difference. Mid 70s temps made it a pleasure to be on set. Plus, I was actually able to see what the crew looked like, since now no one was wearing hoodies and socks caps and mufflers and huge coats. I’m not sure they didn’t look better with all that stuff on, though…

 

Actor douchebag alert: the night had drug on so long that I ran out of cigs, and during a break was gonna zip off to a carryout and pick some up, but they didn’t want me leaving the location—no doubt concerned that I would head into Athens, morph into Frank the Tank, and lead a bunch of students streaking through the quad. Which I had thought about doing—but with Plan A being kiboshed,  plan B was put into effect (note: never say Plan B on an indie set—too many bad associations with Ed Wood). Plan B was sending an innocent young student into town to pick up my fags for me. Which I did.  I told him I’d buy a few packs for him, if he was interested in picking up the habit. ( Fun Fact: I get a commission from the tobacco people for every young person I can hook on the demon weed). I also asked him if he could score me some heroin, and some hookers, for later in the evening.

 

One of the scenes involved me coming in out of the rain into Leon’s trailer, so there was a guy sitting on a ladder beside the door, with a garden hose, creating a rain effect on the windows and doors. I was wearing a rain coat with a hood, and Lauren, of the art direction squadron, kept me spritzed. I tried to keep her from wetting my hair too much. I am using this sort of powdery stuff that clings to your hair and thickens it, making the need for toupees less urgent. I have had it in my makeup kit for a few years, since a show at CATCO in which I had to play a guy with a lot more hair than I have (I hate toupees). It helps fill in the gaps, and makes it thicker. Usually I don’t bother with it if I don’t have to—haven’t needed it for the last 3 or 4 shows, but in this film, I am playing a retired military man, and I am basing my look on a guy I worked with back in the 90s, who was a 30 year man in the military. His hair was cut high and tight above the ears, with a bald spot, and enough hair spray to withstand a hurricane. I have developed something more than a bald spot these last few years—more like a zone, or maybe a hectare. But I wanted that severe looking style. So I sprinkled this stuff on, combed it through, and sprayed it down till it was helmut-like. And left a decent bald spot. Problem is, I don’t think it can withstand too much wetting. I didn’t want brown streaks running down my face from the rain. It would look like Victor Mature in After the Fox. Lauren kept coming up and tying to adjust my hair, but I kept swatting her away—there was nothing to adjust—the whole structure would come down with too much fussing. I told her I had a lot of this goop there, and that combing it would do no good. Plus, I have always preferred doing my own hair and makeup for plays, and am uncomfortable having someone else do it for me. I know my face and hair better than anyone else, and know what needs to be done to it. And, frankly, I am pretty good at it after all these years, though maybe not enough for film close-ups. I don’t even let barbers comb my hair. They cut it, and I stop em there. I will handle it from there. Vanity, I am sure, but also time saving, because I am just gonna change it as soon as I get home anyway.

 

Sunday’s shoot was just me. Five scenes of me eating and looking at the window with binoculars through various moments of the film. I was called at 3:30pm, and after the late night was hoping to sleep in a little, but woke up at dad’s house around 10:30. About noon, my step-mother had made a massive breakfast of omelets, sausage, toast, and hash browns, and I ate like a starved man. Spent a pleasant few hours chatting with the aged Ps on their screened-in back patio, and then headed to the set. And discovered my first scene was to wolf down a plate of bacon and eggs. Several plates.

 

Later, we broke for dinner, and it was pizza—very thick crusted pizza. I had to be wheeled out of there on a handtruck. What’s that you say? Why didn’t I just not eat the pizza? O silly reader! Don’t you know me by now?

 

Our brief good luck with the weather ended, as a big rain storm moved through, with lightening and thunder and wind. We had one scene to go, and I asked Patrick, one of the directors, if we’d have to shut down, as there were lots of tall metal poles standing around, with expensive lights on them, and freshmen and sophomores holding them steady. He said no, if lightening struck, it would probably hit a nearby tree before it would hit a pole with a freshman attached to it. Probably. And anyway, there were lots of freshmen to spare.

 

In my last post, I noticed that one of the crews had some contention between the DP and his director. Well, that was solved. The DP was fired. As was explained to me, it is a professional production, and sometimes people get fired. Happens everyday. Creative differences. The result was, however, a completely smooth and drama free experience—except where drama was called for, in FRONT of the cameras.

 

My last shot of the day was an extreme close-up of my face as I eat nuts and make a phone call. We did several takes, serious and goofy, and one in which I crammed a fistful of cashews in my mouth, made an unintelligible phone call, then tossed a nut into the air, out of the frame, and then caught it in my mouth. When Jonny yelled cut, the crew erupted in laughter. And I was still picking nuts out of my teeth an hour later.

 

So anyway, I have only 2 days left on this shoot. I’ll be sad to see it end—its been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned a lot as well, always nice when you’re beginning your second half-century.

Trailer Park #5

Trailer Park #5

 

The past weekend was spent on location, in the trailers at Lake Snowden. I had all interior scenes, and for the first time since I began, I had lines. Well, I had lines before, but single ones, ad libs, sort of, in the heat of action sequences. But this weekend was about interior stuff, scenes with multiple characters, including a hamster. More on that in a sec.

 

The weather wasn’t much better than Michigan. No snow, but bone cold, made all the more bitter by a knifing wind that gusted to 30 mph, according to the weather bulletins. You’d think that it wouldn’t be a problem, but it was—in addition to the lights inside the trailer, there were a bunch set up outside, at the windows. And the poor grips had to stand there all day, holding the poles steady while the wind cut their bodies down to size. I am sure wind erosion reduced most of the crew by a few inches in height over the weekend.

(above,waiting for a shot setup...below, happy I am not outside in the wind) 

I read over my lines a bunch of times before we began, but they were never really drilled down to muscle memory. And this is one of the things I don’t like about film acting. I prefer the rehearsal, drill, repetition, and deepening that you get from stage acting. In film, it seems almost accidental. Do enough takes, and sooner or later the editor will find something that works. They say Brad Pitt’s early performances were all created in the editing room, by piecing together snippets of moments in something coherent. I see what they mean. It is said of Ian Holm that he never performs a take the same way, so as to give the director a wide range of choices with which to craft his film. And this brings us round to the discussion that stage acting is for the actors, while film is for the directors.

 

One of the reasons I accepted this role was to learn about acting for the camera. I never wanted to do those schlocky slasher movies that always get made locally, because I didn’t think I’d learn much from it. Plus, film is like herpes—it’s always there. No matter what else you do in your career, somewhere, someone has a dvd of your performance in Sorority Hooker Zombies. Or failing that, some small really indie film with homeless people as characters, because for some reason, young filmmakers assume there is a sort of transcendence about homeless people. Angels in our midst, so to speak, from whom we can learn valuable lessons. 

 

Anyway, one of the things I’ve learned is that I am not a “first take” actor. I need a few takes to warm up. Invention comes from repetition, in my case. It all still feels accidental, but I am getting the handle on it. I am learning too that stagecraft has no place in film. Behavior does. I’d always heard that, but now I am getting realtime experience in it. It isn’t so much a dialing down from stage (Orson Welles said there is no such thing as film acting vs. stage acting, there is only good acting vs. bad acting), but rather an employment of things you wish you could do on stage, but can’t, because it wouldn’t read.

 

(If film is about the eyes, here are a pair of bleary ones)

Film is about eyes, I think. So is stage, but stage also needs movement and gesture. Film is primarily eyes. They are the place we always look for clues in other people. Even our dogs look us in the eyes (and hands), because they express mood. Guarded eyes read flat on film. Think of our favorite actors in film, and they are always the people with very expressive eyes—George Clooney is a good example. But someone like Jennifer Jason Lee, who is a brilliant actress, has beady little eyes with not much expression, and so we don’t get drawn to her like we would Julia Roberts, who has very expressive eyes. Or Audrey Hepburn, who had the most expressive eyes of all. (Re: Julia Roberts, I lost a lot of respect for her when she said, on Inside the Actor’s Studio, that she doesn’t like to rehearse. Lots of film stars don’t. This seems to me to go back to the accidental thing, that sooner or later a take will work for the cutters).

 

I like to think that there are times, on stage, when I can create the illusion of behavior. But it comes from technique. Learning how to recreate behavior. But in film, that veneer of technique is very visible, so one needs to strip it back to just plain behavior. And that’s a job in itself. The trap for an actor is that they stop doing anything, and what comes out is flatness and guardedness. The trick is to think, and allow it to come out in your eyes. Be specific, because the camera susses out generalities. So, I use the first few takes to gather up what my character is thinking, specifically. My luck, though, the editors will end up using the early takes.

 

So, we filmed for two days in the trailer belonging to my character, Dewey Knox. It was decorated with some delightfully cheesy things, like a framed patriotic eagle and flag paint-by-numbers picture, lots of old snapshots of guys with guns. The art direction team has done a terrific job, and it is an often overlooked art form in moviemaking. But absolutely essential.

 

Because there are two crews under the two directors, you get to see different dynamics at play. One director and his DP and crew are pretty much in sync, and the process moves rapidly. The other crew features little contention between the director and DP (or maybe he’s the head cameraman). Their process moves a little slower, more time taken for arguments about lighting and setups. I suspect the end result won’t produce any visible difference. As a stage director, which is my preferred medium of all, I encourage input from everyone—I don’t assume I have all the answers—but once I’ve made my decision, the discussion is closed. I don’t like to revisit it. Like Patton, I don’t like paying for the same real estate twice.

 

Saturday night we filmed in Marcelle’s trailer. She is owner of the trailer park, and we did a scene where a group of us come in to complain to her about another character who is raising guinea pigs, which is against the rules. My character, an idiot, has bought a hamster, not knowing the difference between the rodents, and tries to convince Marcelle that he found it in his trailer, that the guinea pigs are getting out and multiplying. I come in carrying a bucket from which I produce a hamster and hold it out to her.

 

Before shooting the scene, I went to a back room where the hamster was being tended by some crew members. Once again, the rodents of the cast got the best treatment. This room had a huge heater, and the room was like a sauna. I went there every time there was a break in the action. My task was to get friendly with the hamsters, and select the one for the scene. There were two, one was tiny and hyper, and the other was fat and lazy. I picked him. The hyper one leapt from my hand and kept running all over the room, jumping over outstretched hands of the crew. The other guy, who we named Vernon (Vernon the Vermin) was quite happy to be cupped in my hands. Eventually we got to the point where he would ride on my shoulder or curl up in my shirt pocket. He was a real film hamster too. Nailed all his scenes, especially his close-ups (which brings me to another Orson Welles-ism: he used to tell his actors “if you aren’t any better than that, we’ll have to go to close-up.” His feeling was that anyone could act in close-up, given enough takes. Even Rin Tin Tin would look like he was thinking something. Again with the accidental take concept.)

 

Sunday evening, around dark, the wind picked up something fierce, and there was talk about shutting down and rescheduling, but no day was good for everyone. So we soldiered on. I got to engage in a real moment of actor douchebaggery, of which I am justly proud. During a break, I went outside to smoke, and there was a poor miserable grip, standing there, holding a light pole in the gale force wind. I walked up to him and asked him to stand up  a little straighter. He did. Then I stood behind him to light my cigarette and I stayed there, using him as a wind break. The nearby crew all laughed, and I told him I’d always wanted to have a douchebag moment like that.

 

Driving back to C-bus that night, my eyes started burning, and by bedtime, I was in serious pain. It was like the worst soap burn you ever faced…I was up most of the night standing in the shower, trying to flush my eyes. The next day, I was damn near blind—everything was blurry—and my face has swollen up and was beet red. Dani took me to a doctor, who referred me to another who referred me to another. The day was spent shuttling round doctor’s offices and filling out new patient forms—well, dani did, I sat there wearing sunglasses (light was unbearable) and a sock cap half-pulled over them. The upshot was that I am allergic to the makeup they applied over the weekend. I got a shot of steroids, and steroid eye drops, and some anti-biotics in case there was some sort of hamster disease involved. Even today, Wednesday, I am still wearing sunglasses, and things are bleary. I am writing this on Word magnified to 200%.

So I will be bringing my own makeup this weekend, and applying it myself. And nothing around the eyes. My facial swelling has backed off, but it still looks like I had a bad sunburn. Today I will try to drive for the first time—I wonder if there is a sticker I should get—caution, blind guy driving. I am already profoundly deaf—I am damned close to Helen Keller here.

 

But, that aside, filming this movie has been a lot of fun. I only have a few weekends left. 

Thoughts on Cousin Patty

She lived 75 years. Never married. Lived at home with her mother, stepfather, and aunt all her life. Had no relationships with anyone that I ever heard. No children. Was a devoted member of her church. Her stepfather and aunt died around 10 years ago. Her mother died last fall in her early 90s. Patty took care of them all. A few months after living alone in the suddenly quiet house, she died.

 

The day after her mother died, we all thought, well, it’s a relief in a way, Patty might just have a life after all. She went to her beauty parlor and had her hair done. The toil of the last 10 years of round-the-clock care for her people was finally over. But her health had been declining for a few years now, but she never focused on that. Everything went to her mother, a large personality who was surely the model for Dana Carvey’s Church lady. Patty passed through 75 years leaving barely a footprint on the earth, an afterthought in most people’s lives. I myself hadn’t seen her in 15 years, though she lived only 30 miles away. There were some close friends who lived in other states, a few relatives she preferred (my sister being one of them). She was pleasant and quiet, and had a nice smile for everyone, even as they were looking past her for her mother.

 

For years I would get a birthday card from her family, with two quarters taped inside. They never used Kennedy half-dollars because he was a Catholic. The card would be signed “Onalee, Frank, and Patty.” The woman was older than my parents but still had her name written on the cards by her mother.

 

When her mother died, the word went out immediately. In fact, there had been a death watch. Patty died last Sunday, and I just learned of it today.

 

I can’t say I knew her well. She was a constant in my young life, one of the older relatives who form a sort of canopy over the life of a child. But we never talked much. Never kissed that I recall—my family is full of non-kissers, something I fight against, with mixed results.

 

Now, at age 50, that canopy I counted on when young is full of holes. Most of the old ones are gone. A few that remain are distant or insensible (another kind of distance). I find I am now part of that canopy, over the young ones in the family. And I am rather remote from a lot of them. Not by choice, but by the happenstance of living.

 

I do not grieve for Patty, because I did not know her, really. But I am sad for a life that never really started. I am sad for myself, I suppose, in that selfish way we all secretly share, in that knowledge that as the old ones pass away, they disappear, and we step up to fill their place.