Screenwriter Blog #5 - Story 4/Scene 8/Studio Daylight - Story 5/Scene 4 - Encore
Studio Daylight is a very busy place; highly in demand. We were lucky to have it for our shoot.
We had been going back and forth for a few weeks, working to get our schedule to gel with theirs, and by the kick-off party we still weren’t sure shooting was a certainty. On that Thursday, though, we met Michael Gomez, former owner of Studio Daylight. We hit it off with him and he vowed to make it possible for us to shoot on Tuesday. I was extremely excited. This location had lots of open space, a variety of “looks” and “feels” to choose from, and was, contrary to Downtown Presbyterian, a secure set*.
I felt good today. I felt rested and I felt we had a really good script. This was a scene almost entirely dialogue driven, practically the first one we had all shoot; a trend we would mostly continue throughout the rest of the days. For all the work Nat and I had done together over the years, we had never really written together. The first couple of days of the Nashville 9 (writing-wise) had been trying for us. Nat writes in a very naturalistic style, while I tend to write stylistically. He tends to work with first drafts (and likes when I do too,) while I work in fifth drafts. He sometimes finds my words convoluted and confusing and I, his, sometimes lacking in meaning. We soon realized, though, that if a script was going to get written, we needed to take the best elements of both our styles and make them work together. I should also mention that Brandon also played a very important part in the writing process. Brandon, along with adding lines himself, served as diplomat, helping Nat and I realize the best and worst aspects of our respective styles, providing a clear, at times understanding and at times authoritative, voice. Also helpful was having both actors on hand at all times, hearing immediately if a line was working or not. Without Brandon or Nat, the script would have never been as good as I hope people think it is. Just one more testament of how we all had to work together to accomplish this project.
Nat speaking on, what I can only assume is, his disgust for my writing style
Understanding and Authoritative - and with beer in hand
I felt by this day we had really gotten the hang of it. We had a system where we would each spend time with the script alone and then finally together, sometimes trading lines the entirety of the scene.
It was eye-opening for me also that we were writing a script about two brothers having to work through their differences; finding ways to make their two different styles work. Rarely does this happen, but I started to find inspiration in what I was writing by events occurring during writing, and vice versa.
This was Election Day and Brandon had long hours ahead of him. He was gathering stories at the polls by 6 AM and then he had to head over to Studio Daylight to shoot all day. Luckily we didn’t really have many props to gather. We had decided to insinuate, by having him pack up various vintage albums as he was leaving, that Nat came from an old school style of writing, listening, and attachment to music. I called Doug and asked if he had anything appropriate. He said he did and brought several albums when he arrived in the morning.
Also to arrive this morning was breakfast. As we had stopped sending actors to my house, my parents had stopped fixing breakfast.
There was minor outrage at this decision.
So, to calm the storm, I asked my parents to bring breakfast with them when they dropped off my sister.
Breakfast arrived - as did Doug. Doug and I were at an advantage today. We were able to look at Studio Daylight online, thus virtually setting up shots before we arrived. We found one area of the studio that contained a couch, chairs, and table. It was also adjacent to a kitchen area. We decided to set everything there, in that location. We packed up and headed off.
We arrived at the studio, loaded in, and I met Michael for the second time. He was immediately and consistently helpful; amenable to anything we needed. We set up and then waited for Brandon and Nat to arrive.
Although it was a relaxed day, I still felt it was taking Nat and Brandon a little too long to arrive. I had learned to assume that nothing will run as smoothly as I would like it to, and therefore it’s better to get what you can as soon as you can. I gave the guys a call and was informed they were looking for a specific brand of beer (to be used as a “prop”) and that they would be arriving shortly. Doug, Heidi, my sister, and I set to rearranging the space as we liked.
Brandon and Nat did soon show up and we went right to blocking; a fairly easy scene to shoot, with little movement between the two characters. Basically, we just set up shots and let Brandon and Nat do their thing.
An extremely nice change of pace from the days before.
Once again we allowed ourselves to really focus in on the actors and allowed the actors to really meld into the scene. We did several takes. Just because we could.
Nat and I working together
As lunch was arriving, a tractor trailer, by turning from the non-turning lane into another car, caused an accident outside. We all paused to wonder if this was what a new McCain or Obama world would be bringing for us. As we watched the confusion outside, my parents bringing lunch, once again came briefly to set.
As today was election day, my sister was constantly giving updates as to election results. Wanting the set to remain non-partisan and aloft from the political melee, I had asked that if ever either candidate’s name was mentioned, someone else should immediately mention the other candidate’s name.
We ate lunch and then went back to shooting, soon finishing dialogue. Our only other shot was an establishing shot. I wanted to make the most of this great old building (located in Cannery Row) and so we decided to have Brandon arrive in an old freight elevator. We would then glide him down the hall into the studio.
It must have been a pretty relaxing day all around, for Luke showed up on set as we were beginning to shoot. He hung out for awhile and then returned home.
Towards the end of the day, while we were packing up, Brandon and Nat disappeared. I later learned they had left the set to also return home. I got a bit angry at this. It had been a very lax day, but leaving before everything is packed up and away is inexcusable.
Upon arriving home, I confronted both of them (separately) and, to their honor, they honestly didn’t realize what they were doing (based on my accusations) and were extremely apologetic.
Favorite Prank of the Day - Nat had to drink from a beer, which after a few takes had no beer left in it. Brandon took to filling it with water, giving Nat something to drink. On one take, Brandon filled it with extremely warm water.
Best Out of Character Element We Decided to Shoot Just Because - Nat sitting down (you’ll have to see the movie to know what I’m talking about.)
We had wrapped early (that’s right - early) today and so we all took the time to get a little rest before watching stories. If I remember correctly, Brandon and I watched Mythbusters.
This night’s stories had been gathered that morning at polling places. When we were planning locations for story gathering we had a few requirements in mind -
Find places where lots of people will be.
Spread out the 9 locations so as to get a variety of demographics.
Utilize any interesting events occurring during the week (e.g. Halloween.)
We had hoped today’s location(s) might really meet all three of these requirements. We expected several people to be at the polling places, we were planning on sending the team to a variety of polling places, and this was a landmark election day.
The story team did arrive with some great stories, but according to Brandon and the other members, today had been a difficult day for gathering. Not sure really why. We once again had some stories with great elements, but also some lacking variously in one thing or another.
The story we chose had no video. We immediately accused Brandon of being technically deficient (Brandon’s first test with the camera had resulted in him cutting off the last line of a story and then reversing record and pause for the remainder of the shoot. We had cause to be wary.) Still, though, he had proven himself on the other days and we attempted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Brandon then explained that the storyteller had asked to be recorded with audio, but no video. We all said “Oh,” but then wondered if the story would be usable and if it fit our qualifications. After minor debate, we decided it did.
Writing going on in here - or sleeping - or malicious slander
The story was about an African-American Sergeant who was head of an A team during the Vietnam War. He, and his team, one day encountered a sign. This sign, written by the Vietcong, specifically asked, by name, this sergeant why he was fighting here in Vietnam while back in the US “his” people were being killed by Americans. It was 1968.
Tomorrow we were shooting scene 4 on the 7th floor balcony of the Encore Condominium building. We had set up John’s relationship with his brother and made him bitter, but now we wanted to turn his attention towards the industry that had taken part in “making” him bitter. Our intention was never to portray any aspect of the Country Music “industry” with contempt, but we did want to make any representatives pragmatic in their goals. We wanted this to be a business, but a business that valued talent. Therefore we wanted John to be resentful, angry at events in his past and the circumstances beyond his control that had allowed them to happen, but wanted that conflict to be something he had to deal with internally, rather than setting up an exterior antagonist (e.g. The industry.) We decided that John would be taking a meeting with a country singer and his management. The management would be attempting to woo him to write for their artist. John would go to the meeting, but more with the intention of striking out rather than of being receptive to a job prospect.
To get there, this is what we took from the story -
A leader (the Sgt.,) the most visible member of a group (the A team) is confronted by someone outside his camp (the Vietcong) - During the meeting, John confronts up-and-coming artist Wayne Williams. John is being wooed by Wayne’s management to write for Wayne. John doesn’t write for anyone and has left the world of this industry behind.
The attack is a surprise (came upon the sign while walking through the jungle) - The meeting takes on dimensions neither the artist, nor the management suspected.
The enemy is native to the land (Vietnam,) while the one being attacked is a foreigner (American) - John has been inside this industry before. He could fit in, but is deceiving. Wayne is new to this world.
The enemy strikes at what they perceive could be a sore subject for the attacked (Riots of ‘68) - John’s attack on Wayne is really an attack on the industry. John attacks by attempting to take Wayne, very impersonally, under his wing and point out the downsides of being a part of this industry.
The enemy seems extremely well informed about the attacked (name, rank, color of Sgt.) - we decided to flip the story on this one and have the management using unspoken old knowledge/rumors and hard to gain new knowledge as propaganda in an attempt to woo John.
The propaganda attack would target something close to the attacked’s heart (”his people”) - John would be confronted about knowledge of the relationship between he and his brother.
The attack was meant to break up unity (the storyteller was the only African-American in the A team) - If John could persuade Wayne to rethink his goals, his management would be greatly affected.
So, we started writing. We knew we would be using Nat, but we also needed management and an artist. Nat suggested Cara Greene, who had attended the same graduate school as Nat as was in town visiting her brother, as management, and Benton Blount as the artist. Benton actually is an artist and he was to be recording for the Nashville 9 on Friday. Nat and I had met Benton a week before at the Duck Race. We both had been struck by his presence and by his naturalness when interacting with people. We both had hoped to use him in the short and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. We also thought, although maybe a little awkward, that we needed to work Sally into this scene somehow. This was scene 4, we had introduced Sally in scene 2, and then put Nat and Sally on a first date in scene 7. We needed to set up that date somehow. We had already shot scene 6, so we weren’t left with many options. We decided to write Sally in as an assistant to Cara. We knew Sally was looking for a job (it had been mentioned in scene 2,) but we weren’t sure yet how to put her in this job (although an assistant it was a pretty high profile position.) We decided we’d have to figure that out later, but for now it was good enough just to put her there. We also liked the oddness (and also the interconnection) of Sally being at the same meeting as Nat. Also, the knowledge that she would be privy too, as an assistant for this management group, concerning the brothers’ relationship, would set the scene for Nat’s monologue in 7. We also thought, as a joke, we might have Sally bring the piece of art to the meeting (willing to give it back to Nat as a gesture of good will.)
Benton Blount at the Duck Race
The ducks racing
So, we had a lot to fit in, but that also meant we had a lot to work with.
It was election night, so we got down to writing while watching returns. Nat gave Benton and Cara a call. I contacted Sally.
For all the reasons I mentioned above, writing was coming easier now. We had our ideas sketched out. I put down a draft and then went to bed after hearing who had won the election. Nat and Brandon wrote their own ideas down. I awoke a few hours later. We revised the script based on both our drafts and then I returned to bed.
*This comment is not intended to denigrate Downtown Presbyterian. I absolutely loved shooting there. It’s just that the shoot at Studio Daylight had a 3% chance of being interrupted while Downtown Presbyterian had a 62% chance.
I woke up on this day and for some reason I was just more tired than I should have been. There was either something about this day or just all the other days totaling in on me. I noticed when I got up that there were tons of extra people in my house. The dogs were freaking out and it was really overstimulating. I assumed that Chad wasn't meeting with everyone at his house anymore- something had changed. This was The Nashville 9 though, and you had to roll with stuff. So I walked in the room in my boxers and said "hey, can someone grab me a doughnut?"
Ryan Pruitt came in, upbeat as usual. This is a trait that I both loathe and admire in him. He really comes in fresh and ready to go. I feel like he's at an advantage with all of this due to all those years of going out late only to have to be at a coffee shop at 5:30am. That is not my world and therefore you really have to pull the metaphorical chain a few times before I start. I will say that Ryan brought me my own coffee in a Frothy Monkey cup on this morning...so I take back the loathing comment.
Ryan somehow managed to show up every morning looking like he had 10 hours of sleep.
He had a rough mix of "Hang On" and I was pretty excited about hearing it. Before I tell you how that went, let me say a couple things about one of the producers- Ben Phillips.
Going into this thing I was probably more familiar with Ben than any other producer. I had a few opportunities to work with him prior to this project. A few weeks after I first started writing for Weimarhymes Publishing, I turned in a song called "Lead Me On." I recorded it onto a little tape recorder and Jeremy Lee said "let's get a demo done." I didn't really know how that worked, all I knew is that I needed to go see this guy named Ben Phillips. From the very first moment I met him, I knew he would be someone I'd enjoy working with. He's welcoming, easy-going, mellow and most importantly- a great producer. He was immediately able to take this rough song and turn into something you could hear on country radio. This was also the first time I got to work with an amazing bass player here in Nashville- Tony Lucido. Tony made several appearances during the Nashville 9.
Tony Lucido. No surprise that he laid down some great bass parts for Hang On.
Anyway, about 18 months before we started "The Nashville 9," I talked to Ben about this idea Chad and I were working on called...gasp, "The Nashville 21." I would be looking for a producer to produce 21 songs (one per day). Yes, I said 1 producer for 21 days- this was early in the planning. Ben laughed, thought the idea was interesting, but no producer would do 21 straight days. : ) We honed, went back to the drawing board and about 1 year later asked Ben if he could do 1 day. Lucky for us, he said yes.
Producer Ben Phillips.
Back to now...
I'm about to push play after having slid the CD into the drive. Ryan says "there's a delay on the vocal that probably won't stay in the final mix." I take note of that. I hear Ben count off the song with his drum sticks. This immediately gives me the impression that the mix quality won't be great. Then, BANG. I couldn't have been more wrong.
When Jaclyn's voice comes through the speakers with that first line "I'm so stubborn," it is crystal clear and right in front of you. She plays the song on her CP70. Somehow Ben and Quinlin added some kind of effects to her piano that give it the most ethereal and engaging sound. Clearly Jaclyn has done some things to the chord structure to make the song a bit darker. I immediately love it. Ben's drums sound amazing. Tony Lucido plays this part in the first verse where the bass "swells in and out" - also amazing. Ben and Quinlin went with a more low-key first chorus - and again - awesome! Throughout the song, the electric guitars fueled everything perfectly- they were just so tasteful.
Jaclyn's Yamaha CP70 set up at Ben's Studio.
Michael Payne laying down a guitar part while Jaclyn listens in the background.
I continued listening to the song and got to the 2nd chorus. They had really delivered it in the second chorus. Then I got to the bridge. I had loved the melody line Tiffany and I had written for the bridge, but it wasn't there. Oddly, even though I loved what we wrote, it didn't quite fit with what was happening in the song. So I thought simplifying the melody as Jaclyn did was a good idea. It served to drive the part better. They came out of the bridge into a huge swell highlighted by Jaclyn's CP70. Then, my favorite part of the song- they did half of a broken down chorus and BANG...exploded back into the song.
When the song ended, I just looked everyone. I felt like "wow, we've really got something here." When I turned around after listening, about 10 people had materialized into the room during the song. I said "whoa." Everyone else said "can I get a copy of that?" Ryan Pruitt said "3 for 3 brother...what's next?!"
Standing outside of Bletchley Park Studio, I took a quick opportunity to poke fun at Tony Lucido!
Side note on a Guy named Quinlin- Before we started this, Ben told me he wanted to co-produce with a guy named Quinlin. I had never met him and I get nervous when someone only has one name. It usually means they're really good, or think they're really good. Just so YOU know, Quinlin falls into the "really good" category. Besides, he probably has a last name, I just didn't ask him : ) Anyway, I didn't think a producer could be more mellow than Ben Phillips- then I meet Quinlin. I immediately liked him a lot. He's what I'd refer to as an "artist's producer." Some producers approach the song technically, Quinlin really approaches it organically. I guess you could say that he is similar to being a "player's coach." You really feel like he understands being the artist in the room and he knows how to talk to you to get the best stuff out of you. He has great intuition, and he was really good working with Jaclyn- They both were.
Click below for some footage of the day that I recorded with my Flip Video Camera.
Way back when we were getting the bands, I knew they would be my biggest challenge. These guys are young, talented and they take their music seriously. Kindercastle is really 2 guys - Cody Uhler and Ross Wariner. Ryan Pruitt wanted these guys in from the beginning.
Ryan Pruitt at Dan McGuinness with Ross Wariner.
When I first heard them, they reminded me of a mix between Paul McCartney, Talking Heads and The Postal Service. Cody's voice is very unique and I was immediately digging it. These guys were definitely in a different scene than all the other artists on the project. They appealed to a "younger" more "indie/hipster" crowd (allow me some levity on the use of those terms- I'm just blogging). I felt like if I gave them something that sucked, they'd all be like "you've got to be kidding me." Then, I would be exposed as a complete and total "out-of-touch poser" of a writer (same disclaimer as before). Needless to say, I was very excited about the challenge of writing something for these guys- I have a great deal of respect for what they do.
Our biggest problem with Kindercastle was that we had to find the perfect producer. Those guys needed to be with someone who not only respected what they were doing, but whom they respected. Ross and Cody, up until now, had produced all of their own stuff. They were just about to realize their self-produced album "In a Tizzy." When they got the song, they'd need a couple hours to do their thing and allow them to layer and stack synth, keys, xylophones, etc, etc. The producer would have to know how to mic a megaphone and let all this happen within the alloted timeframe.
Enter Mark Nash.
About 1 month before the project began, we had 7 of our 9 producers. Mark Nash was on our wishlist. I didn't really know Mark but we both certainly saw each other often. For about 9 months, I would run in to Mark at the Frothy Monkey every morning. I would sit down, put my headphones on and work on stuff while he would occupy the next booth over. I knew who he was and was familiar with his work via the band "Celebrity." Still, we never really talked shop. As is so often the case in Nashville, you can see somebody all the time when you get your lunch only to find out he's the guy waiting for you one day at your writing session. Anyway, Mark is well known here in town and has a great reputation. Several of the other producers had mentioned that he'd be great to have on the project. From the little time I got to spend around him I could tell that I really would enjoy working with him. I just hoped he'd be interested in doing something different. So we gave it a shot.
Mark Nash.
Ryan got together with Mark and told him about the project. Mark was like..."cool!" He said "I want to work with Kindercastle." This was perfect, because that was exactly who we wanted him to work with. From the beginning we felt like Mark Nash would be the perfect producer for those guys. So we set it up!!
Ryan thought (and I agreed) that I should use a co-writer for this one. He suggested that I use someone who was familiar with Kindercastle and would be able to help keep me in their headspace. So Ryan set me up with Steve Savage. Steve not only tours solo in Europe, but is also the front man for a band called Beggars Fortune. This is also the band that Ryan Pruitt drums for. Just so you know, I really like Steve Savage. He's so pure in his writing and recording that he makes you remember why you did music in the first place. He's an amazing artist and a great writer. He has a really keen sense of melody and he's a veritable fountain of ideas.
A poster from Steve Savage's Tour in Europe.
I'd been wanting to write with him for quite a while but we just were never really able to set something up. So I was excited about writing with Steve but also apprehensive since we'd never written together. I've learned the hard way that even if you and your co-writer are the greatest songwriters in the world, that doesn't mean you'll be great together. Sometimes it just doesn't work. I felt we'd write well together but also knew we'd have the added pressure of a deadline. Couple that with a story to work from and a specific artist to write for, and you never know what could happen.
Steve Savage at the kickoff party with Nashville 9 artist Denitia Odigie.
Well, we watched all the stories. Keep in mind that we gathered all of these stories from a conservative church. To me, that was going to be a bit of an odd fit "content-wise" for Kindercastle. Nonetheless, we settled on a really well told story about a church who puts a dividing wall down the middle of the aisle. How we make that work for the song, I still had no idea.
For some ridiculously foolish reason, we thought it would be a great idea to head to the 12th South Taproom for a few beers. Keep in mind, I'm that guy who is always up for a couple beers with friends. In the context of this project however, 2 beers can make you SO TIRED you just can't function. So I got back to the house about 30 minutes before Steve got there. I HIT A WALL! I was just so tired I could barely function. This was by far the most exhausted I'd been throughout the whole project.
At the conclusion of watching the stories, I was absolutely exhausted.
I for the first time drank a couple of those "5 hour energy drinks." Nothing. This led me to feel a sense of anxiety tinged with panic. Looking back, it's easy to be like "i got through it fine," but at the time you just can't focus and have new ideas. Your body and mind just shut down. So, in that context, in walks Steve Savage...
We watch the story. I'm thinking of going in a fun, dancy direction- something akin to their song "violet." Steve however says, "what do you think of this?" He plays a really mellow and simple chord structure in Bb. I'm thinking "I don't think this is a Kindercastle song," but I know enough to know I don't know enough. So I go with it.
There were certain phrases and ideas we really liked from the story. We really like the following phrases from the story: sophisticated methods, negotiated compromise, right things for the wrong reasons. We wanted to work them in. I knew that we needed to give Kindercastle a lot of space in which to work. We needed to keep everything as simple as possible. Steve really was good with the melody and how to keep it really open. I really liked tagging a bit of a vocal lift at the end of all the second lines of the verse. We hammered everything out. Once we finished we tried to record it. I was so tired that I just couldn't get it right- we played it probably 8 times until it was close enough. Steve thought it was perfect and they'd love it. I thought they'd hate it. I just wasn't feeling it. I liked the song and thought it was good, but just didn't think Kindercastle would like it.
Steve and I took a quick break. I actually considered writing a new song. I even played some ideas for Steve. He was like "man, I think our song is great- but if you want to try something different, let's go for it." So we started working on a new tune and I realized that I couldn't stay awake much longer. I needed to go with what we had. Poor Steve kept saying "do you not like the song?" In retrospect, I really made this session hard on Steve. This one definitely showed some self-doubt on my part. I just wasn't sure it was right like I was with all the other songs.
We kept it. Steve left and headed home. I went in and collapsed on Chad's bed while he sat at the desk working. I said to Chad "man, I don't know if this song is any good for them." Then the most amazing thing happened. Brandon came in and said "I didn't really like it." Then Chad said "I think it's the best song I've heard you write so far in this project." In that moment, because Brandon didn't like it and Chad DID like it, I knew the song was going to be great. Chad and the guys from Kindercastle, in my mind, are cut from the same mold. It was the perfect reassurance. I then passed out on the floor, defying my 5 hour energy drink. I would later wake on the couch with no memory of getting there. What's not to love about The Nashville 9!!
Screenwriter Blog #4 - Story 3/Scene 6/Downtown Presbyterian - Story 4/Scene 8/Studio Daylight
With both main actors living in Luke’s house, we decided it made logistical sense to forgo the trips in the mornings to my house. Being always a bit late to everything, we hoped this might help. We also figured we could rehearse any of the other secondary actors, whom we seemed to be having at least one of everyday, on set.
Shooting today was going to be a little odd. Brandon, who had been on set in various capacities everyday, was now going to be on camera. While Nat, who had been on camera everyday, would not be acting in this scene. I was interested to see how this might change the dynamic on set. Nat, whom I had never worked with off camera, was going to be working with Brandon, whom he had never worked with on or off camera. I felt we were all on the same page, though, with the script and didn’t worry so much that we wouldn’t pull this off.
This was also the first day we had any of the cast or crew arriving at Luke’s rather than meeting us on set. Nick, my sister, and Heidi Spencer, who was to be working as PA, were scheduled to be showing up soon. I hoped I had given everyone the right address and couldn’t entirely relax until everyone arrived. Which they soon did (early nonetheless.) After once again loading down cars with equipment, soda, and coffee, and what seemed to be the remnants of the previous day's lunches, Heidi and Doug drove off to pick up the location release for the church. These documents had become quite possibly, for these 9 days,the most precious articles anyone could possess. I did not relish going through another day one, a "Crossing the LeQuire," as I like to call it.
Anyway, this document was being held somewhere in Green Hills and Doug and Heidi went off to pick it up. Doug, who had acquired the Downtown Presbyterian Church for us and was taking care of all the paper work, charged me with the handling of a separate location release; one the church had asked US to sign. I guarded it with my life (actually I think I placed it in the trunk in a milk crate, a very secure milk crate.)
Nat, Brandon, my sister, and my vacuum cleaner, entrusted with no paperwork but a script, packed into Luke’s Jetta (I don't remember why they took the Jetta. I do, though, based on this situation, remember Nat and I coming up with a brilliant advertising campaign for Volkswagon based on a Mac Davis song.)
Even with the scheduling magic we thought we had worked, we were still running a little late. No matter what we did to get ahead, we always seemed to be running a little behind.
We all set off.
I was worried, since we were downtown on a Monday, that parking was going to be an issue. Luckily, the church had allowed us the use of a few of their parking spaces. Being Monday, the Nashville 9 also took on a sort of surreal aspect for me. Working a day job, I'm used to all endeavors such as the Nashville 9 taking place at night, weekends, holidays, or sick days. I was now working when everyone else was working on something I really wanted to be working on. It felt good. It felt like when I drove Route 66. Route 66 is actually made up of many roads. Several of these roads run parallel to the interstates. I remember being on those roads, being the only one on those roads, within eyesight of all the other traffic, and thinking "we're all driving in the same direction, trying to get to the same destination, but right now I'm the only one doing it like this." And then I drove 120 mph. Just because I could.
Anyway, it felt good.
I arrived to find David and Tommy already there. We started loading equipment in and I, needing to turn in Doug’s paperwork, searched around, futilely, for the church office. A few more trips around the building and eventually I saw the sign, jutting out of the wall, that said "Church Office." I turned in the form, remaining in Doug's good graces, and then went in to find out how everyone was doing.
I had forgotten how big the sanctuary actually was. It looked great, but dwarfed anything moving inside it. Actually quite a nice effect. The light was fantastic, streaming in through the stained glass. I wasn’t sure, though, how much of this great light would be usable, knowing it would be awhile before we started shooting. Doug arrived and we brought the rest of the equipment in. As we were beginning to set up, a tour of about 50 elementary kids swarmed into the room. We paused, enjoyed the distraction, and waited for the disturbance to subside.
While we waited, we started planning shots. We had a lot to get today - one establishing exterior, shots in the sanctuary, shots in the balcony, shots in the bell tower, and movement to all three of these locations. Luckily, though, we weren’t dealing with a lot of dialogue. The tour group left and we decided to go ahead and get some shots outside. I sat down with Heidi and went over the list. She seemed confused. I’m not always the best communicator, the shots were a little complex, and this was the first time Heidi and I had worked together. We went over the list a couple of more times and it just wasn’t happening (it may have had something to do with me revising every time we ran through the list.) Eventually Heidi told me she knew exactly what I was talking about. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case. But she played it off like a champ. Jeremy was working slate for us today. He had assisted Julie yesterday, so he knew exactly what he was doing. Jeremy was very quiet and always where you needed him to be. So much so that sometimes it was easy to forget he was there.
Brandon and I discussing the scene
We moved the crew outside and decided to glide cam a couple of shots of Brandon noticing the church and then walking inside. We were shooting in a public area, meaning people and cars would habitually be getting in the way of our shots and continuity. Instead of shutting down the street, we decided to wait for the right opportunities. Eventually we were able to get the footage we needed. I watched some of the glide cam footage later, noticing it looked like we were shooting an episode of Law and Order. Cool enough. We moved inside to start dealing with some of the trickier aspects of our shot list.
At about that moment, another tour group arrived. I began to get worried this might keep happening all day. My parents also arrived and hung out for a while. Eventually everything quieted down and we got back to work.
We had to walk Brandon into the church, past a foyer, into the sanctuary, and into a pew (where he would take out his guitar and start playing.) Ideally, we wanted to try and get all this in a continuous shot. Except for the toll it was taking on Doug’s arm, we were starting to really dig using the glidecam. Still, this was a somewhat logistically difficult shot. We wanted to shoot two different angles (one leading Brandon in and the other following) and get coverage from a camera on sticks. Not so difficult, except we had to walk past a 20 foot high mirror and also pass through a swinging door. Also, we needed to get boom audio; meaning yet another person walking. We worked it and worked it, but were getting nowhere. Passing through the door was proving to be impossible to shoot believably. Either Doug opened the door before Brandon arrived at it or the door had to be held open for Doug and Tommy to pass through. Everyone was getting frustrated and at one point Brandon and I had a few words. Brandon likes to move things along and will let you know when he thinks time is being wasted ( I stand by the fact I think he would make a great AD.) Doug and I try to work through everything until we can get it right, or at least exhaust all the options. These two working styles were not meshing. Brandon and I took a break from everything, stepped outside, said our piece, and soon rectified any unease between us.
Getting everything in order
We came to a decision to only use the glidecam to pick Brandon up as he came through the swinging door into the sanctuary. We could watch him enter the foyer, though, through a pane of glass in the door. Actually, a pretty interesting shot. Unfortunately every single fingerprint on that pane of glass could also be seen. We scoured the church for some glass gleaner. We also scoured the church for some outlet adapters. Our batteries were running low and we needed to plug the cameras in. Downtown Presbyterian is an old building and the outlets were not friendly. We eventually found both glass cleaner and an adapter. We went back to work and positioned a camera on sticks in the only place where it couldn’t be seen in the mirror. Who knew mirrors would be such a problem on this shoot?
Finally, after all this set up, we were ready to start getting some shots. We decided to only capture Brandon up to the point where he enters the pew and takes his guitar out. We did this in an attempt to cut shot length down and also because we hadn’t written the specifics of what was to happen next.
All in all it probably took us 15-20 minutes to get the shots from a couple of different angles. The set-up had probably taken an hour and a half. This is how things were going for us this day.
Cleaning the window
Doug started looking for other shots while David got Brandon mic’d up (we wanted to capture both boom and lav sound, as Brandon would be speaking to himself.) In this section we needed Brandon to play through some song ideas and not like them. Luke had written a great song, Hang On, the night before and we talked about incorporating it into the scene. Originally the music and the film were not planned to meet. We knew they might, but we weren’t planning on it. Hang On, though, really seemed to fit as a song Brandon’s character, Jordan, might write and eventually latch onto as something he thought might be good. We decided we wanted to use it. We still needed, though, some other material for Brandon to play through before he got to that point. Brandon suggested we use some of the other songs written in the past two days. It seemed like a good idea. I was wary, though, about the fact that we were having Brandon’s character be a not-so-great songwriter and that the “songs” he was writing were Luke’s. We talked it through and figured we would have to sell this aspect of the scene, once again, by Brandon’s reaction. Whether the song was actually “good” or not would entirely be subjective. Brandon gave Luke a call and got the okay to utilize the songs.
Meanwhile, Nat was working with Nick on his character, plus trying to organize the logistics of the distractions. We needed to show Nick and the vacuum cleaner, yet still have him be hidden from Brandon. We found a good spot, rehearsed the vacuuming, and soon decided to start shooting the scene. Brandon did a fantastic job of improvising while playing and singing, and after a few takes and a really clean patch of carpet we decided to move upstairs.
As said before, we were using the glidecam as our primary cam today. And it was starting to take a bit of a toll on Doug’s arm (it’s very awkward and somewhat heavy to hold.) Doug was and is a pro, though, and he continuously worked through any discomfort, acting not only as DP and camera operator, but soon enough, as lighting grip. It was proving to be a tough day for David and Tommy also. We were moving Brandon around almost continuously throughout the scene and Sound was constantly having to figure out how to capture boom and lav without figuratively and literally stepping on anyone’s toes.
Doug and David prepping
Things were not moving quickly.
And then lunch came. We decided to break and moved down to the fellowship hall in the bottom of the church.
As we were eating, a lady came into the hall from off the street, inquiring about food. Nat spoke to her and told her to take some food. I suggested Nat might want to inform the church that he had just given permission to hang out, in the church, to someone the church may or may not want wandering around. He went off to do so. As we were finishing up, I was accused, unfairly, by this lady, for not allowing her to do something (I forget what) at another place and time (I forget where and when.) I say unfairly, but I’m not really sure. She thought I was someone else and for all I know that person might have deserved the berating I received. Whatever. We worked out our differences and she took some of our gum. We returned to shooting.
Nat and Nick
Our next setups were in the balcony. We needed Brandon to walk into the balcony and then sit on the ledge, continuing to write. We could fairly easily get him up there, but keeping him seen was an entirely different matter. Our great, usable stained glass light was now gone. Doug finally broke out our TVC sponsored lights, that he had worked so hard to acquire, and went to making Brandon visible. Lights required outlets and outlets meant more adapters. We didn’t have more adapters. We worked to rig up some power strips and extension cords. As Doug worked, I ran through blocking with Brandon while Nat handled Nick’s logistics on the first floor. It was decided to have Nick be hidden in a pew and then pop up, continuing to vacuum. As a joke and as a test of Nick’s honesty, Nat planted the prop wad of money underneath a pew where Nick was to bend down. Nick’s amazement at what he found was irreplaceable. Our amazement at his honesty in showing Nat what he found was and is a stain on our character.
We tried shooting Nick in the same position he was as before, but found we could not see both he and Brandon in the same shot. We then decided to move Nick further up the sanctuary. This worked a lot better, but it put us once again in a precarious situation with outlets; less an adapter problem and more a length of cord problem. We had used up all our available extension cords. We stretched the cord, once again pulled out our geometry books to determine angles and distances between points, and finally got the vacuum cleaner rigged up. Nat and I then worked out a cue system between us, so as to time the vacuum cleaner’s distractions perfectly.
Gliding up the steps
It was a tough day.
We were finally set in the sanctuary, but still, though, we weren’t getting the lights as we liked in the balcony. It was either way too dark, way too light, or shadows in all the wrong places. We were moving slowly and everyone was getting tired and frustrated. Eventually, though, we were able to mold the situation to our liking, get our shots, and with the little time remaining, head up to the bell tower.
Every minute in the bell tower was one where coolness of shot had to be weighed against possibility of serious bodily injury. It wasn’t the safest place to be. Not even for one person. We decided to put, at one point, 8 people up there. Once again we had some tricky logistics to work out. We needed to put Brandon at the top of the tower (after following him all the way up) and then shoot Nick at the bottom of the tower. They were to have a conversation; which meant we kind of needed to fulcrum the camera angle. Plus we had to get both Nick and Brandon laved. Plus we had nothing to use but natural light. We worked to get everything set up. We were really running late on time. It took us about 7 takes to get what we wanted; not helping our time situation, and definitely not helping, as Brandon had to continuously walk up and down the steps, the safety situation. We wrapped and quickly got out of there.
Favorite request of the day - Brandon asks my sister to hold his pistol in her purse.
Favorite question of the day - Nat asks if anyone has seen his sweat shirt. Upon describing it, LA, a doc crew member, says she is pretty sure she saw it being carried off by one of the chaperones of the aforementioned elementary student tour.
We got back to Luke’s and I realized I was tired. It had been a tough day and I didn’t really relish writing a scene. I knew I’d get past it, though, once we started watching the stories.
Tonight’s stories were gathered from a church. After watching them all, we decided to use one of the first; coincidentally, a story told by Joel’s grandfather. It was a great story - concise, odd, humorous, and a bit head shaking.
The story also fit our situation well. We were shooting scene 8 the next day at Studio Daylight. We knew that Scene 9 would obviously be our finale, but we knew scene 8 had to really pave the way for our finale to be believable. As we had set up the relationship between the two brothers as our major conflict, we knew this needed to be a John/Jordan scene.
We decided that the studio would be Brandon’s residence, adequate digs for a person of his personage. We also wanted Nat to be staying with Brandon (motivation for Brandon to order him around into doing such things as picking up pieces of art,) but would be preparing to leave (based on certain revelations gleaned in scene 7.) Brandon would be returning home from his day at the church. Both John and Jordan would be in relatively high, but guarded, spirits, having recently found that their life might be able to proceed out from under the shadow it had been in. And in some way they would be sharing this knowledge, more in the tone of their interaction than in their words. They would act as brothers.
The story was about a church that a young pastor visited. Upon arrival he found that a shoulder high boundary was being placed down the center of the church. Upon inquiry he found that boundary divided those who wanted to hear organ music from those who wanted to hear piano music. The pastor, taking charge of the situation and doing as he said "the right thing for the wrong reasons," then, upon ultimatum, refused to allow the last piece of barrier to be placed.
We took these elements from the story and incorporated them into our own -
Two factions - John and Jordan. We decided,on the technical end of shooting this scene, to rarely show the brothers in the shot. We hoped this would greater enhance the faction idea and show there was still a gap in their relationship and disconnect between the brothers.
Two halves of a whole with irreconcilable differences - Brothers who have a long standing disagreement over something.
A conservative faction and a progressive faction - John would come from a very traditional, old school style of song writing. Jordan would be in the moment, always moving with the times.
The factions remain together, amicably coming to an agreement - John and Jordan realize that they will always be too very different people who disagree on many things, but also realize that they are brothers and that that bond can never be broken. They realize that the faults they see as each others are really faults they have of their own. And that what has been done in the past was not malicious, but a misunderstanding. This realization will hopefully lead to a future reconciliation. The problem isn't quite solved yet.
The pastor tries to right the situation - an outside force, an album Jordan is recording, requires Jordan to ask for John's help (underlying themes of Jordan's need for help from John and John's need to reconcile with his brother and also to get back to what he loves doing) and will, for reasons of its own (?), attempt to bring John and Jordan back together.
We came to our ideas relatively quickly and decided to once again, though tired, head out to the 12 South Taproom, the official hang out and meeting place of the Nashville 9. We spent about 45 minutes there and then headed back.
I decided to forego writing for a bit and take a nap. I awoke a few hours later and we all set to writing. This was actually the ideal writing situation. As there were only 2 characters in the scene tomorrow and all three of us were at the house, we were able to work through a lot of the lines as we went, potentially taking some of the pressure off the next day. Writing continued sporadically through the night and by morning I felt we had a really strong scene to work with. Today was going to be a good day.
After a pretty restless night of sleep, I awoke to Ryan Pruitt rolling into the house at about 7:40am. He hadn't yet taken to bringing me coffee in the morning- that would begin on day 4. This was probably about the time he began to notice my diminishing capacities. Anyway, he sat down next to me and told me that he had the rough mix from Jamie Kenney and Mean Tambourines. I slid the cd into the drive and we began to listen.
Jamie Kenney in his Studio
Members of Mean Tambourines along with Nashville 9 Music Coordinator Ryan Pruitt.
Right off the bat I loved the intro. They definitely sped up the song! Ryan Truso reworked the melody to better fit his voice and style. I totally dug it! The song had tons of energy and forward momentum. I felt like what I gave them was relatively dark but they took it back out of that- and they did it in a good way.
Mean Tambourines lead singer/guitarist Ryan Truso did an excellent job re-crafting the lyrics to fit what the band does stylistically.
Initially when I heard the chorus I wasn't sure how I felt. Ryan Pruitt had told me that they changed some lyrics before I heard the song. So I knew that I'd be hearing something different. Still, lyrical changes always make you nervous.
Here's what I originally wrote:
She can't not dance, she can't not dance. She's spinning in a chemically-fueled romance. This won't be the chance she'll miss, as she gets pulled into a cocaine kiss. She can't not dance.
Here's what Mean Tambourines Recorded: She can't not dance, she can't dance. She's spinning in the chemicals, in the chemicals. In this romance, in this romance. She's spinning in the chemicals, in the chemicals.
I think I was initially disappointed when I first heard it. I had loved the original lines in the chorus and was looking forward to how they had been incorporated. But as I got to the second chorus, it really started working for me. I realized that they had sped the song up so much (which it needed) that it would have been nearly impossible to get all those words in. I feel like when you write something one way and someone records it another, you have an initial reaction that isn't always trustworthy. You find yourself listening "for" something and not "to" something. Such was the case in this.
I noticed that everyone in the room was totally loving their version of the tune. I actually listened to the song a second time and found myself really pulled into it. I can't even count how many times I've emailed it to Nashville 9 team members. We probably have a total of 2 hours of footage of Nat McIntyre, Jenny Moss and I singing the chorus. Now, as I write this blog, I can't imagine hearing it any other way. Over the next several days this song was in the heads of everyone involved in the Nashville 9 - it was definitely the most "sung" song during the project. So all in all I loved this song. This song changed more than any other song in the project...and I couldn't be more happy it did. I wanted them to make this their own. That's exactly what they did.
Favorite Change to the song: I loved the way they reworked the pre-chorus. The music that sat beneath the line "daddy couldn't keep her from California..." and led into the chorus was awesome.
Biggest Regret: I wish the word "cocaine" had managed to find its way in the song. I feel about that the same way I felt when "tow-truck driver" didn't get into the Champion song. I could understand how it didn't make its way in, but because it was such a big part of the story, I wished it stayed.
Side note on Mean Tambourines: These guys are an exceptional live band. Jenn and I recently had a chance to see them at The End. If you get an opportunity to see them, I highly suggest you make it out. They make a lot of noise for 3 guys! Even more, they have that undescribable quality that makes them come alive on stage. Here's a link to their shows and info.
Side note on Jamie Kenney: There wasn't one single producer on this project that I wasn't tremendously impressed with. Jamie was no exception. He's got a great studio over in the Marathon Building (same building that the Yazoo Brewery is in). What really impressed me about Jamie was that he had an extremely calming presence. He exuded a very comforting sense of confidence throughout what could have been a very stressful day. He seemed able to take ideas and give ideas in equal measure. He's definitely someone I'd work with on my own album. Definitely check him out. He and the band were dealt a difficult task to try to make something from my demo- it speaks highly that he and Mean Tambourines were able to do what they did!
Check out some quick footage below that I recorded on my flip video camera!
Jaclyn James Part I - Writing the Song - "Hang On"
Overall, this day had a different feel to it. My wife Jenn and good friend Jenny Moss came by at about 3pm. I had just come back from visiting the filming location. I really didn't get many chances to do this, so when an opportunity came up I felt immediately inclined to take advantage. Anyway, this was the first chance Jenn and I were going to have to actually debrief about how things were going. When she and Jenny came in, they got a chance to look over the 2 day wreckage that was once our beautiful home. While I'm sure Jenn expected this, I felt she was a bit surprised at just how quickly the house turned into a frat house.
Nat and I with our Jenns - Jenn Sheets and Jenny Moss. Their contribution to The Nashville 9 can't be overstated.
I then told "the Jenns" that it was difficult to concentrate and write because people were constantly coming in all the doors, dogs were running out the front door, people were loud, etc etc. Overall, the environment wasn't conducive to "creating on a deadline."
So this is where Jenn and Jenny take things under control. First, they clean everything up (this isn't their job but they do it anyway). Then, Jenn prints up the following sign:
I tell you all this so that you know that when I finally was able to write on this night, it was with a deep sense of calm. Most of this was because of that sign. So thanks, as I have said so many times, to Jenn and Jenny. My wife is able to instill a sort of fear in a person that I simply cannot : ) So when SHE puts up a sign, people listen.
So tonight I was going to write with Tiffany Lee for Jaclyn James. So here comes the quick back story...
How we got Jaclyn James: I was sitting in The Frothy Monkey as I do so many mornings. I had a writing session coming up in about 45 minutes and so I wanted to go through some song ideas I had before I walked into the session. I left my little recorder (which held my song ideas) in my car. So I got up and walked into the parking lot behind The Frothy Monkey to get it. While heading out, a car pulled in front of me and drove past. I noticed a ton of music gear in the back window with the name "Jacyln James" written on it in white. Just minutes before, a songwriter friend of mine had told me good things about a nashville songwriter named "Meghan James." The close proximity of those two events (and my early morning pre-coffee haze of confusion) caused me to look up "Jaclyn James" thinking she was the songwriter my friend had just told me about. So I saw her website and immediately knew it wasn't who I thought it was. That being said, I really liked her music and thought she'd be a perfect fit for Tiffany Lee to co-write a song for. So I emailed Jaclyn! Crazy how things go, huh? How we got Tiffany Lee: About 18 months ago I started writing for a Publishing Company called Weimarhymes Publishing. The owners of the publishing company are Jeremy and Tiffany Lee.
Good friend and music publisher Jeremy Lee (right) next to Hawk Nelson drummer Justin Benner (also a great friend).
So over the last two years those guys have become good friends of me and Jenn. Tiffany's full name is actually Tiffany Arbuckle Lee- many people would know her as an artist called Plumb. She and I talked and she was willing to be a part of the project. So we decided together that it would be ideal to work with her as a co-writer and then maybe have her sing backups the next day on the song we wrote. It seemed like a great twist to have the established artist writing for and almost "mentoring" the younger less established artist. So when I first saw Jaclyn James' myspace, I knew she was the one for me and Tiffany to write for.
So back to now...
We had a pretty cool story about a guy whose uncle tried to ride out Hurricane Katrina. Before we started writing, I had Jaclyn come by to meet Tiffany. I felt like it would be important for Tiffany to have an opportunity to get a feel for who Jaclyn was as a person/artist before we wrote. Jaclyn played us a song, we talked for a few and then she left.
Jaclyn playing one of her songs for Tiffany and me.
Tiffany and I listening as Jaclyn describes who she is as an artist.
Tiffany and I sat down (in our freshly cleaned has courtesy of the Jenns) and got right into it. Tiffany immediately began throwing out ideas for different directions. This is something that I love about Tiffany as a songwriter. She has enough energy and fearlessness to simply throw out ideas - couple that with an incredible sense of melody and you've got someone who really progresses the creative energy. She immediately latched on to the phrase "I'm so stubborn, that's how I got here." This was a direct correlation to the story. I started immediately playing a piano part in the key of "F." Tiffany pretty much had the melody for the first part of the verse right away. We stumbled a bit because Tiffany kept initially hearing the word "here" on the first line landing on a major chord. I liked it, but felt like it may be too "outside the lines" for what we were trying to go for. So we kept it simple and moved on.
Tiffany sitting across from me throwing out song and melody ideas.
Overall, we wanted to put this person to be in a situation that she was responsible for. She got herself into this. Then, just when that person feels like she just can't hold on any longer, we have a voice imploring her to "Hang On." Just as the waters crashed in around the character in the story, we mirrored that image in the song.
In the bridge, we loved the melody against the chords. I really liked the line "Lift your eyes, the sun is rising." Tiffany on the other hand really pushed for "BLINK your eyes." We went with blink which I'm very happy we did. Maybe for Tiffany the word "Blink" was an homage to her last album - "Blink." : )
All in all, this was the easiest writing session that I did during The Nashville 9. I feel like it was a combination of getting all the distractions taken care of AND writing with another songwriter I was familiar with. We knew what we were there to do and simply knocked it out. This was really important for me because I was started to really get exhausted and had begun feeling the pressure of the days stacking up. I couldn't have been more pleased with how this turned out. Little did I know how much would come from this song...
This is the Video Tiffany and I made for Ben Phillips, Quinlin, and Jaclyn James.
Screenwriter Blog #3 - Story 2/Scene 7/The Non Salon - Story 3/Scene 6/Downtown Presbyterian Church
We arrived on set a bit more refreshed than the day before – and almost on time (we had just entered daylight savings time, so there was absolutely no excuse for us to be late. It did make me think, although, that our driving force was a deadline. Any deadline. Whether we had only 2 hours to shoot, or a bonus hour of writing, we still managed to come in about a fashionable half-hour late every time.)
Jen McDonald was already at the salon and I will admit that I felt bad for her. Not only had we asked to use her place of business, asked to come in on a Sunday, and totally taken over every inch of space upon arrival, but we were also asking her to act. Sure, it was a little bit of typecasting (we needed a hair stylist - she is a hair stylist,) but we also knew she would do a great job (with absolutely no complaining) with whatever we threw at her.
And we had a lot to throw at her.
After yesterday’s near defeat, but eventual triumph, we must have been getting a little cocky to think we might be able to pull off a montage. A montage in a salon nonetheless.
Whatever. We were in it now.
Jen and Brandon McDonald
Sara soon arrived, ready to get everyone into makeup. It’s difficult to say how extremely grateful we were to have Sara on hand. Andrea Politte had been scheduled as hair/makeup artist for the entirety of the shoot, but was pulled away at the last minute by a commitment for an event in Chicago on the 4th (something about an election or something) and wasn’t going to be able to make it down to Nashville until Thursday. We had spoken to Sara a few months earlier about working with us, but due to previous commitments herself, weren't able to get her on board for the shoot. When she found out (on Thursday) about our predicament, though, she juggled things around and made it possible to be on set for the first 3 days of shooting. A huge help.
Anyway, Sara started getting the actors into makeup. And by actors, I mean Sally. Nat hadn’t arrived yet. After a mishap earlier in the morning (see the vidcast) Nat had left to pick up more props. Brandon had scavenged the night before what he could (amazingly, although not asked to, he was able to find Peeps,) but, as he was at church, was unable to perform prop gathering duty this morning. That's right. At church. No, no, no. Not serving the Lord. Gathering stories. We had brainstormed throughout the night, creating a new list of props and Nat had volunteered to pick them up on his way to the set. This fool’s errand included finding Tab, a facial mask, and a putter. At about 9:30 I received a call. It went something like this –
Chad – Did you back into another ditch?
Nat - %$#!@(* you. Fanta or Fresca?
Chad – What? Tab.
Nat - ^%$@!. No Tab. Fanta or Fresca?
Chad – Fresca. You coming to the shoot today?
Nat - *&^%^#.
He would be arriving shortly thereafter.
Back on set we had problems too. Turns out, after an earlier self-inflicted mishap, Sally was in need of a haircut. Good thing we had a stylist on hand. Have I mentioned how bad I felt for Jen?
With all this craziness going on all at the same time it seemed like we were already rehearsing the montage. Everyone seemed to have whatever it was they were doing under control though, so I went in with Doug to scout out the primary shooting location.
Doug and I had many logistical issues to work out. The space we were shooting today was very defined – two rooms, plus one simple exterior. The exterior would be no problem. But the rooms, especially our primary room, where Nat and Sally would be greeted and then styled, looked like they were going to be tricky. On the plus side, this was practically a ready-made and nothing needed much dressing. On the minus side, we had to work in a pretty small space cramped by two revolving chairs, 4 actors, 2 cameras, and a film crew. Oh, and one of the walls, the wall we would almost always be using as a backdrop, was nearly entirely a mirror. We got out our geography books to determine what angles we could still shoot, capturing the room, and not being seen in the mirror. I must admit, though, our limited possibilities were actually a blessing. When Doug and I plan out shots we tend to look at every conceivable possibility before setting things into motion. This allows us to do a lot of trouble shooting before getting into too much of a precarious situation, but it also means that everyone has to wait until we are finished. Normally, all this set up and storyboarding would be done ahead of time. We didn’t really have that luxury on this project. So, the fewer the possibilities, the less possibilities for us to debate, rationalize, and eventually cast aside. We went to work with what we had. The frenetic nature of the montage had inspired us to shoot a lot with the glide cam. We wanted to start with shots on sticks and eventually, as the craziness became more incremental, move to the glide cam. That would come later, though. Doug went to work planning positions and lighting the entire room. David and Tommy tried to figure out how to mic four actors with only 2 lavs. I tried to get out of the way.
A little side note on our equipment. We had decided that, in order to pull this project off (short, stories, and documentary,) we would need a minimum of 6 cameras (1 on short, 1 on stories, and 4 on doc.) And we wanted all 6 cameras to be the same model – a Panasonic DVX-100B. In June we had zero. I was able to acquire one and Doug was able to acquire another a few months later. So, by September we had two. I decided I really wanted to make the short a two camera shoot, though. Meaning two cameras would shoot from two different angles at the same time, thus cutting in half the time to complete the shot list and also ensuring that good takes would be good takes from 2 angles. Plus, I knew we would be using a lot of actors trained more in theater than film. Using two cameras means less cuts and therefore more of the scene may be acted at once (more of a theater than film practice.) All this to say, we may have had 2 cameras locked down, but this decision now meant we were looking for 7 instead of 6. When Joel joined up as producer of the documentary he brought 2 more dvxs with him. That put us at 4. In early October we decided to use a lesser quality, but more mobile camera for stories. So, that put us at 5. We still had a month to go, but had exhausted most of our options. In mid October Allan Rondo joined the doc crew, bringing our camera count to 6. This meant that we could do the project as we had originally imagined, but not like I wanted to. The days started to roll by quicker and quicker. By the 28th, we still only had 6 cameras. Joel was doing constant research and on the 29th he found a dvx that might be bought and also someone who might be able to take it off our hands after the project. Joel did some last minute finagling, we pooled our money together, and on Wednesday had a camera shipped to us from Massachusetts, barely arriving before the start of the project Friday night. I tell you this to help you understand why we mention two cameras and also to say that there is absolutely no way we could have shot this with only one. I’ll save the talk about mics for later.
Joel and I at the wrap party
I walked into the green room and found that Sally’s friend Eric had arrived. Turns out he is a pilot. Very interesting. We spoke a little. He actually seemed rather quiet and I was a little worried as to what his performance might be like. Sara started getting him into makeup while Jen finished her work on Sally’s hair. Nat soon arrived, props in hand. We got Nat quickly into makeup and went outside to get our first shot.
With every scene written, we were always a little unsure as to what transitions we might need to write in. Therefore, we tried to always have our characters arriving in some fashion. This scene was a first date. We decided to have Nat and Sally walk up to the salon, thus establishing we were at a salon. We paid little heed to the fact that according to the sun, this first date took place at about 10:45 in the morning. We also needed this establishing shot to somehow make reference that this was a first date (obviously the characters would know this, but having not written any but one preliminary scene, we weren’t sure the audience would.) We decided that, as Nat and Sally were arriving, we would have them each say the line “First Date,” a reference in the present to something we would write in the future about something which had occurred in the past. The inflection of this line would relate each of the characters’ feelings about said date and hopefully a bit of endearing anxiety, a feeling, based upon the chosen story, we wanted to establish at the outset of this scene. Sally would say it first (unsure) and then Nat (reassuringly). We tried the scene several times, always remembering to have Nat shuffle his feet as he went. I was displeased with how the line was sounding. Nat asked for a different line. I didn’t have one. We tried a couple more times. Still not working. Sally then suggested we swap how the line was inflected by each character. Nat would be unsure and Sally would be reassuring. It worked great. Amazing how little changes can make all the difference. We shot a couple more angles and then broke for lunch.
My parents brought lunch to set this day. They had been in town since Friday night, but this was the first chance I had gotten to see them. We caught up about what all I had been doing and what they were doing. Then they left to take lunch to the recording studio. As we ate, Nat and I worked on completing the writing of his monologue. I had sketched the monologue out and we had many definitive lines, but had yet to form a complete script. We hurried through it and got something down so that Nat could start working on memorizing it. He would have no time once we started shooting again. We moved inside to shoot.
Most of the action in this room would take place as Nat and Sally sat in chairs, tended by Jen and Eric. Nat and Sally would start out having similar salonish things done to and for them, but then we would start a one-up contest of craziness between them. To capture this we needed to show the action on one character, but also the reaction on the other. As stated before, this was very difficult to do with the angles we had been given. Doug though, being the never-say-die guy that he is, went right to work on it. And if that wasn't enough, we also wanted to do a sort of special effects shot where we sat both actors in the chair and then spun them around,time-lapse fashion, to reveal them in facial masks.
Whatever. We were in it now.
As Doug was setting up, we ran the actors through a few rehearsals. We had no specific lines, and asked everyone to basically improvise a greeting. Getting Sally and Nat from the door into the chairs was actually proving to be more logistically challenging and awkward than we had hoped. Eric really came alive in this scene, though, and helped to push things along. He proved to be really great at improvising and I was so thankful Sally had suggested him. Jen gave Eric some quick lessons in styling and he, in turn, gave her some acting pointers, both doing what they could to help each other’s performance.
We got some of our basic shots in the chairs done and then began to move onto some of the more crazier set-ups. These included facial masks, manicures, pedicures, and tattoos. I received a crash course seminar from every woman in the room as to the proper order that these treatments would take place in a spa and was summarily reprimanded anytime I strayed from this order while shooting.
Watching the dailies later that night
I went outside to get some air and a vitamin water and found that Luke, Jenn, and Jenny had showed up on set. You may notice Luke and I make few appearances in each other’s blogs. Unfortunately this mirrored how most of the Nashville 9 went. Due to the nature of our respective roles, we rarely saw each other and almost never worked together. This was very odd for me and I’m sure for Luke also. We had spent everyday for the past year and a half planning for these 9 days, nurturing this plan into fruition. During that year and a half we probably spoke to each other 10 times a day on the phone, not to mention hours upon hours every week in meetings. So, it was kind of odd to come to day one and practically have to say “See you when this all over. Let me know how it went.” So, I took the time we had and caught up a little and then returned inside.
We picked out some hellacious ink for Sally and a killer tramp stamp for Nat. We had originally intended to use a separate actor as a tattoo artist, but instead decided to stick with our two stylists. Jen was a little wary of applying Nat’s tattoo, (have I mentioned all that we asked of her that day?) so I stepped in and did the dirty work. We were starting to have fun and we were getting our shots, but we were also beginning to run a little late. Julie was keeping everyone on task, but we could do only so much to beat the clock. We still had many more elements of the montage to go and started talking about what might need to be cut. We finished up in the main room and decided to move into the other one. But first, we felt it a good idea to go ahead and shoot Nat’s monologue. We had Nat and Sally lie on the floor, heads touching. Doug shot looking down on them. It was a great performance. I felt great because we finally had the opportunity to allow our actors to really focus in on something and work their magic. It's still odd to me to hear someone say words that I've written on a piece of paper. And even odder to hear them spoken better than I heard them in my head. Although Sally had only the opening and closing line to this section, and Nat spoke the rest, she had to speechlessly react to everything Nat was saying. She would represent the way we would want the audience to react. Difficult to do. It was a great scene and my favorite moment of the shoot up to that point. We did a few takes and moved on. We were really starting to run short of time.
Julie
The elements to be shot in the next room were just pure craziness. We set up two cams and let the actors have fun. We tried almost everything Nat had suggested, and I will definitely admit that all played well and really allowed the scene to do what it should. As we neared wrapping for the day, we put everyone to work cleaning up. We had made a bit of a mess. We finally got everything back in order, packed up, and headed back to Luke’s.
We were late, but not that late. We sat down to more good food and some stories.
This night’s stories had been gathered Saturday night on Broadway and 2nd. The atmosphere was very similar to the Halloween stories. We started to notice a trend. We usually got at least 3 stories that immediately went into contention, but also others that seemed lacking in any of a number of elements. I felt for the story gathering team. Not only were they having to constantly make cold contact with people on the street, but also having to explain to them what we were doing, and then trying to convince them to tell a story. I had been pretty resolved about how I wanted the gathering to take place and I know that the team was working their hardest to make that happen. This night they assuredly did their job, bringing in some great stories. I think we were feeling like going in more of a serious mode for the next day and we definitely were given the material to work with. 2 stories really stood out.
One was told by a soldier who had served in Iraq. He had to watch as the parents of a boy worked for hours to dig a a grave in a stone cold ground in which to bury him. Quite a difference from the two previous stories. We debated between this story and the story of a man caught in a flood during Hurricane Katrina. We went back and forth, but at last decided upon the Katrina story.
This was going to be scene 6 and was to be shot in the Downtown Presbyterian Church. We really liked that the story dealt with a man going higher and higher to try and escape something, an act of God. We liked that the man had put himself into this predicament by remaining stubborn and unheeding the advice and warnings of others. We also liked that he was all alone. We liked the fact that he was pushed to the very top, and if the waters had kept coming he might have drowned, but he didn’t. He was given a reprieve.
Downtown Presbyterian
The level aspect was great for the Church. We had several locations we wanted to shoot within the church, each on different levels and each getting smaller and smaller, more claustrophobic and precarious as we went up. We planned on starting in the sanctuary, moving up to a balcony, and then ending in the bell tower.
The sanctuary
Leading up to the balcony
The balcony
We had the logistics. Now we just needed the story of the scene to go with it. As mentioned, this was scene 6, the scene right before the scene we had shot today. We decided not to use this as a Nat or Sally scene, but rather deal with the brother. We really needed to start working him into the story and this seemed like a good place to do it. Based on Nat’s monologue we knew the brother was probably going to be a performer and musician of some sort. We decided if he was going to be a performer and the character in the story was stubborn, we needed to find an appropriate situation for this character flaw to shine though. We decided to make the brother, Jordan, an inept song writer who won’t come to terms with it. We also wanted to eventually elude to the fact, but not in this scene, that Nat’s character, based upon some character elements established in the monologue, was a good songwriter. We wanted the brother to be attempting to write songs in this scene in an attempt to prove everyone wrong. We wanted him, though, to doubt himself a bit, struggling to come to terms with something. We thought it would be appropriate for Jordan to write in a church, a place where he could be without an audience, not judged, and also able to find inspiration. I think by this point we all thought Brandon should play the brother. We checked his schedule to make sure he was free the next day.
The first time I worked with Brandon as an actor was on the 48 Hour Film Project this past August. He was fantastic. I was excited that we were able to cast him. He already knew the story and this meant we would be able to work with our two main characters as we wrote, before arriving on set. Plus, I was really excited to see how Brandon and Nat would act together. I had worked with each one separately, but never together.
We continued writing. The main difficulty for me was in how to show a writer to be a bad writer. The quality of a song is subjective and therefore difficult to show. Nat suggested that the audience would react based on Brandon’s reactions. This seemed a workable idea.
Watching stories
We also needed to find some sort of impetus for Brandon to keep moving up. We decided to find something that would consistently break his concentration and something also intrinsic to the church. We decided that could come in the form of a custodian with a vacuum cleaner. Nat suggested Nick, one of Jenny’s friends, gave him a call, and he agreed to be in for the next day. We were pretty good on props, only needing a guitar (easily gotten) and a vacuum cleaner (easily picked up at my house the next day.) We didn’t have much to write in the form of dialogue, but for the interaction between Jordan and the custodian. We continued writing and I actually got in bed at a decent hour.
Songwriter Blog #2 - Story 2/Song 7 - Can't Not Dance
THE CHAMPION AND HIS BURNING FLAME PART II - HEARING THE SONG - MONDAY AFTER EASTER
The way we planned the Nashville 9, Ryan Pruitt would come in morning at 8am to hear the song I wrote for that day. I'd kind of debrief with him, talk about stuff, etc. That was also supposed to serve as when I would hear the recorded song from the night before. It didn't work out that way for the song "Monday After Easter." I went with Chad, Brandon, and Nat to 12th South Taproom after we picked the story (which I would be writing for Mean Tambourines). We figured as exhausted as we were already, it would be a good idea to have a couple beers (imagine this sentence delivered in a sarcastic tone). Anyway, when we got there, we saw all the guys from The Champion and His Burning Flame along with Producer Shawn Byrne. Everyone was hanging out and having a good time. Shawn and the guys from Champion were excited for me to hear the song. So to a car we went...
Tim listening back to his drum take on Monday After Easter.
Producer Shawn Byrne at 16 Ton Studio.
Mike Esser did a great job engineering Monday After Easter.
Bass player Jeremy.
Singer and Guitar Player Dave.
So we hit play on the car stereo...
The moment I heard the song I kind of freaked out. I don't know how visibly freaked out I was, I'll have to watch the footage someday. All I know is that I couldn't believe how good the song turned out. You spend all this time with one of your best buddies planning to do some project without ever really knowing if it's truly going to work. However, you don't want to let on to anyone else that the results may not be good. So it was a very special moment where I looked at Chad and thought "wow, this project may turn out to be pretty damn good!" I had this moment where I felt like the guy who gets called up to the Big Leagues and then hits a home run his first time at bat. You get really excited but are super stressed out that you wouldn't be able to do it again. All in all, Shawn Byrne and Champion were unbelievable. Let's just say they gave me a good pitch to hit.
Anyway...
Champion had made some changes to the song. It's important that I mention here that I wanted the artists to do that. I wanted them to take the songs and really put their identity into it. The only thing I wanted to make sure didn't happen were lots of lyrical changes- mostly because I'm working hard to tie the song to a specific story. I didn't want to lose that. One thing they did was to make the verses a bit darker and more suited to their style (which I immediately loved). Reed and I wrote a chord part after the first half of the verse- we thought Champion would really like it but they took it out. I honestly didn't notice it gone- the way they did it actually made everything flow better. Also they really made the chorus dance like we hoped they would- it was very "Beatles-esque." I'm not going to even bother telling you how good the bridge was. You'll just have to hear it.
While much of what Chad and I did were in parallel, we differed on one thing. Chad spent the whole day on set actually taking on the role, along with Nat, as a director. This was important for him to be able to see his vision through. I, on the other hand, wanted nearly nothing to do with the recording process. I didn't want to be there when they first heard the song and I didn't want to influence what they did with it. I knew Ryan would be able to handle anything that came up and I didn't want to be in the way. There's nothing worse when you're trying to record a song on a deadline than having someone there saying "why don't you do this" or "I'd like to hear more of this." Even though that's not really something I would do, I knew the artists may be hyper-conscious of me being there. I just wanted to totally remove that issue. So Ryan and I decided that I would just stop in during the day and say "hi, thanks for doing this"- then leave.
Favorite Part of the Song: The Bridge into the broken down chorus. You'll just have to hear it!!
Favorite Added Line: "we're having a baby"
Thing you're sad didn't make the recorded song: Champion took out my original line "tow-truck driver." In its place they sang "Easter driver." If I recall they took it out because it sounded too country to sing "tow-truck." I was cool with them taking it out, but still like "tow-truck" in that it so directly ties to the story of the tow truck driver. Truthfully though, I also like "Easter driver."
The Champion and His Burning Flame put together a video blog about their experience with the Nashville 9. Check it out below.
MEAN TAMBOURINES PART I - WRITING THE SONG - CAN'T NOT DANCE
I entered into this night feeling significantly more confident. I had one song under my belt and felt pretty certain that I could knock this song out without committing to another full night of no sleep. Chad hadn't even slept yet and I could see how much it was affecting him. It made me realize that I needed to quit screwing around get right to writing. I was planning on writing this one alone. The artist that I was writing for was "Mean Tambourines."
Let me give a little back story...
Early on in the project, Ryan spoke with Garrison Starr about the project. Initially we were just hoping that she would maybe write with me one night for one of the artists. To our surprise she said "I want to be one of the artists." Naturally Ryan and I were very very excited. It was a great chance for me to write for someone with whom I was familiar as an artist. Garrison is very well known in the Nashville community and was really going to add a lot to the project. We were also able to pull in producer Mitch Dane (we were lucky enough to pull him in as kind of a package deal with Garrison - he rearranged his schedule to make the sunday work out).
Fast Forward about 2 months.
Circumstances came up that required that Garrison go to New York at the beginning of November. She was super apologetic and regretted not being a part of the project. As a result, we weren't able to work with Mitch Dane either. So the whole thing ended up being twice as upsetting. We were only about 10 days before the project and I was so covered up with Nashville 9 preparation that I could do nothing to find another artist and producer. So, here is where Ryan Pruitt pulls one of the many proverbial rabbits out of the hat.
Ryan says "I kind of know this producer named Jamie Kenney." Over the phone I hear him say "Jamie Kennedy." This leaves me thinking for about a week that he's having the guy from "Malibu's Most Wanted" producing a song. I trust him though and roll with it. (this name misunderstanding/mispronounciation gets cleared up later). Jamie Kenney is someone Ryan casually knows and is willing to sit down and talk about the project with. After I square up the correct spelling of his name I do two important things- 1) Look him up on myspace 2) Ask my friend Alice (who you'll hear about later) what she knows about the guy. Both things yield highly favorable responses.
This is who Jamie Kenney Is...
So Ryan (along with baby Abbott) go and meet with Jamie. Jamie, being the kind of guy that can say "why not?" tells Ryan he'll do it. Ryan calls to finally tell me "WE HAVE OUR 9th PRODUCER." We then go out to have a drink and celebrate! Baby Abbott stays home with mama.
Little Abbott Pruitt got pulled along to many meetings with artists and producers.
Now, when we brought on Jamie, we told him to go ahead and pick the last artist. As of Oct. 28th, we have our final artist brought on by Jamie- Mean Tambourines (no "the"). Ryan and I then go out again to have a drink and celebrate!
Mean Tambourines written on the chalkboard of Jamie Kenney's studio
Back to now...
So I'm exhausted and really wanted to jump on this one. The story that was chosen became known as the "Coke with the Strokes Story." Though the story isn't necessarily a very dark story, I immediately decided to draw on the darker elements. The story "papa smurf" told was about him and a girl he was friends with. He talked about how is parents moved to dickson county Tennessee to keep the kids away from California. Still, as soon as he was 20 he picked up and moved to California anyway. I found that part of the story really interesting and decided to focus on that. Also, instead of focusing on him, I made the girl he was with the focus. So i knew I wanted to use the line "daddy couldn't keep her from California." I figured I'd paint this dark picture about this girl whose daddy tries to keep her from California, but can't. There is something inside her that just gets pulled into California and the Hollywood party life that represents. I don't often get to write dark decadent songs, so this was going to be my chance!
Now, back to Mean Tambourines. I figured this would be stylistically and thematically perfect for them. As I explained earlier in my back story, they came in to the project only a couple days before we started. I really never got a chance to digest their music and meet them like I did the other artists. I listened to half of 2 songs on myspace and spent about 60 seconds talking to Ryan Truso (singer/guitar player) while waiting for the bathroom at 12th South Taproom. Suffice to say I was working off a very general idea of who they were. I went in thinking "dark, dancy, the killers meet joy division, meet david bowie." In retrospect, I probably should have put less focus on The Killers and more focus on the David Bowie- I should have stayed away from the Modern Rock (which is exactly where I went).
I wanted the tune to have a driving pumping bass...so I wrote it on bass. I immediately decided to call it "Can't Not Dance." Yeah, I know its a double negative. Nonetheless I the idea that this girl "Can't Not Dance" seemed cooler to me than calling in "She can Dance." "Can't Not" implied she was sucked into the dance- she can't help but do it. I pretty much wrote the music and melody right away. I had about 25% of the lyrics together and then I called David Scott, knowing he'd be perfect to help write a dark decadent rock song. I know I mentioned in the last blog that I'd tell you more about him, but I'm not going to do that quite yet. He plays a pretty big role later. Suffice to say he threw some fantastic lines at me for this tune.
I'll tell you more about David Scott later- for now however, here's a picture.
Here i am talking to David Scott via iChat- He was in San Francisco.
I had everything written, but was having trouble fitting the melody in chorus. I felt like I had too many words to too short a space. These were the chorus lines that I was struggling with melodically:
She Can't not dance, she can't not dance.
She's spinning in a chemically-fueled romance.
This won't be the chance she'll miss
As she gets sucked into a cocaine kiss
She can't not dance.
I immediately traded the word "sucked" for "pulled." The word "suck" seemed too strong and took up too much attention. And yes, this is what we song writers do- deliberate for hours over things like "suck" or "pull."
Here is what I had the chorus sounding like. This is a quick rough from that night...
The only thing I had left to write was a bridge. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure what else I wanted to say. So instead of writing a bridge I let them go with something instrumental (it seemed to serve me well with Champion). This would now be the second time in a row I went with an "instrumental bridge." This would then serve as an inside joke between Ryan Pruitt and I for the remainder of the project.
So now the song was written and all I needed to do was demo it. I opened up Garageband and went to get Brandon- he was asleep. I had him come in and play the bass part while I threw in some occasional acoustic guitar. You'll see on the video that I made for Mean Tambourines and Jamie Kenney that I was very apologetic for the quality of the demo. It was absolutely by far the worst quality demo I gave to any artist. Mostly this was because I was trying to record a live Bass guitar into the built-in speakers for my laptop. It just sounded terrible! I felt kind of bad because I knew this would make it more difficult on them but I was just too exhausted to set up Pro Tools and try to record the Bass directly in.
Interestingly, this was also my least favorite video that I made for the artists. I was so tired and I felt like I just kept babbling about unimportant stuff. I recorded the video in the garage because there was someone sleeping in every room and I didn't want to wake everyone up. Plus, I hadn't quite got the hang of what I was wanting to say in these videos. So all in all, I left Jamie and Mean Tambourines with a long day ahead of them...
People were asleep everywhere, so I recorded the video for Mean Tambourines in the garage.
Screenwriter Blog #2 - Story 1/Scene2/Plowhaus - Story 2/Scene 7/The Non salon
So, after filling up the cooler with soda, vitamin water, and red bull, picking up coffee from Ryan, and loading our cars down with cameras, lights, and anything else we might need, Doug and I left Luke’s and headed to LeQuire. The actors, after being served breakfast by my parents and running lines with Nat, left my house about 20 minutes before. We were behind schedule a bit, but at least we had a script and everyone was on their way.
Before I got on set, though, I received a call from my sister Christy, who had flown in from Orlando the night before and was to be working as script supervisor. Christy informed me that everyone was at LeQuire, but no one from the gallery was there to let them in. I arrived about 5 minutes later. We were locked out, but Sara Burgers, our hair/makeup person for the day was already getting Sally ready. Sara asked me what “80’s cafe stylish” meant. I told her I had absolutely no idea and that she would need to speak to Brandon, who would soon be arriving, props and jib in hand. Though we were locked out, I was satisfactorily happy to see that the entire cast and crew had shown up. No reflection on them. I was just hoping I had given everyone the right address. I found Nat and inquired if he had any contact info for anyone at the gallery. He didn’t and neither did I. Luckily, someone arrived within the next 15 minutes.
We started bringing equipment in. I asked Alan if he minded our using the jib.
I should probably explain about the jib.
A jib is basically a crane with a camera mounted on one end. I had been pushing to get one donated for months, but had had no luck.
A Jib
About a week and a half earlier I had asked Brandon if he might be able to build one for us. He said sure. The first time I saw OUR jib, I was pretty speechless - except to say, “Wow. That’s pretty big. And pretty amazing.” Out of galvanized steel, Brandon had built a jib with a 9 foot arm that could rotate 360 degrees, and raise and lower anywhere from 12 feet to just above ground level. With a lever system, the camera mounted on the front could pivot both horizontally and vertically. An LCD screen was mounted so that, while in motion, the operator could see what was being shot. And to top it off, everything was mounted on a Dolly with tracks.
Our Jib
It was and is amazing and I wanted to use it for every shot. Anyway, Alan said we could bring it in. I thanked him and asked him to look over and sign a location release.
Sally, also still a little unsure as to Brandon’s instructions, had brought half her closet and everything purple she owned. She and I and my sister looked through her wardrobe and designed an outfit. She went off to change.
The rest of the crew was busy determining where to set up shop. Doug, Julie Smith, who was working as AD, and I started to make a shot list. David Wagner (Sound Mixer) and Tommy Wilson (Boom) needed to know where they could set up, be out of the way, and out of shot. I asked my sister to set up Craft Services. Nat took the actors off to a corner to run lines. And when Brandon arrived, he and Eric Brooks starting bringing in and setting up the jib. All the while a documentary crew, who tried to stay out of our way and whose way we tried to stay out of, were shooting everything.
Things were moving. Moving forward I still wasn’t sure. I knew we were only about an hour into production and everyone was busy trying to feel out the process, but still, it would have felt really nice to get a shot out of the way.
After the jib was set up, we brought the actors in and started blocking the scene. It wasn’t going to be easy to shoot. The room set-up necessitated that we shoot by breaking the plane ( here’s the basic rule number one of shooting a scene - draw an invisible line. Action can take place in an 180 degree arc on either side of that line, but not usually on both. We needed to shoot on both sides. Which is fine. It just meant continually reorienting the audience. But we had no fears. Come on. Did I mention we had a jib?)
Doug setting up shots
So, we started walking through the jib master for the scene. An ambitious first shot. Several elements had to be perfectly coordinated to make everything work. The actors had to nail their blocking and the camera had to follow them in a continuous shot (actually leaving the actors at one point, focusing in on sculptures, and then returning focus to the actors.) Plus the actors were still learning their lines.
At about 11:45 we were ready to shoot the first shot. Lunch arrived. We decided to get the first shot and then break for lunch.
At about this time also, Nat came to me and told me we had a problem. The Gallery was having issues with our location release.
We decided to break for lunch.
I spoke to Elizabeth, the Gallery manager, and Alan about the release. It seems they were very concerned about the use of the plethora of copyrights (read sculptures) in the gallery in the film. We had moved quickly to secure this location and had not worked out all the details. Still, we felt that showing the sculptures, as we had specifically spoken about on Wednesday, was exactly what the gallery wanted. The main concern on the gallery’s side seemed to be with the ownership and use of any footage utilized outside of one showing of the short film. I told Elizabeth and Alan I’d see what I could do. I called Jenn and asked her if she could get me Michelle’s, our lawyer, number. Jenn didn’t think there was anything Michelle could do about the situation. It was after 12 and we were running out of time. I decided to go back to Alan and Elizabeth and see what we could negotiate. I asked if we could cover the statues and just utilize the space, still recognizing it as a gallery (as we had written the scene specifically for a gallery.) They conferred and I went to check on everyone else. Everyone was eating and anxious. I went back into negotiations. The gallery felt that if we were to shoot without showing the sculptures (which we had now agreed was going to be impossible to do) we would more or less just be using this space as a location to shoot in, and this would be unfair to others who would normally be charged to utilize the space. We didn’t have any money. We were at an impasse. As there was no solution in sight and as we were running out of time, I decided we should vacate the Gallery. I informed everyone and everyone immediately started making phone calls in an attempt to find a new gallery. It was a little after 1 and we needed to be finished shooting and back at Luke’s house to watch stories by 5.
Lots of calls and nothing. We continued tearing everything down, carrying it out, and packing it up. It was about 1:30.
More calls and nothing.
Until Julie was able to contact a friend who had a contact at the Plowhaus Gallery in East Nashville (entirely across town.) Julie gave the Plowhaus a call, let them know what we wanted to do, and got the okay. The word was spread and our convoy pulled out - onto a highway only to find traffic crawling; a situation actually less stressful than might be imagined. We had absolutely no control and had to resolve to sit where we were. Traffic eventually started moving and we all sped away.
Julie
We arrived at the Plowhaus. I believe Brandon hit a car with the jib. I’m not sure. We unloaded everything and brought it in. We took a look at the set-up. Although structured somewhat similarly, we still had to rethink all of the blocking. We also had to revise much of the content. The scene would now deal with paintings and not sculptures. Also, the content of the artwork was entirely different. This gallery had a looser feel, so we also felt the need to dress Eric down a little more.
Preparing to shoot at Plowhaus
We still wanted to use the jib and we were still in the same predicament of having to break the plane. Also, we were going to have to put Sally in one corner of the room and Nat and Eric in the other, but be able to cheat so that it would not appear they were 25 feet apart when they confronted each other.
Also, we needed something for Sally to break. Originally, Brandon had found some ceramic pieces that could stand as broken sculptures. That didn’t seem to play here. Brandon remembered he had a few tiles in his truck we could break. The gallery also had something already broken. We decided we would hang one tile (masked to look like a painting by doc crew member Major Chisholm) on the wall and then piece together another tile with the broken gallery piece and place it on a makeshift pedestal. We realized we only had 2 tiles to work with and both needed to be broken. Those shots would have to be one takes.
About to be destroyed
It was about 3 o’clock. We hadn’t started shooting yet. It was 3 o’clock on day one and we still hadn’t started shooting. It was nerve-racking. It was cool. We were just about ready.
Once we started rolling everything started to run really smoothly. We got our one takes, everyone started having fun, and we used the jib a lot. We didn’t make it home by 5, but we did make it by 5:30. Not too bad. Considering.
Shooting outside the Plowhaus
This had been a really bad day and a really good day. It was 5:30 and I hadn’t slept since 6am on Friday. We barely got a script written and we lost a location in the middle of the day.
But we had come through it all. We had come together as a team, made something great happen, and beat the odds. I had confidence in us when we started, but no where near the confidence I had at the end of that day.
And I can’t express enough how thankful I am to the Plowhaus. Without them there might not be any movie to be shown. They really came through for us and with very little idea of what we were trying to get accomplished.
Making the best of a bad situation
I liked how Luke set up some details and superlatives in his blog, so I’m going to steal his idea and incorporate some of my own.
Best/Most Interesting Use of Prop - Brandon couldn’t find Peeps. They are really, really hard to locate out of season. Instead he brought in what was obviously the next best thing - Cherry Slices. We weren’t sure Nat was very fond of them, so we used them in a lot of takes. By the end of the day all we had left was a container of half eaten candy and one Nat not feeling his best.
Short Film Element Written In that Potentially Really Tied Our Hands Later On - 1. As Nat enters the Plowhaus he very noticeably shuffles his feet, a character trait that was to haunt us for the rest of the shoot. 2. Why does Sally carry a wad of money around?
Brandon, Nat, and I made our way back to Luke’s. We arrived and dinner was waiting for us. I don’t remember what we had, but I remember it was really good. We started watching stories.
This was Halloween night, so we had a lot of costumes and a lot of crazy stories. We once again debated over a few, but eventually decided upon Papa Smurf doing coke with the Strokes.
Choosing on the second night was both easier and harder than choosing on the first. We now had a story line, however bare, that we were working with, but also against. The story we chose was not an obvious choice, but we did like its tone and we felt we could pull a lot out of it.
What we really liked about the story was that it was a shared experience (this guy and this girl both set out together and neither one knows what they’re in for,) they are completely out of their environment, the events are instigated by the female character (she wanted to see the Strokes,) there was a sense of innocence and amazement to the whole thing (from Tenn/never been to California, didn’t know who the band was, excited to be in limo, limited drug use,) what started out relatively normal(going to a show) just kept getting crazier and crazier, more outlandish and unbelievable (meeting band, riding in limo, doing coke with them and other band,) it was all physical “debauchery”, and that there appeared to be absolutely no repercussions from this “debauchery”, except at one point, a breaking point (locking self in room and writing notes) a true inner self came out.
As the Non Salon was our location the next day, everything had to take place within and associated with a salon. We had two rooms we could utilize in the salon - the cutting room and the washing room. Both had facilities for two people, meaning we could have similar action taking place to two people at the same time (as opposed to say having one person get a haircut, while another waited.)
The confrontation
Once again, we liked that the story dealt with both a male and female character. We decided to continue the Nat and Sally story. This was scene 7, so we figured we’d have some time (i.e. four other scenes) to get them to wherever we placed them in this scene.
So,
Shared Experience - We decided Nat and Sally should be on a date.
Innocence and amazement - First date.
Out of normal Environment - John would be very hesitant about dating in general. The date would take place at a Hair Salon.
Instigated by Girl - At the beginning of the scene, Sally will appear to have asked Nat out and will be reassuring him that what they were doing is okay.
Incremental Craziness - we decided this salon would be unlike any other salon, anywhere. We would start out with something normal (a haircut and shampoo) and progressively have the services provided become more and more outlandish.
Physical Debauchery - This was to be a very physical scene. Nat and Sally will constantly be having something done to their person, or be performing some kind of action themselves.
There are no repercussions - the date goes really well, Nat and Sally roll with whatever is thrown at them and come out closer in the end.
Except there is a breaking point with revelations about the self - At the end of the entire scene we decided to have a release. A build and then a release. A very calm release, though, where Nat talks about his relationship with his brother, something he would never do to anyone, including himself.
We should have gotten down to writing, but we didn’t. That day’s sense of accomplishment and this night’s near complete scene sketch instigated a trip to the 12 South Tap Room. We stayed for an hour, met the guys from The Champion and His Burning Flame, heard the song they had recorded that day, and then headed back home.
We got down to writing.
We had decided earlier that this might be a good place for a montage. We wanted to show a lot of crazy things in a short amount of time with little relationship. Obviously a montage. Nat wanted to take it further than I did. I wanted everything that happened to Nat and Sally to be Salon specific and Nat wanted it to go beyond that, heightening the absurd nature of the date. I wanted it to be absurd, but felt like we needed to stay true to the salon. We went back and forth. We were both tired and anxious to get something written.
Nat was worried we weren’t going to get anything done and we’d fall into the same trap we had the day before; that of writing up until the last moment, continuously revising, and getting no sleep. Nat made it very clear to me that I needed to get some sleep. I was exhausted and was having trouble staying awake at the moment. It was decided that we would get props for many montage options and see what played best. We sent Brandon out to find fake tattoos, facial masks, and an assortment of other things.
We needed Sally again. I called her and asked her to show up again at my house in the morning and bring clothes she might wear on a first date to a hair salon.
Sally in character
We needed two Hair Stylists. Jen McDonald was a strong possibility for one. She had mentioned already that she would act if we needed her to. We weren’t sure what our ensemble provided us as to other possibilities. We thought about using Julie. We also needed a tattoo artist. We thought Julie could possibly be cast as this, the tattoo artist, also, or instead of, a stylist. When I had spoken to Sally, she had mentioned she had an actor friend who was available. I asked if he could play a stylist and she said definitely. I called her back and asked her to ask her friend to show up the next day, not knowing who we would be using. We now had options though.
I was tired and practically passed out. I woke in the middle of the night several hours later to work on the last part of the scene, Nat’s monologue.
I wasn’t sure where to take it. This needed to be some kind of revelation to the characters and to the audience about the relationship Nat and his brother have. It needed to be the stimulus for Nat to try and work out some difficulties in his relationships. It needed to bring Nat and Sally closer together. It needed to be pretty confessional and hard for Nat to say. Nat had to be digging up some demons from the past. It needed to go back a way.
Nat acting - as a projection screen
I started working up some ideas about a story concerning John and his brother, now named Jordan, being taken to a concert by their father when they were really young. The story dealt with the buildup to the concert, events at the concert, and how those events had effected their lives to this day.
Nat was awake now and I showed him the sketch. He liked it. We worked through a couple of more elements and by this time Doug had arrived. Nat headed off to meet the actors. I was still finishing up the rough sketch of the monologue when Nat left, but sent it to my house before he arrived.
Doug and I started taking a look at the script. We were a little behind schedule, but no where near as bad as the day before. Still, we were working with a montage and that meant lots of shots.
Doug had never been to the Non Salon and so I tried to explain it to him. We decided, if we were doing a lot of set ups with a lot of action, we might want to rely on the glide cam as our main camera for the day.
Julie arrived and I asked her if she was cool playing a hair stylist and/or a tattoo artist. She was, of course, cool with either.
We packed everything up and headed towards the salon.
Stories from everyday people were the key component of The Nashville 9. Here's the story that was chosen for Day 2. It served as the inspiration for scene 7 of the nine-scene short film and song 7 of the nine-song album. (Note: Story contains profanity; the story was collected on Halloween 2008, which is the reason for the storyteller's Papa Smurf costume.)
Songwriter Blog #1 - Day 1/Song 2 - Monday After Easter
This blog, over the next nine weeks, will attempt to explain just what The Nashville 9 set out to do and just what the Nashville 9 did. One of the most intriguing things to me about this project was that we would capture the process of writing/recording a song from start to finish. It would begin each night with the four of us watching 9 stories and choosing one. That story would serve as the inspiration for the song that would be written. We would then be filmed sitting down and writing the song. The next morning the artist and producer would be filmed getting the song, working on the song, and recording the song.
Even though I am titled as the Songwriter, I was never truly alone in this process. I was lucky to be able to work with several talented songwriters, including Utility Man Brandon McDonald. No song was ever written independently of anyone else- this was in all ways a collaborative effort.
That being said, I really need to start this whole thing out by talking about Music Coordinator Ryan Pruitt. Though he never sat down with me to write a song, he pretty much did everything else. So much of the effort on the music end of this project went to pre-Nashville 9 efforts. So many of these great artists and producers are a direct result of Ryan sitting down, buying someone he hardly knows a drink and saying "I'd like to talk to you about this project..." I couldn't be more grateful for the work he did before, during, and continues to do after. Every morning he arrived with a 2 coffees and sat down with a mix from the night before; he listened to songs I wrote in an exhausted haze; he scrambled to make things happen when things fell through; he talked me down; he talked me up; he even did some filming. So Thanks Man! Ryan Pruitt at Work During The Nashville 9
THE CHAMPION AND HIS BURNING FLAME PART I - WRITING THE SONG - MONDAY AFTER EASTER
About 5 days before the 1st night of the project, Ryan Pruitt and I had an opportunity to go see The Champion and His Burning Flame at The Basement. I already had their EP. My wife Jenn and I listened to it several times while driving to a friend's wedding in Newport, RI. Listening to the album, they reminded me of The Shins meet a Volkswagon Commercial. I really loved their stuff. Live however, I was even more impressed - they were much better musicians than I had anticipated. So I had a couple goals going into this: 1) I wanted their song to be fun, upbeat and a bit quirky 2) I wanted plenty room for the keyboard player and his melodies. I really liked the way he played his parts and also sang these great backing melodies...it was really cool. 3) I knew from watching them live that the rhythm section was really strong, so i wanted to create something that would dance (in a bouncy way). 4) Most importantly, I wanted to somehow get in some hand claps (my own little homage to my favorite of their songs - The Expert).
I decided in advance that I wanted to write with Reed Pittman...for several reasons. As a keyboard player who writes strong melodies, I thought he'd add a great deal to my goal of writing something that really played in to what their keyboard player does. Also, I knew he'd really have a good feel for their music. Most importantly however, I'm comfortable writing with him and knew that the first night of this thing would present tons of obstacles. I felt safer having someone who I was familiar with. Reed Pittman with Chad Morgan at The "Wrap Party."
After seeing Story #1, I knew immediately what the song would be called - "Monday After Easter." At a certain point in the story, she specifically made reference to "the monday after easter." I wanted to paint a picture of this girl who had this really difficult day but somehow "stays sweeter than the monday after easter." I pulled in elements from her being broken down on the side of the road. I also used references to candy along with lines like "bite more than you chew." I made the first verse about her and then went on to talk about the tow truck driver in the second verse. Me writing on the first night.
Unexpected Obstacle #1: I had completely underestimated how difficult it would be to write with a camera on me. I immediately felt like I was performing and as a result felt like everything I did had to be good. There was one stationary camera and then one moving camera. I was very conscious of the "roving camera." To me, song writing is so much about being comfortable- and I just wasn't. I quickly realized that these 9 days would require serious adjustments. Song Writing on camera was proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Cameraman Allan Rondo filming me on the first night of the project. Allan also filmed each of the 9 days in the studio.
Then Reed got there. Immediately the feel in the room changed. He was dressed as Elton John, which certainly lightened the mood. We went right to it. In about 90 minutes we had written most of the music, melody and some of the first verse.
Unexpected Obstacle #2: Reed had a gig at Tin Roof 2 from 10pm until about 2am. The moment he left, the momentum died down and I began grinding through the lyrics.
This was the first night and I was very nervous that I wasn't going to finish or write something good. You kind of have this fear that the band is going to get the song the next day and be like "umm...this kind of sucks." I called my friend David Scott (you'll hear more about him later) and got his thoughts and contributions on some lyrics. I also bounced some stuff off of Brandon.
Unexpected Obstacle #3: It was Halloween night. The house was full of strange people. The dogs were on edge and constantly barking. Just when it seemed everything would calm down, trick or treaters would ring the doorbell sending the dogs into a frenzy. The whole night had a sluggish and awkward kind of rhythm to it. The Sheets dogs, Vega and Mike, were pretty overwhelmed throughout the nine days...and especially the first night.
Anyway, when I came up with the line "another girl would just go sour..." It was pretty much in the bag. From there I just waited for Reed to get back from the Tin Roof to play a rough demo with me. I was just hoping he didn't drink too much to get through the demo : ) He got to the house at about 3:30am. From there things went pretty quickly. I felt kind of bad for Nat, Chad, and Brandon because we were pretty loud and Reed has this fun habit of stomping pretty loudly when he gets into a song. I'm sure it was rather distracting while they were trying to write in the other room. If you get a chance, you should check out the VidCast from Day 1. You'll see Chad trying to give an interview, but all you can hear is me and Reed rocking out to "Monday After Easter."
We knocked out a live demo and made a quick "Flip Video" for the band. I had a couple beers and then lay on the couch for a good 45 minutes of sleep. Don't give me any sympathy for that however- Chad still had about 22 hours before he finally slept for the 1st time. I fell asleep pretty anxious about how the next day would go. Would the band like it? What would Ryan say? etc... When I heard the mix, it wasn't anything like I expected...
Below is the video Reed and I made for the artist and producer:
This blog, over the next nine weeks, will be an attempt to explain just what The Nashville 9 set out to do and just what the Nashville 9 did. As this project was as much about the process as it was the end result, I hope these notes will be enlightening, or at least informative, creating a different perspective from which to view the short film, but not as any sort of substitute for it.
Though titled as the screenwriter, I’d like to make it known right from the beginning that the writing of the screenplay was a completely collaborative effort, and without the many great additions of story elements, dialogue, and character formations by Nat and Brandon, it would not have taken the shape it did. I can point out just who added what, but hopefully we’ve structured it so that you cannot. We worked as a team and we wrote as a team.
The Nashville 9 was built on the premise that chance (stories, story gathering) working within a very structured environment (locations, scene order, ensemble cast, daily deadlines, choice of story) would be an ideal creative situation. A film usually begins with a story. A story which is then turned into a script. For which locations are found. And actors are cast. We would be taking typical filmmaking and turning it on its head; starting at the end and working back to the beginning. Everyday.
So then,
By Friday the 31st, we knew where we’d be shooting the script, in what order we would be shooting the script, who would be delivering the lines of the script, and how long we would be shooting the script.
But yet we had no script, let alone any story. Granted, we knew this might present problems, but were confident we had a structure in place good enough to deal with whatever got thrown at us. At this point I was less afraid and more anxious; ready to start dealing in something more than potentials. I did have one fear, though, something I wouldn’t really voice to anyone. I knew nothing could halt production and perhaps fatally hamstring the project as much as a loss of a location could.
My intent was to find a variety of locations that represented Nashville. Each scene would have its own, unique location, and no location would ever be repeated. Every place tells its own story, and I wanted us to focus in on that story and how that story and space really could frame the collected story we had been given and how it must play into the scene order. I thought a good way of doing this would be by limiting ourselves to one day of shooting at each place. Locations were not randomized, but were chosen by availability, access, and willingness to accommodate.
By Wednesday Oct. 29, we had 9 (somewhat) secured locations. That afternoon, though, I received a call from Nite Train Coach, our first location, informing us we might have a problem. We had been scheduled to shoot inside one of their tour buses. The only contingency - there might not be any buses on their lot the day of our shooting. And so on Wednesday, I learned this was the case. A problem, but at this point, definitely not unsolvable. I called Nat and gave him a few more location ideas to scope out. And even though he got right on it and I felt sure we would get something else, I was a little depressed that we had lost our tour bus location. It was a very Nashvillian element to me. Plus, I really wanted to see how Doug was going to shoot in there. So, I called Sandy Drury, who had originally hooked me up with Nite Train, and asked her if she knew of any other buses that might be possibilities. Also, I asked Teia, a friend of mine and a friend to the stars, if she knew of any buses we might be able to use. Both worked hard, but with such short notice, came up with nothing. Nat, though, I soon learned, was in the process of securing a location for Saturday. LeQuire Gallery, studio of sculptor Alan LeQuire (Musica, the Athena in our Parthenon) seemed very interested in having us for the shoot. I took lunch and headed out to meet Nat at the gallery.
The location was great. One half of the building was a gallery, the other half a studio. Nat and I had a quick meeting, coming to immediate agreement that we were interested primarily in the studio section, a large room with tall ceilings (good for a jib), almost completely open in the center and surrounded with sculptures of all sizes. We took note that on one wall stood a model platform. We really wanted to utilize the space and its specifics for all we could, and that meant focusing in on the sculptures. There were so many great pieces (models of Musica, huge heads of civil rights leaders, a larger than life-sized wood carving of Jimmy Swaggart) and we asked if we might feature a couple. The gallery seemed extremely pleased with the idea, we talked through some more details, and solidified that our first day of shooting would be here. So, we were good. We had lost one location that day, but secured another (a great aspect of Nashville that I had overlooked,) bringing us back to 9.
To restate, there were many elements to this project; many of which were easily palatable, others maybe not so much so. I was really adamant about keeping as part of the process the randomization of the writing of the scene order. I really felt this tactic would keep us focused on the story, location, and specific scene at hand. We couldn’t screw anything up or we would be hard pressed to fix it later. Also, the knowledge that any scene and story might have been set at any other location also served the purpose of showing what a factor chance would play in our story, and that this was but one path that might have been taken. Plus, I just thought it would be kind of fun. On Thursday, the drawing of the scene/song order was held at our kick-off party. The order drawn was 2,7,6,8,4,9,1,5,3 - meaning that on day one we would be writing scene 2, to be set at the LeQuire Gallery. Sponsorship Coordinator Jenny Moss randomly drawing a scene/song order number the night before we began.
I spent most of Friday making last minute plans, saying goodbye to my home, and, due to an office Halloween party, trying to finish my work at a poorly lit desk. At 11 AM the story gathering team started collecting stories on Demonbreun. Although I had heard it went really well, I still had a very hard time grasping that we were underway. I was anxious to get out of work, start watching stories, and see what Halloween costume Nat had found for me. Watching stories in our Halloween costumes. Nat was given free reign to pick out costumes for Luke and I.
At 5PM we sat down to dinner, in costume, and began watching stories. After viewing all nine, we agreed on a few finalists. To summarize -
Jon Bon Jovi walks into a bar where someone is performing one of his songs. He gets up and sings.
A patron leaving a bar runs into Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt.
A girl with two flat tires is picked up by a tow truck.
Two roommates compete in some sort of sex Olympics.
We debated the merits of all four, judging originality, abundance of details, structure, and usability.
From what I recall, we were all vying for different stories, but we eventually decided upon the tow truck story. It felt really good to get going and I felt really confident that based on these stories we were going to get good stories all 9 days.
Luke went off to start work on the song, Brandon prepared to go out and gather more stories, and Nat and I sat down to pull out what we could from this story.
We decided that scene 2 should be more of a beginning to our story rather than scene 1. Scene 1s purpose would be to serve as a conclusion to another story, yet set us on a path to this story. 2 would serve as the primary scene for exposition.
Nat and I both liked the idea of writing something about brothers. So, we set out to make Nat’s character, John (I tend to write most of my main characters as Johns,) a brother to another character and also an outsider to the world we were creating. These elements really had nothing to do with the story at hand, but were rather just what Nat and I wanted to write about. Nat and I working out the details of the story.
We then started pulling out elements we really liked. We liked the relationship between the tow-ee and the tow-er and decided to keep the sex of each party the same, meaning Nat would take on characteristics of the tow-er, and then we would need to write another character, a woman, who would be the tow-ee.
It’s reasonable to get one flat tire, but two seems extremely out of the ordinary. We rationalized that although this lady’s debilitating mishap was brought about by her own carelessness, the damage was entirely unintentional. Plus, we liked the innocence of the character (e.g. She was afraid a cow might come along to add to her predicament.) We knew we needed to make her stuck wherever she was (the Lequire Gallery) so we started to play around with this idea.
There were only so many reasons we could stick our character at a studio and still make it intrinsic to the location. We remembered the model stand and thought about making her a model. Or she could be a patron. Or she could work there in some other fashion. We liked the model idea best and moved on to determine the damage she could do.
We weren’t sure whether to make the damage physical or otherwise. We debated making the car in the story another character, someone she could do some verbal damage to. The last part of the story, the misunderstanding in thought (she thinks the tow truck driver is being lewd, she tries to lighten the situation, she accidentally becomes the lewd one) got us thinking about a misunderstanding this character could have with John. We thought about using her innocence (we wanted the audience to like her) as a recipe for her unintentionally making, what John would misconstrue as offensive remarks, to another patron in the gallery, doing damage, “forcing” John to step in.
We started taking a look then at John’s role in this situation. We talked about how a tow truck driver is a hero of sorts. He comes to you when you are completely helpless. But that is his job. So really, all though he comes to your aid, he cannot necessarily be considered a hero, because it is his duty to do so.
So, we needed to come up with a reason for John to be in this gallery, performing some kind of heroic deed as duty. Also, spurred on by the story, we began thinking about how it is common to treat a tow truck driver as savior, but very warily once you begin to look at your own helpless situation, realizing you are at the mercy of whoever is coming for you. And in turn begin to misrepresent your fear as the malicious thoughts of these predatory tow truck drivers, ready to exploit your mishap into their gain somehow, prejudging and usually misjudging them before they even arrive. We’ve all seen Adventure’s in Babysitting, right?
We thought this might work in somehow.
So, our female character needed to be stuck here and John needed to be there because it was a duty he was obligated to fulfill. Plus, some damage needed to be done. There needed to be misjudging of the situation. And, per the story, there needed to be a twist at the end (specifically one where the female character becomes the instigator, turning the tables on the male character.)
At this point we were ready to call Sally Hall in to play our female character. Sally had joined the project as both actress and PA, and had originally been scheduled to work as PA the next day. We decided, though, that she would be great as this character we were coming up with. Nat called her up, asked her to be at my house at 7AM, and she was good to go. Actor Sally Hall.
We thought about having her stuck at the gallery because she was a model (she works there so she has to be there,) but also by switching the verbal damage to physical damage of a piece of art, broken by mistake. We wanted her to break something, be at the mercy of the gallery, and then, maybe, have John come to her aid. We still weren’t sure why john would be there, though. Would he be a student in an art class? Would he be a patron? And we didn’t want Sally and John to know each other before. They really needed to begin judging each other strictly from that moment. We started thinking that one aspect of John’s duty might be to his brother. We liked the idea that Nat was at the gallery for a reason, but didn’t want to be there. We decided he should be picking up a sculpture for his brother and making reference to the fact that this brother also had money, while John had none, further reinforcing an indebtedness to this brother. We weren’t sure why he would be indebted and why the relationship might be rocky, but we figured we had 8 other scenes to figure that out. We decided Sally should break something expensive, thus bringing upon her the wrath of the gallery.
To bring the wrath we knew we needed a gallery owner. We put a call into Eric Berner, whom we had seen act in Boxed Lunch, shown at the most recent 48 Hour Film project. He was also good to go for the morning.Actor Eric Berner.
We knew we wanted Sally to be very apologetic over her carelessness, realizing the mess she was in. We wanted, though, no respite from the gallery. We wanted Sally to get fed up and break another sculpture (2 tires) on purpose. We wanted at that moment for John to offer to pay for the damage, not for any noble reason, but rather because he wanted to screw over his brother. We would have set up that the only money John has is his brother’s, and if he pays for Sally’s damage, he cannot pay for the piece of art his brother had sent him to pick up. We thought Sally should confront John about this, exclaiming she doesn’t need some kind of hero, who she’s now indebted due, to rush in and save her from herself just so he can get off on it. We wanted Nat then to make it known that she had no idea why he was doing what he was doing, and if she thought he was doing it for her, she was gravely mistaken. As a twist, we decided to have Sally pull out a wad of money and buy the piece of sculpture Nat was originally intending to buy, thus turning the tables on him.
By this time we had a good script idea in place and Doug and John Newman had arrived for our production meeting. John was very familiar with LeQuire’s work and after taking a look at some pictures from the studio he had some great ideas about the look we should go for within the scene. John thought that by moving certain pedestals of sculptures around we could get a great sense of claustrophobia and also be able to use them as extras, implying voyeurs watching the scene going on around them. We talked about Sally and whether we should make her blend into the gallery or stand out. John had noticed that most, if not all, of the sculptures of females had their hair pulled back. So, if we wanted Sally to fit in, as a model should, we should have hair pulled back. But still we wanted her to stand out somewhat, not exactly fitting in. So we decided to dress her in purple, something that would make her stand out somewhat, but still remain complimentary to the rest of the gallery.
For some reason we had Brandon call and give her the wardrobe details. I remember Brandon telling her to dress 80’s cafe stylish, and for some reason me being okay with that. Must have been caught up in the momentum of the night. Either Sally didn’t care or just wanted to get back to the Halloween party she was attending. Nat called Eric and asked him to wear a suit. Brandon also went to work on getting props. It wasn’t essential to the story, but we thought a nice tie-in might be to have John eat peeps in the scene. I was reticent as to the motivation for this, but Nat thought it added an interesting character quirk. Brandon also needed to find some ceramic pieces we could break, a box to serve as what Nat was buying, and a wad of money. Brandon in the background calling Sally.
Everyone left and I sat down to write the script. A few hours later Nat came in and we worked through what we had. We had a beginning and middle that we were both pretty happy with, but not fully an ending. I continued writing.
Several hours later the script was still at an impasse. I was happy with where we were going, but felt like the dialogue should be saying more. I always knew the scene on the first day was going to be the hardest to write, but I also knew this scene would be one of the most important, setting the mood for the rest of the short. I agonized over every line, rewriting and rewriting, still with no ending to the scene. I didn’t get any sleep, and when Nat woke up at 6, he wasn’t too pleased, feeling I had complicated the scene too much, all without still having an ending. We both got pretty stressed. We only had an hour before Doug was to be arriving to storyboard the script and Nat was to meet with the actors. We set about simplifying what had been written and eventually getting an ending. We were pretty happy with what we had, but not in the least happy that we were cutting the deadline so close. Nat had to rush off to work with the actors, and Doug and I had to make other preparations, not really getting much of a chance to storyboard anything.
It was 8:30AM, we were running about half an hour late, somewhat unorganized, and with a script we were only sort of happy with. Not the best way to start the first day of shooting.
