Update

One of the frustrating truths about independent filmmaking is that sometimes you cast an actor who drops out at the last moment. Sometimes it is due to legitimate scheduling conflicts with, say, the television series on which she is the leading role. Sometimes it is due to money — Spielberg calls, for example. Sometimes it is due to illness or family crisis.

With one phone call, the lives of dozens of people, locations and enterprises shifted. I have no idea why Justin dropped out; I'd only had a brief breakfast conversation with him about it and he seemed genuinely excited to do the role. I believe that he wanted to do it.

Terrible. We had less than a few days to find a new Owen.

Fortunately, Josh Hopkins, who was all set to play Owen's nemesis, Charles, and I had spoken in our first meeting about how he could essentially play either of the roles. Josh is a talented actor, fearless, funny and a real goofball inside a leading man. I couldn't be more happy about Josh playing Owen!

My producing partner, Gill, believes these things happen for a reason, that the movie that should be made gets made in whatever way the stars align... or something like that. (Full disclosure: Gill would never, EVER put it that way. I am paraphrasing. Okay, I made it up.) Anyway, things happen. We adapt or we don't.

When anything difficult happens on a film, I always rely on the advice of my friend Kathryn Tucker, who is also one of the producers of this project. She says, "Remember first to panic, then blame someone, then eat." Obviously, she's joking, but it kind of works!

Onward and upward and off to cast Charles.

Cast!

I'm very excited.

Casting, Auditions, Root Canal.

Pretty much the same. For everyone involved. Okay, maybe not the dentist, but for everyone else. Yes, actors, that includes the director and producers. (Okay, some of us.) I hate auditions because I don't like seeing talented people working hard and then not getting cast for something as simple as, say, their hair color or height or their age. It's brutal and unfair and inhumane. Actors too often get labeled as "crazy."

No wonder.

Scouting

Rainy and cold for several days in the Ville. Hoping it's all coming down now so June will be all clear skies for Tan Lines.

Enjoyed a full day of location scouting at several spots, including Whitehall, the hero's house (home of production designer's sister), and the River Walk park. Discovered some challenges and some nice surprises. Casting meeting at the Green Building with Mary Clay. Back home around nine, just in time to see Gill and Augusta for a moment.

I've been sick for a few days. At first I thought it was allergies, then a cold. Now I'm pretty sure it's allergies. Everywhere I go I hear people say that Louisville is the worst place in the country to live for seasonal allergies. Don't know if this is true, but I'm certain it's challenging. Driving around this lovely city all day and living among its citizenry certainly makes me believe it would be worth it. There's so much to do and see and hear and be in this town. There's art at every turn, delicious food and great music in every block, gorgeous architecture and thriving neighborhoods. Bike lanes and Olmstead parks. 

And now... a movie in pre-production.

In Tan Lines, Owen, the hero loses his job as a tennis pro from this place...

...and has to take a job at this place...

Intellectual Yoga

Whenever I work on a screenplay, I rarely have to try to imagine the world I'm depicting. More often, the rooms, the colors, the neighborhoods, the sheets and pillow cases, the schools — essentially, anything that gets typed into Final Draft — already exist somewhere in my brain. The spaces are there. My job is to populate them with authentic characters. Dialogue, plot and character work is where I toil. Perhaps not surprisingly, going into production can be a rude awakening. A location scout can easily become a chase after an environment or building that, while very real to me, simply does not exist.

Films with large budgets don't have this problem. The more money you have, the more options. (Isn't that true of everything?) But limitations also force you to be creative. A scene imagined as a spacious lobby with lots of glass bricks becomes in reality a narrow, cinderblock hallway with no windows. Hardly your ideal setting.

Or is it?

"Are there any more options?" No, I'm told. I have minutes to decide whether or not this will work and, if not, whether the scene can be conceived in another location, re-written for this one, or scrapped completely. That's where the toiling in plot, dialogue and character comes in handy. Ideally, I know the script so well, so intimately, I can answer any of these questions without disturbing the narrative, a veritable house of cards. That's the goal.

Today's scout tested my skill in this area. Fortunately, we were scouting a location rich with possibilities and alternatives, not all of them appropriate, but all informative. Each "no" moved me and the producing team towards a deeper understanding of the world we're creating, the characters who inhabit it and an appreciation of flexibility when confronting creative challenges.

I remember fondly the first day of shooting "Loggerheads." It was a beach scene, a simple scene really. I believe the scene description went something like this --

EXT. BEACH -- DAY
George runs on the beach.

Crew call was early, before dawn. It was dark. We set up and, as the sun rose over the Atlantic Ocean, all I could see was fog. So thick you couldn't see but a few yards ahead. I thought we were doomed. I knew it could be several hours of waiting and we had no time to wait. Keep in mind that it was my first narrative feature and we'd done nothing yet. Not one shot. Not one take. My very first moment of directing. My mind raced. Could I re-write the scene to be morning? What would that do to the scenes that were supposed to be morning and where would I move them? The entire movie takes place over the course of three weekends in the lives of three main characters in three different years so there wasn't a lot of wiggle room, narratively speaking, and especially with this particular story line which involves two people getting to know one another. Each step in this story was a building block in their relationship. (I'll say it again: it's a house of cards!)

I decided I could adjust the script to accommodate the fog. This is what we got and it remains my favorite shot in the film.

The resulting image created some unexpected meaning for the story. The entire film is about people separated and searching. What could be more metaphorical than running through fog? And Michael Kelly's reaction upon seeing Kip Pardue sitting in the sand was worth the worry over this natural phenomenon.

Day One.

Greetings from Louisville, Kentucky, two days after the Derby.

After a half-night's sleep, I woke up early in an attempt to re-set my internal clock to Eastern Time. I'm not completely exhausted. Yet.

Truth is, I'm exhilarated. This is the part of the process of making a film that can be really fun. The part we're you're driving around, searching for locations in which to shoot, making friends with the locals, being in the world you're going to depict onscreen, meeting your creative team or getting to know them better and vice versa. It's the convergence of the social and the professional with all focus on what will end up on screen.

Today, the production designer, James Wise, drove me around the city in search of a few key locations: a coffee shop, a fancy tennis club, an upscale casual restaurant, and our hero's house. Among the many places we visited, we found possibilities for each. I'm very pleased.

One scene in the film is a date in which the couple wanders through a scenic spot in Louisville. A new park on the Ohio River was opened recently (or is scheduled to open). It's perfect. Now all we have to do is figure out how to light the thing at dusk.

Here are a couple of snapshots.

 

Ira Glass Wisdom

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone had told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or are still in this phase, you gotta know that it's normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one piece. It's only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure it out to do this than anybody I've ever met. It's gonna take awhile. You just gotta fight your way through.”

Ira Glass

What is funny?

Airplane. Preston Sturges. Tootsie. Ricky Gervais. I Love Lucy. Allison Janney. Dr. Strangelove. Buster Keaton. 30 Rock. Richard Pryor. The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Wanda Sykes. South Park. Gilda Radner. The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Woody Allen. The Simpsons. Lily Tomlin.

Funny is subjective. 

Here is one of my all-time favorites from David O. Russell.

Openings

The first scene or sequence of any movie is the most crucial. It really determines whether or not your audience is going to stay with the film. There have been some great ones, but I think my all-time favorite is Jaws. It's nearly dialogue-free, beautifully shot, captures the tone of the film and makes the audience afraid of ever going into the water again. Perfect.

Recently, filmmakers seem to have moved away from opening titles and credits in favor of starting the movie "cold," or without any introduction, though a quick glance into the past reveals some famously untitled opening sequences (The Godfather, Braveheart, Apocalypse Now). 

Comedies seem to use opening title sequences more consistently. One of my favorites is a beautifully animated one for (another) Spielberg film, Catch Me If You Can. The Saul Bass-inspired graphic design, combined with the retro score, strikes the perfect balance of humor and mystery and contains within its own narrative. It reminds me a little like Hitchcock's North by Northwest, too.

The opening sequence I show most often to students is Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude. The amount of information it reveals about the story is limited, but significant. Carefully cropped, dimly lit and meticulously composed shots reveal Harold, a pale young man wearing expensive shoes and a dandyish smoking jacket, wandering around a cavernous, opulent room. Harold's actions in the sequence speak for themselves, but Ashby's blending of Cat Stevens' song, John Alonzo's cinematography and the performances of Vivian Pickles and Bud Cort, introduce a sense of humor and sadness that will collide for the next ninety minutes. It is my top "desert island film." Hands-down.

For Tan Lines, I'm thinking of something closer to this or this. But just for fun, here's another great one, Woody's love letter to New York City.