The Filmmaker Diaries Archives
April 4, 2003
Aches
Well, I feel like crap. I used to be in pretty good shape, back when I used to play baseball. When I was seven. Since then, I’ve let myself go, and now I’m in significantly less good shape. So when I, for example, lug a lighting kit (trust me, they’re reasonably heavy) up a three-floor walk-up, I tend to hurt for quite awhile afterward.
Anyway, the Filmmaker called me as I was driving home today in a torrent of rain and hail (note to self: stop leaving the house or existing), and for some reason I had my cell phone turned on. At any rate, he said the film would be processed by Wednesday, so we should get together and take a look at it on Thursday before screenwriting. I tried to back out but was unsuccessful; maybe I’ll call him later in the week and really back out.
I have the distinct impression that it’s gonna turn out like crap, and I really don’t want to be in the room with him during such a humiliating moment.
Posted by Stan on April 4, 2003 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Shooting — Day Three: Endgame
For the love of God, tonight’s shooting wasn’t actually that bad. Now that I’m home, able to relax, no heavy weight of irritation slung upon my shoulders, I’m actually vaguely happy.
Which is not to say nothing irritating happened tonight.
Really, though, I’m not really pissed at all. I’m just mildly irritated that the Filmmaker insisted I drive down, claiming it’d be an all-nighter in order to get this done. As it turned out, when I got there tonight he was nearly out of film, most of the shots we were doing were similar (so no need for the drastic lighting changes that ate up so much time), and we ended up finishing at 10 o’clock. So, I have caffeine surging through my system and cannot fall asleep because I thought I’d be up at least until 3, and I paid $18 (including tip) for parking when I actually could have taken the train.
Also, if I had taken the train, it would have saved me about two hours of grief helping him clean up, load all his shit into my car, drive him to two different locations (a friend’s apartment, because he had borrowed some stuff for props, and the Filmmaker’s own apartment), and then get lost on the way home because I don’t know the non-downtown areas of Chicago nearly as well as I should (plus, it was raining, so I couldn’t make out any street names until I was roaring past the intersection).
I get the distinct impression that the Filmmaker insisted I drive, knowing full well we’d be done early enough for me to make that last train, so I’d have the car to chauffer him around. I should have just let him take a cab.
Oh well. It’s over now, and I’ll have nothing worth writing about as I waste the rest of my spring break loafing around, watching TV.
Posted by Stan on April 4, 2003 1:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 3, 2003
Shooting — Day Two: Part Two — Theological Musings
One thing I forgot to mention in my extensive and boring chronicle of the shooting of this exciting film was something that occurred toward the end of last night’s shooting. As I believe I mentioned earlier, the theme of this film is that propagandists shovel shit, and people eat it like it’s cotton candy. That was a terrible analogy. So, as part of that, the Filmmaker decided some clips of Billy Graham would be appropriate. This led to a discussion about theology, politics, the war, and so on, between the Filmmaker, the Introvert, and the Smoking Cripple.
I chose not to take part, because what was the point?
They basically said things that idiots who think they’re artists often say because they have no real views of their own, but they think they need to be counterculture-tastic in order to be “real” artists. Here is what they said:
On religion
The Filmmaker: “I think I’m a better Christian than most Christians because I don’t just listen to what a minister says, I search for the truth.”
The Introvert: “Look at these guys in suits telling you what Christ thought. Christ never wore no suit. Look at Jesse Jackson — he runs the most profitable non-profit organization in the world.”
(The “suit” reference led to a conversation, which went on far too long and became far too graphic, on how modern people worship “suits” and how ties are incredibly phallic.)
The Smoking Cripple: “He says Armageddon will come soon. Man, it already has.”
On politics
The Filmmaker: “Our supposed President is a complete idiot. Why do so many Congressmen support him?”
The Introvert: “Man, they’re all getting paid off by his oil companies.”
The Smoking Cripple: “And every other business in this country that makes a profit.”
On the war
The Filmmaker: “This war is a travesty against the American people.”
The Introvert: “I think they should just leave Iraq right now.”
The Smoking Cripple: “They never should’ve gone in the first place.”
It’s not that I particularly disagree with these statements. I do agree that the war never should have started in the first place, and while I’m not affiliated with any religious organization, I do believe that the honest search for truth is far more important than blind faith. If there is some sort of all-powerful being out there, I would have to imagine he would give a higher reward to those who actively sought out the truth than to those who sat around listening to somebody else’s interpretation of the way things are, believing that that is The Truth™.
The thing that bugged me, however, was that they don’t really believe what they’re saying (this is a fact that is very obvious to me, but it is very difficult to discern without specifically hearing the tone in their voices as they spoke). Okay, maybe they do believe what they say to some extent, but I guess I just think they’re hypocrites.
It was obvious that they were regurgitating beliefs that others have previously expressed — which means the whole line about not blindly following leaders is crap. Furthermore, they rip on “suits” and Big Business for being the terrible opressors of the universe, all the while toiling to break into an industry that is so disgustingly overflowing with money and corruption, Ken Lay would roll over on his uncomfortable prison cot.* I really think that the “suits” in the entertainment industry are the ones people should be worrying about — they have more influence over the American public than anyone is readily willing to admit.
Anyway, that’s my little sub-rant on their supposed beliefs. Hope you enjoyed it!
*I’m not 100% sure Ken Lay is actually rotting away in a prison cell at the moment, because I haven’t heard much about Enron lately. I just thought it’d be an amusing little joke. [Back]
Posted by Stan on April 3, 2003 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Shooting — Day Two: Part One — The Filmmaker, the Introvert, the Smoking Cripple, and the Incompetent Actor
Since people are often clamoring like stray dogs on the back stoop of a butcher shop, desperate for some definitive proof that I am, in fact, a human being who exists and is actually fallible, here’s a little-known factoid about my existence: I, the great filmmaker, have never, ever felt comfortable directing. Granted, I haven’t made many films, and I’ve only taken five shots of my grand, as-yet-incomplete chef-d’oeuvre, but I’ve done enough up until this point to realize that directing is not exactly my bag.
There are a few reasons why. The most notable is that I simply don’t like ordering people around. I do enjoy flying off the handle and shouting profanities at people, but that’s a whole different thing. I don’t feel comfortable when it comes to saying, “I will put the camera here, I will put the lights here, the actor goes here and does this during the shot.” I always get this nagging feeling of unpreparedness or general incompetence, like every decision I am making is incorrect, despite the fact that everything turns out all right.
But now…now, things are different. Thanks to my experience working as an actor and being directed, and seeing how badly others can do things, I feel like the most competent, confident filmmaker in the history of the universe. I am three Alfred Hitchcocks, a half-dozen Orson Welleses, and a Billy Wilder or two.
So I guess that’s one good thing about this project.
Now on to the bad stuff, which greatly outweighs any goodness at all.
Once again, we didn’t take our first shot until 9 o’clock, even though I was there at 7 and the Filmmaker had already begun lighting and camera placement. Here is the problem: the Filmmaker is an idiot. He has a shotlist, which is great. Shotlists are important, but if you write up a shotlist like a fucktard with a coathanger still stuck in your malformed aborted-fetus brain, they become significantly less important.
Last night, we kept doing similar shots out of sequence, so he’d have to re-light and re-position the camera for no fucking good reason. Tonight, he decided we must begin with the most complex shot in the film, the one that will require a minimum of four people in order to properly pull off. He ignored the fact that there were only two of us, and we could have filmed any number of the shots we did afterward, in which only two of us were necessary. But no, let’s start with the one where we need to sit around with our thumbs up our asses waiting for the mini-crew to arrive.
The mini-crew did arrive…at around 8:45. The African-American gentleman (I’ll call him “The Introvert” for short, since he’s calm and silent) came again, but this time he came with another friend, who I’ll either call The Cripple or The Smoker or maybe The Smoking Cripple. He had a broken ankle, and he was a chain-smoker. I instantly disliked him.
The Filmmaker decided to turn this little film shoot into a class for his friends, neither of whom are studying film (the Introvert is a television student, which is similar but just different enough for him to be totally incompetent, and the Cripple is an anonymous layabout who apparently decided he wants to be a filmmaker). I don’t want to get down on people who don’t know anything, or people who are honestly interested in a subject and are willing to dive right into it. My problem is that, on a tiny shoot for a 2-minute film, you probably shouldn’t be running a film class. Especially when the Filmmaker spends the majority of his time talking out his ass.
In all, not much was accomplished. We got off five shots, and I got the impression from the shotlist that the remaining shots are not nearly as complex, so we should be able to light them, shoot them, and get out at a reasonable hour. I, in my infinite stupidity and irritating sense of noble duty, agreed to drive down tonight and possibly pull an all-nighter to finish. There are now two caveats, which I haven’t yet told the Filmmaker: (1) since we’ve never started before 9, I am leaving at 8 o’clock, after rush hour, so I can get there before 9 and we can get started; and (2) I am only putting in the five hours I agreed to, so I am leaving at 2, come hell or high water, so he’d better adjust his shotlist to film the most vital shots first. Or maybe just — gasp! — set up and take a shot in less than 45 minutes.
One other thing I should mention while it’s on my mind, since I forgot to write it in yesterday’s entry: I found out on Tuesday night why the Filmmaker has chosen me, of all the terrifying people he could have chosen, to befriend and (ab)use as an actor in his film. While we wasted the initial two hours together, he said that something I said in our screenwriting class about music reflected exactly the way he felt, and he really admired my ability to articulate it.
We had to list three of our “core values” on the first day of screenwriting, and I said something like, “Music is the most important of all the art forms.” I elaborated, but I don’t fucking remember what I said. I do believe that, but I never really thought it any sort of earth-shattering epiphany. It’s just something I believe.
I did realize something important, however: whether I want to admit it or not, the things I say and do have an effect on people, no matter how stupid or ingenious (mostly stupid) they are. It may be tremendous or miniscule, or positive or negative, but my existence affects people. I mean, this guy I don’t even know decided, “Jeez, I want this guy to be my friend,” solely because I said some shit about music because I couldn’t think of any other “core values.”
I’m glad I realized that. I hope Clarence gets his wings.
And maybe now I’ll stop knocking the styrofoam cups out of the hands of homeless people, and then pointing and laughing at them as they scramble frantically to recover their ill-gotten change.
But even if I do become the most pleasantastic person in the history of the universe solely because of this experience, if I had it to do over again, I would have shot myself in the face immediately after the Filmmaker initially approached me to act in his film. Or possibly just said “no,” but I’m an actor now — I’m all about the dramatic statement.
Posted by Stan on April 3, 2003 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 2, 2003
Shooting — Day One: Snails Get Stuck in Molasses
I decided to take the train into the city last night. I don’t have the patience for rush-hour traffic, and it seemed timed well: the 5:44 arrived at Union Station at 6:31, giving me 30 minutes to get to the space, and the last train of the night left at 12:40, which gave me 40 minutes to get there, assuming I left at midnight like I was supposed to.
I didn’t leave at midnight like I was supposed to.
Now, before I get into the dregs of this entry and cause my many fans to lapse into a boredom-induced coma, I’d like to write a disclaimer at this time: shooting this film was not filled with hilarious reverie or anything remotely fun. It was boring as all get-out, and I plan to dive into why, exactly, it was so fucking boring. Also, it was pretty irritating, so maybe that’ll at least be fun to read about.
At any rate, on with the show…
I was supposed to call The Filmmaker — who called me Monday night to confirm the start date of Tuesday — when I “got into the neighborhood,” and I thought I’d call him from the train and let him know what was going on. I turned on the phone and checked my VoiceMail. I had two messages*, both from The Filmmaker. The first was from Sunday night, with The Filmmaker requesting that I check out some local thrift stores to find an end table. Oops, too late for that. The second was from about five minutes ago; The Filmmaker was testing his cell phone’s reception in the concrete shooting space.
I decided not to call him because, dammit, I just didn’t want to. My subconscious often plots against me, so I think it was telling me not to call him just yet, because it may have been plotting for me to stop, say “Fuck this,” and get on the next train back home.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
So I did the Union Station thang, did the CTA wander around the Loop and transfer roughly 500 times just to get to Chicago Avenue and State Street, and I emerged from that subway at exactly 7 o’clock. It would have been 6:50, but my train was 10 minutes late. I called The Filmmaker as I wandered down Chicago toward the space.
When I got there, the first thing I noticed were extension cords snaking their way down the tiny concrete corridor into the larger shooting space. Great — now, in addition to low-hanging pipes, I also had to worry about tripping on cords.
The space itself was filled with props, lights, the 16mm Bolex we’re forced to shoot on, and several bowls filled with fruit and drinks chilled in ice. (I’ll say this for The Filmmaker — he comes prepared.) He asked me to take the stacks of newspapers and start tearing out propaganda-esque words to fill in a bowl. I did as he asked, somewhat irritated that he himself hadn’t done this earlier. I no longer admired his preparation skills.
As he wandered around, re-positioning lights, adjusting the camera, and so forth, he said, “I think we’ll be able to take our first shot at 8.” Terrific.
By the time 8 o’clock rolled around, he did seem to have the lights properly focused and the camera set up.
And then the power went out. The 720-watt lights, in conjunction with a television (which was unncessarily left on) and a lamp, blew a circuit. The Filmmaker tried fiddling with several circuit boxes in the room, but to no avail. He had to call Engineering, he said, and I half-expected Geordi La Forge to show up and talk about polyphase ampules and its effect on the stability of the warp core.
Damn, I am a geek.
Flash forward an hour. The Filmmaker’s friend, a lanky African-American gentleman who is helping out, had shown up. The power was back on, and The Filmmaker knew exactly where to go to reset the circuits in the event the he blew it again (he did, three more times). We were finally ready to snap off our first shot, two hours later than I expected. I suddenly suspected that we wouldn’t finish by midnight, and I addressed my concerns to The Filmmaker.
“When do you think we’ll finish?” I asked, trying to sound concerned.
“Well,” he said, sighing, “I’d just say we’re finished when we’re finished.”
Huh. That was not the answer I was expecting. Here is the answer that I was expecting: “Well, we’re slightly behind schedule, but we can make up for it by working faster, but no matter what, we’ll be done by midnight.”
So I told him that I had to catch a train at 12:40, so I had to leave at midnight. The next train left at 5:30. He said, very coolly and calmly, that if worse came to worst, I could stay at his apartment. This unnerved me a bit, because while he seems nice enough and trustworthy enough, I still don’t know him. At all. And I really don’t feel comfortable wandering over to his apartment to have a li’l sleepover.
But he was just so nice about everything. I was slowly but surely getting more and more pissed off, and I imagine that by Thursday night I will explode, but last night I kept myself in check. No matter how much he pissed me off, he was just so pleasant and nice, I didn’t want to be a dick.
This is an unfortunate problem with me: I enjoy being a fucking asshole. It’s arguably the only thing I’m good at. Verbal abuse, for me, is the most fun a person can have without access to prescription drugs. But I become weak-kneed and insufferably pleasant when people are nice to me, and I simply cannot bring myself to shatter a nice person’s existence with a little sleight of mouth.
So I did the next best thing: blamed it on my parents. When it was getting to be about 11:40, with no end in sight (we were going to fire off one last shot, which The Filmmaker had started lighting at 11:15, and he kept re-positioning everything because he didn’t like what he saw), I called my mother and told her what was going on and what my options were. I could stay with The Filmmaker, I could get the fuck out and catch my train, or I could take a cab back home.
Of course, she said, “Do whatever you want,” but I sort of adjusted my end of the conversation to give the impression that she really didn’t want me to do anything but catch my train. When I got off the phone, I said she really wants me to leave at midnight, and even though she’ll say I can do whatever the fuck I want, she’ll be pissed about me coming in at all hours of the night when my dad is sleeping and has to get up at the ass-crack of dawn for work. This was a half-truth.
The Filmmaker was not pleased with this news, since he only had 20 minutes to finish setting up the shot, shoot it, and get it right. This shot was honestly the most complex of the night, so that presented an additional challenge. I agreed to a compromise: I’d call a cab to pick me up at 12:15 to take me to Union Station. Unfortunately, because Union Station was less than 5 miles away, I couldn’t specify a time to pick me. She just said a cab would show up in 5 to 20 minutes.
By this point, it was already 5 to midnight, and he was just finishing the setup for the shot. So I got into position, we ran through it a few times, and then we shot it. It did not come out well, but by that time it was 10 after midnight, the cab had probably already shown up and left, and I needed to get the fuck out of there.
He said, “I want to try this again. The cottage cheese didn’t go through the funnel.” (long story)
Ugh. I had to go. I finally grew a pair of balls and said, “No, I really have to leave.” And I really left. As I suspected, the cab had come and gone, so I had to hustle a few blocks over to Michigan Avenue, where I found a cab surprisingly quickly, and I hauled ass to Union Station with five minutes to spare. I got home at around 1:30, and I slept.
And, goodie goodie goodie, I get to do it all again tonight!
In total, we cranked off a grand total of 8 shots last night. And they were short shots. Very short shots. This is only a two-minute film after all. Of course, we had our share of technical problems (or, I guess I should attribute all the blame to him, since his direction was this: “Just sit there until I tell you what to do,” followed by, “Do this”): continuity errors, lighting errors, power failures, uncooperative props, and so on. But technical problems are really no excuse, since I waited around for an hour before we even had the chance to have technical problems.
Really, the meat of the problem was The Filmmaker himself. Now, it wasn’t so long ago that I was in Production I, scared out of my wits because I had no real grasp of lighting, film speed, or how to use a wind-up camera made in World War II. I knew what I wanted to see on the screen, but I didn’t know how to get it. But I learned quickly: trial and error, as usual. In Production I, you do quite a few shoots before you go out on your own and shoot your 2-minute project. You get to have your errors before it has any real bearing on your work, and you learn how to light and how to position the camera and think on your feet to solve logistical problems.
Well, you do if you’re me. The Filmmaker is not me. He is him. Or her. But mostly him. I don’t want to toot my own horn, because in Production I, I never made any decent films (technically, they were fine; I’m just not proud of the content), but I shot my 2-minute film in four hours. I just naturally work quickly, and somehow my brain functions in a way that allows it to solve every conceivable problem before it occurs. I didn’t have any trouble with my 2-minute. At all. And I didn’t take a decade to set up every shot. When I’m working with 16mm, it takes me maybe 10 minutes to set up a shot, including lighting and camera placement. Tell the actors what to do, shoot it, the end.
I guess that’s just a stylistic difference. My attitude is this: as soon as I start something (and it takes me a great deal of effort to get started), I want to finish it as soon as humanly possible. So I work fast to get it done. I try not to make mistakes, but if it doesn’t come out perfectly, I’m not suicidal; I don’t demand reshoots or anything insane like that. It’s not necessary, especially in Production I, working with a film stock and camera you’ll never see again outside of that class.
There’s more that I can rant about as far as his technical inefficiency is concerned, but I’m sure nobody really cares, so I’ll just end it here.
I just hope tonight goes a little better. We’ve already started, so hopefully we can dive right back in when I show up at 7, and hopefully we’ll even get ahead of schedule. The Filmmaker did specify that the hardest stuff would be last night, and even though we didn’t get all the shots (we still had four left, including the one we didn’t quite get last night), if the shots tonight are simpler, I don’t see why — working for a complete five hours — we couldn’t accomplish 12 shots or so.
Here’s hoping…
*It should be noted that getting messages on my cell phone’s VoiceMail is a rare occurrence, as I don’t give it to anybody except (1) people I am planning to talk to, thus eliminating the need for getting VoiceMail; (2) people I don’t trust; and (3) bill collectors (aka, people I don’t trust). [Back]
Posted by Stan on April 2, 2003 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
March 23, 2003
The Meeting
On Thursday, the Filmmaker did not arrive at class until four o’clock (class starts at two, and the break is at 3:30). After class, I asked him where, specifically, we were meeting on Sunday. This was his extremely specific response: “At Michigan and Chicago.” Okay, it was pretty general, but I knew where it was, how to get there, and what he looked like, so I figured eventually I’d find him.
He said, “I work around there, so I figured we’ll meet there at noon, and then we’ll have lunch and I’ll show you the space. I’ll call you with more details and the specific address.” My response: “Okay.”
So Friday passed with no call from him. Saturday almost drizzled by with nary a word from the Filmmaker, but he called around 8:30 with more details and the specific address. I was bothered because I was watching my new Gone with the Wind DVD, goddammit.
He said, “Do you know the downtown area pretty well?”
“I know it pretty well,” I said. I did.
“Okay, do you know where the Ralph Lauren Polo is at Michigan and Chicago?”
“Sure,” I said. I didn’t. Still, out of four corners of the intersection, the Ralph Lauren store had to be at one of them. Plus, it was right near the old water tower. It wouldn’t be hard to narrow down.
“Let’s say we meet there at noon. There are a bunch of sandwich shops around there, so we can do donuts or something.”
“Sounds good,” I said. I had never before heard the expression “do donuts” in terms of ingesting food. Usually, it was used to describe spinning a car around in a circle over and over again. That did not seem like an easily accomplished feat in a sandwich shop, so I assumed he meant we would find a sandwich shop that sold donuts, and we would buy and eat said donuts.
He said glibly, “You do do donuts, don’t you?” There was far too much consonance in that question, but I responded affirmatively because the only thing I love to eat more than chocolate is donuts.
“That’s good,” he said. “I think the true sign of whether or not somebody is an American is whether or not they do donuts.”
I realized later that this was a joke. At the time, I thought he was either trying to test whether or not I was an actual American (I do have the roguish good looks and athleticism of an international spy). I thought this was odd, because while donuts are pretty traditional in America, I had been given the impression at some point that they were invented by the Dutch. Dutch people are not Americans.
Here is what I said, as those thoughts shoved my love of Vivien Leigh out of my head: “I agree with that.” This was followed by a stilted laugh; I still wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not.
“Okay,” he said, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okey-dokey,” I said, because I’m somewhat of an enormous dork.
We hung up, and I finished watching my movie. Then I watched Trading Spaces. It was a good night. I may not be able to hang on to a girl for more than three months, but as long as I have Vivien Leigh and Paige Davis, I’ll never be lonely again.
So this morning, I headed downtown, found the Ralph Lauren store, and I was about fifteen minutes early. The Filmmaker was not there yet, so I went into the store and started browsing. I saw a decent-looking striped shirt that would look good with one of my suits. The shirt was $225, which cost more than both of my suits combined. I decided maybe I should stick with Target, and I went back outside and leaned against the building until the Filmmaker showed up.
He came with his girlfriend, an aesthetically pleasing African-American girl whose name I cannot spell or pronounce. She walked with us for a few blocks, then veered off toward a building I didn’t recognize. We continued east down Chicago Avenue and approached a large, hodge-podgey Gothic sort of building that apparently houses Northwestern University Medical School’s labs. This is where the Filmmaker worked.
He took me up to the sixth floor, showed me his office, which looked basically like my physics professor’s office: messy and full of beakers and chemicals and shit. After the tour of the crampt office, we went up to the fourteenth floor, which is where the dreaded room is. It’s basically an ancient boiler room, full of menacing, low-hanging pipes. It’s so old, though, that the boiler has been removed. An ancient fuse box sat in one corner, a dusty chair in another.
It was exactly as he described it: a dank, concrete room. Dirtier than I expected, smaller than I expected, but still dank and constructed of concrete. There were two windows: one gave access to the roof, and one showed a view of Fairbanks Court.
He explained the premise of the film and showed me his storyboards. It’s essentially a metaphor for the way people simply swallow the shit shoveled at them by the government and news media. I won’t go into more details than that, but it’s a fairly odd thing.
After he showed me The Space, we wandered over to Jimmy Johns, which makes sandwiches. I had Jimmy Johns once before: they deliver 24 hours a day in Champaign-Urbana, and when I was staying with my sister, she ordered an enormous Italian sub for me at 3 a.m. I thought that was fascinating, and I briefly wished that I lived in a genu-wine college town. That dream was squashed with approximately every other incident that occurred on that trip, but that’s another blog entry…
As we ate, the Filmmaker explained to me what his goal was for the day. He wanted to snap photos of the shots he wanted. He had two reasons for this: (1) it’d be easier to set up the shots he knows he can get once we actually begin shooting, and he’ll know the angles and how to light them and so forth before we start shooting; and (2) he wanted to turn the photos in as his storyboards instead of his drawings, which he thought were crappy (compared to the stick figures and vague shapes I pass off as storyboards, his were still-life renderings). This, I guess, explained why it would take so long, although as it turned out, we were done at about a quarter of three. Two to six, my ass…
Anyway, while we ate and he snapped off photographs, we talked about a lot of shit because we don’t really know each other well at all. He’s totally normal, which surprised me. He doesn’t have this tremendous “Ohmigod, I’m an artist!” attitude or anything terrifying like that. I still don’t understand why he wanted me in his film, but at least I know it won’t be a horrible experience, and I may actually — gasp! — make a lasting, legitimate friendship as a result of this. I don’t think such a feat has ever been accomplished at beautiful Columbia College in Chicago’s rustic South Loop, but I’ve always thought of myself as a social trailblazer.
After all, I was the first in my high school to endorse and utilize a strict policy of nudism.
Posted by Stan on March 23, 2003 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
March 19, 2003
Exciting Update on My Movie Stardom
As we all should currently know, I am right about to become a movie star. I’ve been invited to star in some dude’s student porno, and as such the phone calls have begun. Most of my friends know I’m not a big phone guy, so I don’t get a lot of calls.*
Then again, most of my friends wouldn’t call me even if I liked being on the phone.
The phone isn’t the problem, though: it’s my increasing paranoia about the weirdness of this whole film thing.
Anyway, the Filmmaker called my cell phone today while I was in class; I got the message on my way home, and I figured, “Bleh, I’ll see him in class tomorrow, so it’s no rush to call him back.” Apparently this assertion was inaccurate, as he called my house a few hours later and left a similar message (I didn’t pick up the phone because the caller ID was a number I didn’t recognize from somewhere in the Loop — the phone number he left on my cell phone didn’t match).
So I called him back after Buffy, and I answered the questions he posed on my VoiceMail (1. Would working over spring break be a problem?; 2. Can we get together this weekend to discuss the project?). Then, he told me that when we got together he’d show me “the space,” which is a “dank concrete room in the place I work” (his actual words). He volunteered lunch (goddammit, he better pay! — I don’t go dutch on the first date) before the tour of the space and the details of the project, so I guess we’re doing that Sunday.
Based on the choice of pronouns and his general demeanor, I got the distinct impression that (1) I’d be the only one attending this little soiree, (2) it’d for some reason take four hours for him to explain the complexities of his three-minute film, and (3) the “dank concrete room” would be the perfect place to torture and anally rape me, though I’m not sure why anybody would want to.
These confusing leaps of logic sprang to my mind, but I’m terrible on the phone. Part of the reason I hate it is because I’m apparently so bewildered by the technology behind telephony that I find it difficult to do things like, for example, ask the questions that spring to mind. “Where exactly is this space?” “Where are we having lunch?” “Why will this take four hours?” “Are people who aren’t you and me going to be there?”
Of course, I asked none of these questions. For some reason, I do much better in person than on the telephone, so when he gives me “details” tomorrow in class, I will be sure to ask them.
Until then, I’ll prepare an elaborate ball of toilet paper and cotton balls to soak up the blood.
*My sister, who calls me at least twice a week, is well aware of my hatred of the phone, but she dismisses it as an excuse I made up so I don’t have to talk to her. She should be aware that I could make up much better excuses than that. [Back]
Posted by Stan on March 19, 2003 7:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
March 13, 2003
I Am Now a Movie Star…I Guess
I was sitting in my Screenwriting class today, minding my own business, casually checking out this really hot girl who was sitting two seats away from me, when I noticed a guy simply staring at me. When I looked at him, he didn’t stop. He just kept staring. Then, eventually, he stopped, but the damage had been done. I know I’m bizarre looking, but that’s not license to stare at me, to contemplate a face only a cement mixer could love.
Then, during the break, things got even stranger. He came up to me and said, “I’m making a film.” This is not a shocking revelation, as we were in a film class that is a requirement for the film major. But still: why me? In that class, I have never given even the faintest indication that I’m some big-time actor-guy. I usually just keep to myself and occasionally mix things up by cutting. This leads me to the conclusion that there is something about my chiseled physique that is appealing for his film.
But I said okay. Since I had a remarkably difficult time finding actors for my Production I films (I usually ended up using other students from that class, and vice-versa), I thought I’d be nice and help this guy out. So he gives me a sheet of paper to write down my contact information, and as I’m doing that he goes into a brief explanation of the film. He says I play a violent, drunken sexpot. Very few people look at me and think, “That there is a violent, drunken sexpot.” Maybe he was at that shitty war rally.
I found the entire thing odd. Afterward, it was like we were best friends. Every time I made a comment in class — which I wouldn’t have done, except every person in class was required to say something about everybody else’s pitches — he would nod at me in agreement, or smile bemusedly, or say something like, “That’s a really excellent point.” Suddenly I was Homer Simpson: “Is he coming on to me? … Oh my god, he is coming on to me…” and so forth. Although, in retrospect, that wasn’t really the vibe he gave off. It was really the typical “I’m a Columbia student, it’s hard to make friends here, so be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you.” Which is cool, I guess.
But suddenly I’m concerned. He never really went into details about what I’d have to do in the film, except that I’d be throwing a television off the roof of a building in a fit of anger. That I can do, assuming it’s a small, lightweight TV. But he didn’t say much else, except “there’s a lot of sex and violence. More violence than sex.” Which I guess is cool, because I’ll probably end up making out with and dry humping a girl (jeez, I hope it’s a girl…) without any actual strings attached. I’d never balk at an opportunity like that.
Still, what if it’s something really bizarre? Like, for example, “in this shot you’ll streak down the State Street median, in the Loop, in rush hour. And bear in mind it’s far too late to back out and leave me high and dry now, you rotten son of a bitch. Strip!” I will do a lot of things for my art; streaking is not one of them. In fact, I only do nudity if it’s tasteful and if it involves dry humping women. Jeez, maybe I should hit the gym. Many, many, many times in a row. And consult a plastic surgeon.
He also says that it’ll be “two or three nights,” which is another consideration. I don’t have any night classes, but I can’t pull three all-nighters in a row, even if I don’t have class the next day. I need my beauty sleep. No, seriously. One time I pulled a closing a shift at Starbucks followed by an all nighter of homework followed by an opening shift, and I went home and crashed instead of going to class. Why’d I even do all that homework?
Oh well. He’ll e-mail me with details. I guess nothing’s set in stone yet, so, as they say on the streets, “We have no written contract, so fuck off.” But if the details include the phrases “dry humping,” “making out,” and/or “attractive girl,” I will certainly be hot on this project!
Damn, I need a girlfriend.
Posted by Stan on March 13, 2003 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
