Of Mice and Men

It wasn't really the best laid plans from the outset. I smelled trouble when I first saw the tentative schedule at the production meeting actually listing a 16 hour day and four 12 hour days. Two brothers wanted to make a short comedy for about $20,000. They knew Matt Hill, the producer/co-writer of Charlie, and he was the connection that reunited most of the dream team from Cal State Long Beach back for another show: Matt Irwin as D.P., Chloe Weaver as 1st A.C., A-Rod as Gaffer, Daniel Woltosz as 1st A.D., Shahin and I on sound, and many, many others. The catering was wonderful. Homemade cookin' from Victor and Fabian's family. I didn't mind so much that the locations were far from home. I "renegaded it" with a bag to sleep at friends' houses and catching rides to get there. Trouble came from unforeseen, and unnecessary set-backs that turned our shooting schedule and the budget into a fiasco.





Saturday. Upland. Empty store on 2nd Avenue. 7:00 AM Call.
Out the door at 5:55. Arrived at 6:59. A white grip truck sits by the back door, some of the key crew is there, the crafty table is up, and inside are a couple of guys laying down thin, charcoal-colored carpet with a staple gun. The set construction is not finished. We had only one shot off by lunch. My wife bet me I wouldn't be finished until three in the morning. Close. I was ready to drive home at 2:22 AM. Tired but awake, I grabbed my Hot Hands and went to collect sandbags, wrap lights, and pick-up trash. These are my friends, after all. Home at 4:30 to unwind from a ridiculously long day. No time for that. I was checking email when my clock radio alarm went off at 5:01, as it had the day before. Time for bed. My ride is picking me up at 11:30. 20 hours on set. 5 hours of sleep.

Sunday. Lancaster. Avenue G and 40th St E. 1:00 PM Call.
I came to around 10:00 AM and felt sort of awake. I showered, packed a bag, and got out to the front lawn just before Chris Simone, the 2nd A.D., showed up to give me a ride. Long Beach to Lancaster took 2 hours. We arrived to two CHP cars, our Grip truck, a few personal vehicles, and no key crew there yet but Woltosz. Closing down a section of this road in the desert cost $1,300. Daniel had been careful to ask questions at each agency at every stage of securing this location. Nobody mentioned roadsigns. The CHP informed us that we had to provide official roadsigns: two MEN AT WORK and two ROAD CLOSED. No place nearby was open on Sunday and one place would've charged $600 to make them. Then the Four Aces Motel was remembered. It's a movie set, after all. Did they have signs to close a road? Yes. We gave them 80 bucks for whatever they had. Good thing the CHP officers waited. Our production could have been shut down. They sat in their air conditioned vehicles for the most part, with the engines running, and came out to eat our food. Look at all the Red Vines in his hand! This location had maybe 12 cars drive by within the 5 hours we were there. Worse still, the picture car arrived two hours late. It was ratchet strapped to the wrong type of trailer, making its roof about 6 feet off the ground. "This is not going to work!," M.I. affirmed to M.H. Matt hand-tightened the straps as much as he could, effectively compressing the shocks as far as they can go and lowering the car about ten inches, better than nothing. We were slow to start again. A carmount had to be configured with camera and lights. 1st shot was off sometime after 5 PM. Not much time before sunset. We couldn't get the wireless hop clean fast enough, so I ended up hiding in the back seat behind the actors with a wire to the recorder. I think we did about three takes, punched in for a tighter shot (and Shahin gave it a try hiding in the back), and then the crew stopped to set-up a hostess tray on the rear right window for an insert of the dashboard Jesus. Suddenly, it was unclear what the set-up was. The hostess tray was removed before camera was mounted, and the picture car was being driven off the trailer. Sun was too close to the horizon. Got to get the wide shot of the car passing by. Shahin and I had to scramble to get the recorder out of the car, leave the cables, and run back to basecamp for another boom mike. Writer/Producer Fabian saw me heading back and gave me a lift in his car. He pulled up to our crate, I grabbed the Zeppelin and hopped back in. As we were driving back, the camera was facing our way and about three people were waving their arms and shouting to us to get out of the shot! Fabian pulled over quick, the picture car drove by, and the camera got one take, barely. Not a big deal for sound to miss this shot, but the rush was the kind of event that makes me think, "What the fuck just happened?" There was no advanced knowledge of that shot. We had with us just what we needed to stay inside the car. No announcements, no communication. The only way Shahin and I could prepare was to watch closely and guess where the camera is going to next, while simultaneously wrapping or preparing equipment inside a car that's only entrance is through the window, Dukes of Hazard style. It seriously happened in a flash, there was no time to talk to those making decisions on the fly. Afterwards, company moved to a large office building owned by Daniel's Dad, where we had two shots to get. We didn't leave there till 3 AM. I don't know what happened there. I rode with Matt and Chloe back to their new place in Burbank. Shower. Water. Listened to A-Rod talk about his grip Yasu's mastery of English yielding some creative descriptions. They were at a drive-thru and the lady at the window had a lazy eye. Yasu said to A-Rod, "Her eye is remote, like a horse." Ah, laughter can feel so good when I'm exhausted.
On the couch and asleep by 7:30. 15 hour day. 5.5 hours sleep.

Monday. Fontana. Large asphalt lot. 3:00 PM Call.

Up at 1:00 PM. I dreamt that I lived with Matt, Chloe, and A-Rod and there was a conspiracy among them to turn me in for a murder I committed while working at a Target Store. Once captured, I was tied up in a dark room where someone cut off my hair while Clint Eastwood took photos of me. Then I was lead into a war room showcasing a luminescent table-map of terrain in the center, where the four of us were given new identities and assigned a reconnaissance mission in the Arctic Circle. I shared this over coffee and toast with Boysenberry Jam, just before we left at 2 PM. What hiccups would we find today? First, our delivery of the generator did not come with a key to open the vents. Luckily, Kris Hidalgo knew how to pick the simple lock with two bobby pins. Next, the set needed the letters "UNITED STATES BORDER" and the promised painters never showed. Hidalgo, our production designer, stood on a scaffolding doing it himself with blue masking tape for 12 hours, while we covered other angles until the sun came up. Mostly a good day, though still way too long. Went to Shahin's home for a real bed. In fact, I got to stay in my own little house with personal shower, since his family was on vacation. Dead tired at this point. 18 hour day. 6.5 hours sleep.

Tuesday. 4:00 PM Call.
We left at 3:55. This day actually kinda flowed. However, at wrap we were promised two P.A.s to guard all the equipment during the day, so that the elaborate lighting set-up didn't have to be struck completely. We wrapped at dawn. Only Daniel, Shahin and I were left at 7:30 AM. We stuck by him. He called the director, the co-producer, and the owner of the location three times. The owner finally showed up at 9:10 AM. Stayed with Danny till about 9:15 AM. Went home with Shahin. He made me a tuna pita with ketchup. Exquisite. Watched a bit of Forrest Gump. Asleep by 11:00. 18 hour day. 7 hours sleep.
Wednesday. 7:00 PM Call.
This is the day. When I wake up, it's 6:00 PM. Ya. Not going to be getting down to Coffey Sound. And what can I say? One pistol. One SMG. The two actors peel away from the border inspection in the Plymouth Belvedere with guns out. No firing. The weapons guy didn't look happy (Why was he even there?). The D.P. and I were sad pandas, as well. He had even taken a one day class on arms for this. I was going to use an old dynamic just out of frame, our old 416 about ten feet away, and the new 416 twice that distance facing distant buildings. The actor was wearing a wire, and I was ready to take the microphone away for the gun firing takes. I had seen a list of SPL numbers measured from a shooter's ear for 9 mm rounds. Listed were 157, 154, etc. I was thinking about inverse square law and max SPL for the mikes which averaged 130 dB. A post I made at an online forum for sound people generated a lot of replies. We had ear plugs. I had a plan. The producer did not. I found out from the D.P. that we didn't have a permit to film at the location in Fontana. Those of us with some common sense decided to change the scene from guns a blazing to guns threatening the guard as they high tail it out of there. Sigh. We were under a lot of pressure to get the rest of the film done by sunrise. This is the kind of day where the sound team is totally ignored because everyone is scrambling to ready the set-ups for camera. D.P. would shout, "We're just going to shoot it!" or "If you're not lighting this scene, clear the set!" and one was even, "I'm rolling now!" with no A.D. call, no slate, and no heads up of any kind. It was a battle to be out of the way and prepared at the same time. And yet we won. It all sounds golden. I did say to the mixer, "Man, what's the deal with this schedule? We're not fighting a war, we're making art!" He laughed and laughed. Home in Long Beach at 11:00. Kissed my wife and went to sleep.

I will only have good memories of What Would Jesús Do? The camaraderie I get from working so many hours with folks I consider my friends is something special. The long hours, the production-stalling hiccups, and the sleep deprivation will be remembered from this blog, and of course Matt's signature on the oversized check prop summed up the experience succinctly when he wrote, " Fuck. -M.I."