Well,
another late start today. I'm fantasizing about the day when
a P.A. drives me to the location, I can cut in line at he
craft services table (I'm the director of course) and load-up
on croissants, then quitely sit in my directors chair. Instead
I settled for a cold Egg McMuffin and a small coke while I
paced outside for an hour and 20 minutes, waiting for the
dude to let us in.
First thing we
did was a short scene where Johnny aproaches the Mystery Girl
(Cara O'Shea) after being
goaded by the guys at his table. We then proceed to witness
the worst pick-up job ever, then watch Johnny slink back into
his seat.
We then shot the
entire final sequence starting with Geoff
Briggs, Lara, Sparky
and Cara O'Shea. I'm kind
of pleased the way the concept of the final sequence happened.
(Haven't seen the rushes, but I couldn't think of a better
ending.) When Geoff leaves, we see him pass Lara, who John
thinks is his final personals date. I initially wanted to
screw play with the audiences expectations here. Since everything
has been going wrong for John all through out this movie,
we would expect this final date to blow up in his face.
I
initially wanted a fat woman to come into the coffee shop
and head straight for John, but I had a personal problem using
a fat woman as a butt of a joke. I kind of thought this woman
would walk past John and just start talking with somebody.
My friend David Schendell in San Francisco suggested that
SHE ends up kissing another fat guy, thus, there's somebody
for everyone. The only fat guy I knew was Sparky Schneider.
Bingo! Sparky has a large girlfriend...they would be perfect!
Thus, Sparky and Lara
have the only legitamite on-screen kiss in a movie with the
word SEX in it's title.
Right at the end
of the day we grabbed Johnnys close up reactions to Deirdre's
talkitive sequence. By then the entire kitchen staff wanted
to turn on everything which made noise in a four block radius.
They literally yanked a couple of plugs out of the wall as
I was trying to grab a last digital photo of Cara in her fishnets
and party dress. ("Yea yea, yer makin' a movie...well I'm
makin' pizzas..now get the frig out!")
Nothing like a
trying to shoot a movie in a 5 hour block of time. I think
we did 10 set-ups total (we moved the camera 10 times and
re-lit), and this includes the time it took John and Cara
to learn their lines while on the set. (We didn't have a chance
to do a rehearsal.) Well, at least the endings done. I haven't
been moving this fast and hard since I played offense AND
defense on my football team back in highschool. Do directors
even SIT in their directors chairs?
Cara & John |
Cara CU |
Cara MED |
Sparky & Dan |
Wonderbar LS
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When
I wrote the sequence, I wasn't thinking about how much of a
pain in the ass it would be to MAKE a money dress. (Or even
a money wig.) Therse Chase and I basically slammed it together
earlier in the week. We weren't too keen on copying a whole
bunch of Federal Reserve notes as is, so we changed the picture
and some text on the twenty dollar bill we scanned. We only
printed stuff on one side of the paper, just to make sure we
weren't entering the realm of counterfeiting. We had the money
dress sitting on a chair near the front window of the Wonderbar.
You could see the homeless people walking by and staring at
it...while salivating.
