Confessions of a Three-Headed Monster

Mmkay, I am so brain dead it took me a couple tries to remember the passcode to sign on to my own blog so I can write this to you. Yesterday was mentally exhausting. Today was emotionally exhausting. Both were physically exhausting. And it ain't half what it is going to be on shooting days.

But I'm not really worried. Today was our second day of rehearsals and for me it just flew by. The adrenaline is starting to kick in, I think for the actors, too. Yesterday took a little longer, as we were getting our "legs" for it.

Also, yesterday morning I finished the production schedule. I have to say that BY FAR the hardest part of this whole thing so far has been making the production schedule. I have years and years of scheduling experience, and the cast was amazed that I had their rehearsal schedule to them within 48 hours after our table read, when they gave me their availability for the month. But production schedule is a whole 'nuther animal.

It is not just about who is available when. It is about WHERE is available when, what is happening (in the scene), who it is happening to, and finally, lastly, who is available when. I have been doing event planning for a long time, and I am pretty darn good at it, if I do say so myself. But the highest maintenance wedding you can imagine is CHUMP CHANGE compared to a production schedule. I chipped away at it continuously, but it was still looming over my head, especially in the last week. My brain would not shut off for more than three hours at a time, so no matter how exhausted I was or what time I went to sleep, I would wake up after three hours and not be able to go back to bed. I finally finished it yesterday early afternoon. And last night was the first good night's sleep (almost seven hours! Joy!) I have had in well over a week, if not two.

Yesterday I let everyone go after 6 hours of rehearsal, though we had scheduled eight. It was enough, we weren't really in a rhythm yet, though we accomplished what I wanted to. Today everyone had a much better feel for it, and we rocked it, going the full eight hours, but making all of it count. The actors and I are collectively breathing life into the script. Now it is up to the actors to get off book for next week, and THEN to keep what we have set down in their brains up to and including when we actually FILM it.

All in all, today went very smoothly and I was very happy with it at the end of the day. What made it tough was doing one very short scene at the end of the day, involving Thom. It was the first time I cried in front of any of the cast. I guarantee you it won't be the last.

In fairness to you, as if you are reading this you must have some interest in indie filmmaking, I need to say for the record that I don't write down everything that happens. Things do go wrong, people who promise you things do fall through, you will have disagreements with people, there is never enough time in the day, and as we are entering production money is flying out the door at an alarming rate. But as they say, a fish stinks from the head down, and for this production, I am the three-headed monster: Writer/Director/Producer. I'd be lying if I said it was easy to lay down the law, steer the boat, keep the creative juices from getting stagnant, and maintain a positive attitude all at once, and all the time. But if I didn't do exactly that, this thing would fall apart in a Charm City minute. Granted, that is about ten times as long as a New York minute, which is one of the many reasons I love this town. But still, it is just a minute.

New Friends & Old Clothes

Good gracious, I don't know where to start, life has been such a blur the last few days. I don't know why this continues to surprise me. Saturday I was an extra (though a prominent one!) in Eric's film, but I don't want to say too much about that as I think he has personally been keeping a lot of it under wraps. I'll just say it was a very looooooooooooong day, but the footage is going to look incredible, I can't WAIT to see it! I hope to get a sneak peek this weekend.

Sunday was great. Started off by interviewing a young man named Corey Smith for my production team. A very sharp dresser with a thousand-watt smile, I am quite pleased to tell you that Corey is on board as our main wardrobe person, among other hats he will be wearing. He jumped right in and tagged along with me all day while I met up with three of my actors to work out their wardrobes. Beteween Killer Trash and the thrift store on Fort Avenue, by the end of the day, they were pretty well done.

The night before that, Saturday, I sent one of those actors, Phil Calvert, on a mission to research his role of Thom, which mainly entailed boozing it up in Dundalk while T.T.Tucker & the Bum Rush Band played at a bar there. Phil is dedicated to his work.

While the role of Thom is not a lead, Phil has a great task ahead of him, but all kidding aside, he is taking it quite seriously. The role of Thom, as I have mentioned here before, is based on my friend Thom who passed away. Tucker was Thom's best friend and bandmate, so Phil has been spending time with Tucker and the guys, and learning their songs, and meeting a lot of people who knew Thom. In many ways it is wonderful to talk about Thom and have people excited about helping Phil to get to know a man he is playing but will never meet. It is incredibly important to me to do him justice, and the film is dedicated to him. But it is harder for me than I thought it was going to be, and I find myself shedding a few tears almost every day when I talk about him or write about him, like I am right now.

But I am very happy the way things are working out, how everyone is so into it and seem to be becoming friends in real life as well as onscreen. Cheryl Scungio, who is playing the lead (Gracie), has been spending a lot of time with Kelly Coston, who is playing Gracie's best friend Mel. They are hysterical together and their dynamic in real life is going to lend itself to the camera perfectly. Cheryl, Kelly, Phil, Corey and I had a blast shopping together all afternoon, laughed the whole time. I think my favorite part was making Phil try on the leather pants with flames up the sides of them at Killer Trash. But my favorite outfit of the day was a bright blue halter-top jumpsuit that Kelly absolutely ROCKED. When I saw it on the rack, my comment was, "That is so Donna Summer." It looks amazing on her, and she was so happy that I gave her the thumbs up on it that she literally skipped back to the changing area.

I got a boatload accomplished on Monday and today also, but more on that later. I have to complete the production schedule before we start our first day of rehearsals tomorrow at 2:00pm, so, signing off!

The Good, the Bad, and the Moronic

The Good: I am ecstatic to announce that Rebecca Clear Dean has signed on as the Production Manager for Charm City. Rebecca brings to the table a Theater Arts/Film degree from a university in New York known as Cornell. Heard of it? I think it is supposed to be a pretty decent school. Rebecca's decade of film production experience includes working with A & E on several documentaries, including biographies of Jack the Ripper and Richard Burton. Later she served as associate producer on Wall $treet Week With Louis Rukeyser at Maryland Public Television, which aired on PBS from 1970-2002.

I am also quite pleased to tell you that Ms. Jancy Lister will be the Catering Manager for the production. As if we needed another crazy redhead on the set! Between Jancy, Joyce Scott, and Michelle Farrell, all of their far-fetched (but true) Baltimore stories are going to make my little romantic comedy look like chump change.

More Good: I finished the tweaks, so we now have a shooting script. Which is fortunate, as we start rehearsals in 5 days and filming in three weeks!

Even More Good: I am meeting with several local artists on Monday who will be loaning their work to the production. More on that later...

The Bad: not much bad, really. Full steam ahead. The only Bad is really what people like Michelle, Sean, and Eric forgot to tell me about, and that is:

The Moronic: a.k.a., the Haters. These mostly come in the form of anonymous internet postings from people who live their little lives in front of a computer screen searching for things to belittle and begrudge. My filmmaker friends probably didn't mention them because I am sure they tuned them out long ago, which would be my advice to anyone as well. Funny enough, these people never follow up their remarkably insightful critique (***sarcasm alert***) with anything such as, "If you want to see something good, you can check out the project I am working on at www..."

No matter. This business is not for the thin-skinned, that is for sure. As an artist I know that I cannot grow and improve my work without constructive criticism. I welcome it from people whose opinions and work I respect. Collaboration is a big part of the process, and to me, a big part of the fun. But if you are someone who actually gets things done, there will always be jealous wannabes out there who will try to undermine you.

That doesn't mean it is always easy to hear the constructive criticism. But before I dismiss anyone's opinion, I ask myself two things: (1) Is this person talented and productive in their own right? and (2) Was their critique delivered with malicious intent and nothing more?

Wound Up Tight

As I had hoped for, sleep like a baby I did in the Poconos. In addition to the fresh air, that utopic slumber may have had a lot to do with the fantastic food at the restaurant Louis' Prime, and the boxed wine that Mikey (one of my big investors, as well as the owner of my adopted pied a campagne) helped me kill off on the back deck of his cabin, after our dinners on Sunday and Monday evenings.

But Friday and Saturday evening I was all alone in the woods. Not so scared of bears as I was of the obnoxious family from Long Island in the cabin next door, who NEVER SHUT UP. Luckily they hung out on their front porch and Mikey's deck is in the back yard. But their hot tub was on the side of the house that faced us, so we got a couple visual servings of "Straight People Stew" as Mikey calls it.

I got a lot done. Whipped out the rehearsal schedule straight off the bat, which was no small task considering the ensemble cast of 12 people only had ONE day that EVERYONE could show up at the same time. My many years of hotel management experience is paying off in ways I had never anticipated. Underpaid and overworked hotel front desk clerks and restaurant staff are FAR more demanding, unreliable, inflexible, and cranky than underpaid and overworked actors. But in all fairness, movie-making is a lot more fun, though not nearly as glamorous as people who have not done it think it is.

I also was able to complete breaking down the ensemble's wardrobes. That is a crazy-detailed part of it that a lot of people (including filmmakers) don't really consider. Today I spent SIX HOURS with my lead actress, Cheryl Scungio, who is playing Gracie. She has to have 14 outfits to complete her scenes. That is no joke! Think about it: not only are we talking about 14 different clothing ensembles, each has to (1) represent the personality of her character, (2) coincide with her character's ARC, (3) not look like any other character's wardrobe, (4) not duplicate itself in style or color (or if it does so, does so with a specific purpose), (5) be functional or utilitarian to the scene itself ( is she working, on a date, at a bar...), and above all, be (6) economically feasible, as my darling cast are supplying their own wardrobe.

But, as I have found in every other task within the movie-making business, it is a complex puzzle, but it is not brain surgery. Cheryl and I made a day of it, and had a blast doing so. We hit 2 shops in Mount Vernon, nailed a couple burgers for lunch in Broadway Market in Fells Point, another vintage store there, and finally a thrift store on Fort Ave in south Baltimore. Brought our treasures back to my place, mixed and matched it up with the script breakdown, and... it was a lot of work, but the puzzle in nearly complete! For her character. Now I have to do it ELEVEN more times.

That is not all I have gotten done since I got back. Yesterday I wiped a couple MAJOR things off the list. I locked down another fabulous location, the Wind-Up Space at Charles & North Ave. I had not been there before and wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it is not only slick but PERFECTLY slick. A dream for filming - wide open space, and nothing is nailed in place. My DP is going to freakin' wet herself when she sees this place. But it is also so very Baltimore. The building was formerly an old market, now it is a bar and gallery space. Creative drinking, that is what this town is all about!

I have some other hot spaces lined up, but I will write about them in a separate posting so they don't get muddled together. And in the last 24 hours I have nailed down two KEY positions in my Production Crew, which I will also share with you in a later posting. I am trying not to ramble too much in one posting, but it is difficult because so much is happening. We start filming in THREE WEEKS!

So, (hopefully) understandably, I am a little stressed out. Had a minor flip-out the night before last on poor Eric, my filmmaker friend who has served as great counsel to me and is also currently filming his own flick at my hotel. After a (very) few hours sleep I realized I was being absurd and apologized before he even had time to address it, as it was one of those (often dangerous) email exchanges. By the time I actually spoke to him, he was laughing about it. Guys dig crazy. Lucky for me.

Table Read

What a great day. This afternoon, the entire ensemble got together for a "table read" of the script from start to finish. I probably should not have scheduled this the day before a holiday weekend, as the people who had to travel the furthest to be here got stuck in DC beltway traffic. But everyone made it.

To call this cast eclectic would be an understatement. Their range in age, ethnicity, and pure style blend together beautifully, and truly capture the diversity that, to me, personifies Baltimore.

Everyone jumped in with their ideas and suggestions to tweak the script. It is important to me that everyone have their say, and take ownership of their characters. The collaborative effort absolutely made the script stronger and funnier. And I think the actors appreciated being asked their opinions, and knowing that their voices were heard.

One of the things that surprised me when I started wedging my way into the microcosm that is filmmaking is how poorly actors are often treated, and how willing they still are to do things for cheap or free. To many directors and producers, actors fall pretty far down on the list of priorities, after gear, locations, and well below film crew. Of course, any of those things can make or break your film. But so can acting, of course! It doesn't make good business sense to treat them like cattle. Not to me, anyway. I don't want to be that director.

Today's reading brought it home to me, and I think to the cast as well, that this is really happening, we are really doing this. And not only that, but we are going to do it very well, and have a great time while working our asses off. We had a lot of laughs today, and the natural chemistry that surrounded the table let me know that the tough choices I have had to make so far were the right ones.

In a nutshell, I could not possibly be happier with the way things are going. Tomorrow I am driving to my secret retreat in the Poconos, to spend the holiday weekend alone (well, I'm taking my dogs with me), rewriting the script to incorporate the changes we made today, and to start plotting out the rehearsal and production schedules. But tonight, I am just going to enjoy the moment, the sweet satisfaction of a productive day, and I am going to sleep like a baby.

Crazy Jeanie's!!!!! Everything Must Go!!!!!!!

Many (well, 6 or 7) months ago when I was about to jump in with both feet, Consultant Sean posed some tough questions to me as I asked for his help. How far was I willing to go for this? Was I willing to max out my credit cards? Sell belongings? I said sure, but I didn't know if I meant it. It just seemed kind of... I dunno, a little crazy. I didn't want to end up living out of a van or anything just to make a movie.

But as I haven't thought about anything else for what seems to be a very long time now, selling stuff seems like no big deal, because I am not a materialistic person anyway. Clearing out my studio, I totaled up over $2000 of framing supplies alone that I had stockpiled. So I inventoried it and put it up on Craigslist. I've sold about half of it so far. Then I started digging into my art supplies. This morning I sold all my Sennelier Pastels & paper. Later this afternoon a college student is coming by to look at my drafting table. Last month I sold my entire darkroom set-up.

Now I am rummaging through closets and even starting to eye up furniture. What else can I get rid of? When ebay first started, I had a brief addiction to bidding on stuff, so this is like the opposite. It is kind of fun, but I have already learned to price things a little higher than I hope to get because the first thing Craigslist shoppers do is try to talk you down, even if it is the deal of the century.

If I can sell the table today, though, that will be about $700 for the week, and I still have more junk and supplies to sort through. That more than pays for what I had to spend at Home Depot to renovate my studio into my office (though it doesn't begin to touch what I just paid for this new computer...) It is good for my feng shui to get all this unused clutter out of here, I feel more focused already.

Lessons Learned

Note to self: Before starting next movie, have boyfriend (or at a minimum, boy toy) at my disposal for massage and other stress-relieving tasks.

I'm better today, but yesterday everything caught up with me and I was sore and exhausted from tip to toe. Last week I tackled the monumental task of ripping out my studio/frame shop down to the bare walls, painting every square inch of this 15 x 20 room including the painstakingly detailed trim (this entailed me sitting cross-legged in a deep windowsill for hours at a time), and reassembling it as my new office, or as I like to call it, my Movie Lair. It was well worth it, though. Now I have a bright, clean, huge, cheerful space to work in, and since I will be spending the greater part of the next six months in this room, it is highly beneficial that these surroundings are pleasant and comfortable. It has two 8-foot tables for my work space, a dining room table and chairs for meeting space, and of course, a Casting Couch ;)

It really did turn out great. The walls are a pale but sunny yellow, the trim a textured dark olive. That rug that I bought at Home Depot looks fantastic in here, the perfect colors. I arranged all my framed black & white movie star photos in a perfect balance around the room to watch over me while I work. These are the people from the movies I love most, Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Jimmy Stewart, and of course, my absolute hero, Mae West. She is the only one in color in the room, a gigantic poster of her on a hot pink background wearing a black wide-brimmed go-to-hell hat.

In 1935, Mae West was the highest-paid woman in America. Some might say, "Yes, but not that many woman were in the work force in 1935." Well, that just makes it all the more impressive! She wrote most of the movies she starred in, and called all the shots regarding who she worked with. She hand-picked Cary Grant for her film, "I'm No Angel," (and often claimed to have "discovered" him, which he disputed). This is one of the rare (and it was the last) films where you can see Grant portrayed as the pursuer rather than the one being pursued. West, of course, gave herself all the best lines.

Having grown up in Vaudeville (she was known as "the Baby Vamp"), of course she had no college education, but she had savvy. She used all the natural weapons at her disposal, and combining her brains and her sexuality, who could have stopped her?

I think in a way she left herself behind to get ahead, and for all her groundbreaking success, she died in a rather lonely manner. But she was the first of her kind, and I don't think she can really be criticized for trying to uphold her own image of sexual and emotional independence. In those very early days of the industry, if she took her eye off the ball for a second, she might be at the mercy of the studios, as many actors (such as Grant) often found themselves, just to make ends meet and stay working. Can you imagine Mae West being reduced to playing a dumb blonde or a boss-chasing secretary? No way.

So here she is in my Movie Lair, smiling coyly over her shoulder, on a poster that bears her name OVER the movie title in letters four-and-a-half times the size (I measured) of Cary Grant's name BELOW the title.

In other words, "Get to work, Jeanie."