By the time we had finished the first shot my ears were so red one might expect steam to start shooting out of them. As the crew began to set up for the second shot, Sergey pulled Woody and I aside to rehearse. It was a very short scene, but it didn't take me long to be totally underwhelmed by Woody's performance. He took a very stilted, industrial approach to the scene, so much so that I could have probably kicked him in cojones and he still would have read it the same way. This didn't surprise me nearly as much as the director stepping over Woody's stilted performance and giving me loads of direction. I've never claimed to be a fantastic actor but I held my own throughout college, even with the bullshit politics. It was honestly insulting to be given so much condescending direction when Keanu received none. I say condescending because in the course of the direction Sergey would proceed to give me the rough definition of a substitution and the basics of putting it into practice.
I took the direction good-naturedly, and tried to change accordingly. I continued to get the same direction, so I tried to strip away any subtly and just give a blunt, heavy handed performance. I stopped getting the direction eventually, so either I did what Sergey wanted, or he gave up on me.
We went ahead and shot the scene. We took about 4 takes and both Woody and I managed not to screw up, which was nice because I had been worried about wasting film (each mistake would cost roughly $30 by my estimate, though I don't know what NCSA pays for color 16mm and lab fees). We finished with the shot surprisingly quickly, considering it was the only one with dialogue.
We moved on to a few closeup action shots for which I was not needed, so I retreated to the warmth inside. As bored as I had been waiting for the shoot to start I was doubly bored then. I was the only one inside, since the entire crew was outside shooting the next shot. As I warmed up for the next twenty minutes I fought the aching boredom. Eventually I gave up and went back to the doorway to the roof to both continue to thaw and watch what was going on outside.
Soon after I started to watch, though, they needed me back outside to finish up the scene. Since they had no rig to lower themselves down the side of the building and see the edge, which we actors would have to stand uncomfortably close to, we had to create a new edge. Woody and I climbed what amounted to a second, higher roof, covering a stairwell. They were to shoot up from the first roof to our structure to give the illusion that they were shooting us standing on the edge.
At this point I was thankful that 'Leo' hadn't made it. Not only was the room on this second roof tight, the incline that we were required to climb up to get to our second mark was about 70 degrees. Seriously steep. Even as we struggled to stay standing on our first mark and the second AC came around with the light meter, I was sure that this was going to lead to someone's neck being broken. Thankfully, even though I did spot the second AC stumble dangerously, we finished the scene with everyone's neck thoroughly unbroken.
Woody and I headed downstairs and the crew started to pack up. We hopped in the car with Erin and headed to the second location. As we were driving Woody and Erin talked about Sergey's relationship with his DP, who he was apparently dating. I kept out of it, not only do I abhor gossip, this romantic chemistry on set was nothing novel to me. In fact it was very much old hat.
The second location was a house, ripe with disrepair and currently covered in black wrap. Inside, which was somehow colder than outside, was a mess even without the loads of gear. We were introduced to Eric, the actor that had missed the morning scene. I had been irritated that he got out of waking up so early, but upon meeting him, I instantly liked him. Even still, he had the same put together look that Woody had and I began to wonder if Sergey went for looks over talent rather than just not being able to know talent when he found it. This didn't bother me that much, seeing as my character 'Todd' was a very attractive playboy.
We stood around and made fun of how Woody had to a scene nearly nude later in the day while the crew neglected to set up for the next scene. It wasn't even 10 yet, but it felt like I had put in a full day's work. As we stood idly, Sergey came over and gave us our costumes. He also instructed the makeup girls to do "something" with my hair, to make it different than the last scene. The makeup girls, who I had relentlessly made fun of since meeting, reveled at this opportunity to do something horrible to me. They gave up their chance for revenge, though, and instead gave me 'the abercrombie'. What that is, I don't know, because my hair was laying down again when I next saw it.
After getting ready to go for the scene, we (the actors) spent the majority of the next 2 hours in a back room. We talked about film stuff and when we got to acting, I was once again thrown. I mentioned that memorization was easy for me, but I didn't memorize my work with the lines, I built up the work later. Both other actors looked at me blankly.
"You mean... like blocking?"
I was stunned. I assumed they just heard me wrong. "No, like your acting homework."
I got a blank look again. "You know, substitutions and images."
I got a third blank look. Finally, Eric caught on. "Oh, method stuff. Yeah I'm learning about that in my acting class now."
I was especially surprised at Eric, because we had read the scene and he was pretty good, but a 32 year old actor who was just then learning method made me think that I had only begun to touch on how bad film actors could be. I counted myself lucky that I was working with an industrial soap dispenser and an actor without much training but some raw talent.
At lunch, the crew still had not set up the next scene. The NCSA rule is that actors eat first, and I took full advantage of that. It was nice to be treated as an asset rather than being walked all over. In fact, we were even given our own 'set mother' who would let us know when we were needed and fetch us things we wanted, not that any of us felt right using this privilege.
After lunch Eric, Woody and I went back to our out-of-the-way room and hung out for another hour or so. At some point stand ins were put in to light the scene, even though all of the actors were 10 feet away and not doing anything. When someone finally got us, there was a giant lighting set up in the floor hooked up to a dimmer rig. It was going to mimic TV lights. I thought it was overkill, I would either do the TV in post or forget about it. Even though I never said anything, it turned out that my thought had merit; after 30 minutes of practice and 2 burnt gels I still thought the set up looked mediocre.
This was a pot smoking scene, and they had decided to do it in a manner similar to that 70's show. I didn't really like the style, but what bothered me the most was that it left no room for cuts. Any mistake by anyone anywhere in the scene was going to ruin the entire take. Thankfully I didn't make any mistakes, and neither did Eric (Woody just had to look stoned). But apparently the tilt release on the tripod wasn't working because things got very tense between the director and the DP. The director was reluctant to ask for more takes since the DP was taking it very personally.
After that uncomfortable event, Eric and I were done for the day. Even though I knew it was petty the whole day I had been keeping score. How did my skills match up to the students- and I wasn't doing as poorly as I might have been. They knew things cold that I had never even heard of. However there were a few areas where they were severely lacking and where I excelled.
1) The love- no one on set seemed like they wanted to be there. I have a blast everytime I'm working on a film. Sure, I wouldn't want my main responsibility to be refilling the snacks, but as a producer I've spent many hours on sets where I didn't do anything all that important. Doesn't mean I didn't love it. Your love for what you're doing is completely reflected in the other side of the lense. Also, you're going to be working 20 hour days in TV and film, if you don't like it you'd better get out.
2) The rules- While I read a great number of textbooks to prepare for making my first serious film, I never learn a set of hard and fast rules that confine me to doing over over two-shot. Yes, there are rules that I follow based on my experience, but if I think a rule needs to be broken I will break it immediately and get coverage. It's something that makes me better everytime I go out- the willingness to experiment. Reading about a rule in a textbook has no substance. Breaking the rule and getting burned shows you exactly why that rule is in place.
3) The overview- These guys are so focused on their one job that they never get see the other side of the street. With a 40 man crew, you have no idea what is going on where and in addition to being chaotic, it's a bad working environment to learn in. I've done everything, filled in for every job imaginable, and it's benefited me greatly, specifically as a director or producer. Besides, working with a 3 man crew is a reality of the business sometimes (many times) and it's good to get the feel for it.
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