Their survivors braved the cold

I'm standing on a wooden platform. The guy from CNN is behind me, and he's pissed, as I have the best angle. Well, he should have shown up sooner. It's April 16, the wind is gusting to 40MPH, blowing the light rain directly into the lens of my 2-day-old XL2. The audio guy can't seem to find his level, and the signal coming out of the multbox is hot, and I have to ride the pots constantly. It's maybe 40 degrees. I'm wearing a light jacket, and shivering so hard I have to turn the image stablilization on...

But on the stage is the always reliable Jan Scruggs, and it's the ninth annual Vietnam Veterans In Memory Day ceremony. Family and friends of men and women lost to the war, but whose names are not on The Wall, read their names out loud, sometimes with a short message. Agent Orange seems to be the number one killer of these soldiers. It's moving. It's touching. I deliver the tape to the editor up on K street and head back to the set of movie I'm working on. On the way there WTOP starts reporting on the Va Tech shooting, and I realize the CNN guy got pissed for nothing... neither his footage nor mine is going to air tonight.

http://www.vvmf.org

...where credit is due

Just saw "The Hoax" at Shrilington. Surprisingly good. I don't know how much re-shooting was done after the film was abruptly pulled from its Fall 2006 release, but whatever it was, it was effective: The movie works on several levels, and is a perfect vehicle for Gere's roguish charm.

Credits in movies are a strange thing. Unless you're a department head or a first hire, you never know if you're going to wind up with your name on the screen. Case in point was Syriana, where about a half dozen of us worked for several weeks as set dressers, but only three people were credited. In the case of "The Hoax," I worked a total of three days -- one to scout, two to shoot -- and wound up with a screen credit in the DC Unit section. Fact was, neither Gere nor Molina came to DC, and stand-ins were shot from behind as they drove the 220 Benz on Virginia 110, and walked up the steps of the library. But I did get to drive (briefly) the Benz, and jump-started it more than once. The DP didn't like the height of our camera truck, so we used my beat-up old Dodge Dakota. That was interesting: driving gingerly, the director in the cab with me, five guys crammed into the bed, while the Arlington police kept traffic back and out of the shot, as we rolled up and down 110. For this I get a screen credit. Go figure.

It does not appear that "The Hoax" is playing in many theaters, at least not in the DC area. But Molina's performance is exactly the sort of quirky-but-sympathetic role that Oscar loves for supporting actor.

Nicely shot

I do love it when a film comes out, and it's ok to talk about it... just saw Antoine Fuqua's "Shooter," and while I found the ending a bit disappointing, it's a decent popcorn film. My involvement was tiny: Wrangling picture cars, in DC and Baltimore. The DC scenes were in Freedom Plaza on E street, a day shot where Wahlberg is scoping (and being scoped), plus a night shot in the pouring rain on the Mall. In Baltimore, we had The Windiest Day Ever atop Federal Hill Park, followed by a quick shot of Wahlberg hopping into a cab (one I helped hire out, btw. Ah the glamor of film!) Finally we did the scene where the injured Bobby rolls his POS pickup into the gas station. That place actually required very little dressing; it really IS a used tire store, and it really DOES look like that. It was the champagne scene, too: Principal photography wrapped that night, someone handed Wahlberg a beer, and everyone stood around for a while. I'd been resetting the truck for him all night, so he'd seen me around, and we shook hands. "I'm Mark," he said. Which almost made me laugh; "No shit," was the first phrase that came to mind. But he was a nice fellow, and had some photos taken with the locals.

Now comes the weird part. The first day in DC, I saw this fellow hanging around, a little guy, mid-20s. He had about a dozen bullet holes on his face, courtesy of a very good makeup artist. I assumed he was an actor awaiting his scene, but he never went in front of the camera. In Baltimore, this same guy had his face painted ghostly white, with red crosshairs bifrucating his face. This of course drew a fair number of stares, which the fellow didn't seem to like. Finally a bystander asked him what was the deal with makeup. In a strange voice he replied, "I'm the shooter." Finally I heard from a PA that this guy was part of Wahlberg's entourage. Whatever.

Oh, and as for the photo above, I wasn't part of the set dressers who, as a friend recently pointed out, hung the flag backwards.. the blue field should be on the left.

Hey, but the car looks nice...