Thursday, May 15, 2008

The Maryland Film Industry

Interesting, if somewhat disjointed, article about the film biz and Maryland, and the possible end of it soon:

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=15658

I love the comments -- one genius suggests that spending tax dollars to attract helicopter factories is on par with keeping the film business infrastructure that's already established. Such short-sighted people are why we have so many empty warehouses and shut down factories in this area...

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Reel Work pays off, dog


We won -- a team I worked on for the International Documentary Challenge was awarded "Best Use of Music Genre," for our seven-minute mini-documentary, "Old Soul." This is especially rewarding for me, as I'm the one who found our subject: Musician, photographer, philosopher, and world-traveller Jason Hamacher. Jason and I go back quite a ways, to my first music video, in fact (Decahedron's "No Carrier"). Jason rang me up in the spring to shoot some video of his gallery opening of photographs from Syria, and when I was offered a role to shoot and help edit a project for the IDC, I suggested Jason. He was, I knew, great on camera and had a compelling story. This project was part of a five-day project: To write, produce, edit, and finalize a short documentary over an extended weekend.

We interviewed Jason about his mission to document ancient chants from Syria, a representative of the Syrian embassy, and a priest from a local Syriac Orthodox church. Shaz Mallick produced -- can't wait to work on the next one.

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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Laying "Laid to Rest" to rest

Final tally:

Number of days worked (paid): 39

Number of days worked (unpaid): 4

Longest shift: 29.5 hours

Shortest shift: 6 hours (wrap day!)

Coldest temp: 40 degrees

Warmest temp: 88 degrees

Number of rainy days: All?

Props lost: Toshiba laptop, silver lamp, clock radio, Canon printer, Ryobi battery charger, 2 of Mike's prop guns (which I must replace, grr), Garmin GPS.

Worst moment: Having to fire someone

Best moment: Dangling Lena Heady by her ankles. True story. We had this rig that was faking part of a wall, as the bad guy had (as the story goes) dragger her character out of her bedroom window. Part of the scene is shot with a remarkably life-like Lena dummy; the other part with Lena herself. When it's clear she isn't going to be able to hold on to the handholds, the F/X supervisor looked at his two scrawny high-school age interns, and shook his head, then noted my own 230 lb frame. "Bentley! Get over here." So for 45 minutes I'm stadling there, thinking, over and over, "I'm holding Sarah Conner by her ankles. I'm holding Sarah Conner by her ankles. My life has really gotten weird. I once wiped fake vomit off of Rutger Hauer's crotch. I put flowers into Christopher Walken's hand. I almost threw Stephen Gagan off his own set. I rode up in an elevator with Ed Harris, my mouth agape that I towered over him. I talked football with John Voigt. I cleaned out Russell Crowe's used food bucket (don't ask). But I have to say, dangling Sarah Conner was perhaps the high point of my long and illustrious art department career.

Profanities used: Incalculable

Sunsets seen: 29

Sunrises seen: 28

Vehicles driven: Seven: My Honda, Tommy's VW, Stephen's Corolla, the hearse, Tucker's truck, the sheriff's squad car, Chromeskull's Chrysler.

Days I wanted to quit: 3

Days I realized I have the best job in the world: 43

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Last looks



In LA, they have dedicated art department warehouses. Out here, there isn't enough business to keep such places alive, so we tend to use the remains of failed industries. On Syriana, we used an old warehouse from a closed factory. For Wedding Crashers, it was a semi-abandoned furniture store. For NT2, it was a closed moving company warehouse. This time, it was an abandoned storeroom at a (mostly) abandoned mental hospital. Five weeks ago, when I first saw it -- debris-strewn, peeling paint, broken windows, a vague smell (chlorine? urine?) in the back, no water, limited power -- I was in love. For the first time, it was my art department.

Over the next few weeks, it got full. Full of props, set dressing, severed human heads, various bodies, gallons of fake blood, power tools, sawdust, guns, everything a growing boy needs.

There were times I hated it. When it was 4AM, and pouring rain, and 40 degrees, and I was working on three hours sleep, it seemed a bit like hell. But mostly, it was home. For five weeks.

Today I cleared out the last of my tools. The faint smell of (chlorine? urine?) is still there, along with that weird clingy smell that the fake blood makes, and the stale odor of the literally hundreds of cigarettes smoked by our F/X interns. A family of wasps was already laying claim to a corner. A lone broom, Maryland state property, stood against the rusted old table saw. I took one last photo, clicked the lock shut, and remembered that stupid line from the Don Henley song, "I need to remember this." I first quoted that to myself in 1989, when I was moving from an apartment that I hated, in Greenbelt. And it pops into my head every time I see a place for the last time. Good places, bad places.

I remembered last Spring, when I was the last person on National Treasure 2; the rest of the set dressers had mostly moved on to other projects. Carl was off filling out paperwork, and Parker was loading scrap lumber into a truck. That warehouse was several times larger, but just as grimy, just as drafty, and just as full of old industrial memories, creeping in the ones we'd just created. I'd spent about five weeks there, too. I looked around, breathed in the dusty air one last time, and pulled the door shut.

It doesn't feel like filmmaking. But it doesn't feel like anything else, either.