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...

"Ben" There.

Zippy documents yet another local landmark, this time Ben's Chili Bowl up on U Street. When the Don Cheadle film "Talk to Me" was in town this summer, we shot a scene up here. Not a lot of set dressing, so I was basically hanging around, when the prop girl came up in a panic, and asked if we had any cassette tapes. It's been a while since I had a cassette player in a car, but I asked her why she needed one. Turned out the prop cars were all vintage 60s, and none of them had CD players, and she needed to have some kind of music playing so all the extras could bob to the same beat. I ran down to a local music store, where the clerk laughed at me when I asked for tapes. Then he pondered for a moment, "Wait a sec," and reached under the counter, bringing out a bag of ten dusty tapes. "These are my old DJ loops. Help yourself." I ran back to Ben's. Saving the day. Yes. I have a glamorous film life.

We finished the shot and moved on. Now, one of these days, I actually need to get a chili Dog from Ben's.

Shooter? I hardly Know 'er!

Picture Cars -- now this is fun. You get to wrangle all the cars that show up in the scene. We're down by Freedom Plaza near the Reagan building, and I'm bringing in police cars, limos, Town Cars, even a taxi cab or two. Mostly, we stand around. The film is called "Shooter," and director Antoine Fuqua doesn't rush his shots. He keeps going until he gets exactly what he wants, and since he's one of the best directors out there, what he wants is clear as a bell. On Day 2, we're waiting around in the limo, while the rest of the crew stands around in the pouring rain. Day three is in Baltimore, and the winds off of the park in Federal Hill will about blow you over. The last shot is Mark Wahlberg, his character badly wounded, driving his pickup truck into a run-down gas station. Everyone's tired but happy.

As we're all saying our goodbyes, I get a chance to shake hands with Mr. Fuqua himself. "Good work, fella." He says.
"Thank you. After that Nike commercial last fall, I wasn't sure you'd ever come back to Baltimore." Usually pretty stoic, he cracks up laughing, "Man," he says, "When they told me Baltimore, I was like 'Oh no..'"

"But it's all good now, right?" I ask.

"Yes. It's all good." And he claps me on the shoulder, and it's time to head home.

The photo? That's Carl, aka "King Carl," blatantly posing in front of Antoine, who turned his head a half second before I got the shot. Oh well -- guess I'm not a shooter...

Sweat, sweat and tears.

Getting onto a major film is always a hoot, especially after doing five weeks of basic cable tv. When it's a Don Cheadle movie, so much the better. (The Washington Post talks a bit about the film, and our locations)

It's a mad, mad day: Five setups in one day, two units shooting pretty much simultaneously, as the producers scurry to bang out all the DC shots in a 24-hour period, and then get back to nice, cool, (cheap) Canada to finish the film. Still. "Talk to Me" looks like it has potential.

But oh but it's hot. I'm sweating buckets at 7AM. Our first setup is in Southwest DC, in front of a church and then in a public housing block. We're making everything look like 1968. Take a loot at your backyard, and think about how many items you have that weren't around back then. Multiply the task if you have kids -- toys are completely different now. So we have to move ALL of the stuff from the back yards, and dress in period material. Fortunately these public housing units have clotheslines out back, which we dress with period clothes. Not so easy are the satellite dishes pointing to the southern sky. One comes down (it was disconnected), the rest are covered in burlap. The set looks good, the director is happy. The locals are just great -- friendly, cooperative, all very interested in what we're doing. I don't think a lot of films have shot here.

Then it's a mad dash to the other sets, one up on H Street, two others on the mall. Then back the SW to wrap the townhouse... except as we turn the corner, there are, and I counted them, 12 police cars, plus an ambulance and a pumper truck. "Oh no," I think, worried about the locations guy we've left to watch our set dressing. I hop out of the box truck and walk over; fortunately our guy is safe, but has quite a tale to tell, in which a dozen police officers chased a suspect THROUGH OUR SET and corralled him in the intersection. Eventually we get the truck there, and start loading. Just as one of the residents comes home, and starts screaming bloody murder that we didn't have the right to shoot in her yard (you're eight hours late, lady!). We slam the doors of the truck and get the hell out of there.

Long day. Call time was 6AM, I wrapped at 11:15PM. I think I drank nine bottles of water, and never peed once.