by Nick Cole
He hesitates for a moment and checks the equipment, but I’ve got him.
The Unit Production Manager approaches me with the intent of stopping me, or at least voicing his concerns in case of later criminal and civil lawsuit and sanity hearings. But I’m ready for him, and I strike.
“I didn’t get any coffee this morning. It was on the call sheet. In the future I want a cup of coffee handed to me at four, exactly. Go make it happen.”
He nods and walks away. I am not making friends. I am making art.
We get the shot. No one falls to their death, and moments later we are setting up for the next shot. I spend the rest of the morning talking with the Lead Actress about what I would like to see in her work after lunch. You remember, lunch. Or mainly, the Contract-Specified Specifically Designed Juice Empowerment Muscle Confusion Specific lunch she is supposed to receive.
Just before lunch, when nothing can be done because the crew is waiting for their official lunch to begin, and all the while the money bonfire crackles and burns in the corner of my vision, the Knight-Errant PA arrives in the rented Lexus SUV with bucket seat in hand. His face is beatific and wholly expecting to receive golden laurels heaped on him in triumph.
His glory is smashed as he notices the setup for the shot he was to save is already being broken down, and I watch him transform into despair and, ultimately, defeat.
For a moment he almost saved the day. Alas, it was not to be. And now the Lexus will surely draw the attention and ire of the Line Producer—the guy who controls the budget of the film and whose motto and training as far as I can tell consists of one phrase.
“When in doubt, say no.”
I watch the Knight-Errant PA queue up to be first in line for lunch, undaunted by the fact that PAs always eat last. It’s a rule.
The Production Manager, to whom I am talking, becomes more tense and pensive than normal. Typically, this is the worst part of his day. Lunch is his responsibility. Instead of being grateful, the cast and crew, at best, will dine without comment, and without a doubt, there will be a problem for somebody about something menu-related, and he will take this personally. After all, lunch reflects on him, and it often reflects badly. He has hired most of these people, and it is to him that they owe their jobs, but they will not hesitate to rip him to shreds about the state of gluten in the free food he is providing them.
Lunch starts off well enough as the crew line up for their various meals. On one table, a chef will make the pasta selection of your choice, seasoning and infusing it with expensive oils and fresh ingredients. On another table an array of various salads present themselves only to be outdone by the main salad of the day offered at center table: spinach seductively dressed in the most delicate of drizzled almandine vinaigrettes, draped in a variety of fresh-cut hardboiled eggs, crisp red onions, Roma tomatoes, and candied pecans.
Fat falls sizzling into the hell of black and orange coals below smoking half chickens sitting atop an iron grill. The rising smoke announces to a hungry crew: “If you are seeking meat, look no further. You can’t go wrong with this dish of grilled chicken topped with fresh cut peaches in a brandy reduction sauce.”
It is an oasis of food and the Unit Production Manager has done well in the assembly of it. He has even accomplished what until now has been the impossible. The one unfulfilled need that has albatrossed my production from day one.
The Contract-Specified Special Specifically Designed Juice Empowerment Muscle Confusion Specific lunch.
This has been a source of frustration for the entire production staff, the Lead Actress, her agents, the studio, and finally me. In a few months some celebrity website will ask her about shooting this movie and she will hint that it was “tough” or “difficult” in order to somehow portray her job as anything but the yellow-brick cakewalk she’s stumbled into. This ongoing struggle to get her lunch right will be what she’s referring to when she uses the words “tough” or “difficult.”
But not today. Today the Unit Production Manager sent his best PA to get the special lunch.
No. Wait.
That PA got diverted to get the chair we didn’t end up needing.
Oh no.
He probably picked up the meal before he got diverted to get the chair.
“Did you get the meal?” The Unit Production Manager asks the PA, who passes by with an impossibly overloaded plate of food, a heap from every possible selection.
“No. You sent me to the warehouse,” replies the PA through a mouthful of salad. Being first was not enough for him. He has started to eat before even sitting. The swine.
We, the Unit Production Manager and I, stare at each other for a brief second. In tandem we turn our heads toward the trailer of the Lead Actress. As if on cue the door swings open and out she marches. My chest hurts as the Production Manager races toward her hoping desperately to head off and somehow stop what we both know will happen next. I hope he survives, I think to myself as I rub my throbbing arm. I watch him doing the age-old dance of explanation with extra supplicant-like pleadings. He weaves a tale of lies involving cars overheating, stupid PAs, and ruined imaginary special lunches. He even manages to blame a political party.
She really is beautiful. And talented. A porcelain doll shaped from the Nordic rock of the Midwest. Every curve, line, and feature about her is master crafted for beauty, except for the frown I watch develop at the corners of her mouth as her jaw sets itself in a determined fashion and whose message is quite clear. For a brief second, I falsely believe the Unit Production Manager will make it past the approaching storm. That he will somehow convince her to be a trooper and soldier on.
Alas, ’tis not to be.
She takes half a step back, draws in a large amount of air, and lets loose a tirade the likes of which I have only heard rumor of. She equates him with the lowest, most displayed form of incompetence, calls into question his manhood, then spews insults that quickly move on to threats and promises, the last of which being she will not work until her Contract-Specified Special Specifically Designed Specific Special Juice Empowerment Muscle Confusion Specific lunch is served to her. She turns and marches off to her air-conditioned trailer.
Not one soul has missed this display or failed to notice the Unit Production Manager, not eating, phone in hand, other phone in other hand, other phone on belt, notebook on knees, dejectedly casting a look at me as though asking if I might share the blame with him.
I should. I could. We really are members of the same team, and with a simple dismissive wave of her bratty performance, understood by all, I could shoulder the burden and help him out of this.
Instead I choose to throw my shooting script down and walk away.
It was unprofessional of me. It was unprofessional of her. It was a failure on the part of the Production Manager. It should have stayed that way. We should have been allowed our tantrums, shame, and humiliation. After an hour we would have stopped. She would have been fed both physically and emotionally. We would go back to work and all would be right. At least for a little while.
Instead, the Black Studio SUV chooses that exact moment to arrive, driving over the now loose shooting script fluttering and scattered on the ground. The Studio Executive, our boss, steps from the SUV onto one of the pages, and directly into our conflagration.
He sees the undeniable remains of a director’s temper tantrum, a script being discarded in the most typical of outbursts. He sees a departing, very expensive Lead Actress and a bewildered Production Manager. He sees a matching crew standing and witnessing the collapse of the production, and most importantly to him, not working.
Studio Executives can also see the money bonfire.
Eventually things are arranged, promises are made, and shame abounds. We get back to work and put our problems on hold for another day. Finally, we reach the Martini Shot, the last shot of the day.
This is it. All i
s right. The crew is in place, the set is hot, and the Lead Actress is ready for her close-up. The Studio Executive is gone and in one minute it will be four o’clock and we will have the shot in the can. Mostly, we are finished. Forty people bend to their tasks, waiting for my command to begin the capture of light and sound.
“Lights,” a voice calls in the darkness.
“Speed,” another calls from farther away and in my earphones.
I crane my neck forward to watch the video assist as the Lead Actress creates what I have been asking her for. In this moment I love her and I love movies. I ignore the aches and pains and realize, I can do this.
I actually do think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”
An instant later as I watch my beautiful star open her mouth, the world descends into darkness and I wonder for a second if I’ve finally gone blind.
I have not. The generator has failed.
In the darkness I hear the generator guys running across the floor to fuel the beast. They curse and apologize as I feel hot tears of anger beginning to form in my eyes. In the darkness, a faceless voice next to me announces in stage whisper, “Here’s your coffee.”
Though it is four o’clock, it is the wrong four o’clock. I’d meant four a.m., though I’d forgotten to add that last bit.
Tomorrow will be more of the same.
***
For a moment the Great Director closes his eyes and drops his throbbing skull back against the cool leather of the therapist’s chair.
“The truth is, Doctor,” he sighs, “I’m afraid of dying. Just like everybody else in the world, I’m afraid of death. It’s strange, I used to be afraid of not making movies, or at least the movies I wanted to make. Now I realize I’m never going to make them.”
He sighs again.
“Now all I want out of life is to live. Even if it’s in Alaska. In fact, preferably if it’s Alaska. I want to live and fish and sleep under the stars. I want pink salmon roasting on a spit while I watch out for bears. I don’t want to make movies anymore. I just want to live. I’ve forgotten what it is that I loved about filmmaking. Now I’m afraid the stress of this job is killing me. Maybe it’s killed me already, damaged my heart, I can feel it.”
It was quiet now that he’d stopped speaking. Soon they both became aware of the tick of a clock.
“But you can make movies and live,” said Dr. Mandelbaum. “You know, find happiness in your work, job satisfaction, that sort of thing. Maybe you could talk to a friend or a peer, another director perhaps, and find out what it is that they love about film. You said you once loved making films. Maybe, if you speak with someone you respect, a member of your profession, you’ll remember what it is that you love about film?”
“They’re killing me,” whispered the Great Director.
Dr. Mandelbaum stops writing. “That’s very interesting. Next week we’ll talk about your mother. There might be something there.”
Chapter Five
WildBill
“I say, GOOD DAY FOR A WAR!” Sir Nigel’s stage voice is elevated to the bombastic boom coveted by most American actors.
What an odd thing to greet someone with, thought the Great Director. Then again, he was going to see WildBill, and strange things were bound to happen. They always did when WildBill was involved. Things always got weird.
You could say that WildBill was more myth than man. But in truth he was simply crazy to the power of ten. He’d begun making movies in the wild, no-holds-barred, drug-fueled days and nights of the late sixties. He’d shocked and stunned fellow filmmakers with treats like The Hot Few, a searing tale of betrayal and revenge set in Prohibition-era Texas, and Break ’em Wilder, another sulfurous offering cut from the same brimstone.
WildBill made movies that outraged the masses and left the critics incapable of slamming him. His movies were hard to understand, subtle in their complexities while nuanced with over-the-top graphic violence. Critics continued to hold him aloft more to denote their own prowess of taste as opposed to actually critiquing his films.
Preparing people to work with WildBill was akin to telling teenage girls to practice French kissing with drug-crazed cobras. No one worked “with” WildBill and remained unscathed. Everyone worked “for” WildBill and was subsequently scathed. He was a notorious womanizer, violent psychopath, binge drinker, and junkie gambler who had served three tours in Vietnam as a Skyraider close air support combat pilot, having been shot down no less than five times. All considered him to be the most difficult of people to work for. Entrusting any sort of creative endeavor to his command simply guaranteed years of therapy or a possible heart attack for those enlisted in his productions. Most who’d worked for WildBill were left with the overwhelming conviction never to work for WildBill again, along with a take-home gift basket containing a general despondency if not an altogether melancholic outlook on life. After working with WildBill, many studio executives had fled the business altogether and seemed to have one thing in common: they all became florists or pursued hobbies related to gardening.
WildBill was currently working on his World War Two opus, and already reports of savagery and mayhem abounded in the trades. WildBill had fired the Leading Actor only to hire him again, then have him quit, and at last notice, return again. He had been over budget on day five of shooting. Saudi bankers, or rather, the progeny of the royal family, were supposedly being brought in to bankroll a climactic battle scene currently being set up somewhere north of the San Fernando Valley. Every day a helicopter departed the studio lot for the set.
The Great Director had made some calls and was soon awarded a coveted seat on the daily “chopper” to the super-secret-undisclosed set. He was taking Dr. Mandelbaum’s advice and seeking the counsel of WildBill. Maybe WildBill could break through the fear and malaise that had engulfed the Great Director of late.
Early the next morning he waited in the studio parking lot as a Vietnam-era Huey transport helicopter executed a gusty landing into the cold morning air of a Burbank parking lot. The Great Director was swiftly escorted, head down, to the chopper, where he climbed aboard and was assisted into the seat belt and accompanying web harness. A black limo arrived seconds after he was secured, and shortly thereafter a crate full of Kobe steaks and a cardboard box of whiskey bottles were loaded onto the transport.
As the pilots busied themselves with their preflight checklist, one of the ground crew made hand signals telling them to hold their departure for five minutes.
Soon another limousine arrived.
The driver of the limousine opened the rear passenger door, and out stepped the instantly recognizable Sir Nigel. He was wearing a gray suit and matching bowler, along with a perfectly knotted Eton tie. He carried a walking cane, twirling it jauntily as he headed toward the chopper. In his typically English way, he smiled and laughed, affably chatting up everyone from the ground crew to the pilots as he boarded and was strapped in.
“Good day for a war,” tried Sir Nigel over the rapidly building roar of the turbine and accompanying chop of the four deadly blades whirling just above their heads.
“What?” asked the Great Director. He leaned forward, straining to hear Sir Nigel.
“I say, GOOD DAY FOR A WAR!” The chopper waggled its tail off the ground and was soon ascending over the morning traffic of Burbank. Conversation was impossible, and the Great Director sat back, content to stare at Sir Nigel.
Sir Nigel, the English gentleman of stage and screen, having only recently come to America to make pictures, smiled beatifically out the open door of the transport and into the misty blue of the altitude above and traffic below. For years he had labored in obscurity, unable to vault the high boundary into superstardom. Though he was well lauded, the critical acclaim he’d received in the theatre circles of London had provided precious little fuel to the rocket he so desperately needed to launch. On a lark he came to America to make pictur
es, first playing a droll yet loveable butler in a film called Tricking Royalty, in which an American prostitute becomes the Queen of England. Then he assumed the role of an egomaniacal villain leading an elite team of super-terrorists taking over the Brooklyn Bridge only to be foiled by a transit worker who had formerly been a Green Beret in the aptly titled Death Bridge.
Sir Nigel thus embarked on movie after movie, each time adding substance and texture to every summer’s must-see blockbuster blow-up-the-world film. Superstars of the moment coveted him, as if to lend credibility to their own attempts at craft. Each part offered was often better than the last, and this was good because Sir Nigel lacked the ability to discriminate. After years of working in anonymity, he now relished the chance to make money and do the thing he loved most: be a movie star. This caused his agents no small amount of dismay, as they were often bombarded with calls on Monday mornings from various people of dubious character and suspect credits who claimed that Sir Nigel had agreed, at some party, club, or in the company of a young starlet, to act in their picture. Many was the day that Sir Nigel barely escaped a career-ending role as a pedophile clown.
He also loved California and enjoyed spending large amounts of time meeting the young ladies of the region. To this end he had become even more English than he had been in England. Young vixens found his accent both charming and endearing. His latest addition to the mantle of Englishness he wore with a disaffected pride had been his knighthood and the accompanying prefix of “Sir.” It blended smartly with Nigel, and the beach bunnies—his favorite—found it undeniably cute.
The Great Director studied Sir Nigel’s gray hair and cool blue eyes. Sir Nigel, in turn, smiled at the passing scenery. The Great Director knew Sir Nigel was absolutely crazy about American films and the accompanying lifestyle. If he’d asked Sir Nigel at that very moment, “Would you consider being in a picture I’m making? You’ll play a modern Richard the Third, except it will be set in an all-girls high school. You’ll be the scheming brother of the dean who wants to turn the school into a go-go club and recruit its students to become dancers.” He knew, without Sir Nigel even asking from which bad eighties coke-fueled nightmare the idea had incubated, that the actor would readily agree to throw his career away on such a box office turkey.