by Logan Miller
The Sleep-Directing nightmares and hallucinations gradually dissipated over several weeks. But they occurred both in September and December. Interestingly, they never occurred in April 2006 (when we filmed for four days in Arizona) and in April 2007 (when we returned to Arizona for two more days of filming). This led us to conclude that the intensity of principal photography compounds in the brain. The swelling increases each day until your mental immune system breaks down and Sleep-Directing takes over, somewhere after Day Ten. Of course, this depends on the individual. Some directors probably never experience this affliction. Some have never been cured.
ROCKIES ROAD AND THE MIRACULOUS RECEPTION
IN DENVER, MEN were loading hunting rifles. They wanted our hides.
“Guys, you may be receiving a phone call from the Rockies,” P. J. Carey said. If you remember, P. J. was the head coach of the Colorado Rockies extended spring training. He continued:
“Apparently, some people in the front office are upset with me for allowing you guys to come out and film us in spring training. Look, I told them you’re good kids and that I thought it was a great experience for our players…You guys had insurance, right?”
“Yes, sir. One million dollars’ liability, and a permit to film at Reid Park.”
“That’s what I thought…I remember you guys showing me the paperwork…Look, I think everything is going to work out. They’re just a little upset that you didn’t talk to them first.”
“How pissed are they?”
“They’re pissed…But they’re more pissed at me, I think…Look, the guys in the front office are good people. They just want to figure out what’s going on, who you guys are, and what sort of movie you’re making.”
“Who should we call, P. J.?”
“I think they’re going to call you.”
“Maybe we should call first. That way it doesn’t look like we’re hiding.”
“Greg Feasel is the guy to call. He’s the senior vice president of business operations.”
“Hey, we understand their concerns. If we were working for the Rockies and we found out that some movie guys had filmed on our fields without asking us, we’d be pissed too.”
“You guys did ask. You asked me. And I stand by my decision. It was a lot of fun for everyone…But it still needs to be cleared with the top guys. Look, call Greg, tell him about the movie, and I’m sure everything will work out.”
It was a bad thing we always saw coming and put off until the hour of reckoning. Now the hour was here. We prayed they would forgive us. We prayed they would let us use the footage.
THE MIRACULOUS RECEPTION
So we called Greg Feasel in Denver. Hal Roth, the Rockies head counsel and CFO, joined him on the call. And like P. J. said, they weren’t happy with us, weren’t happy at all.
Greg and Hal told us to send them our script, a DVD of the spring training footage, and any other relevant materials. They’d review and get back to us. Lawyers were now involved.
If the Rockies didn’t let us use the footage, the consequences would be disastrous. We had no way of replacing what we had filmed.
But somewhere on the heavenly ceiling, Michelangelo was mixing plaster and preparing to paint a new story of divine intervention: The Miraculous Reception.
That weekend our buddy Tony Shapiro was getting married. Tony is a blessed breed, a six-foot-three Viking-Jew. He can hit a 450-foot home run and murder you at chess. His bride, Evelyn, is an El Salvadoran and German goddess, one of those true beauties we all wish we could find but never do.
Greg Feasel and Hal Roth called us back on Friday, a day before the wedding. The Rockies, and now, Major League Baseball—the steel-nosed attorneys in New York who had final say on the usage rights—were not warming to our movie. In fact, it appeared our request to use the spring training footage was going to be denied. We might even get sued. New York was livid.
So we go to Tony and Evelyn’s wedding at a mansion in the rolling hills south of San Jose, Steinbeck country, put business on hold for a few hours, eat, drink, dance with lovely women in lovely dresses, all that delicious stuff.
After the vows were given, there was an hour of drinks and socializing, followed by a formal dinner, assigned seating, name cards on each table.
“Hey, guys, I don’t know where you’re sitting,” Tony said. “It’s completely random, a chance for both families to get to know each other.”
Both Tony’s and Evelyn’s mothers are immigrants, Sweden and El Salvador, respectively. Many of the guests had never met one another, due to geographic and linguistic barriers.
It was a buffet-style feast. We loaded up our plates, refilled the wine, found our name cards, and sat down. There were ten people at our table, didn’t know any of them, or so we thought.
“I’m Gary Hughes,” a sturdy, confident man in his fifties said. He reached across the table and shook our hands. “It’s nice to finally meet you guys. Tony has told me a lot about you over the years. I hear you’re making a movie.”
“Yes, sir. We just completed the first half of filming.”
No business for a few hours, right?
Well, like we said, miracles were being painted on the ceiling. There were 250 people at the wedding, some twenty-odd tables. We could’ve sat next to anyone. But no, we were sitting next to Gary Hughes.
And well, Gary Hughes is a very influential man in a line of work that was causing us great mental pain and distress. Coincidence? No, it’s miraculous. You see, Gary Hughes just happens to be the special assistant to the general manager of the Chicago Cubs. That’s right. THE CHICAGO CUBS. His son, Sam, also sitting at the table, is the clubhouse manager for the Florida Marlins. They’re a baseball family. They know quite a few people in the business of baseball.
“Tony said you guys did some filming with the Rockies,” Gary continued.
“Yeah, they’re pretty pissed off at us right now, might not let us use the footage. We sort of filmed without getting permission from the front office.”
“I used to work for the Rockies.”
THE COLORADO ROCKIES!? Noah coughed up a shrimp; Logan shot cabernet out his nostrils.
Then Gary asked, “Who have you been talking to?”
“Uhh…Hal Roth and Greg Feasel.”
“Hal Roth is a great guy, a very close friend of mine. You don’t meet better men than Hal. I’ll call him tomorrow. Tell him I know you guys, straighten everything out.”
Gary looked over at Tony and Evelyn, who were saying hello to each table. “I love Tony like a son. He’s always had great things to say about you guys. I know how much he loves you…You won’t have any problems with the Rockies.”
He raised his wine. “Here’s to Tony and Evelyn, and your movie. Cheers.”
Everyone at the table chinked wineglasses and beer bottles.
Gary called Hal the next day. Then Gary called us and said everything was going to work out with the Rockies. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, let me know. Good luck with your movie, boys. Take care.”
Michelangelo, high on the celestial scaffolding, applied the final touches to The Miraculous Reception. The man who had commissioned the work was waiting below. Michelangelo put down his brush, climbed down the scaffolding, stood beside our dad, and asked his opinion. “Well, done.”
CALL ME ISHMAEL
THE DAYS WERE getting short. Dark winter approached. Every day was page one of Moby Dick.
Despite the drastic cost-cutting, our economic position was still bleak. The movie was driving toward financial death. More harsh measures would need to be taken. One of our conclusions: we could not resume shooting in December with a Los Angeles crew. It would bankrupt the production. We needed to hire locally. This was an extremely difficult decision for us. (Not the local issue, but having to replace people.) We had a great crew. We wanted to bring them all back in December.
Including mileage, plane tickets, hotel rooms, and per diem, each person on our September crew from L.A. cos
t us a premium of $1,500/week. By hiring locally in December, we could save in excess of $100,000. But it wasn’t just about hard costs. Hiring locally would expose us to another potential hazard—a strong union presence. We’d avoided the union in September, largely because we’d hired an L.A. crew for a Northern California shoot, effectively operating outside the L.A. union’s reach. Northern California and Southern California have different unions, so hiring a local crew for the December shoot would now put us on the Northern California union’s turf. And, well, just like in someone else’s neighborhood, you’re gonna get tested.
Here’s how hiring the crew typically works: the director hires the director of photography (DP). The DP then hires the gaffer (the electrician), dolly grip, key grip—with the director’s approval, of course. But most of the time it never becomes an issue. However, Ricardo, our DP, was in L.A. It was now up to us and Jeromiah to hire a Bay Area grip and electric department, script supervisor—the most underrated position on set—props, and anyone else we could replace from L.A.
Hiring locally was a fiscal necessity. It had to be done. So we did it. But we weren’t proud of it. For three weeks in September, our crew had bonded. They had devoted themselves to the movie. They couldn’t wait to come back and finish in December. We had become especially close to our key grip, Gary Beaird. Blue-collared, ex-roofer, huge baseball fan, we had much in common. He was the first grip on set each morning and the last one to leave each night.
So we started the process of hiring a new crew, just like we had twice before. After dozens of phone calls and meetings, we hired Joseph Edward Scott as key grip, Jon Fontana as gaffer, Carol DePasquale as script supervisor, and Karen Bradley as hair and makeup, all Bay Area movie veterans.
Perhaps the most agonizing dimension of the hiatus was trying to put together a workable shooting schedule for December, a schedule that underwent hundreds of permutations. We could never complete the puzzle without having a few pieces left over.
Moreover, we were trying to play God by trying to control the weather. December in Northern California can be a torrential nightmare for anyone who makes his living outside. It’s not uncommon for it to rain the entire month. Also, there’s the dreaded absence of light. We needed to plan for these adverse filming conditions.
Typically, you have backup locations called “cover-sets” in case you get rained out during filming. For instance, if you’re scheduled to shoot at a baseball field, you also have a cover-set at an indoor location so you don’t lose a day of shooting because of the rain. But what if it’s raining the entire time? Exactly, you guessed it, you eventually run out of cover-sets. What if all your scenes are outside? Then you have The Rain Movie that was written as The Sunny Movie.
An overwhelming majority of Ed’s scenes took place outside. Rain throughout December would destroy us. One night in early October, we awoke to the pattering of rain. In our neurotic state, this was a portent of doom; utter disaster and catastrophe awaited us. It would rain from now until March. The next biblical flood had arrived, only an ark wouldn’t save us this time. We didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. Each raindrop on the roof was a nail hammered into our coffin.
By shooting much of the movie in September, we had already established the weather for a great number of scenes that we would need to complete with Ed in December. For example, the first day at the quarry, Mac (Evan Jones) walks over to the brothers at the rock crusher and starts talking to them. This was shot in September without a cloud in the sky, eighty-five degrees, hot and sunny. Now, in December, we needed to shoot two other parts of that scene (same day in the movie); Ed climbs into a loader and goes to work, then, at the end of the day he asks his boys in the quarry parking lot if they want to have dinner with him. Did this gap in scheduling overexpose us to risk? Yes. Did this defy industry convention? Absolutely. But there was no other way to do it. Our gut said, get it while you can.
Further tormenting us were the negotiations with Ed’s people. After the conclusion of the September shoot we had time to engage them on the contract. Without an executed contract, we sensed that Brian Vail was getting worried that we might have misrepresented Ed’s participation in Touching Home. Brian was already a million dollars in the hole.
Why wasn’t Ed signed yet? He said he was doing your movie, right? That’s the investment you sold me?
If we had financed the movie, these were the questions we’d be asking.
Hell, our entire crew thought Ed was signed. The only person besides us and Gordon aware of this vulnerable secret was Jeromiah.
As mentioned, Brian was not obligated to release further monies until Ed was signed. What’s more, this handicapped us in negotiations with Ed’s representatives. We couldn’t disclose this clause to them. It would give them substantial leverage. They would own our movie by the time they were through.
All this uncertainty—the weather, the impossible schedule, the financing, not having Ed signed—made the two months off mentally unbearable.
Then, as if we weren’t sick enough, other wonderful poisons began to enter our system.
An even greater concern than the weather, and similarly, one that was constantly changing, was the actors’ schedules. Only the forecasting of this hasn’t evolved with the accuracy of Doppler radar. This is as unpredictable as an earthquake. It’s like juggling babies over a volcano.
Our little movie did not have the money to book Brad Dourif, Robert Forster, or any of the other actors for the entire two weeks in December. We had to book them by the day, which meant that our schedule needed to be perfect—and perfect, as anyone knows, is impossible. Any changes to an actor’s schedule during filming would cost us huge dollars.
But here’s what happened to us repeatedly over the break (October, November). We’d finally figure out the shooting schedule, this intricate network of logistics, locations, people, gear, geography, permits, traffic, state and federal ordinances, area codes, zip codes…And sure enough, when all looked rosy, one of the actor’s agents would call, and in the sweetest of tones, inform us that his actor COULD NOT work on a specific date—who knows why, ’cause it was the actor’s dog’s birthday. Fine. We’d rework the schedule. The world would be at peace. Dogs and owners blowing out candles on fruitcake. A day later, another agent would call and tell us that his actor COULD NOT work on a specific day either. Fine. Rework the impossible. It was a merry-go-round of lunacy.
Then came the biggest missile.
Months earlier, Evan Jones had shot a TV pilot for ABC called October Road. In September, when Evan was filming with us, it appeared that October Road would not get picked up for the season. But during our break it did…And they would start filming new episodes in November and continue through the New Year. Great for Evan. Disastrous for us. We needed Evan in December. But ABC owned him. And guess what? We weren’t gonna be able to use him.
Evan tried to find time to come back. We tried. But the demands of October Road prevailed.
So we had to figure out a way to finish the movie without Evan, one of our central characters. How do you do that? We didn’t know yet. And it was keeping us up at night.
PART VII
THE RESURRECTION
BETTING IT ALL ON ED
BY EARLY NOVEMBER we had reached a stalemate with Ed’s people.
We weren’t budging. They didn’t have to. Their e-mail responses became increasingly delayed. They had essentially shut off communication.
The possibility of Ed not showing up seemed VERY REAL to us.
“They are not going to sign under these terms…These guys are sharks. They’re not going to settle on this,” Gordon said. “More importantly, your financier is not going to release further monies without Ed signed. You need to fly out to New York and sit down with Ed in person. The same way you got him on board. Bring the contract. Tell him his people are being assholes and that you need him to sign the damn thing.”
Ed was in New York, performing a one-man show at the Public Theater, se
ven shows a week. We had been corresponding through e-mail. He was upbeat, always wishing us the best, signing off with I’ll see you in December, or some other encouraging words.
“Gordon, we want to keep our relationship with Ed strictly creative,” Logan said.
“Bullshit. You ambushed him in the first place.”
“We know. But once he committed to our movie, once we shook on it, he told us to take care of everything through his agents. They would handle the business side. We need to honor that out of respect for Ed and work through the proper channels this time around.”
“Then you probably won’t have a signed contract by December. It’s insane, guys. Insane…You can’t start shooting with him without a signed contract…What does your financier say?”
“We told Brian the reality, told him that Ed probably wouldn’t be signed, but that he was doing our movie…We hope he trusts us enough to release the funds from escrow.”
“It’s insane, guys.”
Our gut told us that Ed wouldn’t let us down. Who cares about all the agents and attorneys? Ed had given us his word. We shook on it. Ed’s going to show up, we convinced ourselves. He has to.
SCARE IN REDWOODS
It was the day before Thanksgiving, less than a week from shooting. Physically, we had survived the dreary weather; mentally, we were shaky, self-medicating with nicotine and chocolate bars—chocolate of all kinds, any chocolate to mix with two cans of chew a day. A legal speedball, not advised for those wishing to live past fifty…but it eased the stress at the time.
It was supposed to rain over the weekend. Then sunshine. For ten days straight. It appeared the gods were in our favor, but like any great odyssey, as soon as you get confident, the divine winds decide to blow you off course again.
We were scouting with Ricardo in the redwoods of Samuel P. Taylor State Park when we received an e-mail from Jeromiah on our BlackBerry: call me asap. We knew this could only be one thing: EDWARD HARRIS.