by Steve Boman
For my character’s wife, I put a notice on NowCasting.com. I’m looking for a woman from the age of thirty to forty-five for one day’s shooting. I state that I’m a USC student, shooting a low-budget student film.
I get 176 postings from actresses interested in the part.
I know Los Angeles is filled with hungry actors, but I can almost smell the desperation as I click through page after page of headshots. USC has an agreement with the Screen Actors Guild that allows SAG members to act for free. Most of the women sending me postings are not SAG actors, but a few are. What makes a USC film appealing is that actors hope to meet with a director who will be a rising star.
I know a considerable number of people in the industry say wannabe filmmakers would be better served by spending their tuition money on just making a movie without going to school. The writer/director Robert Rodriguez even wrote a book about it, Rebel Without a Crew.
Rodriguez makes a compelling case, but it’s not going to work for me. I’m not connected enough with like-minded people, and I don’t know how to do the mechanical filmmaking steps without some guidance. As a film student, I get access to things like SAG actors and liability insurance, without which it’s impossible to get a film permit at many public places. Rodriguez shot in Mexico, where he didn’t need any stinkin’ permits, and where he shot incredibly cheaply.
Tom arrives, and together we look through the electronic headshots. There are pages of beautiful women. Tom is agog. We agreed this would be an incredible way to meet women—if we were single, and younger, and interested in that sort of thing. Thinking of Tom’s marriage and my own, I bypass the hotties and contact a pleasant-looking but overweight actress. She’s eager to work.
I look at my shooting schedule. What a joy! I have three full days: Friday afternoon through Monday morning. In my four previous films, I felt intensely pressured by time and shot each film essentially in one day. No wonder my fiction films were so weak—there was simply not nearly enough time to shoot a simple eight-minute student film, no matter how good the preproduction.
Film students at USC have a pattern. Classes are clustered on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with a few courses offered on Monday evenings and Friday mornings. It’s a schedule that allows film students to have the maximum amount of time for shooting and editing on weekends.
In the afternoon, Tom and I go over the script over glasses of iced tea at an outdoor table on a cloudy and remarkably humid day. We feel very Hollywood. I explain that in this film he’ll play a straitlaced lawyer with drinking and drug issues whose life unravels. His wife leaves, he loses his house, he loses his job, he finally kills himself. It’s meant to be dark and sincere, and I’m finally joining the crowd. This film will be about drugs and depression and death, the holy triad in film school. No more comedies. I’m going to show my classmates I can go dark with the best of them. I figure it will be my magnum opus, and after my mini-triumph with the motorcycle documentary, I’m on a roll.
That evening we begin filming, and the actress joins us. She’s a sweetheart, and the three of us shoot until well into the early morning.
Tom is easy to work with, and he throws himself into the role. Like my stage fighting, he blurs the line between acting and being. Thus, when I ask him to act like he’s throwing up, he actually barfs into a toilet. When I ask him to act like he’s snorting cocaine (in our case, some white flour), he inhales it. On the first night of shooting, with our actress present, I ask him to act like he’s a bit tipsy. Tom takes this one to heart. He starts getting liquored up.
In fact, the more Tom gets liquored up, the more relaxed he gets. A scene calls for Tom’s character to have an argument with his wife. He’s fairly drunk at this point. In his first take, he’s sedate. I gently tell him to “amp it up.” In his second take, he’s still sedate. Same with the third. I tell him I want more. I want him to show his crazy side. Tom takes a big swill of bourbon and prepares for the scene. I stand behind the camera and remind him to really let go.
This time Tom unleashes. He’s screaming so loud I’m afraid someone is going to call the police. His face is beet-red and it looks like he’s going to blow a gasket. Spit flies from his mouth. He looks absolutely enraged.
When we play back the scene on my video monitor, we all fall to our knees with laughter. His teeth flare like a howler monkey in the midst of a death battle. I can’t tell if Tom is channeling Richard Burton in WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? or if he’s channeling something he saw on Animal Planet. So much for seriousness.
F
or the screening of this film I’ve cleverly called THE LAWYER, I bring Julie to class. It’s the first time she’s seen any of my classes in action. She takes a day off work and we drive to USC. When class starts, I introduce Julie to everyone in 507. They are all, in a word, impressed.
FTC seems especially impressed. And I’m also not surprised. Gay guys seem to go gaga over Julie. It’s something I’ve witnessed since we’ve been married. They treat her like a more stable Liza Minnelli.
As a result, with Julie present, the dynamic in the room is very different. Everyone is really really nice, and their critiques are kind. But the reality is THE LAWYER falls flat as a pancake, and no one wants to be too blunt. The critiques from the students are uniform. They praised me for effort but not for subtlety. As FTC writes in his critique:
I very much respect the strengths displayed in this film—the well-cast actors, the locations, the serious ideas. So, excellent work on all that! What would make your film even better would be a more subtle approach to material—although the plot is clear, it also has certain issues up front how to make a story we kind of know new or especially interesting. Perhaps using the wife as the main character or developing the story in a new way … something different and revealing.
During my time in the hot seat, I’m gently reminded that my lawyer didn’t act like a guy messed up on coke. I’d edited one scene so the lawyer snorts coke and is next seen sleeping. To the drug-savvy hipsters in class, the scene proves I’m an idiot.
I confess on the hot seat I’ve never seen cocaine. A few classmates try not to snicker. When I later show Tom a copy of the film, he laughingly calls the scene “the snort and snooze.” Just when I think I’m making a film cool enough for film school, I show my true colors. I’m just not cool. I’m not worthy of wearing a Che shirt.
As Julie and I drive back to Camarillo, an obvious thought hits me: my best film, by far, is one I know something about. I know what it’s like to ride fast on a motorcycle and what drives those sport bikers. The class loved my documentary. All my other films were on subjects I know little about.
I realize I’ve been ignoring the most basic tenet of Writing 101: write about what you know. That night, Julie and I get to Camarillo in time to tuck the kids into bed. A few hours later, Maria wakes up with an upset stomach. At 4 A.M., she throws up. I stay up with her, rubbing her back and cleaning up after her, and at 7 A.M. I drive back to USC for my Friday-morning screenwriting class. I am very tired. I don’t want to miss the class, which I have grown to love.
When Ross Brown overhears me telling Paulo about staying up during the night with Maria, he chides me for coming back to USC for one class, but then he chuckles and tells me how he spent many times holding one of his young daughters’ hair so she wouldn’t get vomit stuck in it.
Brown is the one instructor I have who likes to share small talk about family. In that regard, he’s an odd duck among my teachers—the majority of whom are wedded to their careers.
As I sit in class, I ponder this observation. Brown is an optimist, and he’s obviously made a nice pile of money in Hollywood and he’s very family-centric. Also, in his class, we critique our writing in a way that’s much more supportive than the critiquing we do in 507 screenings. There, we often act like little pit bulls that seem to relish tearing each other apart.
During a class break that day, the other students and I discuss how we consider this scree
nwriting class a refuge from the pressures of our 507 classes. I’m not alone! “God, I’m really tired of that class,” states the affable lesbian, who is in a different 507 section. We all nod in agreement. Everyone seems sick of the dynamics, of the workload, of the constant need to be “critical” of the work of our classmates, and of the dual pressure to both be tough and yet supportive. In screenwriting, we share eagerly, and we are much gentler in our criticism. I know Brown could tear our writing apart if he wanted to, but he doesn’t. He emphasizes ways to improve our scripts, which range from the sublimely awful to the pretty good.
I look back at some of the critiques I wrote in 507. As I reread them, I’m struck by how pissy I can sound.
To M.: “I was confused; therefore I AM confused, and can’t say shit.”
To S.: “Way too dark in disco and outside … Oh, yes, one other thing: learn to spell. ‘Their’ is not ‘thier’ and punctuation could also use help. Oh, and it was confusing.”
To J.: “Too overacted. Too much weeping and anguish.”
To A.: “Very jumpy camera. I don’t know if you wanted that or not, but it was very distracting. I didn’t see the connection in shots … Also, exposure and focus were off in places.”
To M. again: “Gee, where to begin? I liked your previous films a whole lot. I didn’t like this’un though. Didn’t believe the actors, didn’t buy the plot. I think one group of female assassins per generation is enuf, and Quentin T. beat you to it. Some strong sixty-cycle hum on your sound, too. Perhaps more use of ‘fuck’ would help.”
To Showbiz: “Story weak. I didn’t know what was happening, other than people riding a bus, which I don’t really like doing much anyway. Some bouncy and out of focus shots.”
To J. again: “I don’t know what this is about. It was Fellini-esque but without his bigger sense of story. The biggest problem: what in the hell was this about? I like foreign films a lot and most of the time I don’t need subtitles to know what is happening. Not the case here.”
Those are just the written comments. The verbal comments were less diplomatic.
W
ith my final 507 film done, I focus full attention on my term paper for Casper’s class. I spend several days at the Academy museum library. There I found a thick file of fifty-year-old production notes from TEACHER’S PET. I spent hours poring over them, realizing how similar my travails are to those faced by the producers of this film, albeit on a vastly smaller scale. I read how the director, George Seaton, took ill one day, causing production to be halted. I learned that Doris Day was despondent over the death of her brother, who had died of a cerebral hemorrhage just days before filming. I read about the five years in delays getting the film made, mainly because the producers wanted Clark Gable for the lead role and they needed to wait for a gap in his schedule. I saw how much it cost to build each set. I read the contract and daily call sheet for Clark Gable, who started every day at 9 A.M. and was contractually obligated to be released at 5 P.M.
In the beginning of the semester, I had grumbled about having to write a term paper for a critical studies class. Now, digging into the Paramount production archives, I am gaining far more insight into real-world filmmaking than I had anticipated. I can’t hide my eagerness. The policy of the museum is to allow nothing in the reading rooms but paper and a pencil. I write down page after page of notes. I’m doing original research, and it’s much more satisfying than writing a paper citing a hundred barely understood, esoteric concepts. I even try to track down the last living crew and cast members of TEACHER’S PET for interviews but to no avail.
For a week, I work on the paper nonstop. The entire grade is based on it, and, more important than the grade, I’m doing it for honor. I want to see how I can do in Casper’s class. I want to test myself against his other students, those who come from Stanford and Harvard and Yale. Nearly every 507 student is taking Casper’s class. My movies have been erratic. Casper himself picked the film for me, and ironic or not, it is tailor-made for me to do something with it. Yes, I have a chip on my shoulder. My college isn’t Ivy League; I worked long years as a reporter; and I spent longer years writing manure-handling test manuals for farmers and year-in-review speeches for food-company executives. I want to see how I measure up with my classmates.
B
ack on campus, we’re doing our last acting exercises, and we’re watching the last group of our 507 films. I was in B group. Now it’s C group’s time in the hot seat.
Eli shows a film that has seriousness written all over it. “Great casting, but, alas, the acting sucked,” I write in my critique.
Showbiz shows another eight minutes of filmic mystery-meat. Once again, we’re stumped.
Mitch, the Japanese student, turns in another adequate film. I’m amazed how well he functions. If I were in Japan learning filmmaking and spoke only rudimentary Japanese, I’d be sunk. Somehow, he survives.
The surprise of the day is Heather, the novelist. She unveils a film that is unlike any other she did. It is a slow-blooming film about a couple in their sixties selling a car. The casting is perfect, as is the acting by the two graying actors. Compared with the usual somewhat bombastic films we 507 students do about spurned girlfriends and zombies and mean dads and characters who wake up from dreams or kill themselves because of a drug habit, this film is about something much more subtle. The older couple in the film, we learn, is selling a car once owned by their recently deceased grown child. It’s a slice of life so tender and so realistic I feel a lump gather in my throat. I know my own parents are still dealing with the unexpected physical reminders of Annette: dresses left in a closet, credit card offers addressed to her, her old skis in their garage.
When the lights come on and we’re supposed to comment on the film, I find myself unable to talk. The lump in my throat is growing. I sit there, trying not to show any emotion.
After Heather’s film, we take a ten-minute break. The students file out to smoke, take a bathroom break, and to talk. I remain behind. I don’t want to face any of my fellow students in the hallway. I want to compose myself. I act as if I’m busy with paperwork as they all file out of the screening room.
FTC remains in the classroom. It’s just him and me. Heather’s elderly couple dealing with their grief has unlocked something I’ve been keeping tamped down all semester. I think of Annette. I think of her awful death. I think of the past year, of my pushing my emotions to a place where I can deal with them, categorize them, ignore them. I look down at my notebook, trying to see the pages.
I start sobbing quietly. Snot and tears fall from my face. FTC asks what’s wrong. I can’t say a word. He asks me again. Finally I speak, and then I start blubbering. Through my sobs I tell him about my sister. How she died, how she left behind a baby girl and a little boy. I tell him it seems so unfair. I feel just overcome by grief and stress and worry—and it all pours out. For long seconds I cry like a big baby, to the instructor who early on was my antagonist. At this point, I don’t care that he once held a grudge against me for being one of his hated straight white males. I only care that he isn’t a student, that he is about my age, and that he might understand the grief I am feeling.
FTC sits there and listens. He doesn’t say anything, just listens.
Within a minute or two, my blubberfest is over. I wipe the snot and tears from my face and take a big breath. I am thankful no students have come back into the room. The end of 507 is in sight. The end of my first semester is in sight. I apologize to FTC and ask him not to mention my sob session. He agrees and says he is sorry about what happened to Annette.
Now, to set the record straight, I did not sob into FTC’s shoulder, and he did not pat me on the back. We did not become best friends. Violins did not play. That would have been an easy melodramatic scene to imagine, but it didn’t happen. Instead, it was an awkward moment of emotions exposed, emotions observed. And another day in film school class.
I breathe again and comment about the absurdity of bawling in cl
ass. I ask FTC if anyone else has cried in front of him. “Not this year, so far,” he says. I wipe my eyes one last time and chuckle at his comment. FTC gives me a slight smile. The clenched jaw is history.
I duck into the hallway to get a drink of water and a breath of fresh air before the other students come back.
I
’m done making films for 507. It should be a relief, but I’ve still got much on my platter for the last few weeks of school.
The production of 507 films takes what appears in retrospect to be an insane amount of time. When I look back, I question my sanity. Did I really spend several long days tracking down animal trainers? Yes, I did.
Early in the semester, I felt like we were mice in a hallway, trying to avoid a cat. I feel that way now more than ever. Looking back, I see how many wrong turns I made and how much time I wasted and how many mistakes I made. I realize the first semester of film school would be quite easy if I could only do it all over again.
Life doesn’t work that way, of course. My experiences seem to be shared by my classmates. Many are very talented, and I’ll admit it sometimes gave me a slight feeling of schadenfreude to see them stumble and make the same mistakes I make.
Some events that could be great instead become memorable for their awfulness.
Every semester in 507, all the production students participate in the Vagabond shoot. It’s named after the nearby Vagabond Motel, where the shooting takes place. The idea behind the shoot is to let students work together for the first time and make a short film, together. It’s the first taste of the system we’ll see repeated over and over again in film school.
The rules are simple: the film must be filmed within the confines of the Vagabond Motel in one afternoon. We all pitch ideas.