Production War Story
Given
that we were on an extremely low budget and we were prone to not
exactly getting permission to shoot, we had a few interesting
situations arise during our shoot. My A.D. would just give me
the we-have-a-situation-look as somebody with a badge, a gun or
a restraining order would walk over and say, "Who's in charge?"
Now I don't advocate shooting without permits, but it sure makes
things interesting. Ann's combination of heavy makeup, bloodshot
eyes from long hours and a short skirt costume along with her
fake fur coat made her look like a lost hooker on crack. When
we tried to steal a shot outside an office building, the security
guard questioned her entry into the building but seemed to think
she was a hooker when she replied she was there to see a "Mr.
Jacobs." We got the shot and two weeks later had to back
there, but this time the security guard was on to us and threw
us out.
We
didn't have a permit to use a certain marina and had to send a
production assistant to go rent the cheapo paddle boat and paddle
it about a mile over to the vacant dock we had scouted. Apparently
he exercised calf muscles he didn't know he had. Probably the
most difficult thing about this location was the fact that Ann
is a girl from New Jersey and swimming apparently isn't something
they do there. I was nervous as our DP, George is from Jersey
too. So, I knew that if anything happened I was going to have
to jump into that cold water and save her Jersey ass. We all held
our breath when Ann paddled right into the wake of a passing speedboat.
You can even hear our DP on the camera sound as he exclaimed knowingly
"Oh shit!"
We
were really lucky at the marina as we got off all of our shots
and were down to the last one when the local marina police came
over looking for our permit. I played blonde and told him I didn't
know we needed a permit. He said it would be okay if we got the
last shot and then I had a few more creative visions and tried
to get three or four more shots with Mitch hefting Ann out of
the boat. The marina police came back and made us shut down immediately.
While
we had permission from the elementary school, we didn't exactly
have a permit and Bob (our producer) and I each had kids at that
school and knew we had to keep our shooting somewhat under wraps
as there are some very irritable neighbors who could've made big
trouble and/or shut us down. No problem. The fact that I had 75
people there wasn't an issue at all. Basically passersby were told
it was a school project for the gifted kids as Bob and I had taught
film production there for several years. But when we were shooting
the scene where the kids run down a ramp screaming as writers are
pelting them with screenplays, we caught the attention of everyone
in the neighborhood. One particular neighbor who was notoriously
a troublemaker came over to our set and nosed around. Bob and I
told him it was just another shoot for the gifted class. Just as
he started believing my pitch about the value of filmmaking to young
kids, Mitch walks parades out in full drag running his hands up
and down his well-endowed chest while smoking a cigarette. I positioned
Bob in front of the nosey neighbor, excused myself and ran over
to Mitch, begging him to get out of sight.
Finally,
as we were four months into our post production, I decided we needed
to have an additionl newscast about Melody Daniels' exploits with
the much-discussed "donkey." I got Robert, a.k.a. "Rrrrrrrrrrrroberto"
out of bed on a Saturday morning to stand in a working fountain
while we shot "the last newscast." Then, I thought it
would be funny to actually have some pix CG'd over his head with
Melody and her donkey pal. A few days later, I got Ann to trek all
the way out to the deepest part of the valley so we could shoot
her with Walter the donkey. However, when we showed up at this petting
zoo on a Wednesday morning asking for Walter, we were told he was
working. My first thought was I wasn't working, why was a donkey
working? The petting zoo keeper said they had other animals - why
not a goat or a llama? I repeated I wanted a donkey. She convinced
me that a llama was the only way to go so I shot the back end of
a llama and tried to make it look like a donkey. FYI, a llama looks
nothing like a donkey so I guess the only ass at the zoo that day
was me.
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