Saturday 6amish Mood: happy and nervous
Early Saturday morning. Six o'clock or so. I'm hyphy. Crunk. Excited. The first day of the rest of my life. But yet, I'm nervous, apprehensive. Wondering if this is all going to work. There are several unanswered questions: 1) We haven't firmly established if my sound mixer and my small DV cam will work together. 2) I don't know if any of my extras will actually show up for the scenes that I need them in. 3) I don't even know if I'm up to the task of acting, directing and doing 34 other things throughout the course of an 25-page shoot schedule over two days. (Yes, that's what I said.) But everything is set in motion. By hook or by crook, I've got my cast (although a small percentage of cats who sent headshots and said they were coming to the audition actually came -- hence my unexpected appointment as the male lead), my cinematographer and editor (one in the same, my editor Rob Neal also became my DP after a host of DPs found a way to ignore my e-mails and general requests), my sound mixer, complete with equipment, my locations (except for one, which has been agreed to, but makes me nervous). We're ready to go.
We convene upon the first scene, both in the script and of the shoot. Shawn has just finished getting it on with a trophy wife, then she disses him, then her nine year old son wanders into the room, looking for his parents. Shawn disses the kid, but not before he answers his cell phone and tells another woman that he's at the hospital giving blood. And this is, like, the first three pages of the script. I gave us two hours to shoot the scene at my wife's cousin's friend's condo in Ladera Heights. Everyone showed up on time, which amazed me. But then my worst fear was confirmed, as it took us just over an hour to get the sound together. My DV cam is tiny, it took us awhile to figure out whether it was better to go through an adaptor or run the sound straight through a cable to the camera. I was getting nervous as the clock ticked. Director, keep morale up! I kept rehearsing with the trophy chick, Erika (the alluring Grace Tejano) and her son (Jarrod Silcock).
(all film stills by Jay Davis)
Once we got our technical difficulties together, the scene was relatively effortless. A lot of this was because Grace and I had rehearsed a lot. We packed up our things, about a half hour behind schedule and bounced to the next location.
Saturday 11amish Mood: Confident
We're shooting the scene where Shawn gets fired from his high paying corporate job at an office at the Normandie Church of Christ in L.A. Rob finds a basketball in the parking lot and soon, me, him, my sound mixer Jim Ridgley and still photographer Jay Davis are shooting around and reminiscing on our younger, leaner days. (This is particularly sad since me, Rob and Jay are all still in our 20s.) This is one beauty of film crews -- that people from different walks of life can bond over making a film -- that most unnatural of processes. My wife (who doubled as lead actress, set decorator, caterer and 24 other things) shows up with Subway sandwiches and drinks. Willard's office is perfect, just hot (the recurring theme of the day) and after we adjust some things in his office to make it look more corporate, we're ready to roll. I'm in this scene with the gifted Stephanie Lange, who plays one of thiose corporate chicks who is so evil she can smile while she's firing you. The very first take, Stephanie was cheesing so hard, I burst out laughing right after I called cut. We did the reverse over the shoulder shots, nothing too spectatular, and I sense that my small crew is gaining a small bit of respect for my acting chops. Or at least that's what I tell myself.
Saturday -- 2:30ish Mood: It's dark and Inglewood is hot.
The longest, most drawn out section of the shoot took place at my cousin Quake's apartment, which he was gracious enough to let us borrow for the day. Mostly because a) we have scenes that involved suicide attempts, arguments and physical altercations, some of which I never had the chance to storyboard; b) the temperature inside his apartment that day was 213 degrees; c) some of his neighbors are hella loud; and d) Jason Gilmore likes to bite off more than he can chew.
We have to be gone by 5:30 because I have extras who are supposed to be meeting me at my house for the big club scene we're shooting tonight in my guest room. By 5:30, we feel halfway done. Light is a constant problem. I start getting into one take mode, where I'm trying to do everything in the first presentable take. Rob and Jim keep talking me out of it. We don't leave till, like, 7 something. On the last scene, we get into a minor altercation with the next door neighbors who go out of their way be as loud as possible when we polite ask them for five minutes of silence so we can shoot the last scene. I'm feeling like Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow, like, do I gotta go give these niggas some weed or something? They persist and thankfully, miraculously, their noise doesn't pick up on our footage.
It takes us forever to unpack because we brought so much stuff to feminize my bachelor cousin's apartment. On our way out, the knuckleheads next door try to block my sound mixer's car in the middle of the street. WHY ARE YOU BEING A HATER?!?!?!?!? I'm thinking my phone's going to be blown up with constant friends/associates because they showed up at my crib and I wasn't there. But, despite my steady stream of e-mails, phone calls, and MySpace bulletins, I only get one call.
Saturday 8ish Mood: Tired and Wishing It Was Over
I arrive at my house exhausted. Still I have to shoot the club scene, where my character and my wife's character meet for the first time, as introduced by mutual friends Robin (Jaimyon Parker) andTricia (Ayana Nataki). Everybody's jovial except me. Outtakes show Jaimyon and Rob trying to cheer me up and me hitting them back with one word answers. I'm trying to direct all the set ups and stay in character and direct the extras. I recruit Jay and my next door neighbor, Mike McCarty to be extras. Rob pushes my set up against the wall and suddenly, the need for 7-10 extras becomes unnecessary. Dude is a genius. It all works out well in the end at 11pm. But not before I get a call from Quake saying that I locked his girl out of his apartment and since he's out of town, I need to take care of that. (She later got in without my assistance, but I didn't find this out until she called me back at 7 the next morning.)
Sunday 2amish Mood: Restless
Can't sleep. Puzzling over everything that happened Saturday. I can't believe I'm shooting a film. Nervous about the scene at the tuxedo shop on Sunday morning because the store's manager was so flippant with her yes. It made me nervous that she never called me back when she said she would or that I had to remind her who I was and what I wanted each time I called. Then, in the middle of the night, my phone rings. It's my cousin George. His girl is trippin'. He wants to come over and crash. Sure, I think, I can't sleep anyway.
We talk for awhile and then I leave him on the couch in our living room. We wake up the next morning, have a makeshift communion (as we would've normally, all being regular churchgoers) and I recruit him and his son to be extras for the tux scene. The one that all my other so-called friends found a way out of and that I'm wondering if we'll be able to get into anyway.
Sunday 7:30amish Mood: Sleepy but strangely energized
We shoot a conversation scene on a lovely row of shrubbery on Kareem Court right across the street from the Forum. Once again, we are right underneath LAX's flight path and there are joggers all around but we get it done in more than enough time. We run over to Rogers Park to see if we can quickly shoot a scene that I planned to shoot last. But it's some loud brothers over there playing tennis. This morning, it seems everyone in Inglewood is at Rogers Park. We decide, instead, to shoot the scene on a backlot inside my gated community -- one that serves as a parking lot and also looks like one.
Sunday 11amish Mood: Overeager
I'm right. The tux shop was supposed to let us in at 11 to shoot for an hour before they opened at 12. But they're not here. So we sit in front of the store for almost an hour. Me, Rob, Jim, Wifey, my cousin and his son, and Ed Cotter, a marvelous actor who's playing the tuxedo store owner. At 11:55, an employee opens up, claiming to know nothing of our shoot. This doesn't surprise me. But she tells us we can shoot for twenty minutes. My crew and cast jumps into place like gangbusters. We shoot around a couple of early customers who seem respectful of what we're doing. The manager arrives at ten after. It's clear that she completely forgot about us. We knock out the last (chronological) scene of the film and are out of the door by 12:40.
Sunday 1pmish Mood: Celebratory
After the tux scene, I consider the rest of the day child's play. We have some scenes in my living room & dining room and the final scene in the back lot. The living and dining room scenes go well. My composer Mark 1 drops by to do a cameo as a waiter in a makeshift restaurant scene with me and Jaimyon. Wifey picks up Taco Bell. It's awkward to passionately kiss your wife in front of a film crew as two scenes required. Rob's like, "You need to get more into it." Got me feeling like Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut or something. It's crazy. But we make it good. My friend Tabitha stops by with a cooler full of water, snacks and candy. Today is going much smoother than yesterday.
Sunday 6pmish Mood: Persecuted
So we're down to the last scene. It's simple. Me and wifey walking down the street, passing cars and engaging in a verbal tug of war. Jim mikes us up because I chose to shoot in a slow zoom to make up for our non-existent dolly/steadicam. We're interrupted, often, by airplanes, but then, 20 minutes by a woman sitting on a nearby porch, who asks what we're doing. We tell her we're shooting a film and ask if we're disturbing her. She says no. Adds that she's just being nosey. Okay. Her husband comes outside, watches us for another 20-25 minutes. Finally, when we're almost done, he walks up on us, out of nowhere.
"Do you have a permit to shoot here?"
"No. But I live here."
He goes on to tell me that he's the president of the same intracommunity organization that turned me down when I sent them a letter back at the beginning of May requesting to use our community clubhouse to film a couple scenes. (I didn't know they had rejected me officially, because they never responded to my letter. A secretary who was at the meeting told me over the phone that they had rejected me, but her reasons were vague. Still, even though a written request is supposed to be met with a written reply, I found other locations for those scenes. To me, this was a separate issue: I didn't think I need to ask permission to shoot land on a camcorder that I partially own.)
"I mean, we're almost done. What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to leave."
And I'm thinking, leave? Where am I going to go? Four units down to my house. Then, he jumped on the phone like he was calling the cops or something, get out of here. For the most part, we had everything we needed. We were just going to grab a couple of closeups for insurance. But Boss Hogg was so meanspirited with his hateration that I realized it wouldn't be worth my time. Unimportant people need to cling to whatever little status they can cling to. So we walked home, amazed/frustrated that we'd shot all over L.A. with nary a problem and that cats was hating on me in the place where I rest at. But that's the way goes. One monkey didn't stop a show. The film is in the can.
And it looks good.
Mood: Proud.
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