Chapter Nine - Chopsticks in Crisis
To graduate UCLA film school, there was an Introduction to Video Production class which was a requirement. I made it to half of the first meeting and never returned. Shot an indie video project instead.
“Crisis” was “Hill Street Blues” in a college peer counseling office. This time, it did not require counselors staying on a Saturday. We took over my work’s building lobby for a weekend, and we’re still not sure why security didn’t stop us rolling huge desks, computers, and phones across the campus and moving satellite models out of the way.
There were thirty actors and a full crew. The boom operator was from “Dances with Wolves”, and a gaffer was fresh off “Batman Returns”. My Director of Photography, Jesse, who I knew from my day job, pulled in a ton of favors. It was quite incredible to be on that set, and the final product ended up getting me the Fuji Professional Tape Scholarship and an undergrad screenwriting award.
But here are the best things I remember from this shoot. My mom catered. She is not a caterer, but she is an amazing cook. Making two meals a day for the full crew, sometimes up to fifty people, she prepared everything in Silverlake and drove it to Redondo Beach where we were shooting. She then turned around, went home, made dinner and came back. My sister was blackmailed into helping, and she didn’t drive yet. Consequently, my mom also did all the driving. This was singularly the best part of this project.
My dad was the Production Assistant on the shoot. I don’t think he liked running errands, as my parents were paying for the whole thing.
Additionally, I met Sarah Lilly, my long-time collaborator on my film and theatre projects, on “Crisis”. She couldn’t make our day of auditions but asked if she could come in the following. We went into an edit bay at UCLA, she looked at the script for five minutes and was completely off book.
I learned about professionalism from Sarah. On set, she was most generous... not just to other actors. She was fully in every scene when she was not on camera and gave her acting partners emotion to work off of. But she also gracefully helped direct when I could not figure out how to make a scene better.
Finding someone you trust with your creativity is one of the best things in the process. I like to work with people who know more than me. They give you realistic feedback, inspire you, and make you think. We don’t always need to agree, because we’re aiming for what’s best for the production. I sponge off them and learn anything I can. This is true every time I get to work with Sarah.
Sometimes you associate one big thing you’ve learned with one person. I frequently talk about the importance of sound. This is all because of my friend, Matt Peterson. Matt and I met our second year at UCLA and did many film production classes together. But for “Crisis”, he completely mixed the film. On top of ADR, I finally learned to really appreciate sound when he added in footsteps on top of the dialogue he had just replaced.
I always got the sense that Matt was far more interested in knowing what he was doing than I was. To my uncontrolled craziness, he was the calm in the storm.
Matt would come back for my college thesis project, “Chopsticks”, a love story between two young pianists. He recreated almost every sound that was heard in this movie filled with piano, including completely dubbing out one actor’s voice with another.
Jesse, my DP again, essentially shot his commercial demo reel as his images on 16mm were outrageously gorgeous.
And my big contribution to “Chopsticks”? I fell off a dolly.
Twelve minutes wasn’t enough time for me to properly develop this story. That, and I still couldn’t figure out beginning, middle, and end.
A funny note, former Card Shark card turner, Lacey Pemberton, was our Script Supervisor. She has gone on to be the casting director on “The Bachelor” and “Bachelorette”. She won’t take my calls. Apparently, I don’t work out and diet enough for the show and have a negative TVQ.
I did get my film degree at UCLA. Instead of going off to intern at a studio like all my other colleagues, I stayed at the Space and Electronics firm. My colleagues are now producers on “NCIS” and “Grey’s”, went around the world with “Road Rules and The Real World” and there’s that Justin Lin guy from my class, who shaved his head playing a monk in his thesis film which led to his career directing features and TV pilots.
I made more of the same videos about space and defense. Tore out even more pages. Wrote the same speeches for the President and VP’s. Recycled footage to save on budget. And after twelve-and-a-half years, I wasn’t creating anything any more.
When you stop being artistically fulfilled, do something about it.
This led me to Claire.
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