Day 12. We regained our composure from the last night of shooting, and took everything a lot more seriously. Although the night began with Jim insisting to Stacey and me that in order for the coffeemaker to work we had to follow the instructions on it which said "Open Head," so he proceeded to pry open our jaws while it brewed. He's a strange one.
Actually the night began at a local establishment with some burgers and beers, which after Friday night's shoot and some of us having to work during the day Saturday (e.g. me), it really just made us all a lil' sleepy.
Thankfully we had full attendance by the talent (Jim & Stacey) and the not-so-talent (Lou, me, Rajah, Frank, Mark, Kevin T. and our new friend Mike). Mike talked our ear off all night, but we still managed to get a lot done.
We started off strong in the bathroom downstairs, with a scene where Mitch is shaving, notices Ally's beauty products (with a shameless product placement for the nice folks at Alterna), and then he thinks or something. It's really hard to light a bathroom. And whoever broke the soapdish is on my list; thankfully my resourceful wife immediately found a replacement which we will be restoring to the room this coming weekend. Jim did an excellent job shaving and acting at the same time, despite many who thought it couldn't be done.
Then we moved to the bedroom, where "Cribs" has taught us is where the magic happens. It was a scene with Mitch reading catalogs. Some of which were green. Beyond that there was very little magic, except the magic that emanates when Jim's acting eyes ignite, or when his acting tooth aches. And I'm pretty sure both happened.
We stayed in the bedroom for the next scene which had some kick-ass lighting to look like the moon, which Frank almost destroyed, but then he did something to redeem himself that I don't remember. I do recall that Mark suggested we show Mitch turning the TV on, which you could see reflected in the window. That scene looked really, really good, and it was definitely a joint effort pulling it off, with Rajah's moody shot, and lighting assistance by Lou, Mike, Kevin, and (reluctantly I'll admit) Frank. Oh, and Jim forgot the outfit he absolutely had to bring to do this shot and the next, so many thanks to Stacey & Maura for making a last minute run to the local Marshalls to pick out a reasonable facsimile. [Note to future directors of Jim Shalkoski, Jr., trying to e-mail him important things to remember for a shoot: he does not like to read the first line of an e-mail, so make sure you start your message with a lot of extra fluff. It makes him feel important when he gets to skip things.]
Then we spent like the next eight days trying to light a room in total darkness save for the reflection of a TV screen. This had many complications. The TV doesn't come on automatically, so we couldn't actually have it come on in any of the shots. Also our visual effect of the TV flickering was way harder than it would seem. We tried no gels, shaking gels, gels in blues, reds, oranges, waving gels, I believe we had some shimmying gels, and finally Frank's patented single-blue-double-blue gel combination. That's what worked. I had Mike ready to plug and unplug the light in on Jim's cue, and then I got testy and yelled at everybody while Lou came up with the bright (pardon the pun) idea of having the light on a switch. Lou: you go, girl! Anyway, it came out looking very cool, but was very painful to me as my eyeballs turned into hourglasses.
Next was a very, very excellent shot of Jim demagnetizing credit cards shot from under the glass table. It looked phenomenal--and a bit like he was about to do some blow--and whether Rajah's shot or mine is used, it's going to come out great. And it'll be mine because it's far superior and I write the blogs. Jim did one take as uber-agressive, and one as a sort of mad magnet scientist, and I'm not sure which was funnier. But either way will be great.
Finally, our night wrapped up with a very intimate scene between Mitch & Suzanne that called for one of our most dramatic lighting set-ups and intricate choreography we've done to date. I absolutely love the shot, the lighting is extraordinary (in my opinion), and Jim and Stacey did just outstanding jobs in a scene that required every subtle note and movement to be perfect. We pushed it farther than it is in the script, and I know it was the right choice, and when we took it a different way it totally felt false. Suffice to say that I am so proud of the performances Jim & Stacey gave in this EXTREMELY important scene, and I truly believe we did those performances justice by shooting the whole scene to look so beautiful, moody, lonely, passionate, sad...you name the adjectives and I think we nailed them.
All in all, it was a great night. I really am feeling like we're getting better and better with every shoot. It was a tiring weekend, though, and even now (on Monday) some of us are still exhausted. We need sleep. Or to Open Head, drink some coffee, and start again in four more days...
It was bound to happen sooner or later. Some predicted it'd happen around Day 6. Others thought we could make it to Day 14. But nay, it was Day 11 and we all lost our minds.
How did it happen? Have we been shooting too many weekends in a row? Was it because we had our old pal Tony back on set? Was it all those rave drugs we took? Nobody knows--perhaps it was all of those things. But by 2 or 3 AM (whenever we left) we were all sufficiently giddy with either a great night's shoot or a bizarre evening behind us.
I don't even know where to begin with this Blog. It really was probably our most fun night so far. I wish Tony were in the picture above, because he was just as much a part of Crazy Day 11 as me, Stacey, Lou, Mark, Jim, Maura, and Rajah.
The night started with Tony as Paul feverishly pumping his fists into a large stuffed Santa, whose head dangled from a table and his jolly red body jiggled in many unnerving and unnatural ways. And that was probably the most normal part of the evening. It was a HILARIOUS scene and I gotta give huge props to Tony & Stacey's performances, the combined set design of Rajah, Lou, & Maura; Mark's huge assistance in getting the details right for the scene, and me who kept my head when somebody snapped and broke our expensive boompole. All I can say is that night God gave me strength to accept the things I couldn't change, to change the things I couldn't accept, and to have Lou fix everything else.
[Writer's note: at the end of the night I told everybody how great they were and that I would dedicate a paragraph to each; as long as they told me what they wanted it to say. I don't remember most, but here are a few]
Rajah: Rajah had an amazing night of wonderfully creative shots and one of the highlights for him was when he got to use his steering wheel camera and "drive" around following Mitch down the stairs. It really was an excellent shot, as was his terrific "Dutch shot from the bathtub," "creepy shot from under the stairs" and "shot of Santa's tushy." If Rajah had extra room in his paragraph he would probably mention the color green a thousand times and then try to relight the paragraph and zoom in on it...but he has no extra room and so his paragraph ends here.
Tony: Plot-wise, it was a very big night for Tony, and he was so funny in the decorations scene, and great in the tooth whitening scene with Stacey--except when he kept laughing at her--and in his heaving bathroom scene. And those buttons were killing him! Too many buttons. Jim did another bang-up job applying make-up (he's 2 for 2 now) to Tony. Tony didn't have much notice that we were doing these scenes and he made it look effortless all night.
Stacey: Stacey didn't want a paragraph, but she wanted to mention band camp. She also wanted me to say "oh that Stacey's so wonderful and beautiful." Which I agree with, but man oh man this girl has an unshakably high opinion of herself!
Jim: Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim, Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim.
Lou: Lou did a lot that night, but as usual who can remember them? I believe he hit his 3 idea minimum/maximum , and he didn't snore through any scenes, so it was a big, big night for Lou.
Maura: Maura believed she did nothing but I think it's because we all worked very hard, very quickly, on the same creative pages, and had fun while we were doing it. So it felt light nothing
Mark:
Chris: What more can I say? I'd say we had too much fun (OK, I actually did say it repeatedly), but how can it be too much if you also did as good a job as we did? Let me just remind you though that the night found: us putting Santa in a compromising position, us putting Stacey & Tony in the bathroom to smile and laugh maniacally at each other, Rajah & me squatting in the bathtub with a smurf-faced Tony lying on the floor and Jim playing with Tony's shirt buttons, Rajah driving his invisible camera car around the house, and then all of us gathering around the fireplace and taking pictures of our heads in pinwheel formation.
Day 11, you are one crazy, crazy dame. Like somewhere between Judi Dench and Edna.
10 Days into the production of The Joneses, and we are stronger than ever! We have a tight cast, and a crew who are beginning to feel like a family to us, so perhaps I'll reserve this blog to pick them apart like I would real family members.
First and foremost, there is the head of the family which is, as everybody knows, Stacey. She is the heart of The Joneses, and often the brain. She acts, she directs, she makes the props, she cooks and cleans for us, she manages the money, she...oh my God...what the hell do I do? Anyway, as everybody from Naughty or Nice can attest, Stacey is the constant creative force that keeps everything together and is usually the unsung heroine, so allow me to do some sunging. If you saw the hamburger cake, you know this girl can create. If you saw her as Suzanne, you know she's got the chops. And if you saw her shoot the kitchen scene that night...well, I rest my case. She is the mother to all things Joneses.
Then we have the absentee father for that Saturday--Rajah--who for reasons beyond his control could not be there for the shoot. But all of us wanted to impress absentee Dad so we tried like hell to put a little green in every shot, set up each frame like a picture, and mess with lighting for like an hour longer than we should be. We did a great job given we were down our very important D.P., and we miss him and hope to see him soon. We also hope he brings us presents!
Saturday also found us with a Godmother (Maura) and Godfather (Mike) who handily stepped in in Rajah's absence and helped create wonderful shots and fabulous lighting for the whole surprise party shoot. I am indebted to them, and they did themselves and the movie very proud that day.
Then there's Uncle Frank and Uncle Tom. On The Joneses, Frank is the one who keeps us smiling when we need to, just as Tom did on Naughty or Nice. Saturday we had both uncles on the set, which was great. If they could only keep their damn mouths shut for two seconds, maybe we could even shoot a movie. I kid because I love.
The oldest brother, ironically enough, is Lou "Loubert" "Koko B. Ware" Ottaviani, who is in real life as young as dirt. I don't know where we'd be without him. He brought us a thousand sandwiches, shrimp, peppers, brownies, salads, wings, etc. etc. from the very good people at Kelly's, who we will be shamelessly sponsoring throughout this movie in exchange for their generosity. They made many of us very happy and supplied some awesome food for the scenes as well. Big brother Lou is the rock that keeps everything going. He's in charge of making things happen and he does it effortlessly week in and week out. Koko and his Kokonauts as Mark has named it are making each weekend a huge success.
Speaking of Mark, I think he's the younger brother of our family (also ironic in that his previous role for us was literally as "older brother" Jared). He is also a crucial member of the family and keeps tabs on what everybody is doing, logs everything that goes down and takes pictures for all of us to enjoy, and has been committed to this project for years. I may be stretching to make this family analogy work, but I also can see that like the youngest he has that desire to perform, and his role as Todd has also been a highlight these last few weeks. Plus, he's spoiled rotten.
For our Saturday shoot we also had the new kids--Kevin Tocci, Kim, and Max, who have been with us for a couple shoots now and have been immeasurably helpful. Plus they're the new kids so we get to make them do lots of stuff for us, which is excellent.
It's hard to put the actors in a family context, because they're more like our friends who come and visit every week, in different arrangements. And this Saturday we had Jim, Stacey, Mark, Leila, Kevin, Michael, Lucy, Paul, Monty, and Robyn all giving wonderful performances in the entire surprise party sequence. We started the night with a huge group shot, with some of our great extras from last week returning and once again delivering the goods! It was a great scene and so much fun to shoot.
We then shot our big scene in a wide shot, and because of some time concerns quickly adapted the schedule to do close-ups and two-shots of the terrific surprise party discussion scene. There were too many great performances to single any one out, and because it was split up we'll really only know it's full power once it's all cut together. Suffice to say it was really great all around. And there was an awful lot of laughing coming from and because of Mark & Leila, who are 100% professional until the cameras start rolling. They were really great.
And the cake scene...I can't describe it. It's too good. Lucy, Robyn and Jim: brilliant. The shots: amazing. The props: the best. And we did it as one take, no cuts. It got funnier every single take we did. And poor Lucy, who cracked us up EVERY time, had to deliver every line over and over again, as we witnessed her character's slow descent into insanity. This scene is going to KILL in the movie.
Anyway, I hope I didn't leave anyone out. There are many members of the Bjort family now and we are blessed to have them as part of our lives and even more blessed to have them as part of our movie. Day 10 was awesome, as was everyone that made it happen.
Oh, yeah. And I'm the funny uncle because I'm terribly funny. What? That's not what "funny uncle" means? Well, what does it--? Oh, really. Hmm. Well, I guess I'm still the funny uncle. P.S. sorry everybody for all that inappropriate touching.
Friday night. Canton. Stacey & I hit some traffic on the way there and for the first time on any film shoot...we were the last to arrive! Which happens to be my own private neurotic hell--being late--so things were not off to a good start. However, we had Tom, Tina & Gianna there to entertain the troops, we were greeted by about 10 smiling faces of our trusted crew and Jim, and we had a cake shaped like a damn cheeseburger. So the neuroses ended quickly.
In attendance Friday night was me, Stacey, Lou, Mark, Rajah, Frank, Mike, Kim, Maura, Tom, Kevin T. and of course James Gandolfoski, Jr., who was (as I had promised he would be) the best actor of the night. We had about eight potential scenes to shoot that night, which is absolutely ridiculous to attempt to accomplish in 5 hours, but we placed our faith in Jim. Little did we know that Jim cannot ignite his acting fire and remember to turn on a light switch at the same time. It can be tricky.
Honestly it was a great night's shoot, and Jim did an excellent job as usual channeling Mitch at radically different parts of the story--from the very beginning of the film, pouring drinks, to coming back home and finding Ally missing, to returning home after a traumatic night. And while we were all excited by Jim's performances, Rajah as usual was very excited about ice cubes, liquor bottles, and a set of keys. Which is, by the way, the perfect ingredients for a very, very bad night. You're welcome, MADD.
We had many moments of inspiration that night. Maura noticed and suggested that we could shoot the foyer scene and the kitchen scene from one super-dramatic wide shot. Then Stacey had the great idea to do the following scene from that angle as well--thereby allowing us to do three scenes as one long engaging take by Jim. Then Rajah and his magical mystery lights created an amazing moonlight that gave the whole scene a beautiful glow. It was group creativity at its best. We had to do 43 takes however because, as I mentioned, Jim was so into the scene that he forgot to turn the light on basically every other take. But we can't blame him--it's not highlighted in his script.
Then we did a super close-up of keys falling to the ground that I'm sure will turn out great, but apparently none of us could drop keys onto the carpet sufficiently for our oh-so-picky D.P. I'd like to see him try to drop keys onto a carpet!
All in all it was a very succesful night and we all went home for some sleep before returning the next day. Stacey & I left last. :)
Day 8 was our best day ever, and that goes for both films. And it's in competition with a lot of great, great days, mind you. But it was just so good. How good? It was that kind of good that makes every day between that shoot and the next seem like a painful eternity. Instead of nervously watching the days fly by and feeling unprepared for the subsequent weekend, our Day 7 and Day 8 shoots were so good that I just want to get back to the location and start that camera a-going! You know, after Rajah lights things for approximately 17 hours.
To start with, here are the stats on Saturday:
Crew time: 8:30 AM. Tom, Stacey, Lou, Mike, Max (a new awesome addition to the family) and I were there. Bleary-eyed, yes. But we had Dunkin' Donuts munchkins (from a quaint little coffee shop near our house) and the drive to succeed. It was an assortment of Munchkins. Stacey likes jelly munchkins though she doesn't like jelly donuts. Mike likes custard munchkins, which I'm pretty sure is made up. I complained that my first munchkin was a bit dry. Stacey guessed it might be plain-flavored (which of course is not a flavor, but the absence of one). But you know what? It wasn't plain. It was powdered. So to everyone who saw my black pants that day, I hope that answers some questions re: my blow habit.
Arrivals: Mark came all gussied up in black, Maura came with her camera, Mike started playing around with lavs--and Rajah helped troubleshoot--Stacey, Lou, and Max began making macaroni n' cheese, meatballs, buffalo wings, etc. etc. Frank came at some point and probably apologized for something. And I immediately starting shouting orders like the dictator that I am (a dictator that greatly resembled Mr. Pink that day).
Cast time: 10:00 AM. Our cast started trickling in, all wearing black for the big Wake scenes we were shooting. We had Jim (Mitch), Stacey (Suzanne), Kevin (Victor), Mark (Todd), Leila (Renee), Johanna (Jennifer), Alex (Mr. Garrity), Lucy (Gail), Paul (Bill), Robyn (Julie), Michael (Andy), Sari (Dina), and apparently George Clooney (Smitty Jones) is making a cameo in the film too. It was a top-notch acting day. The toppest of notches! I can't say enough about how good it was, and certainly not in this already expanding bulleted item.
In fact, I'm breaking the bullet form because it's too hard to manage for our best day ever. Did I mention that it was? Everything just went perfectly--beyond perfect--and everyone and everything: the cast, the crew, the extras, the location, the props, the food, the equipment, etc. was fun, performed perfectly, and helped us get terrific footage.
Lou did a great job getting us a very good selection of extras who served us very well throughout the day, and helped make the whole wake sequence believable. We started the say with a big wide shot from up on the balcony that looked so great, and everyone except Kevin Cirone was terrific in it. From there, Kevin & Jim got to perform the intro to the wake sequence which is a tricky, tricky one to pull off because it's one line that is a huge punchline in the script, and a huge downer in what it reveals. But it came off flawlessly!
Then we moved to the kitchen where Stacey and Lucy had their kitchen scene, and Lucy nailed Gail's complete insensitivity and narcissism hilariously. Meanwhile, Sari as Dina was so focused rearranging...a fruit that I cannot for the life of me think of. Persimmon? Yes, let's go with that. And Robyn and our two extra special extras, Jim & Alex, improvised a discussion in the background that had us all entertained.
The third scene was the last shoot for Alex C. as Mr. Garrity in his tour-de-force as a schmuck royale, joined by Kevin & Johanna. The scene was fantastic, and the timing these guys had together was so, so good! Then Paul got to punch out Alex in the background which was just excellent, especially after Lou pointed out a minor detail with Alex putting his arm on Paul's shoulder which made all the difference in the world.
Next we moved on to the food layout with Mark, Leila, Michael, and George Clooney performing in the scene that has one of the best visual jokes of the film (a certain awesome surprise that was initially designed by Stacey, created terrifically by Amy, and everyone on the set thought was amazing), and the one joke that makes me laugh no matter how many times I hear it. I don't want to ruin either--suffice to say that this scene has three lines and between the great acting by Mark & Leila, the great cameos by Guy Who Likes Meatballs and Guy Who Likes Pretzels, and the fantastic tracking shot of the food, donated by cast and crew alike, and the super surprise at the end of the tracking shot...it was as perfect a moment as one can get.
Or at least that's what I thought until we got ready for the next scene. Now to catch you up to speed a little, at this point it was about 4:00 in the afternoon and many of us hit a wall. Those of us that were working Friday night too, were probably even doubly exhausted. Stacey, Jim and I went downstairs to the set and they rehearsed their dramatic scene, which I've seen them practice before, but this time it was just tremendous. I brought Rajah quickly over and showed him the scene as they performed it again, and he got excited about where we could put the camera, and how great the scene was going to be. Then we set up the shot and it got even more ridiculously exciting because Rajah came up with some lighting and shots that were by far the most creative and cool-looking we've had to date. And then they actually performed the scene and it was even more magical than before. At least three or four of us teared up, and some wondered why we would even do additional takes--it was that good. My favorite scene I've ever been a part of, and I look forward to topping it with even better ones in the future (though they've got their work cut out for them). Then everyone's stomachs started a grumbling chorus which I've found tends to always happen during the most dramatic scenes ever.
I've probably left out dozens and dozens of things about Saturday's shoot, and I really could have paragraphs about each actor's excellent performance that day, each crew member's hard work and creative contributions, and even a list of everything that just clicked for us that made Saturday so special. If you were there that day, I thank you for making it beyond perfect, and I cannot wait for the next two weeks of shoots--our surprise party scenes this Saturday, and the dinner party scene the following weekend. They are going to be even more excellent, if that's possible.
Ugh. I don't think I had one joke in this blog. I'll end on one. My original blog title was going to be Strawberry Shortcake Is Making a #2. If you flip through the pictures, you'll see why. That's all I got.
It's been a month since Halloween, in which time The Joneses cast & crew broke for Christmas, New Years, and apparently decided to get even more awesome during the hiatus. Last weekend we had an impromptu rehearsal session with Jim, Stacey, Amy, & Tony, and a crew meeting with Lou, Rajah, Mike, and Mark. Also we got new lights, a monitor, and a dry erase board (just as low-tech as it sounds). I am so glad we got a chance to have last weekend to rehearse and have the crew meeting, because we brought our A game this weekend!
So Friday night, we showed up at Tom's Dad's house (I am no longer allowed to call it a compound) which is probably the most beautiful house ever invented. We are so lucky to be able to use it as the Foster house, and I can't wait for everybody to see it in the film. God willing we will find an appropriate match for the Dixon house. Already waiting for us was Tom, our ever-exuberant cohort, and three new production assistants who were great help that night: Laura, Megin, and Kim. It was actually kind of overwhelming our first day back to have such a huge location, all new toys (see above) and probably more crew than we'd ever need for one night. Still, we appreciated the help and the night went quite excellently.
By some stroke of fate, it seems that everyone that was there that night also had had a really terrible day, and I hope we were a bright spot for their Friday. Stacey was very well prepared to direct and Jim & Amy came with jammies and acting chops, not necessarily in that order. We also had a spinner bike loaned to us by the good people at StarTrac. And Frank. Which was more valuable? Tough to say.
The first scene we shot was Jim as Mitch drinking and moving laundry from the bed to the bike, while Amy as Ally read and most likely had many, many thoughts about her feet. I don't remember exactly how the whole "foot skirmish of '08" ended, but we can only hope that no lives were lost (and that our boys come home safely). I have no idea what I'm talking about. But Jim and Amy were great in the scene and there was not a single line forgotten!
The second scene was excellent--Ally on exercise bike, listening to her iPod, while Mitch bursts in and spouts off about the Valentine's decorations that the neighbors are putting up. Special props on the prop of the Halloween trophy to Stacey, and the ludicrous discussion we had on set trying to decide where and how to place it best. But we got through it with some great P.O.V shots, a close-up of the bike, and some highly entertaining performances by Jim & Amy.
For the last scene of the night, we got to move upstairs to the living room, where Ally waits for Mitch to arrive home from the bar, and confronts him. It was such a good scene, and I know Stacey was very, very happy with the ways Amy & Jim performed in it. It's so much fun to see the Mitch & Ally marriage unfold for us, week after week--after years of being in our heads and on the page--we are exceedingly lucky to have talented people like Jim and Amy bringing them to life, as well as a crew that works HARD to get us ridiculously good footage week after week--Lou, Rajah, Mark, Mike, Frank, and Maura helped get the job done right as usual, and we were equally grateful to add Tom and our new helpers Laura, Megin, and Kim who we hope can assist us in the future.
So we all decided to get a few hours sleep before returning a few hours later...
