Day 1 of shoot: Maybe I'll Take the Factory Job

(Written Wednesday, April 19 2007, but posted the following day) Although it’s my fourth day shooting the behind-the-scenes, today was the first day of filming on Friends With Benefits. Or however you think of it, because no film is involved these days. The traditional terms hold, as do, for example, the words “record” and “album” as used by twentysomething rockers who have never even seen an LP when they get signed to a label.

I was impressed and disappointed both. Impressed because the quality of acting is so high, even in throwaway rehearsals meant to get the blocking, lighting, and camera angles right. Disappointed because the set was so small I couldn’t be there during the filming itself.

The call sheet had everyone meeting at Gorman’s office at 7am. I got there early so I could catch people on their way in. Gorman arrived shortly thereafter and said cheerfully—and knowingly—“So where are all those people who said they’d be early?” But they straggled in reasonably promptly, and we walked a few blocks to the location.

I like getting call sheets, I admit. I admit I think it’s fun to refer to the call sheet, as in “Call sheet says we meet at 959 State Street. Meet at the office first?” I’ll probably never get tired of it. I spent four years at Microsoft. I could never wipe the shit-eating grin off my face when I strode through those wide hallways. Far too often people would stop me and ask why I was smiling. My answers probably did not sound convincing. It seemed so country-bumpkin to blurt out “Dude, I have a great gig at the best company I’ve ever worked for! All my coworkers are brilliant and we’re developing the greatest software tools yet. What’s not to smile about?” I can tell you now. It felt great. I was in management then. It feels great again to be the lowliest member on the crew of an unheralded low-budget movie, because the movie rocks and the people involved are topnotch.

You can’t just saunter in and run your video camera. (Especially when the video camera has the height-and-weight footprint of a refrigerator; more on that in a future post). First the room to be shot has to be made to look like the character’s bedroom. A dusty set of perfume bottles, seemingly from the 1970s, for example, wouldn’t fit with the character’s personality. Those were on a bureau that won’t be filmed, but I was drawn to them. Next to the old perfume bottles was a first-generation Nintendo. Grandparents’ room the grandkids played in during the day, maybe? When did their Nintendo stop being used, if ever? Or did it? It’s an old game yet this one is positioned on the edge of the bureau, as if it might be used tonight after the crew leaves. Everyone has a new flatscreen TV these days. Everyone. Not here. Was the apartment somehow left alone while its owners traveled for a few years? Who were they, anyway? Why weren’t they hanging around to see the filming? (Not that there would have been room for them. But I imagine lots of homeowners whose places are being used in the movies can’t resist seeing how their residence is being violated in the sacrifice to Art.) I found myself making up stories about the people whose apartment is. I still am. Those old perfume bottles haunted me for some reason.

Lights, cameras, cables, cases, gels, and filters were trundled in to the kitchen or directly into the bedroom now being prepared for the shoot. At the same time both rooms to be shot in were being dressed. The set decorator hung a distinctive paisley blanket on the wall over the bed and suddenly the room was transformed. It looked like a different room altogether. I need to ask her if that was the point or merely a side effect. Either way the efficiency amazed me and I made a mental note in case I need a few set decorating tips up my sleeve sometime. Meanwhile the living room was also being readied for the next scene to be shot. An artist sketched a picture of a brain in a prop notebook because one of the characters is studying to be a brain surgeon.

The first scene ever shot in Friends With Benefits, which actually comes late in the movie, starts with Alex Brown as Owen and Margaret Laney as Chloe in bed, having a blowout argument. If you’ve ever read an interview with an actor, you may have heard them say how exhausting both physically and emotionally acting can be. Physically? Really? I once worked a factory job. I remember days when I could barely pick up a drill or a compressor hose by the end of the day, times when I jonesed for a couple in front of the TV like a crackhead wants rock. How bad can it be to be start out a scene in bed with a good-looking member of the opposite sex, scream a bit, rinse, and repeat?

Bad, I can now attest. Neither actor complained even a little, but after that experience I wouldn't blame them. Alex was in every scene shot that day, and on this movie, that doesn’t mean one or two scenes a day as you expect on a big-budget Hollywood flick. He shot something like seven scenes, and the first one must have been a killer. Chloe ends that initial filmed scene screaming and slamming the door shut on her way out. Every time I heard it I had to remind myself it was make-believe. His frustrated shouting and her shattered replies bore more than a an echo from times in my life I’d rather not relive.

Each actor has a different way of getting ready. Alex sits alone, a thousand-yard stare on his face. Margaret rocks out, blasting her iPod so loudly you can hear it a couple feet away. As they left set for their breaks four hours later they seemed perfectly self-contained.

I am constantly surprised at how good the actors are even in a blocking rehearsal, which carries few expectations beyond making sure the actors hit their marks, which can change every time through. My pleasure in their craft amuses Gorman, who seems to expect that kind of quality and who may or may not think of me as a feckless neophyte because of it. Gorman may think I’m easy to please, but I’m not. The script is king, but very close behind is the fidelity of the actors to the material. These actors all have a naturalism so striking the first day of rehearsals I frequently stopped my camera during a scene, thinking they’d stopped acting and just started talking. (Yes, I read the script. Several times. But it changed right up to last night and I’ve got a lot on my plate trying to figure out the damn camera, keep out of everyone’s way, and frame good shots. That and even on a good day I have the memory of a late-stage Alzheimer’s sufferer.) Anyway, this scene, which starts with the two characters having sex and ends with her storming out, was rendered so effectively it gave more than one person shivers. I feel self-conscious writing this, because every time I’ve read this kind of drivel I’ve immediately decided the interviewee was a pompous idiot. But there you have it.

According to tomorrow’s call sheet: another 10 scenes at the office.