The Following Story Takes Place During a 24 Hour Period From September 20th to 21st. During this time period, many unusual and scary adult things happened. Viewer Discretion is STRONGLY advised.
You have been warned.
You will receive no further warnings.
My First True Taste of Hollywood
or
The Actor, The Priest and The Bullwhip
Our assignment, as simple as it sounds, was to film an actor carrying a lit candle from one location to the next (like a hallway or across a room) etc... This is a technical assignment requiring some creative thinking about the placement of lights and all of the technical strengths and weaknesses of camera, film, and other equipment. My group was well-prepared. (Real names have been omitted for reasons of obvious displeasure) Bob has been in all of my film classes. Tammy is a director, producer, and editor in a group that has won film festivals previously. Cassius is a passionate amateur film maker. And then there was Quint. I didn't really know Quint, but I knew that he had problems with filming on weekends and he was looking for a group. I figured, why not? Not only was it the right thing to do as a good person, but also there might be some advantage to having a fifth film maker.
Right off the bat there were problems. Quint lives in a remote location and had already asked his actors to be at his home on Sunday at 6pm. That's right - Sunday Night in a remote location. Okay... not as cool as it could have been, but I agreed to help out anyway. I'm always up to an adventure. Well, so's Jack Bauer, and we all know how those adventures usually turn out.
Our story begins on Saturday. We all arrive and begin setting up the equipment and things are going slowly - but that's typical with film shoots. When we finally get things set up, we have a big problem with our new camera. We can't quite figure out what it is. So, being so incredibly behind, we switch to the back up camera and start filming. Everything, more or less, goes smoothly from here. My shoot comes out brilliantly! A surefire "A"! I'm ecstatic!
After the shoot, we pack up all of the equipment and lug it downstairs (three flights - no elevator) and start to load up Quint's Jeep. At this point, Quint turns to Bob and I and tells us about his film - its a silhoutted film being shot against a back drop of white sheets (think Austin Powers second movie) about two gay priests "pretending" to abuse each other.
Now, I must digress here, and say a little bit about my college. City College of San Francisco is, at the best of times, Bohemian - but most of the time it can be downright counter culture with the worst excesses of the artistic world. On the one hand, I usually find suggestions like the one above to be artistic crap that offends me, but on the other hand, I defend people's rights to make art that offends me - its that dichotomous nature of being a Christian artist.
So, I'm offended, but I'm also committed to helping out. I try to balance what I know about Quint with the film he's describing and I think, "Maybe this will be okay - more of a wink and nod!" Bob and I look at each other with misgiving, but then confirm that we will be there. To be honest, I seriously thought Bob would make an excuse and not show.
On Sunday, I hop on BART for the 75 minute ride to regions unknown. When I finally arrive, Bob and I wait for a ride to Quint's house. Quint comes to pick us up minutes later and then tells us that he hasn't managed to get anything set up because his actors have been flaking on him all day. But he's finally got a replacement actor to come and GOOD NEWS, the replacement actor had taken the same class we were taking - so he could help out.
While Quint gets to work setting up the sheets for the set, Bob and I figure out where to put the lights and we set them up. As we’re finishing our job, the replacement actor arrives – Dick. Dick turns out to live up to his namesake. Almost before introductions begin, he starts to offer us advice on how to do a proper shoot from his vast experience. Dick then proceeds to raid Quint’s refrigerator for the beer – which he then goes out on the deck and starts drinking while somehow still finding things to fault us with. When he hears about our camera problems from the day before, he starts to “fix” them. (To be fair to Dick, I did learn something from him – something that we had not been taught and that was not in the instruction manual that came with the camera but that was essential to the basic operation of the camera. This sort of “Forgotten” information seems fairly common in film classes). While he didn’t call us idiots outright, the tone was there.
As the Actor continued to drink beer he became more belligerent. At one point, while trying to set the lights, I said, “Wait, I just had a thought…” at which point he yelled out across the backyard, “Well congratulations! That makes one for today!” I was seriously ready to kick his ass, and I’m generally an easy going guy. He kept trying to give me advice. He even told me that “Story” was the key to good filmmaking. Well thank you, Sherlock, that hadn’t occurred to me.
So, after about an hour of this, the other actor calls to tell us that he’s just leaving the wedding he’s been at and that he’ll get there as soon as possible. Where was the wedding? In Pacifica… where I live… which means that he was at least 75 minutes away (not counting traffic). Dick didn’t like the idea of waiting. He demanded that Quint order a pizza (he did). Then he took Quint’s cigarettes and start smoking them.
At one point, Dick turned to me and asked me whether I had my license and if I’d be willing to drive him back to Berkeley. I politely declined (and yes, all the thoughts of another drunk Dick on the road did occur to me – but I didn’t particularly want to be a victim either). At another point Dick asked to see the bullwhip that was going to be in the film.
Bullwhip? Bob and I looked at Quint who laughingly said, “Yes, one priest is going to be pretending to whip the other priest… you don’t mind, do you?”
Quint gave Dick the whip and he proceeded to flail away with it right where we had been setting up lights. Had we had a car, Bob and I would have made one of those excuses (Oh, I just remembered the stove that I left on!) and fled with our lives. But we didn’t.
“I need to practice,” said Dick. “One of you go over there and pretend to be the priest.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” said Bob, in response, “Hand me the whip and I’ll practice on you.”
Needless to say, Dick got tired of the whip and went back to drinking in quiet while Bob and I tried to figure out what to do.
“Someone needs to run one of the lights,” I noted.
“You do it,” said Bob, “I’m not going to stand there while a drunk actor starts whipping everyone.”
When the pizza arrived, Dick promptly consumed half of it, burped loudly, and then told Quint that he was tired of waiting – and he left. (Only later did I find out that he used the fact that he was uncomfortable with the scene as his excuse ;) Bob and I watched him go with relief.
“One of you will have to put on the Priest costume and use the whip,” Quint said, “Do you mind?”
“Um… Not going to happen,” I replied and Bob agreed eagerly, “However, I think you can still do the assignment without the whip and just add the whipping later.”
So we waited… and waited… and waited… and in the meantime, we got the lights fine tuned, had the camera perfectly set, adjusted everything that could be adjusted so that when the other actor arrived, we were ready to shoot.
Finally, the other actor – we’ll came him Chris – arrived and immediately began to change into his costume. Things were finally starting to look up. I pointed out to Quint that we were going to have to leave the second the shooting was over and that he should make it quick. He agreed.
And then the actor came out – half-naked.
Yes, he was wearing the top part of a priest costume, but it only came down to slightly below the buttocks. He was naked below that.
Now I was not only offended, I was pissed as well. But, by this point, everything was so totally out of control, I just rolled my eyes and finished the shoot.
The first thing Quint wanted to do was readjust all the lights – completely destroying the perfect lighting we’d set up. We let him. Then he wanted me to follow the actor with the “candlelight” even after the candle was no longer in the picture. It had nothing to do with the project, but I didn’t care. I let him do that too. He started shooting his scene like he was holding a video camera and I just continued to move that light until he finally called cut.
Bob and I shut down the entire lighting scheme and were ready to go out the door in five minutes. As Quint finally let us off at the BART station, Bob turned to me and said, “I feel violated.” We simultaneously laughed, cried, and vented our anger during the 75 minute trip back to civilization. And we both agreed that we were never going to do that again, no matter what the situation.
I could go on and tell you about Dick’s sleeping buddy or the non-artsy fartsy movie to be shot entirely at sunset or the fact that I’ve now lost my equipment borrowing privileges for an entire week (they can have them!), but I think I’ve said enough. I’ve been Jack Bauered enough for one 24-hour period. I’m starting to get cranky. And next time, they might not be so lucky and I might have to “interrogate” someone with a gun or a machete or something equally 24-ish.
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