I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

Two more videos:


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We are right in the middle of Day 8 of filming, and I have lots of new stuff for you:
1. Pictures from Day 7 of shooting are up in the Flickr account

2. A new crew interview video is up:

3. During a scene yesterday, I let Geoff use my computer as his prop, instead of the crappy one he was supposed to have. So how does he thank me? By leaving this pic as my background:

Whatever, fuck him–we’ll see who’s laughing when he finds the gift I left him in his trailer just now. I wouldn’t click on this unless you really like to look at pictures of feces.
I’m not sure if this joke will even work though–knowing Stults, he won’t notice the smell over his own funk, and when he does eventually find it, he’ll think he just forgot to flush last time. Actors are heathens.
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We have many incredibly cool cameos in this movie–ranging from a very famous porn star to a very famous athlete, and many others in between–that I won’t give away, but we had one today I am going to write about, because it’s big enough to be interesting, but not so big that talking about it will give anything huge away.
He was only in one scene (that he killed it in) and was only here for a day, but Edward Hibbert was an absolute joy to work with. You probably know him as “Gil Chesterton,” the flamboyant food critic from Frasier. He is another example of an awesome character actor who doesn’t get enough credit, like what I talked about with Meagan Fey. I won’t talk about his role in the film at all, instead I want to talk about something incredibly interesting about him:
He is Chuck Palahniuk’s book agent.
I’m not joking at all. He is not only a very accomplished actor in movies and on Broadway, but he represents several very successful book authors.
This is so fucking weird. I have talked about this many, many times before, but I basically credit two books with starting me on the road to becoming a professional writer, and Fight Club is one of them. Today, I found myself producing a movie, I wrote, about a book I wrote, inspired by a book that was very much brought to the world by…a guy acting in my movie.
One of the benefits of being a narcissist is that I live in my own world and don’t really worry what others think. This frees me from so many of the encumbrances that bog down other people. But one of the detriments of this is that I don’t have many heroes. Not caring about what other people think cuts both ways.
But there are some people whose opinions I respect so much that I do care. I’d be a liar if I said that Chuck Palahniuk wasn’t one of them. So, of course it was really gratifying that the man who discovered one of my heroes and still represents him liked the script enough to take a small part in the movie. But then to hear today, from Edward, that Chuck had read my stuff and really liked it–that was pretty fucking cool.

I don’t give myself a lot of time to stop and appreciate what I’ve done, but hearing that one of my heroes, one of the men who inspired me to become a writer, likes my writing…I took a second to savor that.
Just a second though.
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We got three more crew interviews, edited and up:

Sorry about the lack of pics, but the last three days we’ve been shooting scenes that I can’t really show without giving part of the plot away, so no dice on that. I have a huge “Hold” file with many pics that I’ll post as soon as the movie is out, but until then, I am saving as much as I can.
And seriously, I know I talked about this already, but everyone on set is still buzzing about Matt Czuchry’s performance on Friday. With a weekend to digest it, it’s even more impressive.
For example, Suki told me, on Saturday “I have worked on many movies, and this Matt…he is going places. That performance was…it was very special. I don’t know many actors, even very famous ones, who could have done what he did. Remarkable.” That’s high high praise coming from a Bosnian.
Even the extras are talking about it. Today, one of the middle-aged extras came up to me and said, “I have been a stand-in or extra on dozens of movies, and that was something else on Friday. You know what it reminded me of? I was in the jury on the Michael Douglas movie that just shot here, Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, and Matt’s energy and skill was up there with Michael. It just felt like greatness.” That energy really carried over to today, and we had another great day of hilarious takes.
In some ways this movie is exactly what I wanted, and in other ways it’s very different. But the differences are almost all improvements. I am very happy with everything right now. Like I keep saying, this is my first movie, I don’t have any basis of comparison or anything, but it feels right. Great cast, great crew, great material–it’s all starting to come together, piece by piece, take by take, we are making a really good movie.
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Fuck all this film 101 shit, here’s a drunk story:
So, as many of the fine members of this production can tell you, I got SHIT-HAMMERED Friday night. That’s my own personal term for it, but just so we’re all on the same page here, I’ll use the Tucker Max Drunk Scale and rate myself just a point or two over the “fucked-in-half” mark. I encourage anyone who was there to modify that claim as they see fit, (as per the scale, of course) because, truth be told, I remember very little of the evening.
According to eye-witnesses, I was throwing ice and sugar packets at anyone and everyone (Keri Lynn and Nils in particular), I poured out ketchup all over a table, I indiscriminately stole food off plates I had not ordered (apparently while employing the old “oh my God look over there!!” tactic) and tried to fight quite a few innocent by-standers and new friends alike. Luckily, I always have a smile on my face when I get this drunk, and, with a little help from Tucker’s special forces buddy, (we’ll call him “John”), I lived. But I was hurting pretty bad the next day.
Here is the entire text interchange that went on that night between my girlfriend (in LA) and myself. I read it the next day, because she told me to, thought it was funny, and figured I’d post it. It’s not like, SUPER funny, but it’s honest, and real and sometimes that’s better. The parentheticals are my attempt to shed a little light where needed:
12:06AM
me- I’m fukn hammered,….
her- Aahhaha nice baby!!! I can’t wait to get hammered with you!!
john, special forces, having stolen my phone- John the green beret says you are way too hot for a limp wristed dork. And hello.
me- That was my friend. He’s a green beret.
her- You guys are funny. Tell the green beret I said hello.
12:22AM
John, having stolen my phone again- Green beret says your boyfriend is going to get guitar head from me.
me- Ignore that baby (yea that’s right motherfucker’s, I use winky faces sometimes…. you got a problem with that, come see me.)
her- at least somebody’s getting action
me- Seriously….!
me- I am sooooooooooooooo hammered. He really is a green beret tho….
her- What is that?
me-What? Green beret?? Its one of the most bad ass military classifications available to mere mortals……. Its like being JAMES BOND.
her- Ohhhhhhh!!!!!!! My bad
12:47AM
me- I’m so fuked up I tv (not sure what I was going for there, but that’s what I wrote)
me-I think I better just go home…..
me- Jesus Christ I haven’t been wasted since highschool…. (the word “this” was supposed to be in there)
1:07AM
her- haahha I love it!!!
her- my phone is gonna die soon so if I call you from a different number answer it.
me- the green beret just practiced some moves on me. I’m good tho…. (apparently I wouldn’t stop bugging him to hit me…. until he did.)
her- Be careful!!!
me- I’m hoooooooooooooooo………. (that’s what I wrote. Your guess is as good as mine.)
1:50AM
her- Are you ok?
me- yes dear… I’ll call you soon…
2:12AM
me- I’m gnna go to bed soon. I’ll call you right b4….
her- What happened? Just call me later.
2:36AM
me- Ok
(I’m pretty sure I never called)
next morning……
11:48AM
her- How you feelin baby?
me- So hung over I want to die
In summation, I’m glad I got uncontrollably drunk, threw-up at least 7 times between the hours of 4AM and 2PM, and basically wanted to curl up in a ball and put a bullet in my skull all day Saturday.
Why, you ask?
For the same reason I’m happy to blog about these experiences: IT GOES WITH THE ZEITGEIST OF THE FILM. I’m an actor. That’s my job.
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After my last post where I said we did 30 takes of the final scene of the movie, these are some of the questions people posted:
“It seems intuitive that a pivotal scene would take all day to shoot. But if you thought Czuchry nailed it the first time or the the third or tenth time, why keep shooting it? I assume the director had a good idea of how you wanted to shoot the scene–were you just trying to fine-tune it as much as possible, or were there variables you couldn’t predict until you started filming?”
“Why so much? Why not use multiple cameras and only do a few takes?”
I thought the same things and asked the same questions when I first started. So, I need to back-up and explain an aspect of film making that is fundamental to the process, but that almost no one outside of the business understands:
Coverage.
Take the “Who’s coming with me” scene in Jerry Maguire, when he is leaving the office after getting fired. Watch it here, at least half of it or so:

When you watch it, it flows and weaves seemlessly. You could probably assume that they shot that in like four or five takes, with three or so cameras, and that’s that. Wrong. My guess is that that scene took about anywhere from three to five days to shoot (or more), and that’s WITH two or sometimes three different cameras running the whole time.
How could that be?
This is because each new angle requires a whole new set-up. That means all the massive lighting arrays have to rearranged, and then specifically set and adjusted to light the scene and the faces of the actors correctly, the camera has to be reset, the angles have to decided on, marks set, continuity checked, actors placed, a rehearsal take, and then you shoot, usually at least two or three takes, because you need options in the editing room.
Now go watch the scene again. EVERY time you see a different angle–a reaction from a secretary, a view of the boss on the catwalk, Jerry from a different angle–that is another set-up. Each set-up is AT LEAST an hour of work, and probably many many more (depending on various factors). When Jerry walks up and down the aisle talking, that isn’t one shot. That is at least TWO different shots, one from the front, and one from the back. Actually, it’s probably four–another one from each side as well. Each one is a new set-up, and those take a ton of time.
Why can’t you just use multiple cameras? Well, for many reasons, the main one being that you’ll see them in the shot. Think about it–even if you use two or three cameras, none of them can be in the view range of any of the others. That leaves 180 degrees of viewing ALWAYS uncovered, even if you use ten cameras, and in reality, you only have a very limited view range without getting something in the camera that shouldn’t be there–lights, crew, etc.
Another reason you can’t really use multiple cameras is lighting. You wouldn’t believe the lighting arrays you have to set up to make something look natural on film. You can get an idea of what they’re like here, here, and here. This means that, generally speaking, you can’t do a huge range of motion without fucking up the lighting and thus the look.
But beyond that, another reason you need a ton of takes is so you have options in the editing room. What looks right on set can not be right for any number of reasons–something is wrong in the background, the continuity is off, the sound is off, the film gets messed up in processing, something happens narratively or any number of a thousand other things. The more angles and takes you have, the more options you have.
This is really only the tip of the iceberg. It is so much more complex, but this should give you an idea of why one ten minutes scene requires ten set-ups and an entire day to shoot. In reality, this should have taken us at least three days to shoot, but because Matt fucking nailed it on every take, and because we have a really hard-working and motivated crew, it saved us an IMMENSE amount of time. At least a day.
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Today, we got the most important shot in the movie, and we got it exactly right.
There are three major scenes in the movie that we had to hit right to make this movie great. The third most important scene was with Keri Lynn Pratt and Geoff Stults and we shot it in the first two days. It went very smoothly (aside from some hilarious out takes from Stults that will be on the DVD) but I knew that one was going to go well. The second is an awesome scene between Jesse and Marika. We shoot that much later in the month, and I am pretty confident we’ll hit that too.
The most important scene is the climax of the movie, and is pretty much all Movie Tucker. It is the scene I was most nervous about. If we hit it right, it makes the whole movie, but if we don’t get it right, the movie falls flat (I don’t want to say anymore about it, you’ll understand when you see the movie). What makes it so nerve wracking was that I can do everything right, EVERYTHING, and still, the entire outcome of the movie very much relies on what someone else does. I can be the best, and if Movie isn’t, it all goes to shit.
We shot that today, ALL DAY…and we fucking nailed it.
Check that–MATT nailed it.
Over and over again, he rocked the scene. It was like watching Mark McGuire take batting practice. Out of the park, again and again and again. Thirty takes from all sorts of various angles, and every one was usable to some extant or another.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t nervous about his performance; he got it in rehearsal plenty of times. And man, he has worked so fucking hard on this. Every day, hours a day, over and over, he thinks about his scenes, practices, rehearses, contemplates, and obsesses. The dude has put in the work to be great, and he has earned this opportunity to become a star. But still–until it’s on film, it’s not done. Anything can happen.
Well, we got it on film today, and I am so fucking happy and relieved I can hardly believe it. I just drank a gallon of these insane cajun daiquiris, you wouldn’t believe the laws about open container in Louisiana–but that is a different post. Time to stop writing.
On another note, today, Monday and Tuesday we also shot my scenes. I have a pretty funny cameo, only like 4 or 5 lines. I don’t want to give anything about it away, even to tell you what role I play, because I want it to be a complete surprise. I think it’s going to be good.
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I said in the post about Denise that all great movies have at least one, “you’ll never believe how that person got cast” story. I thought how we cast Denise was it, but we have an even bigger one now.
Friday was when we FINALLY got ahold of Denise’s agent to book her flight, after not getting our calls returned for three days. Not a good sign. Only after basically threatening the agent do we learn that Denise has some sort of issue where she can’t travel until August 4th. She starts shooting July 25th. Exit Denise.
This meant that two days before shooting starts, we are missing our second female lead. This is what I would refer to as an “emergency situation.” We got Joseph Middleton on the phone, Sean put a call out to people he knew, Nils and I scoured our files and IMBD–we had to find a hot, smart, funny actress who was available and willing to do the role, on like two days notice. Shit.
Thankfully, we got super lucky. Marika Dominczyk was originally Joseph Middleton’s first choice to play Lara. She passed on the role because when he asked her about it we were planning to start shooting on June 1st, and she had a movie shooting then. Well, it turns out that Keri Lynn Pratt is Marika’s best friend, and Marika had planned on coming out to visit the set anyway. When we told Keri what happened with Denise, she called Marika, blah blah blah, and by yesterday, Marika was here in Shreveport, ready to start.
I don’t know Marika all that well yet, but I have hung out with her enough to have some opinions:
1. She’s really fucking hot. Generally speaking I am not a fan of the type of slavic facial structure she has, but sometimes hot is just hot, and she’s hot. Wait till you see her in the movie.
2. In real life, she is exactly what I imagined the Lara character to be like: Hot, smart, tons of personality and attitude, but still a sweet girl. Her husband is a lucky dude.
3. Speaking of her husband, she’s married to Scott Foley. So many Felicity jokes to make…
4. She passed the Murph test. My dog Murph is an emotional mirror–she loves good people, and won’t go near bad people. It’s weird how well she reads energy. She saw Marika, trotted right up to her, and acted like they’d known each other for years. Good, good sign.
In fact, she’s just like Keri Lynn, in that I almost can’t believe she’s an actress, because she isn’t soulless, a whore, or a bitch. Seriously though–What kind of weird movie is this? Almost every actress I know in LA is an awful, awful person, yet every actress I’ve met so far on my movie is the complete opposite. Either we got really lucky in casting, or I am hanging out in the wrong places in LA.
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One of the most unusual things about working on a movie is the dichotomy between above and below the line crew. Generally speaking, “above the line” are the director, producers, cinematographer, writers, and actors. The “talent,” so to speak, whereas “below the line” are generally the more blue collar workers–from grips to PAs and everything in between.
Although the two groups are both integral to making a movie and they need each other, as a general rule, each holds the other in some sort of contempt. Above the line people think below the line are not as good as them, and below the line think that above the line people are overpaid prima donnas. I know I have heard all sorts of things from other above the line people about how below the line crew are just mercenaries: they don’t care about the movie, just about their paycheck, or they’ll cheat and steal the first chance they get, etc, etc.
I don’t know anything about movie sets other than what I have learned the past four days, but from what I have seen from the crew on this movie, none of that is true. In fact, I would say the opposite is true. The below the line guys on my set are just as conscientious and detailed oriented about their specific roles as I am about mine. I know I don’t know movie sets at all, so maybe I’m all wrong, but from what I can glean, these dudes are putting in A+ performances.
Here why I think I can say that: Even though I don’t know specifics about movie sets, I have worked many blue collar jobs in my life–everything from dishwasher to stable mucker–and I do know when someone is dogging it versus when they are busting their ass, and I can definitely say that the below the line guys are busting their ass. In an office, you can cheat the system and make yourself look busy even if you aren’t doing any real work, but not in a manual labor job. Either shit gets done or it doesn’t, and these guys get shit done, and they do it fast.
Yeah, maybe they don’t care about the nuances of the performances as much as me, but that’s not their job. Their job is to set up the lights, move the camera, set up the sets, etc, so I can do my job without having to worry about that, and they have been doing a fucking great job. I never have to think about anything other than the creative stuff I know how to do. In my extremely limited experience, with only one crew, I couldn’t be happier. I can’t really think of one time I have said to myself, “Man, I wish we had someone better at that position.”
I think this is emblematic of another systemic problem in Hollywood: Lack of basic respect for people. The below the line guys on this movie remind me of every single other person I have ever worked with on any job that required a lot of physical labor: Tough, honest, hard-working, and no bullshit. If you treat them with decency and respect, they will kill it for you. But if you are a fucking dick to them, they aren’t going to do anything for you. Why would you expect them to? Just because they are getting paid a lot? Fuck that. You can’t pay someone enough to make it OK for you to treat them like shit.
Sorry, rant over. I’m just finding that so much of the “conventional wisdom” in Hollywood is based on a bankrupt and corrupt mindset. All the assumptions that so many people in this business work under are not only unnecessary, they are often patently false. It’s time for fresh DNA in this industry.
ANYWAY, this whole aside is my way of introducing a video series we are going to be doing, appropriately titled “Crew Interviews.” Greg will be doing basic interviews of as many people on the crew as possible, where they explain what their job is, why they like it, and maybe tell a funny movie story or something like that. This is the first one:

Also, a ton more pics are up of the first three days of filming, all seen here. Even though most of them won’t make sense to you now, when the movie comes out, you’ll see them in a new light.
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Day Two of principal photography brought yet another set of revelations I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I’ve had less than 24 hours to ruminate on them and already I can feel the novelty of two of them fade away and the experiences themselves harden into wisdom.
First and foremost, Transportation may very well be the most important department on the logistical, nuts-and-bolts side of film production. Not because they are responsible for getting trucks and trailers or cast and crew to and from where they need to be, but rather because they are responsible for fixing the lock on the men’s room door of the portable restroom trailer. This is important because I was walked in on taking a crap, twice, despite making a concerted effort to lock the door, twice. I know what you’re thinking: who takes two dumps before 10:30am? I do, that’s who. Thank you, Starbucks drip coffee.
The first time I got walked in on, it was by one of the security guards on set. He is an older black man from in town, probably late 50s, early 60s, with a deeply rutted face and tufts of graying hair protruding from the bottom of his hat. He didn’t bat an eyelash when he finally noticed me and what I was doing, which is shocking since I was absolutely punishing that toilet with the remnants of breakfast and dinner from the night before. “Sorry, friend” was all I got out of him. I’m not sure if he was just being stoic or if he is used to walking in on strangers punching holes in his local septic system, but I want to believe it’s the latter so I don’t feel awkward around him in the lunch line tomorrow.
The second time I got walked in on was worse, though, since it was Producer Extraordinaire, Sean McKittrick. All he wanted to do was take a leak, he said, he didn’t want to see my bare legs splayed out in preparation for a colonic exorcism. The ironic part is that I really didn’t have to crap too bad that second time and, as such, Sean’s reaction was disproportionate and unnecessary. I was just being on the safe side since my morning’s coffee hadn’t quite worked itself all the way through, and to be honest I hadn’t even started yet. But whatever, I’m just splitting (butt) hairs.
The second and more important thing of note from Day Two was The Heat. The Heat in the Deep South can sneak up and punch you right in the gut. Day One started hot and stayed there, so there was never really a point during the day that you weren’t girded for 95+ degree Heat and it’s sweaty Italian cousin, Humidity. Day Two, however, started remarkably pleasant. It was a nice prelude to the morning interior work. What better way to get and keep cast and crew in a good mood to start the day than with good weather? Then we walked outside for lunch and got kicked right in the crotch by 100+ degree heat and worse humidity than the day before. I’ve played basketball and golf for hours in 110+ degree heat in Arizona and Palm Springs. I’ve been to Northern Africa. They have nothing on the unexpected increase in temperature outside this little house in Shreveport, LA. It took 90 minutes just to focus my vision.
It’s no wonder so many things move so slowly down here. They kinda have to.
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