I'm Not Dead... Yet! (54 page)

Meanwhile, Zephyr went to a school for performers (working young people) and he would come and be my ‘ringer’ in the classes that needed actors at a moment’s notice. He not only helped my students enormously, but he was becoming more and more of a spontaneous thinker and his work still maintained honesty. He was also learning and
listening
in every class. Then he would go off to his own normal education. What a beautiful way to learn and soak up a ton of life. And for me, to have my son there didn’t make me feel like I was a 3-time open-heart patient who was spending quality time with other people’s children but not my own. He was there with me. And when I was asked to direct my next film, he was right there with me again.

Karla was healing, Lyric came back to help our family heal. I took a deep breath and counted my blessings. Family. Love. What else is there…?

Out of left-field, I received a phone call from a friend about a film to direct. I had dropped all agents and managers long ago—I wanted to see if it were possible to work in show business and not deal with the B.S. and backstabbing of Hollywood. I was working as much as I wanted to work: when people needed me, or wanted me, they found me. No more B.S.

This movie had to do with The New York Yankees and their move to the new stadium; leaving the ghosts of the old stadium behind—and then during demolition of the old Yankee Stadium,

the George Steinbrenner character realizes that the new stadium is missing something: it’s missing
the legends
—the ‘ghosts.’ So a wonderful, very human device is used in the film to get the ghosts to cross 161st street and take up residency in the new stadium, making it whole again. I would direct and David Rudd, my new partner, would D.P.

My participation began in October of 2008. Just my luck, the producers were in the real estate business and ‘other ventures.’ None of them had ever done a film before. Business… was their business. Like raw meat in the Serengeti, certain greedy vultures descended for a feeding frenzy. These new producers were taken advantage of and they began to learn the hard way—no matter what I’d say, or how David and I might warn them. But still,
the film could be wonderful
.

I felt it was a lovely opportunity to tell a very human story (with the help of a few ghosts).

Soon we would begin to shoot the Old Stadium and get our effects plates.

The ‘Old Lady’ was coming down. And we had to capture it on film.

The deal breaker for me? NYU students
must
work on this feature film.

For that deal point, I took a huge pay cut (that was meaningless to me) in return for the production to hire and
pay
my students—those who were ready to contribute to this film. I had my lawyer put it in writing,
in my contract,
that at least fifteen of my students would be paid to work on this feature. The agreement was such that the students would not work xeroxing papers or getting coffee; my students would P.A. in all of the areas they were interested in. I had a couple of students who were interested in the camera department

because at NYU they had taken more ‘camera’ classes; others were interested in lighting, etc. David Rudd put them to work in the camera department as P.A.s, and
if
they could ‘hold their own’ and prove they
deserved
to be there, they would get more and more responsibilities thrown their way. But much more importantly, they would be learning from the best. I even had the opportunity to hire a wonderful writer, Ezra Sacks, the head of the writing department at NYU, to do the rewrite.