Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (57 page)

The Play:
Ladies & Gents
is divided into two acts—one in the ladies’ room, the other in the men’s. (It doesn’t matter which one you see first.) During performances, the audience clusters in front of the toilet stalls to watch the action, most of which takes place near the urinals and sinks. One character in the play, a pimp, does sit on a toilet for a time but doesn’t actually use it (much to the relief of theatergoers). Audiences aren’t allowed to use the facilities, either. But if anyone does have to answer the call of nature, portable toilets are set up outside the restroom during the play’s run. The price of admission for the Central Park run (March 19–29, 2008) was $25. Believe it or not, most of the shows sold out.

So what was the hardest part about staging a play in a public restroom in Central Park? Probably the rehearsals, which were conducted
before
the portable toilets were set up. The actors were constantly interrupted by tourists and pushy New Yorkers who cared more about relieving themselves than they did about Art. At least one man refused to look for another restroom or wait for a break in the rehearsals; he just marched right in and took care of business as the actors performed their parts. “He was a bit belligerent, really,” said actor John O’Callaghan, who played the pimp. “I guess when you have to go, you have to go.”

Wow, we’ve already reached the third part of this article and are only
now
getting to preproduction? You see, Uncle John? Making a movie does take a lot of work. (Part II is on page 232.)

G
ATHERING THE TALENT
Now that the script and budget have been approved and the director is onboard, every aspect of the project must be thoroughly planned out in advance. Every film is a “business” in its own right, so first a production company is formed. Then the director (alone or with an illustrator) turns the script into
storyboards
, rough sketches of every planned shot. Those are then sent to each department head so that they can begin the conceptualizing work, such as how the sets and costumes will appear. A rough filming schedule will also be set. Here are the people and departments who start putting it all together.

Often a director will have specific actors in mind for the lead parts. It is the
casting director’s
job to find and then begin negotiations with those actors. Alternatively, the director may give a detailed description of the roles’ requirements. The CD will then advertise the parts in industry trade publications, look at hundreds or even thousands of 8x10 photos, and then schedule auditions, presenting the director with only the best candidates. The CD is usually in sole charge of casting the smaller parts and remains with the production during filming, acting as a liaison between the production company, the actors, and their agents. Sometimes, a CD must get creative to find the perfect person for a role.

Reel-Life Example:
When looking for an 11-year-old boy to play the son of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) in
There Will Be Blood
(2007), casting director Cassandra Kulukundis auditioned hundreds of kids from New York and Los Angeles, but they were all a little too “polished” to play a simple West Texas boy who could shoot a gun. So Director Paul Thomas Anderson sent
Kulukundis to Texas to look for the real thing. There, she found a 6th grader named Dillon Freasier who’d never acted before but otherwise had all of the desired attributes. Kulukundis recorded a screen test in Freasier’s living room and sent it to Anderson, who flew out to meet the boy…and knew he was perfect “the minute he laid eyes on him.” That’s what directors and CDs strive for: the “Eureka!” moment when they know they’ve found the perfect marriage between actor and role.

Did it work?
There Will Be Blood
made nearly three times its $25 million budget during its theatrical run and went on to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. And critics agreed that Freasier’s performance was one of the reasons the film was so powerful.

The
production designer
is the “architect” of the film, in charge of every object on the screen that isn’t an actor. If the screenplay calls for grit and realism, the PD has to make sure that everything in the frame—from the city skyline to the tattered shoes to the trash on the ground—reflects that vision. Reporting to the PD is the
art director
, who oversees the conceptual artists to finalize the film’s look. Once the main design elements are approved, a revised set of storyboards is created by the art department that will serve as a guide to setting up lighting, props, and camera angles once filming has started.

Meanwhile, the
property master
—working from an exhaustive list put together by the PD—has already begun the arduous process of finding or creating every object that appears in the movie. A
prop
is any inanimate object that an actor directly interacts with, such as a chair or a gun. A
set dressing
is any object that appears in a scene but that the actors do not touch. The property master searches through catalogs, prop houses, and thrift stores looking for these things. If they can’t be found or don’t exist, it is up to the art department to build them or modify them from real objects (such as turning an electric razor into a futuristic communicator).

Reel-Life Example:
Jeannine Oppewall is a veteran PD with more than 30 films and four Oscar nominations to her credit, one of which was for 1998’s
Pleasantville
. The film was especially difficult because it combines a period piece that strives for historical accuracy
with a fantasy—Oppewall calls this a “hyper-reality.” The plot: two modern teenagers are magically transported back to a 1950s TV sitcom town where everything appears in black-and-white and everyone behaves innocently. As the two new teenagers introduce modern values and mores, Pleasantville gradually begins to show color.

On a typical project, Oppewall will spend up to nine months working 14-hour days, researching and drawing up plans. With a period piece, she says, the most important job is taking things out: “air-conditioners, reflectors that run down the middle of the street, cars of the wrong vintage, and satellite dishes.” Oppewall supervised the refurbishing of real neighborhood streets plus the creation of a replica of the town on a studio back lot.

Did it work?
Yes.
Pleasantville
turned a tidy profit during its theatrical run, taking in nearly $50 million. It also garnered great reviews, most of which acknowledged how convincing the make-believe world was. In her review for the
New York Times
, Janet Maslin wrote, “The film’s unsung heroine is Oppewall, who wittily turns the fantasy of Pleasantville into an actual place. Watch the sidewalks crack and the skirts grow less poufy as reality sets in.”

After reading the script and studying the storyboards, the
location scout
or
manager
travels around to find and photograph potential places to film—a difficult job, as numerous factors must be considered before the director and producers will even go and look at it.

• How much does it cost to film there? Are there permits available? Grand Central Station may be exactly what the film calls for, but will the cost of filming there put the movie over budget?

• How noisy is the location? Nearby construction equipment or an airport can grind a production to a halt. Location scouts must be able to see into the future to know what the conditions will be like when the filming is scheduled.

• How accessible is the location? Is there power available? Only movies with the biggest budgets can afford to send an armada of trucks and helicopters out to the middle of nowhere and power it all up with generators.

If no suitable location can be found, there are options: They can “re-dress” one place to make it look like another, send a film
crew to the location to get background shots and then digitally add in the actors during postproduction, or re-create the location on a soundstage or a studio back lot.

Reel-Life Example:
In the 2000 comedy
Big Momma’s House
, Martin Lawrence plays an FBI agent who disguises himself as a matriarchal woman in order to catch a criminal. Production designer Craig Steams knew that “the House” would need to be a character in and of itself, so he sent four location scouts on a search through the southern United States. When the perfect house was finally chosen, producers decided that filming would be much easier in a more controllable environment. So the crew ended up building an exact replica of the house on two stages at Universal Studios.

Did it work?
Yes. Martin Lawrence’s performance (along with that of the house) may not have won many accolades from critics, but audiences loved it. Made for $33 million,
Big Momma’s House
grossed $173 million and spawned a successful sequel.

Because shooting schedules are so tight, the
visual effects coordinator
must read the script and then tell the director what can or can’t be filmed on set—and then start figuring out how to do it. There are two kinds of visual effects: those that will be completed in postproduction, and
practical effects
, which will be done on set, such as explosions, gunfire, rain, and…baby cows.

Reel-Life Example:
In the 1991 film
City Slickers
, Mitch (Billy Crystal) must help deliver a newborn calf. Because an actual birthing would have been nearly impossible to set up and capture in one take, the visual effects department built an animatronic calf that Crystal “delivered” several times until director Ron Underwood was satisfied.

Did it work?
Yes.
City Slickers
was a hit with both critics and audiences. If the birthing scene hadn’t been convincing, the story would have suffered. Film critic Roger Ebert apparently didn’t notice the ruse. “All of the subplots, like Crystal’s love for a baby calf he helps deliver,” he wrote, “pay off at the end.”

Working in conjunction with the art director, based on the PD’s
vision, every single piece of clothing that the actors wear must either be found or created by the
costume designer
.

Reel-Life Example:
In a character-driven film such as 2001’s
Ocean’s Eleven
, the costumes must help tell the story, and director Steven Soderbergh credits much of the movie’s success to costume designer Jeffrey Kurland. But the head of an art department can’t work in a vacuum; Kurland collaborated with production designer Phil Messina. “We share color schemes and ideas. When I told him that I was going to try to design Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) with an Asian feeling, Phil designed Benedict’s hotel with a distinctively Asian feel. We also talk about color and what he plans to use as upholstery so that the characters don’t disappear into his furnishings.” This is another job that begins in preproduction and stretches all the way through to the end of filming. “If I remember correctly, George (Clooney) has 26 costume changes, Brad (Pitt) has 24, Elliott (Gould) has 12 or 14. I was constantly making and designing clothes throughout the show.” (In movie business lingo, a film project in production is called “the show.”)

It’s important that the casting be completed as early as possible so the main actors can be brought in to rehearse and train for the various tasks their characters must perform—from stunt work to dancing to foreign accents. An actor may spend a month training for a scene that will take a week to shoot and only takes up a minute of screen time.

Reel-Life Example:
When Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving were cast as the four leads in 1999’s futuristic action film,
The Matrix
, they figured training would only last a few weeks. Instead, it took closer to
four months
. Under the tutelage of kung fu choreographer Woo Ping Yuen, they had to learn not only martial arts but how to fight each other while suspended on wires.

Did it work?
Yes.
The Matrix
set a new standard for action movies with both its never-before-seen visual effects and complex fight scenes. But it wasn’t easy—the film spent four years in development and over a year in preproduction before the first scene was even filmed.

For Part IV, go to page 433
.

For our
Bathroom Reader
sports fans, a little “bowl” trivia
.

•
City that’s hosted the most Super Bowls:
Miami, with 10. Second place: New Orleans, with 9.

•
Only two brothers to be named Super Bowl MVPs:
Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts (2007) and Eli Manning of the New York Giants (2008).

•
Only Super Bowl MVP selected from a losing team:
Chuck Howley of the 1971 Dallas Cowboys.

•
Only team to play the Super Bowl at home:
It’s never happened. The closest: the 1985 Super Bowl won by the 49ers at Stanford Stadium, 35 miles from San Francisco.