Day 16 Shooting- Roof Top

For once everyone got their shit together on time.  Everyone got their coffee, Loren wasn’t stuck in traffic and Mike didn’t have an excuse for me.  Loren picked me up and with his masterful GPS we got downtown in a jiffy.  I already appreciated Andy’s GPS when we first scouted out Nicole’s rooftop location, so knowing Loren had one too was a relief- getting lost downtown can suck.

A day earlier I went to a coworkers birthday and asked everyone at the table if they had access to a cool rooftop.  Nicole said she did and was truly enthusiastic about the view, so that got me excited.  We went at night and the city was lit up- truly amazing backdrop, but I didn’t know how it would fit the scene exactly.  In the end I decided on a day shoot because it made more sense and I could see them hanging out up there just shooting the shit.

I didn’t even use the background with all the skyscrapers, I ended up using a modest sized building to fill up the background, but there were birds and a train that would go by every ten minutes… and I just happened to like the area where the actors decided to sit down and rehearse.

Nicole left her apartment open so we could go in and use the bathroom whenever while she watched a Harry Potter movie.  Mike pointed out there was some obvious sexual tension between Nicole and myself.

"that’s funny you say that because it’s not something that really came to mind."  I was surprised and I secretly hoped that maybe she dug me, but I truly doubt it.  She’s tall, has a punk girl quality, an arresting smile and a sharp wit as a bonus.  The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea.  Plus she was all showered and sexy-

-back to the shoot though.

Some "squatter" wandered up to the roof and disappeared into this hole in the wall…he probably smoked some crack in there- just a random room you could climb in through the window- looked like a mess inside.  Then when he came out he started eyeing the equipment and I knew I wasn’t going to start shooting until this guy got lost.  I finally said,

"You need something?"

It was a little too aggressive and he took it the wrong way.  "What do you mean do I need something?"

I rephrased the question. "Do you need help with something,"

"What’s that thing,"

"That’s a sound board."

He kept asking questions and I humored him until he decided to skat.  I was expecting the dreaded request of, "Can I look at the camera?" which I’ve heard a few times in the past and it always pisses me off.  He didn’t though.

Anyway, we shot for awhile and the sun suddenly made itself known and fried us.  Half way through the shoot the lighting completely changed when a blanket of clouds were draped over the sky.  It started to rain a bit and it was suddenly very dark.  Fuck, being an obvious thought.

Turned out to be a blessing, the actors hit their stride and all their best takes were under the dark lighting.  PLus the rain only drizzled at best.  I got a wide shot of them sitting there with the clouds overhead and its just breathtaking.  I told Mike to really see his dream because for now it was just a string of words with no depth to them.  That sounded like a harsh direction, but not compared to Loren’s earlier criticism.  After monitoring the sound one take he said,

"It sounded like there was a ten foot wall between you. Like a couple of actors in a high school production."

"Jesus Loren."

"There wasn’t a connection."

I couldn’t believe the nerve of him to just insult the performers without anything really constructive behind it.  I didn’t feel that way at all, but even if I did I wouldn’t tell them they sucked in such a degrading way.  You got to steer the performances and give them something to try or talk about their motivations- anything but put them down, unless you’re going for a natural anger to stir them up.

Bottom line, Loren isn’t a director- at least not on this picture and I knew the actors shrugged it off for the most part, but it wasn’t a highlight.  Later I wrote Aves,

"It’ wasn’t a fucking high school performance, that was coming from a guy who loved "Baby’s Day Out"" 

Cheap shot, but I remember one night in retail Loren went on and on about how clever that fucking movie was.

I got some beautiful takes with both of them- great shoot, even more surprised I got good sound because there was constant traffic andf street noise below.  The actors would stop mid-way through a sentence so I could get a clean recording of the train sound every time it passed.