Day 17 Shooting- Just My Girlfriend

Last week sucked. A manager caught me mouthing off about Arclight with another employee…he was kind of leading the rant, but I wasn’t helping by agreeing and adding my occasional two cents.  It was really awkward when we were caught- all the worse because it was by Virginia who is considered the Arclight nazi.

Anyway, she told us in her own smiley way that we better adjourn this conversation and that she would have a chat with the two of us at a later time.  I thought my job was good as dead…well, maybe it still is.

It was during our ridiculous P and L meeting-  over 200 employees get together in the theater, break up into smaller groups and basically we’re forced to recognize how great the new Arclight is going to be in Sherman Oaks.  INstead of addressing possible problems or raising challenging issues we have to say, "The new ticketing system is going to be great because…the blah blah blah will help blah blah- because."  It’s an ass-kissing fest and to make things worse we have to listen to this terrible speaker who is one of the head honchos of operations.  She claimed to be most comfortable in a theater, but you wouldn’t know it because she’s extremely awkward and goes off on these terrible tangents and circles that always prove irrelevant.  Uggh, the story about the stupid theater curtain was the worst- I guess her friend had to hold onto the rope back stage to keep the curtain up because the automatic thing was broken…some potential in the story I guess, but man- it took 10 minutes to explain what should’ve been a 2 minute anecdote.

After Virginia caught us we got back into our circles and I just kept thinking how I should prepare myself to look for jobs and what I’d say to Virginia.  My heart started pounding and I knew if anyone decided to call on me I would be forced to say, "My name is Marty and I think I quit my job."  Then I would walk out and a weight would be lifted…at that moment it made sense and I would have stupid Arclight behind me forever.

That would’ve been the worst thing to do and I’m glad I had time to let out some steam later- it’s the easiest job in the world and I’m trying to make a movie and pay rent- leaving Arclihgt might temporarily destroy my project.

Anyway, I sat in the hot seat after the meeting was over, calling Virginia over so I could get it over with.

I let my guard down in front of her.  It was awful.  I let her see a side of me I wish I never have.

I’ll leave it at that.

Things got worse when tensions continued to rise between Rachael and I.  She had a crush on me and I was making thigs worse by confusing her about my feelings…we never speak on serious terms in person- it’s always the goddamn e-mails that reveal our intentions.  There was a moment at work where I could see the torment in her eyes and she wouldn’t out right and say what was bothering her, but I knew she didn’t want to have any attachment to me and it was the worst feeling in the world.  Because she’s my friend and I do love her.  Anyway, I guess things are some what okay now, but we still haven’t had a one-on one.

On to the shoot..

It was sort of a dick move telling the fangs dealer that he couldn’t play himself for the fangs dealer scene- I lied to him and said we already shot the scene in the adult video store because I was pressed for time.  In truth I didn’t want to use him because he’s not an actor and he’s been sort of flaky on the delivery of the fangs.  I just didn’t want to deal with someone who might be awkward on camera- rather get a friend that I know could deliver.

Weeks later I juggled various actors for the possible part and finally settled on Andy.  That idea really thrilled me because I wanted him in the movie for awhile, but I didn’t think he was going to be in L.A. for it because he was living in Wisconsin.  Most of the movie was cast and he moved back out to LA and I didn’t have a role for him at the time, but now he’s back in!

Andy has been a loyal friend for years.  He’s the one guy that I can vent to about my daily life- hes been the saving grace of a lot of rough times.

Anyway, the scene is simple.  Bethany has her teeth cast in a mold and the dealer says he’ll have it ready by the next day.  She asks him some annoying questions like, "Do you know any real vampires?" and "Do you ever bite anyone?" and so on.  He humors her, gets annoyed and in his own way tells her to get the fuck out.

We bought this gum care stuff from Rite Aid so Alex could have a tplastic mouth piece to bite onto and Andy came up with the idea of filling it with pizza dough since that would probably make a convincing mold.  We tried it out and it worked really well- the indentations from her teeth really stood out.

We set up outside on the little balcony of my apartment but the noise factor was a nightmare.  I got really pissed and frustrated and Andy was trying to move things along,

"Don’t get pissed man, we can just go to my apartment."

We eventually did, but like a negative nancy I didn’t think it would work at all- we couldn’t make Andy’s apartment into Bethany’s apartment- all the geography and rooms wouldn’t match- it was too obvious.  In the end we just made it the actual fangs dealer apartment and changed the lines a little bit, it totally didn’t matter, but I was letting my anger blind myself form the simple obstacle we  could easily compromise.

The scene was pretty stale and we ran it over a dozen times.  I had trouble with this one line Andy said, "Just my girlfriend."

Alex says, "You ever bite anyone?"

Andy replies, "Just my girlfriend."

I wanted Andy to be stand-offish and completely bored with his delivery.  He couldn’t get it for some reason.  The last thing I want to do is tell an actor how to say there line, it’s really a last resort if you can’t make them understand through further examination, but Andy encouraged me,

"No, tell me, I don’t care."

I had him say it like twenty times in a row.

I’m sure Alex was growing impatient.  She made it clear she wanted to go and eat her sushi although she refused to let me feed her earlier.  It was such a short day I was put off by the fact that she couldn’t be a team player for such a short shoot.  Not that my attitude was helping.

I had them rehearse it without the camera on and OF COURSE- Andy nailed the line.  I threw my hands up and started laughing and Andy started laughing too, sensing why I was absolute torture.  I tried to trick him and  rolled the camera telling him it was a rehearsal, but he accidentally figured me out.

In the end I got some good stuff- maybe it just seems like blah because the scene is so brief and there’s only so much you can do with it.  I got some good reactions from Andy and then just for fun I put Alex in Andy’s role and did a take to lighten up the mood.