- Day 14:
After several days of writing and tweaking for Dano and Esper, we shot the new walk and talks last night. The boys smoking a joint and passing a 40-ouncer as they catch up. All went well, if frantic as ever. We did four big lighting set ups around 14th street and Avenue C. The park we shot in was filled with drunks and smelled like piss. It’s now become one of my running jokes that I only take us into the finest locations. We used the crack filter which warps the image, making everything look utterly surreal and trippy. Paul D’Amato looking scary as hell as the father. Angelica Torn as always blowing me away with how effortlessly she tosses off amazing work. Dano looking incredible, passed out on the bed, his face so trippy through the filter that Lana couldn’t keep a straight face, everyone was laughing at how hilarious and amazing it looked. The best part of the day was watching the sun rise and knowing that it hadn’t beaten us today. 4 more days to go…
- DAY 15:
The gods of weather have been kind to us. Last night on the Brooklyn Bridge couldn’t have been a better sunset – grey, white and black clouds swirling around a midnight blue sky, framing Michael Esper’s swollen face in close-up. Paul Dano’s hair whipping around his angelic face, a street lamp and a piece of a stone arch framing him – incredibly dark and beautiful. We literally made all the shots by the end of dusk with TWO minutes to spare. Me with no bullhorn screaming into the wind at the dozen extras we brought with to create background. Magic hour being 45 minutes, we managed two wide shots and two close-ups with background within that tiny window of time—no small feat!
We packed it in, went back to the loft on 14th Street to shoot the scene at the youth residence. I walked in feeling elated when someone mentioned one small detail that four of us (director, AD, DP and script supervisor) collectively forgot. We never shot a frame empty of Don. In my frenzy to get the wides and close-ups before we lost the sun, we never got an empty frame. I freak-out briefly but Lana reassures me that all we need is an overcast day and we can get an exact empty frame to match. Talk about lucky breaks! First major oversight. Thank god it’s fixable.
- DAY 16:
It’s not that there’s a lack of controversy or intrigue. There most definitely is, as there is on all shoots. I could tell you tales of the props master who was fired three days ago because he confessed to the art director he was having dark fantasies about her, the fantasy involving something about her and a knife. This I was informed of by the production designer, who said he obviously had a screw loose and would not be returning. Then there’s the gaffer who had be fired by the camera department two days ago because he was endlessly questioning and arguing with the DP, who decided to let him go with four days left to the shoot. This, of course, created some drama as many in the production department liked this gaffer very much and I did not agree with the decision. I, of course, did not make the call to let him go, nor did the DP. The line producer had to do it, quite reluctantly. Then there’s the various interpersonal dramas of different departments saying shit about one another, or rubbing each other the wrong way. It happens all the time. Someone walks off in a huff, threatens to quit, gets offended, and ends up in tears. Many come to me with their grievances. I have learned after 20 years of production to try to not take sides unless I must. This often pisses people off, who want you to side with them, but I have to keep the peace for the good of the production. And so it goes.
I could also tell you about my general mental state, which is completely on edge almost without stop from the moment I get on set till we wrap 12 hours later. Non-stop, shell-shocked but exhilarated at the end of every day, without fail.
Bottom line—I don’t give a rat’s rump about the internal booshit and my own mental anxiety. All I give a damn about is if we make our days. And yesterday, our airport day, we once again made the day. I was ripping through cigarettes as we slowly made our way through 8 setups, most of which included complicated choreography of approx. 20 featured extras and a green screen shot in a little over 10 hours, plus four hours of travel to Westchester airport and back. Nerve-racking day, but…we made it. And we made it in style. We’re truly in the home stretch. Tonight, we shoot alien sex on the Hudson. Keep them fingers crossed…
- DAY 17:
I thought this day was going to be easy. What was I thinking? Obviously it’s the (lack of) drugs going to my head, too many days with 4/5 hours sleep, waking up and not being able to get back to sleep because my head’s on fire with the evening’s shots. We had seven setups on the agenda – four uptown at Park & 81st and three in the West Village. I never remember that when vehicles are involved, everything takes longer. So it went with the task of driving a cab up to the front of the building we used. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. Delivery boys, traffic, walkies not working, lock up not working. It took three hours to bang out what we thought would take an hour and a half. We then rush to side street for the important apartment scene with the boys and Creature. It’s now 3am and we should have been done with all this by 1am. I start seeing colors swirling in my head, neon reading YOU WILL NOT MAKE THE DAY -WHAT DO YOU WANNA LOSE, CHUMP? I tuck all that away as we wrap out and rush to the West Village. We slap a modified body rig camera on Mike Esper through West village side streets, Esper spontaneously cursing at a truck driver who shouts as he passes us on 6th avenue, screaming after him through his tears, amazing shit. We then rush to the basketball courts at Houston and 6th for the final scene. Lana ingeniously shooting it through a bus stop glass partition, the reflections of cars whipping through Paul’s sleeping body on the bench. The sun has risen by now, and going into hour 13, we do the final moment between Paul and the Creature on the bench from a 13 foot ladder, several ruined takes because of traffic noise, we finally nail it around 7:30am. The bright sun rising and blasting down on the bench about two minutes after get the shot. Incredible timing. Even more incredible, once again, WE MADE OUR DAY. Everyone wasted from a 14 hour day, but no one bitched. Thank god, we’re almost done.
- DAY 18:
We arrived at the piers along the Hudson River waterfront for the final day of shooting. Simple day, I thought. Although we made it (again), it was not simple. Highlights: Lighting up my two favorite structures of the whole film, the dilapidated, burnt piers along 62/63rd streets and the Hudson. Two incredible, crumbling structures which Donald Trump will crush and remove within the next six months to make room for waterfront development, plastic gold-plated yuppie parks with grass-lined walkways. Now it’s just twisted metal beams rising out the Hudson, the water lapping onto the shore. The perfect spot for alien sex (a cinematic first, I believe). We first try to light both piers at once but quickly realize we don’t have the power or lights for both, so we focus on one at a time. They look amazing, and
we finally shoot the location I’ve been anticipating, preserving this piece of what will soon be lost Manhattan, the twisted structures beautiful and gnarled like the twisted bodies of the aliens as they fuck atop the pier.
We make it to Coney Island as sun is rising, racing out onto the beach to catch the gorgeous pinkish blue early morning light. The shot very spontaneous, everyone drinking beer, lighting up j’s, passing them in a circle, their arms getting tangled, all laughing, Esper playing guitar and Dano shaking his head as he strums. We get the shot just as the light gets too bright, and we all fall on the sand after I yell ‘cut,’ laughing our asses off, hugging. We made the day. We made the week. Our third week in a row, all 18 days. I sit inside a truck sipping beer, feeling like I have literally come through battle, shell shocked, but with all my limbs and mind intact. We did it. We fucking did it.
The last image I have is of the wire and wood sufferer model, which came with us everywhere. I got down on the ground later after they tossed the giant thing in the trash (there was no one who wanted it and nowhere for it to live). I bowed down to it, mecca-like, paying last respects to the Mythical beast that lured me into his strange and wonderful world, thanking it for taking us safely through this, the toughest part of this process. It just stared at me, inscrutably, saying, yes, but you’re not out of the woods yet!
“All photos © The Filmmakers, Inc.”
