After 13 months of shooting in four states, a broken arm, lightning strikes, a once-in-a-generation power failure at our power-plant location (“stay here, you’re slightly more likely to survive if it explodes”), I should want at least 11 percent more money to make the movie, to deal with these contingencies, or else I’d be wise to force myself to write 99 percent less insanity into my script so I could make something simple.
But since all that’s past, I’d say if I wished I had 10 percent more of something, it would be peace of mind. I wasted a huge amount of my brain space dreading disasters of casting, location, weather. Here’s the thing: For the most part, my worst fears actually came true. And yet I survived the disasters, as did the film. What I imagined the movie would be as I wrote and prepared is nothing like what happened. Some of this still breaks my heart, but for every thing that went wrong, there was something that went better than I could have imagined it, something that surprised me. An actor takes a studio film the night before my shoot, and I find someone genius to replace him. Rain destroys a perfectly blocked outdoor scene, and the simple blocking under shelter ends up stronger. A broken arm makes it impossible for me to carry a prop, so a bizarre solution where the prop carries itself ends up funnier. A band pulls their song from our soundtrack and my brother writes something better in its place. We were able to roll with the punches because the crew was small and I was able to lie in bed at night and know that I gave it all I got. But if I’d had the peace of mind to accept impending disaster, I wouldn’t have lain in bed thinking of anything. I’d have fallen asleep. And that would have been swell too.
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 20, midnight -- Egyptian Theatre, Park City]
# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 1/18/2008 07:10:00 PM
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