"It's a Wrap!" – Project Greenlight, Episode 7
Posted on Mon 02 May 2005 (1691 reads)
We're on day 25 of shooting; this is their last week of filming, because they're out of money. "I'm ready to direct the film," John says, "I just have to push for it." Krista had asked for some time off, and she wasn't even in, yet, on the set. "I'm putting things into place to make this week as smooth as possible," Stephen admits. "We need the actors to show up on time," Mike explains. They talk about what they could do, but it's too late to do anything. They begin shooting some intense scenes with choreography and special effects. They don't have a lot of time to shoot, so, they're trying to do what they can and so far it's working well. Joel explains that Balthazar's hair is growing out like insane, and now he doesn't want to cut it, because he has another movie that he needs to have long hair for the role. They discuss it with him. He wants to see if it really makes a difference on set. They basically threaten to go to his agent if he doesn't cut his hair, as Joel explained, because they need everything to go right from now on. Krista missed her flight the day before, which is why she is late, and now she comes on from the set as if nothing has happened. "I missed my flight last night," she says, trying to convince people she shouldn't feel guilty. She's being a diva on set, telling her not to get the blood in her eye, because it burns and it happened before. She's asking for kneepads and all these other demands, as if she owns the set, and they're just sitting there shaking their heads at her. They shoot various instances of the scene until the move on with John's approval. "I'm taking a lot of heat," John says. Krista goes back to get her hair and makeup down for the next scene. They can't make up their minds as to what she should do. "Everyone up there is saying don't take a shower," one of her makeup guys says. "The blood stains the face," she says. Stephen contradicts this and tells them that. They're over 35 minutes over and now she's wearing a different bra that is causing problems with continuity. John brings it up with her, because in some scenes they can see her nipples and they didn't really want that, but she blows it off and says she didn't change her bra. "That was really embarrassing," John laughs. Colleen talks about how Krista didn't want to stick around, so, she changed her clothes and prepared to leave. "If they're unorganized, things can unravel pretty quickly," Mike says. Davis and Colleen headed to catch up with Krista, because they think she "wrapped" herself for the day, and tried to leave. They come up with a game plan to prevent this, because actors never wrap themselves, and they have to be wrapped by Ben on this set. Davis refuses to be her babysitter and threatens to leave. "They've made some bad mistakes," Ben says. "The primary mistakes are managing call times. We can't take those kind of hits." Balthazar refuses to cut his hair, so, the crew all begin getting the hair shaved the same way he does to motivate him to get it cut. Even Chris Moore ended up getting his hair cut. He sees them come out of the trailer. "Once he saw all the people that got that hair cut, got in the chair, and said, 'Cut me,'" Mike explained. "He's going to follow through with that, and I was very happy with that." They're on the set for the last shot that day, and it wraps easily. "We'll just do everything else but the glass," John notes. "Tomorrow we need to shoot scene 183, well will be the real acid test," Joel explains. "That's where we need to make it happen." This is the "all-hell-breaks-loose" scene. "This is the big scene," John says, as everybody's worried about how it will actually work out on film. "We are in the belly of the beast with the monster attacking," Mike notes. "We need to figure out how to do 183," Ben says. "We'll know before lunch if we are in trouble." This is the first day the monster comes on stage and they get to see it up close and personal live. They began shooting the scene around nine in the morning, and things start off pretty well. They have about five departments working together at the same time. They have 19 shots in the one day, and they have to make the day or else they will be in quite a bit of trouble schedule way. Gary is trying to push a monster through a hole, but the hole is too small, and it's more than fifty pounds. He's angry that everyone seems to be having a good time except those working the monsters, because everybody else is goofing off. Joel just thinks Gary has a problem with John. "Till John sees what he doesn't like, John doesn't know what he likes," he says, "Why don't you direct me?" Krista gets wrapped for the day and heads off. Stephen was changing the schedule and then realized they needed Krista back. He tells Colleen that, David calls her and leaves a message, but realizes they probably won't get a hold of her. "Krista was wrapped," Stephen tells Mike, "It was my fault." They keep trying to call her, but it's not working, as she's not answering her phone. She comes back on set, angry that she was wrapped and then had to go back. They have four hours to wrap, and Krista comes on set for the sex scene. "Any time there is a sex scene, it's difficult, it doesn't matter who it's with," she explains. John shows her how he wants her. "I thought things would go smoothly," John says, "I was so wrong." She's mad because her butt is going to be in the air for the shot and how she was being portrayed in the sex scene. "It got me a little ticked off," John explains, "She doesn't want to appear in it. I think it's a thing of separating herself from the past." They shoot the sex scene with Boss Man and Tuffie and it was an easy shot. "It wasn't that big of a deal," he says of the scene, "It's just when a person says no." They're now down to half an hour before they wrap for the day. They're no on overtime trying to get everything finished on their last shot for the day. "Our days start to spiral out of control; we're spending money everyday we're there. There's no more money coming from the studio," Ben explains why this is a problem. They're now one hour into overtime still shooting a scene, eventually they wrap shortly after, but it's still an hour over. Around 10 o'clock they decide to show some footage from Feast so everyone can see it and see what they're working towards finishing. "The objective was to let everybody to see to bring everybody together a bit more," John notes. They show some random scenes that everyone is quite happy with, applauding and cheering afterwards. "It's absolutely perfect," Marcus beams, laughing. "I was jumping out of my skin! That was the goal to deliver something like that!" Balthazar was very pleased with the work, "The end product is going to be funny and scary." Tom praises the cut, too. "Do you think we have a movie?" Joel asks. "Yeah," John nods. Gary praises the footage, too, the next day. "If the whole film is going to be like that, it's going to kick ass." "I think watching the movie last night made everyone excited," Mike said. "You could see it in everybody's actions." They finish shooting some scenes during the day. "It seems everybody is working well together," Krista observes, "Everybody's kind of getting the language." Even John is optimistic and upbeat about making the day. "John's coming into his own," Balthazar says. They sent the scenes to Dimension in New York to see what they thought. "You only get one chance to impress the studio," Mike explains, "The first time they see the film is when they will embrace you or reject you." Andrew's on the phone with Nick, Mike, Patrick and Ben. "I think we made the right choice. I thought he's doing the right job. Good energy. It'll get better as he works on it," he praises. "I'm glad you liked it," Mike replies. "I think this is the little movie that can," he ends the conversation. "It's really nice to see that all of this work for John is paying off where it should," Mike says. He comes out to tell everyone what Dimensions said about the film. "I don't think anybody expected this little film directed by John Gulager to look the way it did." John beams, "We might actually have something. It's kinda creepy." The Maloof brothers come to the set to see what's going on. They're happy with helping them out as partners. "This is the first time they've had a chance to be here in person," Mike explains. Ben welcomes them and thanks them. One of the things the Maloofs say attracted them was that they were invited to be a part of the entire process, not just writing checks. "Thanks for helping us out," Chris meets them, too. Joel gets Chris to throw a cup of blood on Jenny in a scene. He's laughing about it afterwards as the Maloofs watch on. They're down to the last day of shooting. They have to make the day no matter what happens. "We're shooting with two crews today," Joel says. "We just have to make sure nothing falls through the cracks," Stephen explains. "It's going to be really different for John to run from both sets." They have to Directors of Photography on the set that day to help coordinate everything between the sets. Joel will be working on the second unit's set to make sure that works out well, basically directing the scenes there, too, after getting John's input. "Probably my biggest concern overall with the movie right now is Balthazar's performance. Not that it's bad, just very, very different from the original conception. I'm going to bring back in some of the humor I thought we lost," Joel explains. "I felt there was a big danger that we would get half of the character we wanted in the movie." They now set up a monitor between the two sets so he can see where they're standing in order to give input when needed. "They wanted the bozo character to be this super far out whacky guy, and I never wanted it to be that far out," John says. "John did an excellent job directing both units. He really pulled through with us," Joel says. During lunch that day, Chris comes to explain that Dimension and Miramax is breaking up. He discusses that they may not release Feast because of the divorce between Bill and Harvey Weinstein. He's afraid the movie might just sit on a shelf and never get put on the big screen. They do a production wrap for Clu. "I'm not involved in acting anymore, this is a nostalgic move for John," Clu says. Clu was choked up as the cast and crew applauded him and gave him due credit for his hard work on the film. They're now in Lancaster, California to shoot all the outside shots of the bar for the setting and location for the entire film. "All our shots are night shots," Joel says. "I don't know what's here or what's not here," Ben says. They didn't bring the whole set, because of the budget, and it's almost four in the morning with nothing to shoot. The day crew that was used to shoot the set didn't bring the right part, because they hadn't been onset for the last five weeks. They only have time for one shot, and they take it, because once the sun comes up it's too late. Davis notes that Krista comes to set tired and a bit tipsy because of her early call time. "I can't even speak right now," she says. "Hopefully, she'll be walking straight in no time," Davis says. They're moving through their schedule quickly, but they're worried about the end of the day crunch. With 40 minutes late, they call a production wrap on the film. They give John his chair back to keep and say goodbyes. "Apparently, I just finished my first film," John smiles, speechless. Stephen is happy that everyone pulled through and everything is finished as a team as opposed to the in-fighting that happened throughout the process. "We've got a pretty good movie out of it." Carpesomediem is an aspiring freelance writer from Lancaster, Pa. who enjoys music, movies and writing about the way the world works; you can contact her at carpesomediem@realityshack.com to talk about this week's episode or anything at all.

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