Lazarus Day 3.5
So in the last introduction I offered up a number of options as to how and why the next post was ready to go. It appears that I forgot option 4: It’s written by someone else. I couldn’t make the Tuesday night shoot as I was stuck at work. So at this point I’ll hand you over to Pete as he was actually there.
When the decision was made not to shoot at the Secret Nuclear BunkerTM, because it was far, far away, Fareham College was chosen as a substitute location, because Steve Launay works there. We weren't entirely happy about this, as the bunker's a fantastic location, and – rather importantly for a setting that's meant to be underground – is actually underground and therefore has no windows. Steve C couldn't make it to the rescheduled evening shoot due to work, so I went along in his stead, carrying a big bagful of props. I got a couple of curious looks that day at work. “What's in the bag?” a colleague asked. “An assault rifle, a sub-machine gun, a couple of pistols, that sort of stuff,” I replied, savouring the look on her face before explaining what was going on.
Anyway, by the time I arrived, the shoot was well underway. Fortunately, the props I had weren't vital to the shots that were already in the can, so I proceeded to arm up the cast, and then try to find something else useful to do. This turned out to be holding the boom mike, which I suck at, either holding it too far away to hear anything or dangling it in shot.
The main scene to be shot here was the long lab sequence where the cast sit around and view the base log. This is a really dialogue heavy scene, full of technobabble, (plus some unintentionally camp lines like “Are you a bit of a keyboard jockey, Mr. Brown?”) and some of the actors were having some difficulty getting it out. It wasn't their fault to be fair, even Wesley Crusher would have had trouble with some of the dialogue. To paraphrase Harrison Ford, “You can type this shit Steve, but you can't say it.”
That said, there did seem to be some misinterpretation going on – at one point Witt was looking for something between takes. I asked what she was missing, fearful that I'd forgotten some vital prop. “Savini's bag,” she replied. I looked puzzled – as far as I knew, Savini didn't have a bag. I looked at the script. Witt had a line, “This was Savini's bag!” where she's talking about using the 'bloodhound' tracking device. “No, no,” I explained, “it means bag as in 'it's my bag, baby' like Austin Powers!”
Another example of this was Anderson reeling off a list of increasingly improbable technological devices, which they haven't got. Steve L was getting more and more agitated and panicky as he tried to get this stuff out. He seemed to be playing it really angry and fearful for his life. I asked why, when he was just meant to be taking the piss out of SB. “Am I?” he asked, mystified. “Sure you are – you've already got an escape plan. You're probably making this stuff up on the spot, just to wind him up. Who cares if you fluff some technobabble – this stuff probably doesn't even exist.” Much more relaxed, he nailed it on the next take.
I illustrate these last two points not to have a go at the actors, but to show how easy it is to get too close to a script. Steve C and I had thrashed these scenes out right from when he'd had the first idea, and I was intimately familiar with the style of movie he was trying to mimic, and the types of characters and dialogue you find in them. It was obvious to me what the script was getting at, but the actors had come at it cold, and had formed their own very different ideas of what was going on. This is a valuable lesson for any scriptwriter. If something could be ambiguous – explain it! Mind you, some rehearsals wouldn't hurt either ;-).
We then moved on to shoot the corridor scenes, where Harri and SB explore the deserted base. I was really worried about the windows here, but it turned out alright due to some judicious CGI. There's not much to tell here really – we took endless takes of them walking down stairways and corridors, usually interrupted by one of the crew (i.e. me) walking backwards into a wall while holding the mike. For those of you keeping up with the continuity drinking game, Harri's plaster was out of phase in this section – which didn't occur to anyone despite SB taking the time to examine her head wound in case she was hallucinating.
Anyway, that's enough of my babbling.
In all honesty when I posted the script a couple of weeks back I did make a number of minor tweaks to a couple of scenes to make it slightly clearer exactly what was going on. The benefits of hindsight, and not having actually looked at the script for a couple of months meant I could view it much more objectively. I’d go as far as to say, that having recently re-read the script, there are a couple of scenes that I’d completely rewrite. But that would be a huge waste of time since the project is done and dusted. Never the less, I felt the scene Pete mentioned above (scene 51) read fine and didn’t touch it; of course I may be wrong. Although if anyone calls me on ambiguousness, my response is the opening action description for scene 58 (also unchanged) you can write this shit, but you can’t make anyone read it!
When the decision was made not to shoot at the Secret Nuclear BunkerTM, because it was far, far away, Fareham College was chosen as a substitute location, because Steve Launay works there. We weren't entirely happy about this, as the bunker's a fantastic location, and – rather importantly for a setting that's meant to be underground – is actually underground and therefore has no windows. Steve C couldn't make it to the rescheduled evening shoot due to work, so I went along in his stead, carrying a big bagful of props. I got a couple of curious looks that day at work. “What's in the bag?” a colleague asked. “An assault rifle, a sub-machine gun, a couple of pistols, that sort of stuff,” I replied, savouring the look on her face before explaining what was going on.
Anyway, by the time I arrived, the shoot was well underway. Fortunately, the props I had weren't vital to the shots that were already in the can, so I proceeded to arm up the cast, and then try to find something else useful to do. This turned out to be holding the boom mike, which I suck at, either holding it too far away to hear anything or dangling it in shot.
The main scene to be shot here was the long lab sequence where the cast sit around and view the base log. This is a really dialogue heavy scene, full of technobabble, (plus some unintentionally camp lines like “Are you a bit of a keyboard jockey, Mr. Brown?”) and some of the actors were having some difficulty getting it out. It wasn't their fault to be fair, even Wesley Crusher would have had trouble with some of the dialogue. To paraphrase Harrison Ford, “You can type this shit Steve, but you can't say it.”
That said, there did seem to be some misinterpretation going on – at one point Witt was looking for something between takes. I asked what she was missing, fearful that I'd forgotten some vital prop. “Savini's bag,” she replied. I looked puzzled – as far as I knew, Savini didn't have a bag. I looked at the script. Witt had a line, “This was Savini's bag!” where she's talking about using the 'bloodhound' tracking device. “No, no,” I explained, “it means bag as in 'it's my bag, baby' like Austin Powers!”
Another example of this was Anderson reeling off a list of increasingly improbable technological devices, which they haven't got. Steve L was getting more and more agitated and panicky as he tried to get this stuff out. He seemed to be playing it really angry and fearful for his life. I asked why, when he was just meant to be taking the piss out of SB. “Am I?” he asked, mystified. “Sure you are – you've already got an escape plan. You're probably making this stuff up on the spot, just to wind him up. Who cares if you fluff some technobabble – this stuff probably doesn't even exist.” Much more relaxed, he nailed it on the next take.
I illustrate these last two points not to have a go at the actors, but to show how easy it is to get too close to a script. Steve C and I had thrashed these scenes out right from when he'd had the first idea, and I was intimately familiar with the style of movie he was trying to mimic, and the types of characters and dialogue you find in them. It was obvious to me what the script was getting at, but the actors had come at it cold, and had formed their own very different ideas of what was going on. This is a valuable lesson for any scriptwriter. If something could be ambiguous – explain it! Mind you, some rehearsals wouldn't hurt either ;-).
We then moved on to shoot the corridor scenes, where Harri and SB explore the deserted base. I was really worried about the windows here, but it turned out alright due to some judicious CGI. There's not much to tell here really – we took endless takes of them walking down stairways and corridors, usually interrupted by one of the crew (i.e. me) walking backwards into a wall while holding the mike. For those of you keeping up with the continuity drinking game, Harri's plaster was out of phase in this section – which didn't occur to anyone despite SB taking the time to examine her head wound in case she was hallucinating.
Anyway, that's enough of my babbling.
In all honesty when I posted the script a couple of weeks back I did make a number of minor tweaks to a couple of scenes to make it slightly clearer exactly what was going on. The benefits of hindsight, and not having actually looked at the script for a couple of months meant I could view it much more objectively. I’d go as far as to say, that having recently re-read the script, there are a couple of scenes that I’d completely rewrite. But that would be a huge waste of time since the project is done and dusted. Never the less, I felt the scene Pete mentioned above (scene 51) read fine and didn’t touch it; of course I may be wrong. Although if anyone calls me on ambiguousness, my response is the opening action description for scene 58 (also unchanged) you can write this shit, but you can’t make anyone read it!
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