Well, dear readers, we were back in the saddle again, shooting two songs that take place in a recording studio. We were originally going to do those in New York, but the schedule became too hectic and it was just easier to do it here. We convened at ten o’clock at NRG Studios in North Hollywood, just two blocks east of The Federal. I know I recorded something there many moons ago and I’m pretty sure it was one of the Grant Geissman CDs. Hard to believe that’s almost twenty-three years ago now. Anyway, I met our engineer Adam, and he had everything set up, as we’d sent him the orchestra track in advance. Our New York cameraman was with us and we had our new dolly thing that enabled us to do some fluid moving shots. The original plan was to record Sami’s vocals for every shot we did. But as I thought about it, I knew that was crazy, so we spent the first hour pre-recording the two songs. Once that was done, then we went and shot the video to playback, and she lip-synced perfectly. Really happy we did that and I kind of wish we’d done it for all the songs, but alas, we did not. We spent an hour on the first song, doing various moving shots and also shots that didn’t move. Then we moved on to the second song and did the same shot set-ups for that. We got that in about forty minutes. Then we moved into the booth and shot the board and engineer and a shot from the window of the booth into the studio. So, Marshall Harvey will have lots of excellent choices. The Pro Tools session went to engineer John Adams for mixing, and we were out of there right on time at two.
I then went to Uncle Andre’s for some fried catfish, but unfortunately it was closed on Sundays. So, I just drove over to Gelson’s and got some ribs, a bit of mac-and-cheese, and then came home and ate all that. I got two half slabs of baby back ribs, and it was way too much food and of course I ate it all and of course I’m feeling quite gross right now as I write these here notes.
I went over the staging for the duet we do on Wednesday so I can teach that at the end of today’s shoot. I attempted to watch several movies to no avail. I made it through about forty minutes of something from 1959, entitled Kiss Her Goodbye, based on the pulp novel by Wade Miller, a conflation of two author’s names – the two authors also wrote under the name Whit Masterson, the “author” of Badge of Evil, which became the Orson Welles film, Touch of Evil. Kiss Her Goodbye looks like a no-budget film and there’s very little information about its release. Certainly, I’d never heard of it. Steven Hill starred in it with what look like a lot of amateur actors or perhaps just people they found. The film introduces a new nineteen-year-old actress named Sharon Forsmo, who plays a mentally challenged teen. The minute Miss Forsmo appeared I immediately recognized her – after this film, she changed her last name and as Sharon Farrell she began a long career in film and TV – she was always a favorite of mine. She spends a lot of time screaming and crying in baby doll pajamas. I don’t believe that in forty minutes I figured out what the film was actually about. I also watched the first thirty minutes of the film adaptation of the musical Nine. It was even worse than I remembered, and for me, virtually unwatchable. Daniel Day Lewis gives a horrible performance. And the filming of the numbers is pretty bad. Nothing really works and I had to shut it off. Then I watched the first thirty minutes of the Scorsese remake of Cape Fear. I liked it okay when it came out – it seems a bit arch now. Otherwise, I listened to some music and had to do a CVS DoorDash, as I’d run out of Pepcid, and after all those damn ribs I knew I’d need some before the big bottle arrives at the end of the week.
That was basically yesterday – I got about seven hours of sleep, which is pretty good for me the night before a shoot. Here are a couple of behind-the-scenes photographs from the shoot.
Today, I’ll be up by seven-thirty, I’ll shave and shower and be out the door by eight-forty and to the location in Encino at nine-fifteen for our ten o’clock start. Kerry O’Malley joins us as mom, and she has a couple of scenes that begin the day and take us through lunch. Then we do our friends visit scene – the character Sami is visiting LA and has a little get-together with her LA friends. Then we do a little driving scene in the driveway, and I think that we then do all of Kerry and Sami’s Face Time phone calls. That’s just a tiny bit complicated to set up, as we’re all on Zoom and they’ll be in separate areas shooting themselves on their phones. Then all that footage will be sent to me and I’ll send that to Marshall. After that, I’ll show Sami and Karim the staging for their duet, a really cute new song called BFF. Then I’ll come home and catch up on stuff.
Tomorrow, Cindy Williams joins us, and we have a long day, doing all her scenes for episodes nine and ten. We’re also scheduled to do her song, but if she’s tired, we can do that on Wednesday at the Green Screen studio. And if she’s up to it, we may try and do her Face Time calls, too – otherwise she has to come back the following Monday and we do it long distance. Wednesday we’re in green screen land, and Thursday morning we’re at Vitello’s, shooting the club scene.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by seven-thirty, shave and shower, do a shoot, teach staging, and then come home and watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What remakes of films have you actually enjoyed and perhaps liked even better than the original? And which were total failures? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be back in the saddle again, shoot-wise.