Well, dear readers, the long and the short of it is that September has gone with the wind, and it is October. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it is October, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that October is a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. We had a fun day of shooting yesterday at a lovely club called The Cutting Room. I slept very few hours, shaved and showered, and then went to The Cutting Room, to arrive at nine and figure out this complicated office scene that I was very worried about, since we had to find a place in the club and make it look like an office. I’d seen videos of all the spaces available (and there were a lot) and none of them were right until the very last one. I told them that would work for me and how to set it up. I then consulted my list of locations and went to the address for The Cutting Room. I couldn’t find it so I called Karen Staitman, furious. Turned out, we have two locations with the same name – the club and the recording studio and I’d gone to the recording studio. I grabbed the first cab, used the Curb pair and pay function, and got to the club at around nine-twenty for a nine-thirty start. But I knew we would never have started prior to ten anyway. I saw the set up for the office and it looked really good. The only change the cameraman had made was where I had a second desk, and his decision was a very good one. We then brought in our two actors – Sami and the wonderful Brad Oscar, playing an agent. Sami’s character is temping for him. The way the shot was set up did everything to make it easy to stage what I thought was going to be very difficult. We ran the scene, staging as we went, we decided on the coverage and angles for all of it and began right at ten. We did a couple of takes, moved to a closer angle, did a couple more, did closer shots, close-ups, did reverse angles on Sami and the final few shots and were done in around ninety minutes, a half-hour earlier than planned.
Then we moved into the club area and did Brad’s close-up of him watching the duet we’d be shooting, and a little post duet one-line scene for him, and he was wrapped. They brought in pizza for lunch, our extras arrived, everyone feasted on the pizza, whilst Karen Ziemba got her hair and makeup done.
After lunch, we began shooting the duet sequence. I’d already told the cameraman my plan for it, so he was all ready and lit by the time lunch was done. First we did shots of the audience, with the camera onstage facing them. I talked them through their reactions and that all went swimmingly. We then moved off the stage and did a close-up of the actor who plays Sami’s BFF – he’s filming the duet and loving it. Then we did a couple closer shots of two audience sections watching. After that, we moved the camera to the back of the club and shot over the audience to the stage. I always feel it’s very important to give the audience the geography of the location right away, which was the purpose of doing the shot. Karen began with her little speech and brought Sami on. That was that part. Then we shot the first few lines of the duet and that was that. There was no need to shoot the entire number from that angle because it’s too far away to use for anything but establishing the size and shape of the room.
The extras were then wrapped, and we moved on to shooting the number. We had Michael Lavine, the pianist, at the piano, even though this was being sung to a pre-recorded track. As before, they had earbuds in to hear the track. We first shot an almost full-body two-shot of them doing the number – it looked beautiful and so did the two ladies. We then moved in and did a closer two-shot of the entire number, followed by singles of each gal. Karen was then wrapped and we still had about forty minutes of time left – we’d contemplated shooting a Sami solo in we had the time, but she really wasn’t ready to do it – very wordy song and her plan was to cram for it on Sunday after the shoot. I came right back to where I’m staying. I decided to do a one-time DoorDash order. For years, I’ve heard about Shake Shack and the endless lines and how everyone thought they were the greatest burgers. I’d told Sami and her mom I was thinking about going there, and they both told me it was terrible. I ordered the Shack burger with the Shack sauce – that’s their popular burger – and also their chicken sandwich.
It arrived about twenty minutes later. I’m afraid I had to agree with Sami and her mom – I thought it was horrible. The sauce was yuckilicious and there was nothing at all special about the burger, the bun, or anything else. It certainly was not a pat on the butt cheeks of In-N-Out. But a phenomenon it was. The chicken sandwich was slightly better but nothing special either. The Diet Coke was quite good, though. Then I did what has become my nightly ritual – I plopped down on the bed, put the TV on, and fell asleep for a couple of hours. I woke up a little after nine, caught up on answering e-mails, and then began writing these here notes. Here are a couple of photographs from yesterday’s shoot.
Today, I don’t have to be up until eight-thirty. Then I’ll shave and shower and at nine-thirty I’ll walk over to our location, which isn’t all that far from here and I enjoy the walk. We set up from ten to eleven and then shoot until around five. We have some really fun people for the two days of audition scenes. Today there are two songs involved. We’re then scheduled to go to this recording studio to do two more songs, but I began to think it wasn’t a good idea for us to work that late a day when Sami has two hugely important comic audition scenes tomorrow (no songs). And in terms of filming purposes, I just wasn’t thrilled with the look of the studio. We can shoot those two numbers in LA at one of my usual studios for the same price and I can get the kinds of shots I need to.
Tomorrow, we’re back at the same location for two more audition scenes – these don’t have songs – but they’re funny and complicated, so not doing the recording studio gives Sami a chance to drill and rest up. There’s a bit of coverage to do each day, but I’m hoping it will all go smoothly. After we wrap, we have our little haineshisway.com get-together and that will be fun. Then on Monday, we’re at another club for our last day of our NYC shoot. There’s a lot to do for the sequence there, but I’m going to do it the same way that we did the other club song. Once we have the first song done, we’ll do the second song, which is a much easier deal, since we’ll already have done all the audience shots. Then we’ll all have a nice celebratory meal, and the following day at around noon, we’ll be on our way to the airport and then on our way home.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up at eight-thirty, shave and shower, be on my way to the location, shoot the two sequences, and then hopefully not do the recording studio scenes so we can all have a nice evening’s rest. Today’s topic of discussion: If you were here for the Shake Shack glory days and craziness, what did you think of the burgers (I’m told their shakes are good) and did you think it lived up to that crazy hype and long lines? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as we welcome in October – and it is my fervent hope and prayer that October will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful.