DR Julie - can you tell us anything about your movie, or is it all hush-hush?
Yes, absolutely - thanks for asking!
It's called Clear Blue Tuesday. It follows the lives of eleven individuals on one Tuesday each year for six years - starting on 9/11 and ending on 9/11/2007. It's not really about 9/11 per se, -- it's about the lives of these individuals and the directions they took after 9/11.
The actors in the movie are people who were actually affected in some way by 9/11. The story is part true stories of each of them -- the script grew out os many hours of the cast talking about their personal stories and improvising from there. The characters are all based on their portrayers. And the story is told, in part, through original songs that were written by the cast. The cast consists of professional musicians and singers - people who are known in NY if you follow those circles, although would not be known to the greater population.
For example, Jeremy Schoenfeld, who in addition to acting in the film wrote a number of the songs for the film, is a fairly well known musician -- he just did a couple of solo shows at Birdland, and is the composer/lyricist of the musical DRIFT, which played at NYMF in 2006. Or Greg Naughton (son of James), who with his band has played in venues nationally. Or Erin Hill, who plays harp for the Off Broadway show The Fantastiks (scored for piano and harp) and plays weekends at the Ritz Carlton. She is also a songwriter and her music has been used in films and on TV. Cassandra Kubinski is also an award-winning singer/songwriter who regularly performs in NY, and has been on TV and in films. Same thing with Brother Love. And Asa Somers is lead singer of a pretty popular rock band, and has been on Broadway, most recently in Grey Gardens and Taboo. And Becca Ayers is currently on Broadway in Les Mis. Singer songwriter Julie Danao-Salkin was on Broadway in Lennon, Rent and Saturday Night Fever. Etc etc. 11 principal cast members all together. And they are wonderful, -- I can't wait to see their performances on the screen when the scenes are all put together. It was great watching them live.
There are also a number of well-known theater stars who did cameo appearances - participating in one scene or one number in the film. These include Julia Murney, Kelli O'Hara, Christian Campbell, and others.
My job for the film was Location Manager. It was the first time I did this, and it was a pretty hard job. I was basically responsible for finding and securing the locations for all scenes that were filmed. It is a low budget indie movie, so my budget was very small, and this made the job much more difficult. High budget movies can "buy" the use of a location - a loft, a restaurant, whatever is needed. I had to basically convince people to let us film in their businesses or homes for free or very little money. It was quite stressful at times. I also had to be at the location, usually before everyone else (read: VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING - and you all know how Julie hates very early in the morning) - and stay till clean-up. Because as Location Manager, I was responsible for the location, and any issues that would arise. Such as where can we set up food. Where can the crew eat. Are there bathrooms (not always easy in NY with a lot of outdoor locations). How to dispose of garbage. And lots of negotiations -- for example, can we stay till 10pm even though we promised we'd be out by five. I was also responsible for making sure we had shooting and parking permits for each location. So I was frequently at the Mayor's Office for Film and Broadcasting obtaining these permits for each location. And I got to watch the filming and see how everything works and how it all gets done. And it was fascinating. And our wonderful director, Elizabeth Lucas, was very kind and supportive and appreciative, and it was a great pleasure to be able to work with someone who is a really good person in addition to being a talented director.
The location I'm most proud of, and that everyone was completely amazed by, was that I was able to get us the use of 7 World Trade Center for our final scene in the movie. Larry Silverstein, who owns the buildings at Ground Zero, just rebuilt 7 World Trade Center and it's a beautiful modern tall building right at the Ground Zero site. The top floor - 52nd Floor, is not yet leased out. It's a wide open space, not yet divided, and when you step off the elevator, it is floor to ceiling windows with the most amazing 360 degree views of Manhattan and beyond, and when you look directly down on one side, you're looking directly at Ground Zero. We used this space to film the final scene of the movie - an art gallery scene where the whole cast comes together at the end of the movie. We brought in paintings by real NY artists that had a 9/11 theme. It was really beautiful how we transformed the space. Our art director did a great job with that. And it really made the movie come full circle to be able to film the final scene in a WTC building overlooking Ground Zero.
We just recently finished principal photography, although I think there are a couple of touch up shots and filling in that will still probably need to be done. And the editing process will take some time. I'm not really sure of the time frame at this point, but I suspect it will be the latter part of 2008.
