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Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  Joshua Close stars as Slinger, a veteran struggling to make sense of civilian life when he's confronted with gun violence in his home town.  I'm pleased to tell you, we finished the film. Final color notes were addressed last week when Hana (DP) and I worked with Luke, our colorist, on the few remaining tweaks. A little background color adjustment in this scene. A little skin tone adjustment in that scene. A little light issue coming through a window. Small details. But important. (photo right: many of the scenes in sequence for color timing). We received the final output from DXD, then my editor, Dag, put it together with the final sound mix and sent the link to me. I reviewed it. And we’re done. Done. Like actually finished. What am I supposed to do with myself now? Oh. I just have to try to find distribution, submit the film to forty or so film festivals, create an impact campaign, develop our marketing materials and fend off adoring fans who want to know, WHEN CAN WE SEE IT?!!! Settle down everyone. I feel you. And I appreciate that you’ve attended this journey; that you’ve joined me as I’ve kept this personal record of the ups and downs, the ins and outs, of making my first feature as writer/director. Believe me, I’m excited to share the film with you--even if I’m terrified that it won’t live up to all the build-up. No matter. That’s art. There comes a time when what’s done is done and you have to pull back the curtain and reveal to the world what you’ve been making. I’m ready to do it.  Aaron on set in Los Angeles in February 2024. However, I would prefer you not watch the film from the comfort of your living room. If you don’t mind, I want you seated in a dark and crowded theatre, sharing air with other human beings (remember when we used to do that?), in front of a huge screen with the best sound system in the world. I would prefer that you enjoy the cinematic experience IN COMMUNITY. That’s my preference. Yes, the film will eventually be parked on a streaming service where you can watch it in your bathrobe or on the subway, God forbid, on your phone, and I’ll never know. But don’t you want to experience the film in the best possible conditions?  World Premiere of WRESTLING JERUSALEM at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco, 2016. I liken it to the difference between going to an art opening and seeing a painting for the first time in a gallery, properly framed, properly lit, with the buzz of the crowd all around, versus unrolling the canvas of the same painting from a cardboard tube and pinning it to the wall in your kitchen in shitty light and standing back to view it. Or the difference, if you will, between seeing Steph Curry courtside with a crowd of 18,000 or watching the Warriors on your laptop at your desk at work. You just can’t quite compare. Context is EVERYTHING. Once I saw the film on the big screen in the sound stage, I knew I wanted you to see it on the big screen too. So let's hold out for that. Since prestige film festivals, if they accept your film, require the world premiere, we can’t screen it publicly before the festival screening anyway, so it’s a waiting game to determine where/when that world premiere will be. But we’ll tell you as soon as we know!  In the meantime, we’re organizing our distribution strategy. We've brought on associate producer, Ari Basile, (photo left) to help us develop and implement this strategy which includes having Key Art created (poster and so on), pursuing conversations with distributors, networking with film festival programmers, creating our social media presence and developing our impact campaign. Welcome Ari! Can you help? Yes, you can. Are you on Instagram? Please follow us, like and share our posts: @americansolitaire. It takes time to build a social media presence from scratch, we only have a few posts up so far, but your likes and shares really make a difference. Follow on Facebook too. The filmmaking part of “indie filmmaking” is over. Now the promotion part begins, and that means building network and community around the film. The distributors that we’ve been speaking with all want to partner with filmmakers that they take on. In this day and age of distribution, they see filmmakers as vital collaborators. We know our audiences better than they do.
So we begin to build that audience now, with you, our closest supporters. We’ll share more with you as that process comes into focus, but we did it with WRESTLING JERUSALEM and community screenings and public conversations around the issues of the film, and we’ll be doing the same with AMERICAN SOLITAIRE. We'll be creating community partnerships around the themes of gun violence, PTSD, veterans mental health, youth culture, hyper-masculinity, political/cultural polarization and so on. We ascended one mountain successfully by finishing the film. We’re gearing up to climb the next hill! See you up there.
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Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film Lisa Bruce and David Oyelowo I'm thrilled to announce an exciting development. Two established filmmakers who have advised me throughout the process of making this film have leaned farther into their supportive roles. Lisa Bruce and David Oyelowo are now EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS on AMERICAN SOLITAIRE. Lisa and I had a long conversation a few weeks ago after she and David both watched the most recent cut of the film. They each have felt a strong affinity to the project since they read an early draft of the screenplay more than two years ago, and they have been supportive advisors along the way. Now that they have seen the finished film, in stepping into the roles of Executive Producers they feel they can help us gain profile and support our efforts to get the film out into the world. David and his wife Jessica Oyelowo's production company, YORUBA SAXON, will be an associate presenter of the film. I'm honored that these two filmmakers have responded so favorably to the material and have a passion to support our efforts to reach a wide audience. Their formal involvement helps us stand out in a crowded field as we submit to prestige film festivals, consider our premiere options, begin looking for a distributor and start to plan our impact campaign. Lisa and David each care deeply about the subject matter of gun violence in America and they have responded with enthusiasm to the work of art we've crafted. Thank you Lisa and David!  On a different, but relevant topic, I think I've learned something about myself throughout the process of making this film: I like a challenge. You may laugh. Uh, yeah, we know that about you Aaron. But here I am, taking stock towards the end of this long process and thinking about choices I've made in my life. I think it's why I started a theatre company when I was in my 20's. I think it's why I took on difficult roles as an actor in conservatory before that. I think it's why I loved performing Shakespeare. I think it's why I ran Traveling Jewish Theatre--an experimental company--for a decade. And it's certainly why I took a deep dive into trying to understand the complexities of Israel/Palestine over twenty years ago and wrote three different plays reflecting my learning, culminating in WRESTLING JERUSALEM. A life spent in theatre and now in film has provided many, many challenges and I guess what I'm naming here is that I love it. I'm drawn to spending my days in the thick of creative endeavor, particularly when it's complex. If you had asked me if it was worth it, during the height of the difficulties I found myself in while making AMERICAN SOLITAIRE, I don't know if I could have answered. I found the process so very humbling and often it felt too damn hard. But now that I'm almost at the end of the creative journey, I can say without hesitation that, yes, it was worth it. Sticking with it, through the seemingly endless uncertainty was its own enlightening journey. It was a journey into filmmaking craft, but it was also a journey into myself and my capacity to hold so much.  Gilbert Owuor and Aaron on location The subject matter of gun violence is thorny and profoundly tragic. I can certainly stick with this film, through its twists and turns, and see it through until we've made something worthy. Maybe we can even make a difference.
I head back to Hollywood next week, to finish where we started back in January. The final color mix. The final sound mix. We're almost there... Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  Sound Mixer Sean Higgins works the Grandpa console at Anarchy Post. Sound & Color. Yes, it's the title of Alabama Shakes' 2015 Grammy winning album--and if you don't know it, you're in for a treat! But for our purposes, Sound & Color are the essential behind-the-scenes elements of a film. If the screenplay is the skeletal framework, and the performances, cinematography and design form the flesh, then Sound & Color are the blood cells running through the veins that pumps life throughout the film. You can’t see em, but without em, you’d be dead. I just spent four days at Anarchy Post in Burbank mixing sound, and a day at Different By Design (DXD) in Los Angeles setting the color. It was thrilling to sit in the sound stage and watch the film on a big screen with full surround sound while our re-recording mixer, Sean Higgins, worked his magic, finessing dialogue, tweaking sound effects and balancing the score. And when I say magic, I really think this guy is a magician. Seated at the helm of the mixing table he called “Grandpa” because it was over 20 years old (a millennium in tech years,) he spent four days clicking away at his keypad and mouse, manipulating waveforms, opening up the spectrogram, cutting and pasting parts. He went into scenes and made airplane noise disappear, he drilled into the “stems” of sound effects or music to lower one particular element, horns say, or strings, and raise another one, say wind or birds. He was serving as a digital conductor of an orchestra of sounds inside the hard drive. And by-and-by, the sonic world of the film came to life.  Sean, using the "spectrogram" to manipulate frequencies. “Now it’s a movie”, Sean said at the end of our first pass. It took two days. We sat back the next morning and watched the film beginning to end. Ronit Kirchman, our composer, came in. We took notes. I was completely engrossed. And I've watched the footage so many times. You can’t underestimate the role that sound has in a film. They say you can have a great movie with shitty picture if you still have good sound. But if you don’t have good sound, you don’t have a film.  It turns out that our production sound mixer, Aaron Kesler, did a terrific job during our 20 day shoot and captured almost entirely clean dialogue. We had a few ADR sessions with actors. (Sean, Aaron and composer Ronit Kirchman, right, at Anarchy.) “Automated Dialogue Replacement”, ADR, is a process where you record selections of actors dialogue in the studio to either fix a problem in the production sound, or to make creative changes. I did both. It was fun to see some of our talent again.  Gilbert Owuor in the ADR studio recording dialogue. Four days in the sound stage and we felt the sound mix was in good shape. Sean created an output of the mix for our editor, Dag, who laid it on the locked picture and now we had a cut ready for festival submission. The final day of the week I met up with Hana Kitasei, our cinematographer, at DXD, to look through the film and get a read on "color correction". We shot the film in digital, and they give us an initial output of an approximation of color choices that we like (it's called a "LUT"), so as we're editing the film, we can see, more or less, the film as we want it in terms of color and exposure. But once picture is locked, then the colorist, in this case Luke Cahill, another magician, sits up at his magic table, and we scroll through the film, scene by scene, and call out inconsistencies or looks or lighting issues that need to be addressed. Luke tweaked things as Hana and I gave notes on what we were seeing on the big screen in front of us. It took about 4 hours to go through every scene in the film. Now Luke is off on his own to color the whole film and we’ll come back in a month for a final review. These guys spend a LOT of time in dark rooms. Respect.  Luke Cahill at DXD, wizard of color. All of this work was set in motion a few months back when we identified the first of a series of film festival application deadlines which we wanted to be ready for. The film doesn’t need to be “final final” to submit, but the farther along the better. I wanted to be sure our score was complete and our sound was mixed to put our best foot forward in the incredibly competitive arena of film festival submissions. While the color mix and visual-effects are still being finalized, I'm pleased with out festival submission cut. And yes, we made our deadline this week, and the first of some 30 or so festival submissions is IN! A milestone.
I'm proud of the film. I can finally say it. I was a little concerned going into the sound mix, not sure what surprises lay in wait for me. But it was smooth sailing. The film sounds great and the emotional power that I was hoping to achieve is there. I said it before, but I'd like to say it again, I can't wait for you to see it. There's more news to share, but I'll leave it for the next post... Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  Josh Close plays Slinger, a soldier trying to make sense of civilian life. We opened our production office in Hollywood on January 8. I locked picture on August 8. That’s a seven month odyssey from pre-production to completing the edit. On August 9 I slipped into a yoga retreat, taught by my wife Sarana, where I was able to rest, reflect and let go. A weekend of deep breathing and asana practice did wonders for my nervous system. I didn’t realize how much I’d been holding since January. I was very nervous during most of the edit. I just didn’t know if the film was going to work. I stuck with it. I found the movie we were making. Scene by scene. Slowly. And I’m very proud of what we’ve created. I wanted to share some thoughts that have been emerging throughout the process of making this picture that seem to have coalesced over that weekend on the yoga mat. The discovery is about vulnerability and its relationship to both violence and creative collaboration. The journey of Slinger, the central character in American Solitaire, is the journey of a hardened and protective soldier, cut off from his inner-self, who, through his encounters back in civilian life, moves towards a softer and more vulnerable sensitivity. He discovers that this is where internal wisdom and healing resides. The soldier as archetype, by necessity, must have a hardened shell for survival. But what happens when he returns home to be with friends and family? That hard shell no longer serves. In fact, it cuts him off from others at the moment he needs them most. How do any of us build the facility to know when we need to be protective and when we need to be vulnerable?  Josh Close and Gilbert Owuor on set during pickups in June. In the creative process, as a director, the leader of a group of other artists, I must also walk the line between hard shell and vulnerability. This film is a reflection of me as much as the characters are reflections of the actors who play them. Brecht said art is not a mirror held up to nature but a hammer with which to shape it. In my experience, shaping nature is a subtle process and while a hammer may have worked well for Brecht, it doesn’t do the job for me. Neither does the mirror. Simple reflection of nature sometimes isn't enough. And it can be easy to hide in the mirror. We see what we want to see. We see what we’re conditioned to see. I think artists are invited to bring our whole selves to the work. We have to be willing to look past the mirror. We have to be willing to look inside ourselves without the help of a mirror at all. We have to be open to learn what those around us see as well. That’s where collaboration comes in. And that’s when we’re called, like Slinger, and like many others on the hero’s journey, to let our guards down. To let others in. And like Slinger, who resists the call towards vulnerability, I too had my blind spots. My resistance. My attempts to either gaze in the mirror or grab my hammer to start shaping nature. It’s subtle sometimes.  Memorial slate our production sound mixer used during pickups. A humbling reminder of the on-set tragedies of Sarah Jones and Halyna Hutchins, inspiring us to be careful, caring and professional.  Josh Close, with decades of experience in film and television, was instrumental in giving notes throughout the editing process. At times it took quite a few passes at a scene before I truly understood the note he was trying to give me. We can’t see what we can’t see until we can see it. Sometimes it just takes time and perseverance. Since I had never been through an edit of this magnitude before, it was a steep learning curve. I learned how holding on an angle a few more beats or cutting out earlier or leaving out an entire shot, can make or break a scene. I learned about editorial tone. How the choices I’m making on every cut, over the course of 90 minutes, creates the tone of the whole film. Every cut needs to be part of one visual vocabulary so scenes all feel like they are in the same movie. Again, it’s so subtle. But all the little choices add up to the whole cinematic experience.
I had to be both clear and directive, while also being open and uncertain, while also holding on to my seat at every twist and turn. Which brings me to the moment we're in, this week. It was a particularly profound week of violence and brutality on the world stage. Another horrific school shooting hit our country in Georgia. The devastating executions of six hostages in Gaza. The ongoing brutality in the West Bank and Gaza. The escalation of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine. Such violence. Such destruction. It’s weighing on so many of us. Will there be no end to such catastrophic and cruel violence? Like many of us, I'm filled with questions about the balance between building protective walls and opening up vulnerable bridges while holding on and praying this terrible time will soon come to an end. I'm filled with fatigue and frustration at our leaders for sending young men into battle to their deaths time and again. There has to be another way. Our film is a meditation on the profound power of vulnerability as the ultimate weapon against violence, while understanding the well-honed, and at times necessary, protective nature of our humanity. I’ve been working closely this past month with all of our departments: sound, music, and VFX, under the watchful eye of our post production supervisor, Mark Stolaroff, as we quickly approach the first of many film festival deadlines. We're almost finished! I hope American Solitaire will be a meaningful offering to console our battle weary souls. Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  Aaron and Josh on set in June during pickups in Los Angeles Thank you to everyone who has made contributions to support our FINISHING FUNDS CAMPAIGN. You are helping us get to the finish line! The team and I are so grateful. (You can still contribute HERE and info below.) And thank you to everyone who responded so favorably to the TEASER TRAILER, I appreciate your enthusiasm so much. The edit has been a grind and your solidarity and support has meant the world to me. (TEASER at the bottom if you haven't seen it yet). So where are we in the process? In June we gathered a small crew in L.A. for a weekend of pickup shots. I had made some changes to the order of events in the film during the edit and needed some footage to connect a few scenes. It was fun to be back together with our original crew as well as actors Josh Close and Gilbert Owuor. We got some good stuff! And I had an epiphany. After a long process of editing, I walked on set with a different sensibility as a director. During the original 4 week shoot in February I had the confidence of a stage director: I knew how to work with actors; how to create an atmosphere of focus and intention; how to draw out honest moments in performance. But I was not sure how to get the right coverage for the edit.  Hana on set in L.A. Cinematographer Hana Kitasei was a terrific collaborative parter and I can't imagine being more prepared than we were with our approach. Our shot list was thorough, our understanding of the visual language was in sync, and we remained flexible to the changes and surprises that arose each day. Hana, who teaches cinematography at American Film Institute, taught me so much. But none of it made up for the fact that I had never been through an edit on a feature film before. Now I had spent 7 weeks with my editor, Libya El-Amin, grappling with the consequences of every choice I made during the February shoot. Cutting in and around every moment in the film, trying to make the story sing. When I walked onto set for our two days of pickups I looked through the camera lens differently. I understood our shot list differently. I knew how the pieces we were shooting would cut. Trial by fire. I finally felt like a film director.  After the shoot I spent some time with composer Ronit Kirchman at her studio in Silver Lake. Introduced to me by producer Lisa Bruce, Ronit came on the team a few months ago. We'd begun to discuss tonal approaches to music for the film and finally had a chance to meet in person. She's been working up sketches and compositional experiments like a mad scientist in a lab. I'm delighted to be working with her and we're about to dive in deep, next week, to start adding music. Do you know what that means? That means that we have LOCKED PICTURE. Yesterday I delivered the longed-for words "we have picture lock!" If "that's a wrap" is the end of the production process, "picture lock" is the end of the editing process. With the film edit locked, the post production departments of sound, music, VFX and color correction can all get to work. They can't work if the cut is still in flux. These craftspeople all work to precise timing and if you're recutting the film after they've worked on a whole series of details, it throws everything off and adjustments are costly.  I brought on editor Dagmawi Abebe to give me fresh eyes on the final push to finish the edit. I met Dag, as he goes by, at Tribeca Festival after the premiere of McVeigh, which he edited. There were some areas in our film where I felt stuck and needed someone with no reference to the project to come on and help me see what I couldn't see. Most of the edit was done remotely with me in one place and my editors in L.A. using a software called "Louper". I took a celebratory screenshot (above) when Dag typed in "picture lock" to name the final cut before outputting it. So here we are in the Dog Days of Summer, a full 7 months since we first gathered in Hollywood in early January to prep for production, and I feel relieved and inspired that we've made a worthy and beautiful film. I can't wait for you to see it. There's a lot of technical and creative work still to come. All the little (and not so little) behind-the-scenes things that you never notice when you're watching a film, and yet are essential to the successful completion of a movie. We're on a tight schedule to hit the first of a series of film festival deadlines September 23. I'll have more news on the process soon.
Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  As the nation readies itself to celebrate the 4th of July next week, I'm thinking about patriotism and the way firearms play a role in the American mythology of "freedom" and "rugged individualism". It comes at a cost. AMERICAN SOLITAIRE is the story of a soldier trying to find himself in civilian life. He's pulled between his understanding of masculinity and power, upon which he was raised and trained, and the yearning he has for healing, which necessitates the practice of open-heartedness and vulnerability. It does not come easily for him. But what he discovers along the way will change his life forever. I'm sharing with you, for the first time, this 90 second TEASER TRAILER, to give you a feel for what we're working on. This is not a finished promotional piece. It is a window into the film we're creating. If the teaser moves you, please consider making a contribution to help us finish the film. Please consider a tax-deductible contribution, through our fiscal sponsor, The Film Collaborative. You'll get a CONTRIBUTOR credit in the film. Thank you!
Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film   The photo above is aspirational. Kind of. I mean, I was there. The photo doesn't lie. But just so we're all on the same page about film festivals, you need to know that 13,016 films were submitted for consideration to the 2024 Tribeca Festival. 103 features were selected. The competition for a spot to screen your film is fierce at a preeminent festival like Tribeca, with less than a 1 in 100 chance that you'll get your moment on the red carpet. Of course I didn't fly to New York for the red carpet. I was at the festival to learn. We screened WRESTLING JERUSALEM at a dozen film festivals back in 2017-18, but I had never attended a festival to swim in the waters of the independent film industry. It was enlightening. Tribeca was founded in 2003 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff to give independent filmmakers a place to help find their audiences. It quickly became an important industry marketplace for distributors, a vital network for filmmakers, and now with expanded programing, includes exhibitions, gaming, audio storytelling and live performances.  If you don't know this about me, I love New York. My dad grew up in Brooklyn and I feel at home in the city. I saw ten films in the five days I attended the festival and half as many panel discussions and industry events. Most interesting and helpful to my film were two panels, one on the “pitch” and one on distribution. The pitch session was about pitching an idea for a project that hadn’t been made yet. I asked about pitching a project that was near completion. Since I’m an industry outsider, I’m interested in how we’re going to get attention in the field. It’s not going to be enough to simply submit our film to festivals and hope for the best. Not with 1 in a 100 odds. "Good question", the panelists said (after congratulating me on nearing completion on my first feature as a writer/director. Actually, the room of participants erupted in a little cheer when I said I was just finishing my film. These filmmakers all know what a climb it is to make a feature). The recommendation was that we use all the materials we’ve already put together for our earlier pitch--and we have plenty--and tailor it now for the path towards our audience. Makes sense to me.  This recommendation was connected to what the panelists at the session on distribution said. Again, we’re talking about independent film, not studio films that have a pipeline to distribution baked into their projects. Distributors, like Giant Pictures or Tribeca Films, want to work with filmmakers who will be partners in finding audiences. Get your film out there while you’re working on finding a distributor. Show distributors that you have an audience base and that you know who they are. This is exactly what my producing partner Sara Schwartz Geller and I did with community screenings of WRESTLING JERUSALEM in 2017-18. We ended up screening the film in 65 cities across North American, Europe and Israel. That's more cities than a small film will get from a theatrical release, that's for sure. A distributor then picked us up and got our film on Amazon, APPLE TV+ and a few other platforms. The entrepreneurial spirit is key to finding audiences for independent film. And the panel I attended affirmed this approach. AMERICAN SOLITAIRE, with its story of a veteran of the U.S. Army trying find his place in civilian life when he comes up against the complexities of gun violence in America, has a range of audiences we’ll be looking to connect with: veterans groups and gun safety groups run the gamut of political affiliation and approach and there is a wide range of organizations for us to partner with. The film will speak to a wide cross-section of audiences. I met a few distributors after the panel who invited me to send them info on the film, which alone made the trip worthwhile.  It was fun to be at a number of world premiere screenings and see the filmmakers up there in front, proud, with actors (some famous, some not) and crew, talking about making their films. I saw a film starring Steve Buschemi and one starring Margaret Cho. It was terrific to see the range of style of filmmaking as well as budget. Most exciting was being at the world premiere of SABBATH QUEEN, the documentary my friend Sandi DuBowski made about my other friend, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavi. (At the premiere with family friend Oscar, left). 21 years in the making, this film tracks Amichai’s journey from his orthodox Israeli family, where he is part of a lineage of 38 generations of rabbis, to his embrace of his queer identity and exploration of drag, to leading his own community in New York, Lab/Shul, for the experimentation and reinterpretation of Jewish story and ritual. If you’re in the Bay Area, the film will be the closing film of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (where we premiered WRESTLING JERUSALEM). Well, I said I’d share the teaser trailer with you. But I had too much to report on the festival. I will. Soon! I’m headed to LA this week to shoot two more days. "Pick-ups", we call them. Some interstitial scenes that I need to connect some narrative threads and finish the film.
Thanks for joining me on this journey. Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film   Filmmaking is a humbling art form. It's been three month since we wrapped picture. How to write about the grueling process of editing? Before I shot a frame, my consulting producer, Lisa Bruce, told me I'd be making three films before the end of the process, and they have now all come into full focus: one, the film I wrote; two, the film I shot; and three, the film I've been editing for the past three months. The film I wrote was a blueprint of an idea. The film I shot was not the film I wrote, that's for sure. Some of it was, yes. But the shoot was more of a process of trying to turn that blueprint into a reality while confronting all the variables of 'the day': location; time-pressure; the camera angle that looked better on paper than on set; the changing shot list; the changing light; the changing script; actors performances; weather; sound; and on and on. I used a metaphor earlier in these notes: production is like a bridge being built under my feet as I'm walking across it. Now I understand the function of the bridge: to transport me from the screenplay to the edit. It was a bridge built by a whole bunch of people whose job was to help me get to the other side of the river. Once I stood on the other shore, got my feet on the ground with all the footage 'in the can', I looked up and they were gone! (Where'd everybody go?) I was on my own. Well, me and my editor. Time to make the third film. During the first three weeks after wrap our editor, Libya el-Amin, assembled the 'editor's cut'. It's an assembly of the footage, using the screenplay as a guideline as well notes from the script supervisor about discoveries and preferences that developed during the shoot. I had been warned by other filmmakers that this first viewing can be difficult, so I braced myself. It was a tough watch. I thought I was done for. Running 2 hours and 10 minutes, the film just didn't work. No fault of my editor, I had created a monster. So much effort. So many resources. So many talented souls. And I wasted it all. (Okay. I was being dramatic). I had to pick myself up off the floor, put on my director's pants, and get to work.  For the next seven weeks I worked every day, Monday through Friday, with Libya, editing the film. The first week we were in her studio (left) in North Hollywood. The next six weeks we worked remotely via an online editing platform call Louper. Shot by shot I reviewed every take of every scene. I cut out repetitive moments. I cut parts of performances that didn't work. I cut dialogue I had written that felt stilted or overwrought. I reshaped scenes. I worked on pacing. I honed in on theme. I let go of ideas I held dear and plot lines that crowded the film. I followed the dramatic arc that presented itself as the strongest. I worked to simplify the story and give it space to breathe. I once again told myself, this is the film I'm making. The next pass came in just under 90 minutes. I shared my first 'work-in-progress' cut with a few collaborators. Humbling. I took in their notes. And got back to work. After a number of more cuts, hand-wringing, and, yes, struggle (it's real, my daughter Zoe assures me), I was ready to screen the film for a test-audience to see how it played. Our post-production supervisor, Mark Stolaroff, who has made low-budget indie films for decades, advised me of the value of being in a room with people while they watch your film. He said you learn so much just by witnessing their experience. So with the help of my dear friend, Deb Fink, we put together a test screening in Berkeley for about twenty five people.   Some were old friends, some were people I didn't know. One of our executive producers, Dan Cohn, was in the house. I had a simple questionnaire for people to fill out afterward (right) and we had a good conversation for about an hour. The movie held their attention! That was the first hurdle. I was delighted. And Mark was right, it was so helpful to be in the room with a group of people watching the film. They all audibly gasped at one dramatic moment, and I found it thrilling.  To be clear, I wasn't looking for the audience to vote on what direction to take the film, like a Hollywood blockbuster test-screening might. I wasn't looking to analyze the questionnaire for the marketplace. Art by consensus is not my thing. I was doing what playwrights have always done in the theatre, where I come from: get a work-in-progress in front of an audience to see how it plays. I was grateful for the souls who turned up and shared their thoughts. And I was surprised at a few plot points that they found confusing. I would need to solve some problems. The test screening did its job. (Left working on a scene with Dylan as Rev. Clay, on the online platform, Louper). Back to work.  We're close to finishing the edit now. I need some 'pick-up' shots to make the movie sing. Some new footage to connect a couple of scenes and to support the main emotional arc. We're going to shoot two more days in L.A. in late June with small and nimble crew. With a few more shoot days added to the mix, and then all the post-production elements to come: composer, sound design, sound mix, color correction...and so on, you may wonder, how are we doing on our budget? We're doing well! And we need to raise a little bit more to get us over the finish line. A number of you have asked me over the last year to let you know how you can contribute. I appreciate your interest in supporting this worthy film. We are digging beneath the issue of gun violence in our culture and laying bare what's at the heart of it. It's tough times on so many fronts right now. Leaning into art that tries to make a difference keeps me sane.  Aaron and actor Joanne Kelly share a laugh, above, between takes (way back in February!) Thank you for reading this far. I'll send another update soon. I'm headed to the Tribeca Film Festival next week to network for our film and to see my friend Sandi DuBowski's film premiere, SABBATH QUEEN, a twenty-one-years in the making documentary about another dear friend, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavi.
I'll have a teaser trailer to share with you next time. Exciting days ahead. Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film   That’s a wrap. I was thrilled to say those time-honored words on Saturday afternoon in a parking lot in the neighborhood of Valley Village after we completed our last shot of principle photography for the film. We were filming a simple action: Slinger walking to his truck after buying ammunition at a gun store. A moment from the second act of the film, but the final piece of the scheduled shoot. Our massive deconstructed puzzle was now in the can. What a relief to reach completion. Josh was elated (as you can see below). I felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders. The crew was giddy all day. The final week of filming had been intense. Exhaustion permeated the set. We’d been working 12 hour days for over three weeks and everyone was fried. I felt it Monday when we were halfway through our day. A kind of sluggishness filled the air. And a foreboding feeling was creeping in around the edges: more rain was expected and our hardest week lay before us. Tuesday morning before our first shot of the day I asked for all crew to gather in the small house where we were filming. I thanked everyone for their hard work and I acknowledged that we were all dragging ass after weeks of waking at dawn and getting to set by 7AM for 12 hour days. I told them that while I too was exhausted, I still felt lucky to be making a movie and that I still believed what I told them our first day together: that everyone on set matters to the success of the film, and that everyone’s intention shows up in what we capture on camera. So let’s stay in it, let’s keep our focus, and we’ll finish strong this week. I was trying to offer a boost of inspiration.  I’m not sure it helped. The week was rough. I felt the pressure of time slipping through my fingers, with each day more ambitious than the next. Our canceled rain day at the beginning of the shoot came back to haunt us. To account for that loss, a day’s worth of work had been unrealistically redistributed to this final week and there just wasn’t enough time to get our coverage. We held a special meeting over the weekend and decided to add a sixth day to the final week, with a scaled-back crew. So with a Saturday call, we would get the 20 days we had originally scheduled. Hana said one of her pet peeves in production was the saying “let’s just go for it”. Yes, this was a noble fighting spirit, but it’s also naive and usually ends badly. She knows. Camera and lighting setups take the time that they take. And the average number of setups we were making each day (21 the final week) was not going to miraculously change just because we willed it to be so. We needed every minute of our 20 days. We pushed through the week, and by Friday we had to go into overtime to cover one of the most tender scenes in the film in which two of the main characters talk about suicide. It’s a very important scene to me and I wrote it in memory of my sister, Rachel. I didn’t want to be sitting there on the second to last day of filming, and into overtime, rain coming down outside, with a worn-out crew, and Josh fraying at the edges, as we filmed this very emotional scene. But as we said time and again, this is the film that we're making. I had to dig deep and embrace the moment. Hana was reassuring. She knew this scene was important to me. Josh knew it too, which is why he stayed in it, take after take. Everyone knew it was important to the film. The focus and support in the room was palpable and I believe we got some beautiful performances. But it took everything I had in me to captain the ship that night.  By the time we got to the last day, I was relieved to arrive at set and find everyone cheery and light and enjoying themselves. I worried that the sixth day would be weighty. That the overtime the night before might make people feel resentful. But we had made it to the finish line and the feeling of accomplishment and relief was palpable. (Our casting team, Meg and Sunny, joined us on set the final week. Above, chatting with Dylan). Josh was making jokes about the demand for more 1/8 page scenes. (The script is divided into 1/8 pages for scheduling. And an 1/8 page scene tends to be no dialogue. Looking out the window; waking up in bed; walking down the hallway. Those kinds of shots still each need their own set up, so they take time. And when filmed out of the story's sequential order, and stacked on top of one another throughout a day, they can make an actor a little crazy. Josh was game every damn day. And making light of this last day and more 1/8 page scenes was fabulous).  And in a testament to the trust and creative collaboration that we developed over the course of production, Hana and I were still revising our shot list, and Josh and I were still interrogating the truth of the beats we were about to film up until the very last shot. We made a fairly significant change to a pivotal moment in the film right at the very end of the final day, when Josh questioned whether a moment I had written was earned. He was right to question it. Something didn’t feel right. And we made an adjustment to the story, and thus to the shot, that felt much stronger and more true to where Slinger is emotionally at that moment. I felt the same trust working with Joanne Kelly, who brought Athena to life, and who helped me and Josh shift another pivotal story moment during the final week, as we climbed in together and made changes to a scene right before filming that landed much more honestly than what I had written.  Last day giddiness aside, we all worked hard and stayed deep in the work, pushing each other to be sure we were being truthful to the very end of production. I don’t think I could have imagined more egoless collaborative partnerships than the ones I developed with both Hana and with Josh. These are two artists committed to excellence and honesty in filmmaking and I believe we created a rapport with one another, day after day, during the course of filming that allowed us to bring our whole selves to the work. We tested the durability of each other’s ideas with great respect for one another and we each showed a willingness to stay flexible in the moment. Sometimes we fought for a position. Sometimes we let go and allowed another position to take hold. It was never personal. It was always about the truth of the story moment. Let me tell you, while this is my first feature as a director, I can say with certainty that the subtlety of these creative relationships and how they play out in the moment of filming, on the day, as they say, are the most important dynamic in filmmaking because this is where the goods are captured on camera forever. If you can trust your collaborators when you are deep inside the caldron of creative fire, after all the fundraising; after all the drafts of the screenplay; after all the hiring and casting and union contracts and negotiations and scheduling and shot-listing and location scouting; after the second AD has managed the entire company’s paperwork and all the gear has been rented and the trucks have been loaded and unloaded; after the dolly track has been laid and all the lights have been set up and taken down and moved again; after the camera has been set on the tripod, lensed and re-lensed; after all the scenic design has been arranged and tweaked and the props have been procured and vetted and laid on set; after video village has been set up with monitors for the producer and script supervisor and gaffer; after the costumes have been fitted and refitted and the makeup has been tested; after the caterer has shown up early to get the hot lunch ready on time with tables and chairs and tents for the whole crew and craft services has made the umptieth pot of hot coffee; after the PA’s have locked down the outer perimeter and the second second AD has brought the actors to set and the rest of the crew has locked down the inner-sanctum where we are about to roll camera; and after the production sound man says “sound speed” and the first AC says “camera speed” and the DP says, “set” and before the director says “action”, after all that preparation and consideration, if you don’t have the trust and spirit of true collaboration, the kind that we had inside that creative caldron, where you can be honest and work from the heart as you try to capture a slice of humanity forever, then you may as well go home. This is high stakes art-making, without question, and it takes too many resources and too many people to get to that precious moment to then waste it on bullshit.
(It takes everyone on the left, plus more, to make the shot on the right happen) Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I know with certainty that we’re making a brilliant work of art. Who knows at this point how it will all end up? What I am saying is that when we got into the room, we did our best, shot by shot, to push each other to be honest. To tell each moment of the story as truthfully as we could. And that we stayed open to the reality that what we thought in the morning would be the right way to approach a moment might change a little or a lot by the time camera was about roll. We put ourselves in each other's hands in that moment. THAT is filmmaking. It's a humbling process and one that I will remain in awe of for the rest of my days. So, what’s next? Uh...rest. I’m going to take the week off. I'm in debt on sleep. Meanwhile my editor, Libya El-Amin, who has been working diligently during production to assemble scenes, will be taking a few weeks to put together the first assembly of the whole film. We’ll start working closely together in about three weeks on the edit. They say when you make a film, you make three films: the one you write, the one you shoot and the one you edit. It’s the third one that everyone sees. I can't wait. (Okay, I can wait, just a little to restore my batteries).  I’m grateful to the entire cast who showed up each day and lifted American Solitaire off the page and brought it life. Your work inspires me. Thank you. (Jamir Vega, Joanne Kelly, Hudson Brooks, and Josh Close, above). And I’m feeling particularly grateful to the hard-working crew that assembled for the adventure of production. Thank you to our producer Dylan and line producer Liam, to the production office team, camera, grip and electrics, AD team, production design, costume, makeup, scripty, catering and crafty, set photographer, all the way to our PA’s Brian and Kevin who showed up early every morning, and even our overnight security guard. Your spirit and dedication made it happen. Thank you.  If you’ve been following along these weeks as I’ve shared this journey, thanks for joining us. I’ll continue to share the narrative of this process as we move into post-production. So stay-tuned for the next installment. If I've learned anything so far, I’m sure there are more surprises to come... Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  Serving as the producer on an indie feature has its ups and downs as Dylan has experienced on a daily basis since we started filming. I captured him in his office this past week on set, above.  Friday was the end of Week 3 of production. In 14 days of shooting at 8 different locations we’ve filmed 54 scenes that took 292 set ups. That’s 292 times our skilled grip and electrics teams are shuffling camera and lighting equipment to set us up to film from specific angles, which sometimes involves camera moves on a dolly, sometimes on “sticks” (the tripod), sometimes on a high-hat (a small stand low to the ground), and sometimes hand-held. We also had a stedi-cam for a day which allows the camera to move smoothly much farther than on a dolly track. If we're outside, lighting involves either reducing the blasting sun with a variety of silks or diffusers set up on c-stands, or bouncing the sun with reflectors where it’s needed. Or they're bringing in lights run on generators when there’s not enough sun, or completely lighting a room if it's an interior scene. Meanwhile the camera crew is busy setting up the camera (we're shooting on a RED Monstro 8K), swapping lenses and dialing in the exposure, depth of field and focus. It all takes time. (Above, camera dept. setting up camera on a dana dolly). And it all functions under the watchful gaze of the First Assistant Director, (Robin Conly, above, center) whose job is to coordinate all departments to keep us on track so that we make our day. That includes ensuring that actors are through the works (makeup and costume) and are on set the moment camera and electrics are ready; making sure the young actors have their proper school time with the set teacher as mandated by law and by the union; and making sure lunch is ready on time so there are no meal penalties. As mentioned previously we have 40 people on crew, a cast of 20 speaking roles and we’ve utilized about 40 background actors (a more dignified title than “extras”). By my count, that’s 100 people working on this movie.  I’ve now reviewed three quarters of the film that we have in the can, and I believe that we’re making something special. I’m so grateful to everyone on our team for their hard work, focus and determination in service of this project. I’m particularly grateful to our executive producer, Maris Meyerson, who has shown unwavering faith in me and without whom none of this would be happening. It was a delight to have her on set with us this past week (photo above).  It appears someone else out there got whiff of what we're up to. DEADLINE, the on-line Hollywood rag, broke the news of Josh’s new starring role. It’s just a brief write-up, but a little buzz is fun and maybe helpful to our efforts. Link: DEADLINE on 'American Solitaire'.  We started last week in another torrential rain storm. (Working with Josh and Jamir right). Once again we were determined not to let weather derail us: we were locked into our schedule to film at an outdoor gun range. Umbrellas on-hand, crew huddled in tight quarters, sheets of rain came down off the roof of the pistol range stall where we filmed. Turns out that the rain added production value to the scene that we couldn’t have anticipated. Everyone was chilled and damp but the actors delivered wonderful performances and the background of rain, both audio and visual, created a different environmental feel than the rest of the film. Turning constraints into assets remains a key element to independent filmmaking.  Gilbert Owuor, (left) playing the role of Auggie, wrapped picture this week on the second day we filmed at the gun range. He and Josh Close, (playing Slinger) as veterans grappling to adjust to civilian life, hit the range for target practice to calm their nerves. Gilbert has delivered a layered, rich and subtle performance and he and Josh have created a dynamic relationship capturing the complexities of how veterans bring home the traumas they experience in the field. I believe one of the doorways into understanding gun violence in America is to understand violence, period, and how it’s carried in the hearts of men.
On Wednesday we filmed the character of Slinger with his father, Dominic, a crusty old fella, played with frailty and force by Cooper Huckabee. And we finished the week by introducing actor Joanne Kelly, playing opposite Josh as the character of Athena, who takes him in and gives him guidance. It's wild, but we're finally filming the beginning of the movie. I've been waiting for Joanne to get on set, and she's here! Monday begins our final week. 5 days left. Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  Aaron and Josh on set.  Last week we were out on a ranch at Allied Studios in Simi Valley for two days filming sequences the main character experiences in his head, either as dream or as memory of his experience of death. 40 crew, 4 actors, 3 box trucks, 1 stakebed (Art Director, Aaron Bautista, right), 2 trailers (costume/makeup and actor dressing rooms) and dozens of personal vehicles shlepped out to this remote ranch to capture some visual poetry. After our first week of finding our legs as a crew, in our second week we locked into a more productive rhythm that allowed us to achieve a fairly ambitious shot list. And the weather goddess smiled upon us.  We spent the rest of the week in a big house in Chatsworth, a suburb of LA, to film some family scenes. The week saw some very moving performances by our actors, some of whom were day-players who created a family connection with one another after only one day together. I was touched by how a small group of actors who’d never met before could become a family with very little rehearsal right before my eyes. Inspiring. And my wife, Sarana, visited set for a few days. (A highlight of the week!) One of the things I had always heard about filmmaking but didn’t quite understand was the way text from the screenplay is routinely modified while shooting. Actors changing the script on-set? You’ve got to be kidding me. I come from the theatre, which is the playwright’s medium. Staying true to the playwright’s words is central to the craft of theatre. But film is the director’s medium, so they say, screenwriters be damned. (Writers roll your eyes, I know). So as the writer and director of this film, I guess I get to test each side of that equation. The writer in me can insist that an actor say the line as written. And the director can encourage the actor to “make it their own”. I did both this week.  In in theatre, the process of developing a script is usually built around workshops where the playwright can work with actors over the course of a week or two or more to understand how dialogue is working, how the beats of the play are performing, how story structure is functioning, etc. Then the playwright goes back to the writing desk for another draft. This could then pave the way for rehearsals and proper production, during which more changes can still be made. This all serves the long process of getting to performance. Film cannot usually afford such time. I didn’t hear an actor read the text of my screenplay until the week before shooting. Some scenes I didn’t hear until the day of shooting. Dylan has been an essential reader of more drafts of this screenplay over the past two years than I care to reveal. But suffice it to say, I would not have taken it as far as I have without his numerous notes sessions. Marcus Gardley, an old friend, playwright and screenwriter, whose plays I helped develop in my seat as director, has also been an essential reader on a number of drafts. But there is nothing like hearing the words you lay down on paper come out of the character's mouth, to understand how it’s working. So when Josh Close and I sat down, with Dylan, a week before we started shooting, it was to interrogate the text with pen in hand. Josh and I quickly developed a trustful partnership in testing the text and seeing where its strengths and weaknesses lay. If I can defend it, it stays. If I can't, it goes or turns into something else.  The screenplay is all the better for this work--work that continues on set, with tweaks and questions and experiments. There are also moments where I insist that we stick with the text as written. The family scenes we shot before the weekend made use of more on-the-fly rewrites that strengthened certain little moments, and helped the actors offer more honest performances. The performers have been leaning into the story and bringing the characters to life with their own essential collaborative contributions. (photo above of a "hostess tray" camera mount for a driving sequence).
I realize now that I’ve been skirting around the narrative details of this film. Kind of intentionally. I don't want to give too much away. But I think I’ll give you a taste of the plot in the next burst of telling this tale. How do we get into the thorny topic of gun violence without being devise or didactic? Stay tuned for the next installment... Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  We survived the rain deluge. Filming is underway. Our crew of 40 hard-working grips, electrics, PAs, ADs, producers, DP, production design, costume, makeup, plus a studio teacher, a blacksmithing team, 8 featured actors and 30 back ground actors (including one baby!) pulled long days at three different locations, covering 11 scenes and 81 shots to complete our first week of principle photography. I woke up at 5:30AM on Tuesday, February 6, the storm still bringing record rain to Los Angeles. Dylan and I drove out to Simi Valley, where our production team had spent a long Monday constructing a garage workshop inside a film studio from scratch (Hana filming in the workshop, below). Niko and her team delivered! We started the day with a safety meeting, led by our props master, Chase Wright, who reviewed our on-set weapons policy (only replicas or non-operational weapons). Then we rehearsed with Josh for the first shot of the day, lit the scene and rolled camera. Shot-by-shot everyone worked diligently through the long day, and by 7pm we wrapped. Day one. Check.   The second day we shot in a house on the same studio lot and our newest hire, actor Gilbert Owuor, got to slip into the narrative stream with Josh. It was fun to see the beginning of their on-screen connection. Our third day we moved to a church and were joined my Mike Martin of Raw Tools (photo right with Aaron and production sound mixer Aaron Kesler) and his associate Joy Fire, two blacksmiths who create garden tools from firearms. I was inspired by Mike and his collaborative partner, Shane Claiborne, when I read their book Beating Guns, a few years back as part of the research process for the film. It was a delight to have Mike on set and the scene we shot at the pop-up church-side forge they created with the help of our production team was magic. My dear friend, actor Deb Fink, came down for a cameo and aside from her performance, immediately made herself indispensable as ancillary crew.  We continued filming at the church the fourth day when Dylan finally got to put down his producer hat and pick up his actor hat. I had written a role for him from the get-go and this was his day. We lined church pews with background actors, including my daughter, Zoe, a friend of hers and one of my oldest friends. It’s fun to have visitors on set (and sometimes they wind up in the movie). Dylan captivated the church “congregation” with his sermon, and then followed up with a sweet scene between him, Josh and Jamir. The sun came out and we finished the week strong.  A few weeks ago Dylan said, “filmmaking is a young person’s game”. Now I know what he was talking about. I woke up before dawn each day, made coffee, and drove out to our location with Dylan. My attention was focused and in demand until 7pm when we wrapped. I spoke with every department head off and on throughout each day, making tiny and consequential decisions; I was blocking, rehearsing and working closely with actors; I was consulting with Hana on every single shot. We didn’t get home til around 9pm each night. Beauty rest? Forget about it. By Saturday I felt like I had been run over by a truck.
And week one was supposed to be the easy week... Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  The Pineapple Express is here. Our first day of the shoot was scheduled for today, on an exterior location. The last 24 hours saw the most rainfall in one day in Los Angeles County in the last 20 years. On Tuesday we learned that this “atmospheric river”, that foreboding term, was scheduled to hit Sunday. Never mind the continuity problems and sound problems with shooting our first day in the rain, the expected wide-spread flooding could pose problems for cast and crew even getting to set. What’s a production team to do? Change the schedule. But at this stage of planning, changing the schedule is dependent upon location availability, actor availability, production design’s scheduled prep time, and expense considerations. This is next-level Tetris, friends. You move one square on the grid and the whole thing changes.  So on Wednesday, while we rode around in a passenger van with our production team for 12 hours for our Tech Scout--a visit to each location with key department heads to prep the details for each day of the shoot (Hana and I, right)--we were simultaneously reevaluating the various permutations of a major schedule change to avoid the “the largest storm of the season,” according to NOAA. Gotta stay flexible. Can’t fight Mother Nature.  So we're not shooting today to buy time for the storm to pass and we juggled a few locations to start on interiors. But this morning our production team arrived on set to prep for tomorrow only to find that our location for the new first day, an old garage, is completely water-logged from a leaky roof. We loved the run-down feel of the place for the story, but on practical terms, it's now unshootable. Niko and her team have come up with an alternative and are at this moment building the set in an interior, dry and secure studio space. They are indefatigable and working their magic to keep us on track. We cannot afford to lose two days before we've even rolled camera. I'm not worried. Last week got off to a terrific start when I met Gilbert Owuor, an actor our casting team proposed to fill the role that was vacated the Friday before. Gilbert and I connected immediately, and in addition to his body of film and television work, his theatre training and experience gave me great comfort that he could step in immediately with the care and intention needed to embody the character. We offered him the role that afternoon and we closed the deal within 20 hours of his scheduled rehearsal. I’m delighted. Turns out he’s the man meant to play the role. You just never know what the universe has in store for you. So with that part finally filled, thanks to the diligence of Meg and Sunny, our stellar casting team, we completed a process started in early December, and all 20 characters are cast.  All of the unpredictability aside, the past week was really all about rehearsal. We’ve got two kids with speaking roles in the film and they’ve got pretty intense scenes with Josh, so I wanted to be sure we had time to connect before we shoot. (Josh Close and Jamir Vega, in rehearsal, above). So often film and television projects only give time for brief rehearsal on the day of filming, and actors are left to invent years of backstory and intimate relationships on-the-fly. I don’t get it. I mean, I get it. But I don’t get it. If I had my way, I’d work for weeks with the cast to build rapport and relationship and explore the material so there’s less pressure on set, and more creative and expansive possibility. I sound like a naïve theatre-maker. Well... Anyway, I insisted on a few rehearsals with our key actors and it paid dividends instantly. The kids were fantastic as we explored the scenes and I was able to make some changes to the dialogue here and there. By taking the time for discussion, sometimes about some heavy themes (we are making a film that explores gun violence after all) these young actors got to understand what’s going on underneath the text and they’ll be better equipped to go home and work on it before their shoot days. We also spent a terrific rehearsal with Josh and Gilbert exploring their scenes together. Theirs is a primary relationship in the film and it was a delight to finally feel these two characters that have been in my head for two years come alive in the room! Just wait til you see the dynamic energy between these guys. Very powerful.  We also had a props show-and-tell where Chase Wright, our prop master, laid out a host of props used in the film, from replica rifles (photo right--not one of them is actually functional) to luggage, cigarette boxes, lighters, and so on. My job: sign off on every single item.  Finally, I ended the week with Hana, reviewing our shot-list for the first week, making adjustments to be sure we’re using our time efficiently, looking at the overheads, and confirming our day-to-day plan. (Overhead for our first location, above, showing all the camera positions for the day). Even now that the location has moved, this shot list stands and everyone is gearing up for our first day TOMORROW.
Rain or shine, it’s time to shoot this movie. Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  We ended Week 3 of production prep with some exciting drama. One of our lead actors, who all but signed on the dotted line, and whose agent had been dragging their heels for weeks on closing the deal, took a job on a bigger film, leaving us scrambling to re-cast the part. Rehearsal is scheduled to start Monday. Meg and Sunny, our casting team, reassured us immediately that we will fill the role with someone great. Not to worry. Welcome to Hollywood, Aaron. We had our first production meeting with department heads on Tuesday. I baked them cookies. They’re working long hours on this low budget project, it’s the least I could do. Four tables in a large square with 16 creative minds seated around, focused on the details of production. I got a quick lesson in staffing terminology when I made the mistake of calling our Set Decorator a Set Dresser. No Mr. Davidman, the Set Decorator is a department head. The Set Dresser works for the Set Decorator. Copy that.  Smash, our First AD, read through all the actions of the screenplay over the course of 4 hours. (Ashley was given the nickname Smash on one of her first jobs in film as a PA when she rolled an electric cart into another one, not realizing the gear was in reverse. The name stuck). The team addressed questions on props, make-up, design, location, continuity, sound, lighting, camera. A classic tug-of-war emerged quickly between certain departments to determine who is in charge of what. Like props and costume. If the actor wears it, it’s a costume; if they handle it, it’s a prop. But wait, if it’s blood, that’s make-up! Stay in your lane people. Our production designer, Niko Vilaivongs, who was trained in theatre design at the Mark Taper Forum and then began working in film under old-school production designers, tells me the system used to be more cohesive when production design was at the very top of the decision-making chain, alongside the director. When they first started making movies, cinematography wasn’t even a thing. There was a camera operator to film the actors on the sets, trying to capture the essence of live theatre performance from which movies emerged. And it was the production designer who reigned over the look of the film. Over time, the technology and the art of camera moved up the ladder to the position beside the director and the art of production design moved over to the side. I’ve always worked closely with my design team when I’ve directed stage-plays and it’s no different here. I love how color, light and texture play into the environment in which a story lives. Niko has an incredible eye and an inspired visual sensibility and I’m excited to be working with her.  Okay, since we’re making a film about guns, let’s talk about gun safety. Safety has been our primary concern ever since Dylan and I began to work with Liam (our Line Producer) on the specifics of production. Liam brought in armorer Mike Tristano, who’s worked in the business for over 40 years, training actors, providing weapons and creating on-set safety protocols for more movies than I can count. He’s the guy they called in to help sort things out after the tragedy on the set of Rust. He has a jaw-dropping collection of weapons. Not just firearms, but swords and knives and anything a human being could use in battle against another human being. He’s quite a character. We gathered at his place as he trained Josh (Josh Close, playing our lead) to field-strip an M16, which features in the film. The on-set protocols of handling weapons are significant, and a combination of replicas, rubber guns and functional weapons that have been plugged, combined with safety talk and severe limitations on who handles the weapons, will create the sense of safety we want when cameras are rolling. There will be absolutely no live ammunition or even blanks on our set. Mike has also counseled me on makes and models of weapons, the dates they were used, who manufactured them, where they were used in combat, and so on, all to be sure we’re accurate in our storytelling.  While we were strategizing how to find the right new actor last-minute, we went out to a gun range to scout it as a location. (Yes, I’m watching actor's reels on my phone in the car while Dylan drives us to to the gun range so we can have casting get the script out to actors before the weekend). Six of us walking around the range, looking for camera positions, direction of the sun, blocking potential, peppered by the power of percussive blasts of rifle fire from the half dozen guys target shooting. I’ve been shooting on a few ranges before, but somehow, even with ear-protection, the gunfire was a bit startling and unnerving. No matter, it’s a terrific location for us. What a way to end the week.  Finally, on the topic of cinematography, Hana did a camera test at Keslow Camera, where we’re renting equipment, to explore an infrared look we’re interested in for a specific segment of the film. We looked at a few different filters and different settings with different LUTS (in-camera color grading). Infrared is a portion of the light spectrum that cannot be seen by the naked eye—-but it’s there. And an IR camera can allows us to see it. It’s a bit like what we’re trying to do with this project as a whole: film something that we cannot see. We can’t see trauma. We can't see feeling. But we can capture these characters on camera, and through the art of cinema, allow for their hearts and minds to emerge and be seen. I have to believe that when we really see the unseeable of another human being, change is possible.
Oh, and it looks it might rain the first week of filming. We’re in it now! Last word: Very end of day Friday, we finalized our deal with actor Joanne Kelly to play opposite Josh. She's dynamite and I'm thrilled to have her in the mix. Reflections on the Journey to Make a Feature Film  I’m writing at the end of our second week of prep from the production office on Yucca and Vine, around the corner from the famous Capitol Records Building, in the heart of Hollywood. A portion of the Walk of Fame runs up Vine and I step by the stars each morning on the way from the parking garage. Louis Lumiére; Rita Hayworth; George Burns; Joan Fontaine; Judy Garland; John Wayne; Cecil B de Mil; Groucho Marx. Our Line Producer set up the office, borrowed space from Mammal Studios, a VFX company.  It’s a converted old-school second floor apartment with hardwood floors, a brightly tiled bathroom and a view of The Knickerbocker Hotel sign. Low Budget filmmaking with a little Hollywood glam out the windows. Wait...you may not know what I’m doing here. Backstory.  After the success of WRESTLING JERUSALEM, (a film based on my stage play about the complexities of the Israel/Palestine conflict), I turned my attention to try to understand the complexities of another polarizing topic: Guns in America. Before we all disappeared into our silos under the pandemic, I travelled around the U.S. talking to people about guns. I interviewed gun enthusiasts, gun-safety advocates, cops, gang members, surgeons, politicians, parents of kids shot at schools. I even attended the NRA convention in Dallas, Texas (photo above). I pursued a similar interview process that I used to create JERUSALEM. I read everything I could. I thought I was writing a play, but after a number of drafts and various approaches, as I honed in on the story of a solider and his relationship to firearms, I received a remarkable contribution from one of my supporters. It was enough to turn the nascent story from a play into a screenplay, and to set my sights (so to speak) on making a feature film.  I called my long-time collaborator, Dylan Kussman (left) who directed JERUSALEM (the film), to join me as a producer and actor on the movie that I would write and direct. (Dylan and I met in the 90’s in Berkeley when I directed him in a number of plays. We made an indie film together and have been collaborating ever since). He signed on without hesitation and we set in motion a project that we both felt passionate about. Again, I'm untangling the threads of a complex and dynamic set of narratives that vie for our attention across media and that very few people take the time to fully understand. We all watch with horror as the cycles of violence and public commentary play out over and over again, and I find myself saying (also over and over again) we’re not even having the right conversations. This is a mission-driven film. We're exploring the roots of an on-going American tragedy and helping to shift the conversation.   Unlike WRESTLING JERUSALEM, which harnessed the theatrical elements of the stage and translated them into cinema, the formal style of AMERICAN SOLITAIRE is cinematic realism. It follows the story of one guy: a veteran of the U.S. Army and an expert marksman. He served in Afghanistan, and when he returns home wounded, in body and spirit, he's forced to rethink his relationship to violence and thus to firearms, if he's going to find the healing for which he yearns. So where are we now in the process? RIGHT IN THE THICK OF PRE-PRODUCTION! We start principle photography on February 5 and will shoot for 4 weeks. We are deep into casting, location scouting, hiring crew, meeting with camera department, production design, costume, make-up, revising the script to reflect all these collaborators that are now on board. Full days and a list of decisions to make as long as my arm each time I walk into the office. It’s quite a thing actually, to live inside a fictional story that I created, honing the screenplay for two years, revision after revision, with Dylan’s consistent and good notes, and then have all these other people read it, roll up their sleeves, and dive in with me. Turns out that they each have opinions and ideas! It's exciting to watch them lean into the story with their talent and expertise and make it better. My conversations with cinematographer, Hana Kitasei (left), have been fruitful and enlightening as we develop our shot-list and visual language for the film. Production designer Niko Vilaivongs is a visionary who thinks in emotional tones for each character as she designs the look of the film, location-by-location, with her trusted Art Director, Aaron Bautista, at her side. My lead actor, Josh Close, who fell instantly into creative symmetry with me and Dylan, has been digging deep into the material and our conversations have led to subtle but vital changes in the script. Our casting team, Meg Mormon and Sunny Boling, are so good at what they do, they are providing us with incredible insight into our own film as they bring in remarkable talent to fill the roles.  Costume Designer, Jennifer DeRosa, is quick-witted and thorough as she's sizing up each character's look. Bailey Delong, in charge of hair & make-up, has much to consider, even on a small film like ours. Ashley Wright, our First Assistant Director, came in this week with great spirit and excitement. Liam Finn, our line producer (right), drilling down into details of production with razor focus and decades of experience, is forcing us to make important creative decisions so we can come in on-budget. And Dylan remains steadfast in his role as producer, keeping communication flowing between departments, while his 30-plus years in film offers us all a steady reminder that the story is the thing, even as we all begin to feel the pressure of imminent production.
I feel so profoundly fortunate to have all these incredible people with which to create the fabric we call collaboration. And with so many moving parts and so much unknown in the process of filmmaking, I feel every day since I got to L.A. as if I'm walking across a bridge that is being built under my feet as I go. I just keep hoping they find the next board and lay it down before my foot comes down. If you're one of the handful of financial contributors to this project thus far, and you know who you are, we wouldn't be here without you. Thank you. And behind all of this, our executive producer, Maris Meyerson, has been cheering us on with unwavering support and encouragement. If you've read this far, I'm grateful. My goal is to share as much of the journey with you as I can. Maybe next week I'll be able to tell you more about our cast. There's a great deal to tend to, and so much unknown, so we'll just have to see, won't we? |
AARON DAVIDMANAMERICAN SOLITAIRE PRODUCTION JOURNAL Archives
November 2024
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