Roger Keith Coleman II: Snakecharmer

My new producing partner, Paul-the-Silicon-Valley-software-developer-turned- producer (herein referred to as simply Paul) was holding out on me. He had come up with this crazy idea that we should go after the rights to the hottest media story in the nation, the upcoming execution of Roger Keith Coleman, a coal miner who passionately (and convincingly) professed his innocence of rape and murder charges. But my new dilettante had something else up his sleeve.

I should have known.

Despite the cozy talk and all the free meals I'd been treated to while we wooed each other into the illusion of a partnership (He doesn't know anything so I'll run the ship...She's got no money so I'll get anything I want) Paul was also harboring a secret desire.....to direct.

"So you want to be a director? Jimmy, our busboy, is a director."*

This ridiculously overplayed Hollywood cliche is what was really driving this effort. And there was no talking him out of it. Every neophyte film junkie who wants to be a director thinks, like the solitary man staring at the paint-can slashes of a Jackson Pollack canvas, it can't be that hard. Paul wanted this so badly that he was willing to spend any amount of money to shoot our little venture to the head of the line. I admit now I reluctantly gave the nod to his wacky dream and decided that if we did actually land the rights to Coleman's story, my little wannabe director would eventually be bowled over by the sheer momentum of other egos ready and willing to jump on board.

But first things first: Paul was willing to front the money. A lot of it ($200K for option rights alone) A good thing because without a ready source of funds no one would have answered our calls at the various studios. Right - for those of you who don't know, how quickly your calls are answered is directly tied to your personal pull in this town. Everyone - studio executives, producers, directors, agents, managers up and down the line, they all have these notorious call lists, (vetted by assistants) and the lists can be many pages long because no-one wants to actually delete a name from it, no matter who it is. The callbacks are ticked off in order of priority with the intention of eventually getting to everyone on the list. But it could take months to get to the bottom of the pickle barrel, perhaps with the hope that the person has either died or given up and moved back to Minnesota. It's one of those industry peccadillos that would seem odd to outsiders but we're all afraid NOT to call someone back just in case they are the next Starbucks barrista-soon-to-be-hit filmmaker. Happens here all the time, unfortunately and there's an old saying, "Never kick anyone in the pants on your way up the ladder because you'll be meeting them again on the way down." Fame is fleeting here even if you do get a comeback.

But onwards to Coleman, who had more to worry about than his profile in Hollywood. With negotiating money in hand I started out by calling his high-powered attorney, Kitty Behan, of Arnold & Porter in Washington. Her team was the third or fourth set of representatives he'd had since his conviction in 1982 and part of his sad story was that from the beginning he'd had inadequate and incompetent public counsel who had either ignored or failed to uncover key witness testimony and other evidence that would have cleared him. Behan, who was doing this pro bono, also charged prosecutorial misconduct against the State for withholding key evidence during trial. It would have seemed like the chances were good for re-opening the case but the Supreme Court had recently ruled for stricter rules of evidence to reduce the number of jailhouse appeals clogging up the system and keeping death-row innmates alive for decades. Weeks before his scheduled execution, Coleman was in a fine mess, and had appealed to the public for help.

Apparently the Pope heard what was going on and put a word in for mercy.

With the rally cry from religious groups adding to the support, Kitty Behan and her team had a lot of help from some interesting quarters. Jim McClosky of Centurion Ministries started pitching in to dig up old leads, investigating new ones, and private investigators were running down stories of jailhouse snitches and witnesses who had died under mysterious circumstances. Things were getting very dramatic (part of the attorney strategy) and when I called to see about a meeting with them, I was about fifth in line behind a couple of studios, Steven Spielberg, and Al Pacino.

I was on the call-back list. Far down the list. Kiss of death (no pun intended) I needed another way in.

Next: We track down someone close to Coleman and find we share a bond.



(*Restaurant Owner to Nick Chapman, The Big Picture)

Roger Keith Coleman I: Lives In Transition

The American Gothic tale of Roger Keith Coleman: West Virginia coal miner convicted of and executed for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law. Part of the Hatfield and the McCoy clans simmering in an endless feud. Soulful. Articulate, desperate, of clear conscience on the subject of his innocence. I know this because I have his private, unpublished diary, typed single space on hundreds of sheets of prison-issue paper. His views on life, so colored by the injustice of his dark prospects, are testament to the illusions we can weave into the fabric of our lives with such passion and complexity that they eventually become truth. But to the beginning....

And so many years later.

I have a photograph that comes to me once in a while when I'm cleaning. Sometimes I find it in with other papers in my collection of orphan 'to do' items somewhere in the back of my desk drawer, other times in odd places, slipped down crookedly into the back of my DVD cabinet or at the bottom of a box of dusty old paintings I keep revisiting for a Goodwill run.

It's a photograph of a young man at a wedding, and with him is his beautiful Nob Hill bride and another equally young man from my past who has just caught the garter and is obligated to dance with the wife of this now-married stranger. They are all supremely beautiful, caught in the flash of an onlooker's camera.

Like so many reminders of past relationships this image brings back a lot of unwanted memories, because to all the people captured in this moment, everyone rich with promise and serenely content, so much unhappiness has visited in the intervening years. And they are all ghosts to me now. I haven't seen the married couple for over ten years, we parted without a whisper one afternoon, phone numbers falling into disrepute, erased, and then, finally, lost in the onslaught of new experiences, new people, new ideas. The other man slipped away many years later, but this story isn't about him.....

The man in the photo who had just married his prize, Paul was his name, was not a former lover or even much of a friend. He was someone I met through an acquaintance, soon after I finished The Big Picture, fled a marriage, a city, a career, and then returned to Los Angeles at odds with too much to really know where to begin again.

I had met the acquaintance, a trust-fund kid with an eye for playing the market, in dance class. He had recognized me from The Big Picture (how extraordinary, I thought) and we started having lunch after class. His friends were also wealthy young turks, some by family money, some self-made, like his friend Paul, who had started a Silicon Valley software company and sold out for multiple millions. Eventually we partied together, both at loose ends and searching for distraction.

I hadn't thought much about how I was going to make a living once I'd been cut loose from my own version of a trust fund: a successful writer/producer husband who had used his considerable assets to leverage me out of his life with barely a dime to my name. For a time I lived in the unheated attic of the carriage house on our property while I scrounged for temporary jobs. Prospects are scarce for a producer without projects to pitch around town and I discovered quickly that I was too far up the ladder by then to go back to working as a production coordinator or, God forbid, someone's assistant.

So when I met Paul I was pretty much like Blanche Dubois, countin' on the kindness of strangers and plotting my escape from the downward spiral. Friends helped me get a car, a bit of a cash flow, and eventually I was able to move into a decent house in Hancock Park with two guys I met through the Recycler. Feeling my oats, I had managed to score a job writing and directing a documentary about a Disney-sponsored school in SouthCentral Los Angeles and I was in pre-production on this project when Paul called me to ask if I would be interested in partnering up with him to produce films.

Hmmmm, let me think about this for a second. Yes. Hell yes! Here was Hollywood's version of a ringer (more commonly a suburbian dentist or a group of dentists who would pay anything to get their name on the opening credits). Paul was bored, he was fascinated with the film business and was itching to do something interesting with his cash windfall. We met over a few meals at fabulously expensive restaurants (I'm back!) which he paid for, of course, and after some dickering about profit-sharing and who got what credit, we were in business.

So, I asked him, what kinds of films do you want to make? He looked at me in that canny way that fabulously successful, ruthless businessmen have, and said to me, "Something that will sell. Something really, really hot."

I'm a realist when it comes to Hollywood. Unlike my new partner, who had not the slightest inkling about the politics and the pecking order here, I thought that 'hot' projects would be very dim prospects indeed. I didn't fancy getting into a spitting match with my old boss, former studio chief Robert Shapiro, or any other of the hundreds of blood-thirsty, ADD types who had clawed their way into producer stardom. But I decided to keep my mouth shut and try to find something more reasonable.....say a juicy novel that no-one had discovered yet. I had an eye for that kind of material and wanted to start fairly modestly.

Two days later while I was turtling my way along the race to success, Paul called me up.
"I've got the project for us," he said. Then before I could ask what it was he was at my door (rich people had cell phones back in 1992 but they were as big as military walkie-talkies).

As soon as I opened it up he shoved a magazine in my face. It was the latest issue of Time. And on the cover was Roger Keith Coleman, who was just about the biggest media celebrity in the nation because he and a lot of other people believed he was about to die an innocent man.

"You have got to be kidding," was all I could manage.


Next: We start looking for our way through the media frenzy into Coleman's inner circle.

Roger Keith Coleman - DNA Reveals the Truth

My next series will focus on our bid to make film about an a sensational murder case that made the news in the early 1990's. Roger Keith Coleman's rape and murder conviction in the early 80's resulted in the dealth penalty despite his anguished pleas of innocence. He managed to stay the execution for several years but when my film partner and I talked to him about his diaries and troubled life as a struggling coal miner he was facing imminent death.

After 14 years, DNA tests reveal the truth about his guilt or innocence.

This series will be starting later this week.

The Trouble at Paramount

I just read Patrick Goldstein's column, "The Big Picture" today in the L.A. Times. He's discussing the plight of Paramount's production chief, Gail Berman, who has been rumored to be in trouble because of her caustic working style. Apparently she isn't very nice to the production staff over there and also comes off, according to an inside source as someone who has an "unexamined loathing lurking just below the surface when she deals with the artists." Goldstein goes on to say that rumors of her imminent demise are "women in power" issues, reminiscent of "the trashing of Dawn Steel, Jamie Tarses and Amy Pascal".

Of course I know that those of you who've been reading Playdate have taken my comments in context to my personal experience with Dawn on The Big Picture and they have nothing whatsover to do with this "intolerance of powerful women" he alludes to.

The corporate entertainment women I've worked with in Hollywood (which includes non-film people like heads of various advertising agencies) are of a certain generation and the ones who've make it to top positions are products of an early-years feminist culture that in the beginning lauded females who aped male aggression and cunning in the workplace (back then women had to wear the female version of a power suit with those little frothy ties on the blouse). It's no accident that a certain kind of person was able to navigate through these waters and rise up through the very resistant ranks. I do believe part of it was by fear and intimidation, but mostly by crafty manipulation (I am the generation of Amy Pascal, who started as an assistant (I heard she was unpaid originally) for a small production company and quickly leveraged her way into the studio system.) I am also the generation of other women who made it to top studio positions, including Lisa Henson, who was my poker buddy when we were just starting our careers. She later became President of Columbia Pictures, which was no surprise to me. She used to deride our games as too "sissy" because we wouldn't play with unlimited funds. She and Amy were friends.

As for his opinion that powerful women don't get no respect, I think Patrick Goldstein doesn't get it. These women are sharks and they have big teeth. Do they get judged differently because they are women? I know so many equally powerful women in production positions, including producers and directors and they don't get the same heat. I think that's because they are not the political creatures I knew when I was the V.P. for a company with a development deal at Warner Brothers. Over time I became disenchanted with the constant gossip, backstabbing, and underlying jealousy of the true heart of the business (the creative people) that was grist for the daily mill. These women grew from baby dinasours to true monsters as their power expanded and allowed them freer reign over those less fortunate.

I freely admit that this particular archetype is not my cup of tea. At Warner Brothers, (and in my mid 20's) I had an executive office with the big, big desk covered in the requisite piles of scripts to read, and a comfy sitting area for meetings with writers and producers. Days were routed around endless phone calls fielding off rumor-mongerers looking for inside info on our various projects, a process repeated daily at expense-account lunches with other executives and agents who were either trying to get in or out of our professional pants.

When I left to work on The Big Picture I threw off the mantle that had become so uncomfortable; it just wasn't who I was. I remember clearly the first day we came into our Big Picture production offices a few weeks later. All production offices are temporary and you take what you can get. The place was dark, slightly musty, with old carpeting, junky furniture, and the roar of the Hollywood Freeway outside the windows. I shared a bullpen with three other people, including the Assistant Directors and the Property Master. My desk listed slightly and was dusty.

I felt free for the first time in years.

Big Picture VI: I Think You're A Genius...

Sundance was over and we left our hotel rooms, got on a shuttle and headed back into reality. It was time to start the depressing process of wrapping up the production office and letting go the last of the office staff. I hate this part of making a film - the intimate friendships you have come to count on every day with your morning breakfast burrito (made to order by your catering truck, of course) evaporate as quickly as they formed. Most of us have learned to take it in stride but there is still a feeling of emptiness once the extraordinary focus and group-think energy has dissipated and you are left alone with an uncertain future, and another job to pound the pavement for.

It's just the way it is if you choose this career. But then again there is something of Einstein's equation in the process of making a film - energy can be released into matter and vice-versa. A film is a living example. Something real, tangible, and quantifiable comes from the expenditure of energy by a team of very talented people. And if it's a major success, you have the equivalent of nuclear fusion. That energy often translates into a career push for everyone involved and on and on the process goes.

For us the uncertainty of the film's future made it all the more difficult to let go of the tangible evidence that we'd actually done something together. It was a grey, rainy day to match our mood and we were cleaning out desks and saying goodbyes when we got a call that The Hollywood Reporter and Variety had reviewed the film so we rushed off to get copies. Both reviews were very good. They loved the dry humor, the frustrating inconsistencies of Hollywood's famous business, and the wicked lampooning of those in power. Later on Entertainment Magazine listed it in its cover story, "Oscars Too", giving Martin Short's line, "I don't know you, I don't know your work but you're a genius and I'm never wrong about these things", the award for the funniest line in a movie for that year.

We were ecstatic about the press and congratulatory calls were coming in from around town. All except Columbia's executive offices. Michael Varhol wanted to call Dawn but there was fear that it would sound like gloating. But as the producer it was up to him to push for a good opening schedule, maximized theatre numbers, and a decent publicity campaign. We all thought, given the reviews that she would give in to better business sense and use the momentum to get a return on her investment.

We thought wrong.

Columbia basically shut us out of the process once the master was delivered and we were kept in the dark about the specifics of the release. We had been consulted on the posters and ad sheets, but had no idea about much else. As weeks turned into months we realized that despite numerous calls (then pleas) for improved release strategy we found out only after the fact what had happened.

And this is, once again, hearsay, as we were not present in the negotiations, but we were told by an inside source that The Big Picture was attached as a 'bonus' to the release of another Columbia film. Sold as a package, as it were. The theatres would get Blockbuster Movie A on the condition they release our film for one week. Yes, that's right. One week. It was a closed schedule with no possibility for extension.

And so sometime later that year, The Big Picture opened for a week in a Westwood theatre with little fanfare. Certain death for a small film like ours requiring word of mouth to build a decent audience and garner wider critical attention. After the week it sank out of sight, a wisp of surprise, a collective gasp of dismay, and then like any good Hollywood story, never to have lunch in this town again.

It was a smart, calculated move on Dawn Steel's part. In my opinion she knew that if she didn't release it at all the rumors would fly and force her hand. It would become a mystery, a legend, and one day she would be held accountable for hiding it away. But box office draw is king around here and the disappointing numbers for this quiet release were enough to justify a the studio's decision to pull it (but again we were told that it never had more than a week in the release schedule anyway). She had finally fulfilled her own prophecy that the movie would be a box-office dud.

But wait......There is good news. Oh, yes, good news for this bit of energy converted into a clever little bomb. Even though it disappeared in Los Angeles, smaller art house theatres around the country, especially San Francisco and New York, kept the film running and the word of mouth did grow, bringing with it a measurable audience. In San Francisco I heard the film ran for almost two months..... a success in Hollywood terms where films come and go within a few weeks.

I was sure no-one outside Hollywood would ever know about this film, and that was really sad. But in subsequent months I would be surprised by how widely it had been viewed. Most gratifying was how many people outside the business appreciated the humor and found the commonality in the struggles of a young professional to be successful without losing sight of their values. Then the calls started coming for our team to appear at film schools, and when we would arrive the students would cluster around us practically genuflecting they were so excited...even awed. They'd all seen the film several times and could recite entire scenes from memory. It was gratifying to have this small measure of appreciation and we took it where we could.

In retrospect, The Big Picture was the first of a new wave of intelligent, satirical films about the business of making movies (The Player and Swimming With Sharks followed). And it was the start of Chris Guest's creative voice as he grew from a talented comedic actor to writer/director of films that have forged a new genre: the 'mockumentary'. Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind continue on the tradition begun with The Big Picture as biting commentary on the self-important isolation of entertainers and competitors of all kinds. Chris has achieved, despite Dawn Steele's grave predictions, his due of respect and success.

So this is the end of my story, folks. On this film anyway. But the postscript is a good one: The Big Picture is now considered a cult film with underground hit status thanks to cable television and the Independent Features Channel which plays it regularly (I know because I get residual checks for my 'big' role). You can still rent the film at video stores and recently the DVD version was released. There was one other unexpected, joyful surprise as the film found its way into the hearts of the critics: A few years ago, a scene from the film was in the opening montage of the Oscars celebrating 75 years of movie magic. I was at a party when the scene appeared catching me by surprise and I started screaming at the top of my lungs....it was quite a moment. The movie may have tanked in Los Angeles but the audience for the Oscars is about 1 billion people worldwide. Way to go, Big Picture!!

Oh, and here's an exclusive: there is one item The Big Picture DVD doesn't contain in its "special features" section. I have what may be the only existing copy of the behind-the-scenes documentary I produced (directed by a friend and screenwriter, Doug Richardson), which I never made it over to Columbia at the completion of production. It has never-before seen interviews with Teri Hatcher, Fran Drescher, Chris Guest, Kevin Bacon, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, among others.

It's my ace in the hole. When I'm ninety and they want to do a retrospective on the greatest comedies of the 20th Century, I'll be there when it has its worldwide debut.

Maybe I'll invite Chris Guest.

The Big Picture V: Take That!

After we got word that Dawn Steel was not willing to sell the picture we were pretty discouraged. Although we'd heard great feedback from the studio executives who'd seen the dailies and the rough cut at Columbia it was clear that Dawn was calling the shots and our film was not worth anyone's job. The studio film business is no different than any other- there are very few shirts in management willing to stick their necks out on a risky crusade. To be honest that group is not made up of creative geniuses, despite what they may believe. It used to be the bane of every writer and producer who got stuck in what we called 'development hell' when a script would be endlessly rewritten by career studio executives (mostly MBAs with a secret desire to have our jobs but no talent to actually have them) until the heart and soul had been leeched away. You only have to look at 80% of the films coming from the studios to know what I'm talking about. Big bucks, predictable stories (or story arcs as they are referred to in those hideous develoment meetings) and bankable stars who are taking as few risks as everyone else involved in these snoozers.

I once knew a writer who made the cover of several industry magazines for selling one of the first million dollar scripts in Hollywood and the film was hacked up so many times by the folks at Disney that it turned into a muddy mess and was never made.

Anyway, I digress. The Big Picture was near to completion and in good enough shape to start sending around to the various film festivals coming out in the new year. We started in earnest, almost with desperation because we knew we only had a short window to accomplish this - as soon as the last details were completed and the master print delivered we'd lose even the tenuous hold we had over its future. I'm pretty sure the studio didn't know what we were doing and when they found out it was too late.

To our immense relief the film was accepted to a couple of festivals almost immediately. Our biggest coup was Sundance, which had only a few days to view and jury the acceptance process because we were scrambling to finish a working print. We all flew out there in early February to prepare for the film's official debut, a show of force that included our star Kevin Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedgewick (expecting their first child at the time). We'd had no chance (or studio backing) to market the Sundance debut so we were going in blind. Sex Lies and Videotape was the big-ticket screening for the festival and marked James Spader's extraordinary film debut.

Arriving a few days early we skied, did the shmooze thing, and went to all the events we could fit in, waiting nervously for the upcoming screenings. I don't recall seeing a single executive from Columbia at Sundance officially supporting or endorsing the film so we were pretty much on our own. As the opening day drew near we heard to our relief that tickets were sold out for all our screenings (a good sign) and because it doesn't take long for the buzz to circulate in this small arena the press showed up for the opening in force.

It's an extraordinary thing to sit in the audience and watch something you've labored on so intensively and closely (even myopically) for so long. You see every flaw, the bad hair day on an actor, jokes that have lost their zip; you remember all the backstage haggling and drama behind every shot. Wasn't that a dip in the sound? That clock on the wall behind Kevin Bacon said two different times...who let that slip by.....you mouth all the words silently, nit pick and worry about everything, terrified that your underwear is showing and soon everyone will know what no-talent nincompoops you all are.

But amazingly enough the response during the screenings was really good. People laughed and smirked, got all the jokes, and paid close attention throughout and after the votes were tallied gave the film the Audience Award for Best Comedy. The last night of the festival we all took a celebratory drive out to a restaurant in the middle of a snowy landscape in the shadows of the Wasatch mountains where the last part of the journey was in a horse-drawn sleigh through moonlit trees laden with icicles. Relaxed and happy, we could finally start to enjoy our accomplishment, even though we still had no idea what was coming next. All we knew at that point was the film had made an impression on our peers, and hopefully good reviews would follow.

Next:
The reviews are out and we run for cover.

The Big Picture, Part IV

I Must Have That Doggie in the Window

When we began pre-production we knew we had something really interesting on our hands, and even though the head of Columbia, Dawn Steel, had steadfastly refused to attend dailies, we heard from all the underlings there that the daily screenings were a popular ticket amongst the management who had become privately enthusiastic about it. But no one was able to get up enough nerve to confront her about it so the camps there became clearly divided.

Production had gone smoothly enough, but there were a couple of interesting events. I'll tell you about one of them and then I'll think about how I can tell you the other one without huring anyone's feelings.....anyway the first one has already been recounted by our location manager in his book, "I Killed Charles Bronson's Cat". I think you can guess what happened one night when we were shooting in Wink Martindale's house up in the canyons near where the Bronson's live. Running cats in the dark, large trucks moving down narrow streets. Not good for the cat. I remember when I arrived on the set and everyone was scurrying around looking horrified. Okay, it's an awful thing to kill someone's cat. But Charles Bronson's cat? The man who had given new meaning to the words personal vandetta? I'm just glad I was not the one who had to tell him. Apparently he was very nice about it, all things considered. I think we bought him a new one.

Anyway, flash forward to the finish of principal photography. I was the post-production supervisor at this point and with a pared-down staff we'd squeezed back into our personal office space on Wilshire Blvd. to finish up all the details. For those of you who aren't familiar with the film business, post production is detail-hell. There were so many stacks of paper on my desk that I had no room to work most of the time. But parts of it were fun. One of my favorite jobs was securing the music rights (we had a budget of $100K which wasn't very much) and I loved yelling back at the rights owners - Mafioso-type guys who were trying to stiff me between puffs on their very large cigars. I think I was called "little lady" a record number of times in those weeks. I cut and re-cut my negotiating teeth on this job and it's one skill that has served me well over the years.

A few weeks into post-production we heard from Dawn (I don't know if she actually called our office or if this information was passed along from one of her V.P.s). To our surprise she let it be known that she might be willing to bail out of the project at this stage (and get her money back) if someone would take the film off her hands. We thought this was hilarious. Actually we were grimly amused and a bit blood-hungry. She seemed out of touch with the word on the street about the film and Michael Varhol was certain we would be able to find another buyer. So he (and Chris, I believe) took the rough cut around to various studios, including Fox, MGM, and Paramount, while also putting feelers out for various upcoming film festivals, Cannes, and Sundance, among them (this was before the Toronto Film Festival gained prominence).

Within a couple of weeks we had definite interest from everyone we'd approached. We were elated, convinced that we could shake off the yoke at Columbia and actually end up with a studio that would market and properly distribute the film. The idea of a bidding war even seemed possible at this point. The mood in the office brightened considerably and we finished up the necessary insert shots, scoring (more friends of Chris'), titles, ADR, and other details.

Then we heard from Columbia. And here, my friends, is where the details get a bit fuzzy so this may be just my recollection (or I'm hedging my bets). After Michael told Dawn he indeed would have a new buyer, she abruptly changed her mind.

No sale.

We knew then that she didn't even care about losing the money anymore. It was about not being shown up, or trumped, or taking a personal hit. And we knew, with certainty, that her decision to keep the film had nothing to do with a change of heart about its value. She was going to bury it. Bury it as deep as she could and hope it remained that way.

Next: We have one last chance to do an end-run and get the film out to the public.

The Big Picture III: We Roll

Now that we were officially outlaws at Columbia Pictures we moved forward and tried to forget that there was a potential storm brewing at the completion of the film. Filmmaking is an insular world, that's part of the reason so much is accomplished in such a short time.

For the four months or more you are making a picture, you work such long hours and are so focused on the creating this multi-dimensional world that you care for or about little else. You quickly become best friends with everyone on the cast and crew, you eat together as a family, laugh and squabble like one. If one person gets sick, you share the cold; advice and intimate conversation flows throughout the day from one person to another and bonds us together. And there are a lot of those moments. Filmmaking is compartmentalized into specialties and at any given time there are so many people with specific responsibilities weaving in and out of the process we learn to fill the down time waiting off-camera with the kind of instant intimacy that staves off boredom.

And most of all, your creative work is out there for everyone to see and comment on: immediate, ongoing, and interdependent on the contributions of others. It's a delicate house of cards and not without it's tensions and pressures. Once production had begun, our job as producers was to keep everything moving forward, to problem-solve minor and major crises, soothe egos, and bend the creative process around the practical aspects of getting the required amount of film in the can each day. It's exhausting. And exhilarating.

Having Chris Guest as the director of The Big Picture gave us an distinct advantage for this small, big picture. A brilliant comedian in his own right he was also a great judge of emerging talent - he cast unknowns, Terri Hatcher (Superman & Desperate Housewives) and Fran Drescher (The Nanny) in major roles, along with the late J.T. Walsh in a slyly understated performance as studio head, Alan Habel, who had been modeled after our previous boss on Pee-wee's Big Adventure. He was famous for keeping a fire going in his palatial office on the Warner Brother's lot even in the summertime, compensating by turning up the air-conditoning. There was a lot of that kind of inspiration in the film, Alan Habel's successor was cold-hearted, pirahana-feeding, and big-haired. Big hair, long painted fingernails, and questionable taste. Not surprisingly, she took her meeting with the hapless Nick Chapman while sitting behind....a large glass and chrome desk. Hmmmm. Comedy is a great place to work out angst.

Chris belonged to a boy's club of great comedic talent and during the production he pulled in a lot of favors. Some of the actors, like John Cleese, made appearances, and some others ended up on the cutting room floor, including a great scene with Billy Crystal, who is responding to the off-screen remarks of Martin Short (in an uncredited role as Nick Chapman's agent). It's an odd bit with sexual overtones about sending an almond torte to "the gentleman in the corner" of the restaurant where he is meeting with Nick Chapman (Kevin Bacon) for the first time. Martin had a lot of great lines, my favorite was was his declaration to the young filmmaker: "I don't know you, I don't know your work but I think you're a genius and I'm never wrong about these things!" Billy's scene (also featuring Chris Guest) was eventually dropped because it changed the mysterious nature of the exchange. As a bit of trivia, Martin's odd tight facial appearance (akin to a bad face-lift) was accomplished by using an old Hollywood trick: little sticky triangles called Frownies which pulled his skin back behind the hairline and made him look like a sausage about to explode.

During production my job was to manage several components of the film that needed special handling, including the creation of the student films shown at the beginning of the movie at the awards banquet. I also produced a behind-the-scenes documentary during production and handled an assortment of other odd jobs, including trying to convince Jimmy Stewart to give us permission to use colorized version of his film, It's A Wonderful Life, something he was adamantly opposed to. We needed it for one of the many fantasy scenes woven throughout the film.

I had met Jimmy Stewart and Bette Davis a few months earlier at a screening of a friend's movie so I was volunteered for this difficult task. And I had given blood to this friend's wife for a necessary operation, something Mr. Stewart had remarked on during our meeting. So off I went trying to capitalize on our small degree of separation, but it was no easy task. Letters went back and forth and I was getting desperate as time was running out. Even though I explained to him the colorized version would in fact be used to lampoon such offensive mutilation of old masters he was a little fuzzy on the overall message to really feel good about it. In the end he said that since I'd given blood for someone he liked he would, in gentlemanly terms, cut me some slack. The best I could get in writing was, he wouldn't approve, but he wouldn't block it either.

Chris Guest, now creator of classic mockumentaries with his very funny pals (Waiting For Guffman, and Best in Show among them), is cleverly taciturn off-screen, his humor veiled, sly, and always delivered with a poker face. You have to pay close attention and be as equally witty to gain his respect. Who knows why we hit it off, but we did and when I asked Michael if I could be considered for a part in the film, I knew that if Chris didn't want it, I wouldn't have a chance in hell. But he agreed and asked me what I was interested in. I found a scene that was self-contained for a one-day shoot, and even insisted I audition, which he found quaintly amusing. Chris brought me in with two other women and sat there with a serious look of concentration as I did my lines. My scene, in which I play a development executive who is raving on about Dick Chapman ("Isn't that Nick Chapman, asks my lunch companion?) made it through to the finished product. Billy Crystal - out. Me - in. My big hurrah in the comedy world.

We finished the production on time and on budget. We had to or once again we would have been declared in breech of contract and summarily canned, literally and figuratively. Dawn Steele couldn't have found a shelf dusty or far enough removed for her liking to hide our work away if given the chance.

Next: Post production begins and Dawn Steele offers to sell the picture to another studio if we can get a buyer.

The Big Picture, Part II

Dawn's Deal:

We were now in full pre-production mode on The Big Picture and it was easy to ignore the rumblings from Columbia because we were getting such an enthusiastic response to the script. All the major creative staff had been hired (art director, director of photography, costume designer and set designer) and we were starting to meet with the cream of young actors for the lead role of Nick Chapman. It was a good time to be making independent films - the creative community, both above and below the line, saw them as important milestones in their careers and a chance to do interesting, challenging work. But we had no idea how tough things were going to get until one day when the principals in the film, director/writer Chris Guest, producer/writer Michael Varhol, and executive Producer Bill McEuen, were summoned to a meeting with Dawn Steel, who had barely moved into her new offices at Columbia.

I wasn't at this meeting but I heard everything in detail as soon as they returned. I'll admit events might have been embroidered somewhat by the tellers of the tale, who were all writers and creative people after all, but I'm sure the key points were unembellished. To begin with the whole scene was an eerily reminiscent of the very behavior we were lampooning in the film which was in itself darkly fascinating in a deer-in-the-headlights kind of way.

At the Columbia Pictures lot Dawn Steel had taken over David Puttnam's old office and the contrast between the two executives taste was evident as soon as they entered the room. Whereas Puttnam had favored warm tones and comfortable furniture arranged on Persian rugs, Dawn had transformed the space into a minimalist study in black and white. When they were ushered in, footsteps echoing off bare walls and floor, she greeted curtly them from behind a huge glass and chrome desk and motioned for them (I swear this is what I was told) to sit down on three folding chairs lined up in front of her desk.

One of the three (I can't say I'm sure but I think it was Chris Guest) tried to make polite conversation and remarked on a photograph of Dawn's young daughter, displayed in a frame on her desk. I'm told Dawn gave a brief response before turning the photograph away from their view and saying,” Well, enough about my daughter, we're here to talk about this film," and then laid this little gem on them:

"This script stinks!" (or something to that effect)

She went on to say that she'd passed on it at Paramount because it was a total dud, not funny at all, and would be a colossal waste of the studio's money if it went forward. Then she lowered the boom: she looked at Chris and said - "This film will torpedo your career. I'm offering you an chance to step away from it and in return I will give you an opportunity to direct something here at the studio, a film of your choosing." Her intention was clear: if she could persuade Guest to pull out this would constitute a breach of contract with Columbia and allow her to renege on their end and leave us all holding the bag (and owing the bank all their money back).

I'm sure there was a moment of speechlessness as they all sat there like recalcitrant schoolboys in front of the headmaster on their folding chairs. I know that Michael was completely shocked, especially since she'd chosen to make this offer in front of the entire partnership. I mean, it takes some serious cahones to basically tell one person she'll make their career and the others will go down with the ship.

I don't know if or for how long Guest deliberated this offer but to his everlasting credit he had the equal amount of chutzpa to tell her, "thanks....but no thanks."

And that, apparently was the end of the meeting. They were summarily dismissed from her office without a backward glance. Chairs scraping, they slunk out and never to see her or the inside of the Columbia lot for the duration of this production. They were now personae non grata.

I heard this story back at the office, amongst the hustle and bustle of pre-production, and we certainly didn't tell anyone else about what had happened. Too terrified at that point, I think, that a leak of this kind would spook the momentum that was pushing our world forward.

And that's what it was.....our whole world. And we were determined not to let it come apart at the seams.

Next: Casting is completed and we start production with some very funny guys.

Revisiting The Big Picture I

Today I got a call from a journalist with Fade In Magazine. He wanted to talk to me about The Big Picture , a film I made with a lot of other really talented people over a decade ago. The conversation brought back a lot of great memories because director Chris Guest actually thought I was funny (and believe me that's no easy feat). He said I was like Gracie to his George Burns. I'll take that as a compliment because he gave me a part in the film.

The Fade In journalist is doing a piece about movies that were quashed by their studios for various reasons. I have a spotty memory when it comes to a lot of things that happened 15 years ago but everything about this movie is still very, very clear. I've told one particular Dawn Steel story to a lot of people over the years because it's quintessential Hollywood fodder.

I cautioned the reporter that some of the information was hearsay but that to the best of my knowledge it was all true. Some of the people in this story are dead now, obviously way before their time. Names of the people in this article have NOT been changed. Since it's all personal recollection, my word is good.....

The idea for The Big Picture was based on all our freshmen experiences working in Hollywood, and was first optioned by Paramount Pictures as a treatment after the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure by writer/producer Michael Varhol (we were newly married and I was a tres young bride). The script was a collaborative effort between Michael and Chris Guest, who had met a year or so earlier through Bill McEuen, whose company, Aspen Pictures, had represented Paul Reubens and Steve Martin at one time. Chris, fresh off the success of This is Spinal Tap, had his own momentum so the project looked very promising.

But when the script was finished, Paramount (Dawn Steel was a VP there) passed on it and put it into turnaround. I remember being very surprised because I thought it was fresh, incisively funny, and an original, behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood that would appeal to a wide audience. Despite our disappointment, Michael was able to start shopping it around town, a process that took quite a while. I remember these as dark times. Even though Pee-wee had been a commercial and critical success we didn't make a lot of money from it personally and by then were living on my salary as a production exec at Warner Brothers. (We were developing Empire of the Sun, but that's another story...)

A few months later, after interest from George Harrison's company, Handmade Films, David Puttnam at Columbia Pictures took a look at the script and bought the distribution rights in a negative pick-up deal that allowed us to get financing from a bank. This is all important info because no sooner had the ink dried on the agreement then Puttnam was let go and Dawn Steele was brought in as President.

From what we were told by studio insiders there was much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair when she discovered she had what she considered to be a lemon in her upcoming production portfolio. But because the financing agreements had been signed she had no way to stop us since we had already the funds in our hot little hands. This was an independent film in every way except we'd pre-sold the distribution rights to a studio (nice ride, eh?). Looking back it was just kismet that things happened the way they did because The Big Picture was a ground-breaking film and was meant to be made.

By then we'd set up production offices in the near the Columbia Records building in Hollywood and were beginning to send the script around to agents. It didn't help matters to the new Columia grande-dame that the response around town to the script was overwhelmingly positive. People were getting excited about being part of this film and we had offers from all the young turks for casting plums. In the beginning we might have been a bit smug about the fact that Dawn Steel's ego had been irritated by this apparent lack of symmetry between her judgement (remember she passed on the script at Paramount) and the amazing buzz it was already generating around town.

Those of you in the film business may know that Dawn Steel died under tragic circumstances quite a few years ago. It's unfortunate because my memories of her are not very good ones and I feel compelled to temper this out of respect for her memory but it doesn't change the events as they unfolded in 1989. Nor does it change the fact that a couple of years later she made the cover of California magazine as winner of The Worst Boss award for the state, so we weren't the only ones, apparently who never saw her nice, warm, fuzzy side.

Tomorrow:
Dawn Steel summons the principals of the film to try to intimidate them into dropping the project.

Polar Bear Swim

Okay, one more note about Sweetpea's brush with a serious type-A kid virus before I get back to The Big Picture.

For those parents out there with kids who haven't experienced this, Sweepea and I had a frightening enounter with a fever yesterday. She had been battling a nasty cold or the nameless viral thing that pediatricians refer to when they can't tell you what it is. This one was not of the 24-hour kind: it had settled in for a long stay and took up noisy residence in her lungs. Eventually her good humor disappeared and Sweetpea turned into a snotty, cranky mess, throwing more food than eating it and generally whining her way through interminable 18 hour days before lapsing into a croupy sleep. As miserable as I was (I had a visiting sister who was recuperating from surgery and my husband was away on business), this stage seems like heaven now compared to the spiked fevers she developed a few days into the illness, something new to us (we are neophyte parents after all). Fevers in kids come on fast and they can hover in the low 100s with very little affect, or they can soar up and fry their brains with frightening speed, so the "I walked the floors with you when you were sick" speech our parents gave us has taken on new meaning for me. I'm not a hoverer - a parent who stays within an inch of her kid's life seeing to every need, but when Sweetpea started boiling over at regular intervals I was glued to her and vice-versa. I'm not sure who was more sleep-deprived.

The peak of this pleasant experience came yesterday when she seemed fine enough to forgo her dose of Motrin and we had no sooner settled into a group bed (did I mentioned we were joined at the hip?) for her afternoon nap when I noticed the bed was shaking.

Earthquake! I sat up and looked around. The pottery on the table next to the bed wasn't rattling so it was puzzling. Then I realized that the shaking was coming from the mound next to me. Sweetpea was propped up on a pillow looking at me angelically but she was shivering uncontrollably and her teeth were chattering. "Are you cold?" I asked and when she nodded I pulled the comforter up closer. But the shivering didn't stop and it was then that I realized something was really wrong. I grabbed her and ran to the phone.

When you are panicked you lose your coordination and your IQ all at the same time. I could barely see to phone the doctor and I put it on speaker while I cradled my moaning, shivering daughter against me in a blanket. I stumbled over my words when the pediatrician's office answered the phone.

"What the hell is wrong?" I demanded after explaining what was going on. The doctor, who has dealt with hundreds of panicked parents like me calmly directed me to take her temperature. "But she's freezing!" I yelled into the phone. "She's about to spike a fever," he replied, still staying calm. By now Sweetpea was mottled like a prize steak, purple and red and pink everywhere on her body, including her face. Her hands, legs, arms, and feet were freezing and she was moaning through clenched teeth. "Take her temperature," he repeated sternly. Seeing the digial ear themometer coming at her, Sweetpea twisted her head around as if posessed. She hates the ear thing but it's state-of-the-art and sure beats the rectal thing so I plunged in despite her angished pleas, "No this! No this!" she bleated. I struggled with her for a few moments and finally held her in a secure headlock and took a reading.

"This can't be right," I mumbled and while I tried again the doctor asked me what the temperature was." "104" but she's freezing, I repeated stupidly. I forced her head back again and stuck the ear themometer in again. "104". Then I realized her back and her head were as hot as a baking chicken.

"Give her some Motrin ASAP," said the doctor, "and then put her in a cool bath to get her temperature down." After a few stupid questions that were mostly related to "Will she live?" I got the medicine in her right away and then rushed into the bathroom where I turned on the taps and climbed into the tub. I went in fully clothed but unfortunately for Sweetpea it was necessary that she be naked so as I cradled her in between my arms she floated in the unfriendly water shivering from head to toe, her hands a ghastly shade of red, nails blue, feet jerking. I held her there chest-deep for the required forty-five minutes against my instincts to get her warm, stroking her head with a cool, wet cloth, and crooning to her reassuringly.

This is when you realize just how much you are one with your children, how so very, very much you have come to love them and how vulnerable and trusting they are to you. I was all alone in the house with my daughter, with no-one to share the agonizing fear and the trembling with, all alone with our child's life in my hands and I tried to stay calm as I stroked her and told her that she was safe. She was with mummy and she was going to be okay. And even though she was moaning and shivering she seemed to know this on that deep level that bonds us together, parents and children. She trusted me and stayed in the water without complaint until she started to calm down and I kissed her hair and whispered, "take deep breaths, sweetheart, just relax." And eventually the shivering stopped and the mottling went away and her body transferred enough heat to the tub to warm it up several degrees (scary). She finally slipped back into my chest, her eyes drooping with exhaustion, and I knew she was going to be okay.

Later, when we had dried off and she was wrapped in her fluffy pink bear robe, she clung to me with a new ferocity, staring deep into my eyes, touching my face as if anew.

"My mama," she said, stroking my cheek. "My mama."

Baby, you've left China behind. And we're here for the long haul. You can count on that.

Sweetpea's Down

Murphy's Law: Sister Peg came for a much anticipated, rare visit from a far-away land. Sweetpea & husband immediately came down with a nasty cold so I'm holed up in the bedroom with a sneezing 30 pound monkey hanging around my neck (husband is doing the manly thing and going to work to spread it around). Peg is keeping her distance, and rightfully so. We pass in the hall covering our mouths and mumbling apologies. The days pass in a feverish haze. Two cold baths to keep Sweepea's temperature down, one at midnight last night. She wanted me in with her so I wore my teeshirt in the tepid water to keep my teeth from chattering. Much later in bed (husband resigned to couch in the living room since sister is in the guest quarters) Sweetpea finally slept after I made sure she wasn't radiating anymore.

More on the Big Picture when we all recover.

Aaaaachooooooo!