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.