Location as a Character
Especially when it's the beach...
I go for a walk at the beach in my neighborhood everyday. I have many memories there. Birthday parties, holidays, cookouts on the weekends with friends. When Lucy passed, it was the one place more than anywhere else in the world that I wanted to be to process the pain of it all. We filmed part of Left At Wall there.
The beach was a significant part of the story, and it’s a subtle metaphor for the growth of the main character, John. Admittedly, when I wrote the script I anticipated using the beach more. I thought it would make things easier on production. That was inexperience talking. Hot damn, was I wrong on that one.
Sometimes in the film world people will spend such an obscene amount of time on lighting that you think you may need to hold an intervention or have them committed. The time in between takes feels like about 7 hours, but it’s probably only 5 or 6. They will do an obsessive amount of takes because in their mind they’re the next Kubrick the rest of the world just doesn’t know it yet. I’m not trying to knock the craft, I’m just saying. So, I thought by using the beach more it takes away the need to mess with lighting too much, because for the most part you’re counting on the sun. What I wasn’t thinking about: The nightmare that is recording audio on the coastline. Live and learn.
Still, I’m glad we were able to incorporate the beach the way we did in Left At Wall, and that shoot day was an absolute blast. It was so much fun working with everybody that day, and the vibe was just…cool. Everybody was genuinely having a good time (or they pretended for my sake, but I think they were).
Since I mentioned the temporarily unknown Kubricks, I’ll give a special shoutout to our DP, Jessica. Jessica’s the opposite of what I described above (in a good way). She sees the shot, sets up the camera, and captures it. At times, she’s ready for the next take before the actors are, and she’s not shy about letting you know that “we got it.” She told me that some directors don’t like working with a DP like that. I can believe it, but I definitely do. Fits me perfectly. When it came time to shoot Termination Fee (part of which was also filmed at the beach, guess it’s my thing), I didn’t even think to ask anyone else, and only would have if there was absolutely no way Jessica was available (fortunately, she was). I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with us both being punk rockers from the rust belt, but we’ve always worked well together.
Since today is Friday, I thought I’d do a post of the lighter variety and talk about something film related and cordially nudge you to check out Left At Wall if you haven’t yet.
It’s available on a bunch of platforms but I recommend watching it on Tubi because it’s free there.
I didn’t originally plan in this way, but Left At Wall is kinda the first of a trilogy. Left At Wall goes after the Wall Street machine. Many of the problems we have now can be traced back to Wall Street and the way we set up our financial system, a way that we never, ever should have done. Termination Fee, the stage play that we shot as a feature and are editing now, goes after the US healthcare system. The final piece of the trilogy is going to be a solo-play that goes after the war machine and media manipulation. All of these are comedies by the way, albeit (so I’ve been told) dark ones.
So, if ya need some weekend plans, give a good ol’ comedy about family with lefty messaging and Italian-American easter eggs a try, why not?
