i was robert altman's second-unit director
I was Robert Altman's second-unit director, but it wasn't like I was running around getting b-roll while he got the main bits. I got the action sequences, sort of, but I worked with him, or while he watched. I was somewhere between understudy and backup. Obviously the man was still alive.
These weren't huge multimillion dollar projects, either. They were being shot on his upper-middle class property, a very Portlandy old house with a big yard and a basement he'd converted into a sound stage, complete with dangling pulley system. All I was in charge of shooting was like, three shots on the sound stage. I cast Kelly as the astronaut, though at one point I distinctly remember we ended up using Olivia as the astronaut for a different shot.
Altman was a real time nazi on me, and I started to feel like I was being tested. I was determined not to let him down, even though he kept reminding me I had seven minutes to get all my shots done. We had Kelly (or Olivia) in an astronaut outfit, complete with reflective helmet, dangling from the pulley system, and I was setting up close-ups and a couple wides. The background was conveniently all black. I came up with the idea of getting a beautiful woman to stand half-naked off camera such that her well-lit figure would be reflected in the astronaut's faceplate for the close-up. I knew it wasn't in the script but I was convinced it was a good addition, because it tempted the astronaut with a sort of siren-like image before the character's metaphoric crash into rocks. I asked Robert how long I had, and he told me only a few minutes. I grabbed Sam and told him he had to work fast to get this. My original idea was that Kelly would be the girl in the reflection, because I guess she was the most willing. But I knew I'd already "cast" her, and fortunately Cassie agreed to do it for me, since there wasn't sound on this take. (Cassie, Sam, Kelly: clearly I was working with my Every Room crew.)
I also remember realizing that there was one shot on the schedule Robert Altman had neglected to give me, but that it would make more sense for me to do now. It involved a reverse angle, of the three children looking up at the apparition of the astronaut hovering in space, and crying out/rejecting the vision. Robert agreed and was seemingly so impressed with me that while the crew set up Kelly's wide shot (she hated being in the space suit and took it off every chance she got, which slowed everything down), he took me on a tour of his house. I was topless, I realized, and Robert Altman offered me a t-shirt from the rack of shirts he and his wife sold as a side business, along with some kind of winery. The shirt was dark purple with green and pink hearts in a pattern that was kind of cool, something like an overly ornate playing card and the phrase "DUTCH LOVE" in the middle, but I knew it was nothing I would wear. I wondered if there was a way to tactfully ask Robert Altman if I could have one for my friend Dutch. I turned down the shirt, though, and Robert took me into his house, telling me to be mindful of his cats.
He was a gruff man who didn't offer praise very easily (in my dream; the real Altman was reportedly full of unending praise, for actors at least), but I remember he gave me a little advice about directing -- which I only vaguely recall now. Something about relaxing more, saying less, letting the actors find their way and rewarding them for getting there or something. The advice in retrospect sounds like a mixture of what I've heard his style was like with what I've heard Gus Van Sant's style is like. Anyway, then he gave me a drink in a red plastic cup, something thick like syrup and full of what seemed to be a cross between roe and pop rocks. It fizzled when I sipped it. He said it was for when people's energy started to wane, and that the crew would get them later, but that I probably needed mine now. In some weird way, I knew the pop rocks cocktail was a huge gesture, and I took it though I didn't feel I needed it, and drank.
Then we went back to the shoot to check on the crew. Somewhere in there Olivia was practicing falling out of airplanes to get a better sense of her character (I think maybe she played the astronaut and Kelly was just the body double I was using as 2nd Unit stuff?), and we all agreed that her tuck-and-roll landing was more adorable than adventurous, but that it worked for that very reason.
So yeah. Last night in my dreams (my first remembered dream in a bit... I guess my brain really did switch back on), I was Robert Altman's second-unit director.
In the least Altman-sounding film ever, by the way. Astronauts falling apart psychologically, imagined sirens luring you to doom, scared children as your main characters? Sounds more Kubrick.
These weren't huge multimillion dollar projects, either. They were being shot on his upper-middle class property, a very Portlandy old house with a big yard and a basement he'd converted into a sound stage, complete with dangling pulley system. All I was in charge of shooting was like, three shots on the sound stage. I cast Kelly as the astronaut, though at one point I distinctly remember we ended up using Olivia as the astronaut for a different shot.
Altman was a real time nazi on me, and I started to feel like I was being tested. I was determined not to let him down, even though he kept reminding me I had seven minutes to get all my shots done. We had Kelly (or Olivia) in an astronaut outfit, complete with reflective helmet, dangling from the pulley system, and I was setting up close-ups and a couple wides. The background was conveniently all black. I came up with the idea of getting a beautiful woman to stand half-naked off camera such that her well-lit figure would be reflected in the astronaut's faceplate for the close-up. I knew it wasn't in the script but I was convinced it was a good addition, because it tempted the astronaut with a sort of siren-like image before the character's metaphoric crash into rocks. I asked Robert how long I had, and he told me only a few minutes. I grabbed Sam and told him he had to work fast to get this. My original idea was that Kelly would be the girl in the reflection, because I guess she was the most willing. But I knew I'd already "cast" her, and fortunately Cassie agreed to do it for me, since there wasn't sound on this take. (Cassie, Sam, Kelly: clearly I was working with my Every Room crew.)
I also remember realizing that there was one shot on the schedule Robert Altman had neglected to give me, but that it would make more sense for me to do now. It involved a reverse angle, of the three children looking up at the apparition of the astronaut hovering in space, and crying out/rejecting the vision. Robert agreed and was seemingly so impressed with me that while the crew set up Kelly's wide shot (she hated being in the space suit and took it off every chance she got, which slowed everything down), he took me on a tour of his house. I was topless, I realized, and Robert Altman offered me a t-shirt from the rack of shirts he and his wife sold as a side business, along with some kind of winery. The shirt was dark purple with green and pink hearts in a pattern that was kind of cool, something like an overly ornate playing card and the phrase "DUTCH LOVE" in the middle, but I knew it was nothing I would wear. I wondered if there was a way to tactfully ask Robert Altman if I could have one for my friend Dutch. I turned down the shirt, though, and Robert took me into his house, telling me to be mindful of his cats.
He was a gruff man who didn't offer praise very easily (in my dream; the real Altman was reportedly full of unending praise, for actors at least), but I remember he gave me a little advice about directing -- which I only vaguely recall now. Something about relaxing more, saying less, letting the actors find their way and rewarding them for getting there or something. The advice in retrospect sounds like a mixture of what I've heard his style was like with what I've heard Gus Van Sant's style is like. Anyway, then he gave me a drink in a red plastic cup, something thick like syrup and full of what seemed to be a cross between roe and pop rocks. It fizzled when I sipped it. He said it was for when people's energy started to wane, and that the crew would get them later, but that I probably needed mine now. In some weird way, I knew the pop rocks cocktail was a huge gesture, and I took it though I didn't feel I needed it, and drank.
Then we went back to the shoot to check on the crew. Somewhere in there Olivia was practicing falling out of airplanes to get a better sense of her character (I think maybe she played the astronaut and Kelly was just the body double I was using as 2nd Unit stuff?), and we all agreed that her tuck-and-roll landing was more adorable than adventurous, but that it worked for that very reason.
So yeah. Last night in my dreams (my first remembered dream in a bit... I guess my brain really did switch back on), I was Robert Altman's second-unit director.
In the least Altman-sounding film ever, by the way. Astronauts falling apart psychologically, imagined sirens luring you to doom, scared children as your main characters? Sounds more Kubrick.