Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Tomorrow I start shooting. I have been telling myself that it's just another day at work. Yeah just another day at work with a hundred people waiting for me to tell them what to do and time ticking by at thousands of dollars a second and no overtime allowed and a dozen nervous executives in Los Angeles and New York waiting for the dailies that will be streaming on their computers by ten Tuesday morning. This is anxiety making for every director, at some point. But it may be extra heightened moment for me. I think I have already told you about my first movie when I was shooting in New York City, a script I had nourished and cherished and dreamed of making for five years, and I had Cuba Gooding Jr. (fantastic person by the way) in the lead role and the best director of photography imaginable and I totally absolutely screwed up in every way possible. I just had no idea what I was doing and the folks at HBO, for whom I was making the film, were totally and ominously silent the whole first week (to me, anyway; they were on the phone to the producers every second screaming WHAT THE FUCK HE IS DOING!?) and on Friday at end of shooting it was announced to me by the main producer, a dear friend, that they had "serious concerns" and there would be a Meeting the next morning at 10. That Meeting--being called seriously onto the carpet on the top floor of HBO's Manhattan headquarters--was one of the scariest loneliest coldest moments of my life. I was saved from being fired by a hair's breadth, mostly intense campaigning by my friend, and though the movie went on to be successful and received some very good reviews (along with some very bad ones) I went on to get such bad references from HBO that I didn't direct another movie for five years. On my second movie nothing like that happened, I went away with everybody loving me, but I accomplished that partly by playing it very safe on the set--got everything accomplished but didn't go out on any cinematic limbs. This time I want it to be both smooth and good.
Oh but I'm prattling on. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Tomorrow I get to move a camera around wonderful actors saying lines that I wrote and I have a wonderful cameraman to help me to do it. So all I really should say before I go to bed and hope to get some sleep is:
Thank You and Amen.
Oh but I'm prattling on. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Tomorrow I get to move a camera around wonderful actors saying lines that I wrote and I have a wonderful cameraman to help me to do it. So all I really should say before I go to bed and hope to get some sleep is:
Thank You and Amen.
posted by Tom at 9:21 PM
3 Comments:
(((APPLAUSE)))
You'll do just fine. In my heart of hearts I know this. Just continue to take your vitamins, say your prayers, and be thankful every day for all that has been bestowed upon you. You have an amazing gift. Don't let it watered down by wishy-washy self talk.
God bless and have a great day!
have a great first day of shooting!
well, have a great shoot - regardless of how many days.
Tom,
You've been on my mind this week (even before you sent me a comment). I go to your site, and I see why! You're shooting! Contgrats, and God bless. Big projects bring big stress. God comforts and lightens burdens, is the "God of the weary." I hope you get through this like its a dance. I'll be praying for you.
And I couln't find Moore's pyramid bed at his house in Essex. I did, however, find a cute chuckle (his Lawrence Hall):
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/williams/whole.jpg
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/williams/capitals.jpg
Actually been thinking about that "joke" this week, because the issue of the objecfication of things has come up with a friend at church. I see ancient Ionic columns as analogies of the world's unfolding itself, like breath, out of the Great Unknown - Revelation. We act and speak out of the Unknown. Right action is given by God, who is at the center of this Unknown, and rolls out towad the world with confidence.
After the modern objectification of things, we think our words have to match up with the Absolute-Right-Word-Object. Words are moving air, but this attitude makes us think our words have to be like little gold coins landing in some gold-thin-air-chalice or something. We no longer have the freedom to imagine a world and speak it forth (LIKE MAKING A MOVIE). And our actions aren't the formation of our character out of an unknown, but the mathing up of us-the-object with the-perfect-right-action-object. Argh. Not funny to me when church is boring and misguided because of this misconception, but Moore gives a good laugh, funny concrete objectified cylinders instead of beautiful stone scrolling-outs. Funny too, when we speak to match some right-object instead of to "creat our world", there is nothing "actually happening". Makes sense for the columns not to ACTUALLY be supporting anything.
Anyway. About Eisenman, yeah, a good friend of mine at Va. Tech had him as a professor at Cooper Union. I'd heard about him. But my friend got an A from him, though. It was through my friend, and indirectly through Eisenmann, that I learned about sacred geometry (I doubt for Eisenman it had much to do with anything sacred).
And what's this about "had him for several crits", and "one of my fellow students had made a model for some building..." I remember you saying you had architecture friends; I think you even said you wanted at one point to be an architect. I didn't know you were IN architecture school at any point...?
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