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Doing a first edit of Artemis & the Astronaut

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Waiting for Dennis

Sorry, I know it's been a while since I checked in with everyone. I'm waiting for my editor Dennis Lutz to finish with a documentary he's currently working on. It'll be APRIL—which feels like forever—before he can get to Artemis & the Astronaut. I know, I know.  You're all asking, "Why are you waiting for Dennis? You live in NYC; there must be thousands of editors you could be working with."

Like many writer/directors, I feel like you write your script, you shoot it, and then you rediscover your story in the editing. When I looked for editors in the past, I'd watch the films they'd edited and check to see if they had a good rhythm and feel to their editing. Did their editing style match the story of the film? Then we'd meet and talk about my script. Did they seem to understand the story? Ask insightful questions? Have a different but valid vision of my film? Did I get a sense that, once on board, they would bring a real commitment to finding the best version of my film possible? I know there are always time and money considerations, but, within reason, would they give my film their all?  

Film shoots are a very intense version of “whisper down the lane”. With actors, cinematographer, costume designer, set designer all adding their vision of what the film should be. What you get in the end is not always what you had in mind when you wrote the script. Viewing your footage is equal parts elation, masochism, and sadism. I ping-pong from wanting to smother everyone with kisses to throwing all three hard-drives (Master, Backups 1 and 2) out the window. From this emotional volcano that has become your existence, you need someone who can find the soul of your film. When you work with Dennis, you feel like he cares more about your film than you do. I'm not the only one who feels this way about him. I had a chance to talk to two other writer-directors whose films Dennis has edited. We all agree that when Dennis works on your film, you feel he's there 200%.

In a perfect world, the sooner your editor can gently pry the footage out of your hands and edit the film, the better. Given the choice between expediency and artistry, I'll always choose artistry. BUT WAITING IS SO DAMNED HARD! SOB! I'm gonna go and meditate now.

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Dancing with the stars

In the screenplay of Artemis & the Astronaut, Artemis follows bouncing lights through the woods in her backyard into a clearing, where she finds the astronaut. I was going to create the bouncing lights in post-production, but I still needed a backyard with trees. The house we rented had the grand piano we needed, but unfortunately no trees in the backyard. Going to another location to shoot this scene was out of the question. We had to find a different solution using the backyard and bright lights but without having to rent an expensive and noisy generator.

So one idea was to light the backyard with lots of twinkling lights, Christmas lights on steroids! But how were we going to do that? Maybe Arduino could do it?

What’s Arduino? According to its Wikipedia page, it’s “an open-source computer hardware and software company, project and user community that designs and manufactures microcontroller-based kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control the physical world.” No, I have no idea what that all means, but when our son Nick was in middle school, he took a class working on Arduino projects. So I knew that it could be used to make LEDs do cool things and maybe what I wanted.

The best student in the class was Nick DeJesus. I contacted Nick’s mother Sally and asked if her Nick might be interested in working on the film. She gave me Nick’s email, and he agreed to meet with Diego, Cesar, Sebastian, and me.

Nick DeJesus, now 19, is a very handsome and polite young man. We told him what we needed. After a few more questions, Nick said he thought he could build us a control panel to do almost what we wanted. We couldn't have each light turn on separately, because we would have to have each light bulb hooked up to a separate controller. But he could light strings of lights, each in random patterns. So all we needed were 132 25-watt light bulbs and eight 45 foot long light cables, which we bought from Home Depot and Amazon. Cesar, James, Mohammad, Borna, Daniel, Stephen, and Nick D. starting rigging the back yard with cables.

We didn't have a plan "B", so with fingers crossed we tested the lights out the day before we were to shoot the scene. The effect was amazing! Gorgeous! Magical! The backyard become this “star lit” space. As Lynn danced with the Astronaut (Andrew Platner) and Henri (Ron Cohen, Lynn's real life husband), there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

It's little miracles like this that make filmmaking so wonderful. Big hugs and thanks to all my film crew. You're the best! And special thanks to Nick DeJesus for pulling it off.

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Diego on the biggest challenge shooting Artemis & the Astronaut

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Lauren talks about working with Lynn

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Lynn Cohen talks about Artemis & the Astronaut

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Juggling Cats

Filmmaking is like juggling cats. If you don't end up in the hospital, you're doing great! After my last film with four leads and 11 background actors, I wanted to make a nice quiet film inside a house. It all seemed so simple. Two characters, only one speaks, one location (a house with a grand piano and a backyard). Okay, one of the characters I wanted is a woman in her late 70s. The other is an astronaut with a gold reflective visor. Not easy to cast. Artemis is a woman in her late 70s or early 80s and the only character who speaks. My actor didn't need to be the same age as Artemis, but I wanted her to look like she was in her 70s without any special FX make-up. Most actors today look about 15 to 20 years younger than their real age. Jane Fonda looks about 45! I was so happy when Lynn Cohen (Magda in Sex and the City, Mags in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) agreed to be our Artemis. Lynn, who is a very healthy octogenarian, had the Herculean task of speaking all the lines in the film! And she had to foxtrot with an astronaut! She's really someone special. The astronaut in Artemis & the Astronaut, was Andrew Platner. Andrew, who is an amazing actor, had the unenviable job of acting in a heavy synthetic suit where not even his face could be seen. Whose silly idea was this??? Andrew is one of the most inventive actors I've had the pleasure of working with. He was so jolly and helpful , even though he was always soaking wet from being the suit for hours at a time. I wanted a gold reflective visor on the helmet. Why? Because Artemis is the goddess of the moon, and the astronauts who went to the moon all had gold visors on their helmets. I know, I know! I'm crazy! The reflective visor almost drove our poor DP Diego Jimenez and his crew crazy, too. There's no way to shoot the helmet anywhere near the front of the visor, unless you figure out ways to hide the camera and the crew. Diego was able to figure out ingenious ways to camouflage the camera, himself and his crew in half open doorways, behind furniture, in dark corners, under the piano lid... I'm still counting them! And then there was the electrical wiring that dated from the 70s or earlier. I really don't know how Diego, Cesar (our gaffer who is in charge of the lighting and has worked exclusively with Diego) and their merry band of G & E’s (led by James McGuire) did it. The G & E’s (grips who move the stands and lights andelectricals who figure out where they can plug in and move the lights) are the unsung heroes of our shoot. It was a total nightmare for Cesar. To light the living room, he and the G & E’s had to make sure that they didn't overload any one circuit, which meant they had to use extension cords to draw power from the far corners of the house. When we would move to the dining room, they had to unplug the cords and move them to the dining room. Artemis & the Astronaut script is 15 pages long. That’s about a 15 minute long film. We shot for 5 days. We fought mosquitos, the gold visor, old electrical wiring, and sleep deprivation. We were shooting nights! When else would you find an astronaut in the back of your house??! But you should see our footage. Gorgeous acting and gorgeous images. Now we just have to wait for my editor Dennis Lutz (who is in Germany) to finish up his documentary.  

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Preparing for the shoot

We’ve started to prepare for the shoot of my new film Artemis & the Astronaut. I’ll be blogging about the progress of the production. If this is the first time you’ve heard about this project, let me just say that it’s a film about marriage, memory and Alzheimer's (it isn't a film about a disease, but one about magic and love). You can learn more at the film’s website. Here’s the latest news: Our director of photography Diego and gaffer Cesar (who is in charge of lighting) have arrived from Colombia. Our DIT (digital imaging technician) Sebastian will be arriving on Saturday. They’re a great team and did fantastic work on my last film the good boy. I’m really happy that they agreed to work with me again. Today, Diego, Cesar, and my wonderful overworked producer Delicia, and I went to Adorama to pick out our equipment. In one week, we’ll be pushing big blue laundry carts loaded up with our equipment out to our rented truck.   Diego, Cesar, and Sebastian had carefully made a list of what they needed, rechecking twice and even a third time! Because it’s a low budget shoot, they had to weigh the pros and cons of the possible choices for the camera, lenses, and lights. A delicate balance between cost versus beauty! Cesar is so excited to be back in NYC. It’s only his second time in the US (the first time was for the shooting of the good boy). He's taking picture of everything. Buildings, equipment, people, carts, trucks. No one was safe from his phone! Someone asked me why our fundraising campaign is being done through the Independent Film Project and not the usual sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo or Seed&Spark. One reason is that being selected by IFP for their fiscal sponsorship is a big honor. A more important reason is that all donations made through them are tax-deductible. This allows you to be even more generous with your contribution to the film. There are other advantages. With Kickstarter, if you don’t meet your target, then you get no money at all. With IFP, we get whatever money we manage to raise, even if we fall short of our target ($35,000!). The biggest reason for going with IFP is that money raised through IFP is available immediately for us to use (but they keep close track of how we’re spending it). With Kickstarter and Indiegogo, we wouldn’t be able to get the money until two weeks after the fundraising campaign ends. Why does this matter so much? It allows us to start the campaign later and closer to when shooting starts. On one hand, four weeks is the optimum amount of time to run a crowdsourcing campaign. On the other, most actors won't sign a contact or let you use their name in association with your film more than four weeks before principal photography starts (when you start shooting your film with actors). By starting the campaign less than four weeks before shooting, you get to know and see more about making of the film. This will give you more confidence that this really is a wonderful  project being done by a great team!

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Dress rehearsal and preparations for the shoot of Artemis & the Astronaut

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Artemis & the Astronaut Dress Rehearsal

Dress rehearsal on Friday was amazing and CRAZY. The art department (the art director, her assistants and assistants to the assistants) took charge of setting up the look of the house, with guidance by the DP (director of photography). It's chaos but in a good way. The film is being shot in a beautiful old house in Yonkers. A low budget film means you can't rent and check out the house weeks before the shoot. So when we finally got a close look, we discovered that the electrical wiring hadn't been updated in decades. Scrap the big lights. This was good because small lights cost a lot less than big ones. But small lights don't have the power to fake sunlight or even moonlight. Which means we need to find 10 packages of white, gauzy curtains. The set decorator rushes to Target and finds only 6. She checks online and finds another Target in the Bronx that has all 10. The astronaut suit arrived on time Cool. But it came with the wrong visor! BAD! VERY BAD!!! The only realistic astronaut suit we could find was a costume rental place in LA. Thank God for Fedex. The costume rental place ships the right helmet (with the gold reflective visor) using one day delivery, and it arrives at 11am Saturday. What possessed me to write a script with an astronaut? Actors arrive. Andrew Platner tries on his Astronaut suit. I don't think the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland had a bigger smile than Andrew's, as Carmela helps him into the suit. A dream come true for him. He's always wanted to be an astronaut! Lynn Cohen arrives. She's never seen the house before. We talk about how the house, once quite beautiful and grand, is a little rundown. Lynn, ever the professional, starts spinning a story for herself. We go through the fact thatArtemis and Henri had traveled the world first class, never gave much thought to saving for a rainy day. Revered and celebrated throughout the world, Henri always kidded he would die after he hit the last note of his performance. We go into the house. Everyone on the crew remembers Magda, Miranda's housekeeper in Sex and the City. They all flutter around her, and Lynn entertains them with jokes and tales of working with Spielberg ("He'd grab the camera and start shooting the scene himself. He was like a kid.")

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Our Amazing Extra...ordinary Background Actors

I needed 10 guys with unique, memorable faces who looked like they spent their nights getting hammered at Leroy's bar. Robert Kabakoff, who was cast as Leroy, and our fight coordinator TJ Glenn, and our co-producer Kasia Kruk put out the word that I was looking for a bunch of barflies.  Soon my email was full of headshots of actors with amazing faces.

The thing that is so hard, when you're in middle of a filmmaking hurricane, is being able to devote enough time with everyone who's helping you make your film. Priority is usually given to your lead actors, cinematographer, assistant director, and script supervisor. I tried to spend at least a little time touching bases with everyone helping out, but there's never enough time when you're running for your life.

I might have spared half a nanosecond before each shot to give context and motivation to my background actors. Whether I was asking them to be drunken bar slugs or howl like a rabid boxing mob, they gave me their all. After a particularly tough take, I could see that our background actors didn't need to be spritzed to get that sweaty, hysterical appearance.

Later, as our assistant editor Sara Schultz and I were syncing and watching the shots, I would hear a bit of dialogue I hadn't written or see an action I hadn't thought of, but they were exactly what I needed at that moment—all created by our superb and ingenious background actors. They would laugh convincingly over and over and over again on a line I wrote that was rapidly sounding very stupid to my ears.

I am so, so grateful for all the care and attention to detail our extra...ordinary background actors devoted to Quinny. I'm sending a big, big thank you to Andrew Platner, T. J. Glenn, Thomas Bogan, William Brewer, Jeffrey Johnson, Sam Marburger, Tom Martone, Henry William Oelkers, David Paterson, Tom Wendling, and Norm Zamcheck. You guys really rock!

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The Cinematographer From Colombia

Having Diego Jimenez as my DP (director of photography) was like everything else about making Quinny— a total miracle. Not only is Diego an award-winning cinematographer (the 2011 World Cinema Cinematography Award at Sundance for Todos tus muertos or All Your Dead Ones) who travels the world shooting films, BUT...Diego lives in Bogota, Colombia. How I got him to come to New York and shoot Quinny is one of those stories you couldn't make up. No one would believe you. He is the husband of a friend and former student of our co-producer Kasia Kruk, Kasia is a friend of Carl Paolino, who is a friend of our fight coordinator TJ Glenn, who is friend of my friend Rita Houston. Got that?   

Until 10 days before we shot our film, I'd only talked to Diego four times through Skype. I liked him immediately and found his approach to shooting a film to be very close to mine. I don’t shoot a lot of coverage. Coverage means for example that when you shoot two people arguing, you start with a wide shot (where you see them standing or sitting), then a medium 2 shot (waist up), then an CU (close up) of one character, then a CU of the other character. You might even get EXCU (extreme close up) shots of an eye, a hand, a mouth. I'm more likely to skip getting all of these different kinds of shots. Instead, I might start wide and then do a slow move into a tight two-shot where the actors are pushing each other in and out of frame. It's a lot more dangerous since you can't cut within the shot, but it gives you the chance to get something with a lot of tension that relies completely on the your artistry of your actors. You can’t shoot like this all the time, but sometimes one long duration shot is more powerful than editing a lot of shorter shots together.

When I was looking for a DP to shoot my film, there were three things I was searching for. I wanted someone with a great eye for lighting and framing, who could move the camera fluidly and precisely but also in fast jagged movements when appropriate. Most importantly, I needed a DP who would listen to me and remain calm when things got crazy as they always do when you're on hour 11 of a 12 hour day and you're behind in the shots you need to get for that day.

As we were going through the script and talking about how we saw each of the different parts of the film, it became clear that we were visualizing the film in very similar ways. Not a lot of coverage but shots that gave the film a distinctive cinematographic style. But even if you find a DP who sees the film close to how you see it, there are always going to be moments when you want to capture the dialogue or action differently from your DP. That's when you have to be able to talk to each other calmly and, without pressuring each other, figure out which shot will best serve the story.

An example of this happened right after Ray tells Cal that if he doesn't win the fight, Cal can't leave with him because Ray only leaves with winners. The second round buzzer sounds, and Ray grabs hold of Cal and drags him back to the "boxing ring". Diego and I knew we wanted this to be a handheld shot to show the powder keg volatility of the moment as the bar patrons—smelling Quinny's victory—surround and scream at Cal. I was thinking of getting this shot with the camera in front of Ray and a reluctant Cal being led into battle. Diego wanted to do it from behind Cal with Ray frantically pushing the bar crowd away from Cal. In my shot you get to see Cal's face and what he's thinking. In Diego's shot you get to see the circus all around them as Ray tries to protect Cal. It would have been great to get both shots, but when you only have time to get one shot, you have to be able to work it out calmly and make a decision. The director has final say, but if you trust your DP, you will take his opinion very seriously. In the end, I decided to go with Diego's shot, because not seeing Cal's face but seeing his body language makes the audience wait just a little bit longer, with the tension building, before we can see Cal's anguished face and see that this is going to be really bad.

It was wonderful to work with Diego. His lighting (with the help of Cesar and Sebastian, more on them soon) is stunning. His handheld and Steadicam shots are amazing. We had four very long hard days, but we always ended them laughing and exhilarated.

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A young boxer, Cal, takes a bet to fight a big bruiser named Quinny, only to discover that Quinny has the mental capacity of a five year old.

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I threw Chris into the deep end and yelled, “SWIM!”

The worst nightmare a director can have is having to fire an actor after you've already started principal photography. What happened the day before we found Christopher LaPanta was the second worst nightmare—having to fire an actor the day before the shoot starts. Thank God I'd taped every audition I'd ever held for Quinny. Two actors who had auditioned for the character Ray stood out. Both were named Christopher, and coincidentally they not only knew each other but were good friends. I'd seen Chris LaPanta through a casting director months before, but didn't have his contact info. As luck would have it, Chris had also submitted his photo and resumé to us through the online casting site Breakdown Express. It was after midnight and with crossed fingers and toes, I sent both Christophers an email with the script, synopsis, and a statement that I'd written about the film.

  Chris LaPanta told me later that he'd gotten up for a midnight snack and found my email. After reading everything, he knew he wanted a shot at the part. The next morning, when we talked, I told him everything-- the good, the bad, and the ugly of why I was recasting. I told him that my producers, cinematographer, gaffer, other actors, and I were going to be rehearsing on location the next day. If he was serious, he should come and audition. If he was right for the role, I told Chris I'd give him the part on the spot. The first thing Chris said when he got to the bar was, "I know this character Ray. I've gone into bars, known I should turn around and walk out, but didn't. Got into more trouble being stupid than I'd like to admit." I don't know how many conversations I'd had with the other actor about why Ray would go into the bar and challenge Leroy. We went through the scene with Chris three times. Each time, he came up with something better, more nuanced than anything the other actor had done. I knew we had our Ray, but since making a film is a collaborative effort, I wanted first to hear what the other three leads Deema, Rob, and Alex thought. They all agreed that Chris was more than perfect as Ray. We all thanked our lucky stars and never looked back. What I learned about casting is this; it doesn't matter if you believe an actor is right for the role, the actor himself also has to believe he's right for the role. 

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It Takes a Really Smart Actor

Finding Alex Breaux required several miracles in a row. I needed an actor over 6 feet tall who looked strong enough to do serious damage in a fight. But most importantly I needed a very smart actor who could portray a man with the mental capacity of a five year old.

I always knew the role of Quinny was going to be the hardest to cast for my film. What's even harder, I bet, is auditioning for this role. Mostly, the actors were too loud. I know how loud 5 year olds can be, but they're not loud all the time. The longer it was taking to find Quinny, the more anxious I was becoming.

My cinematographer Diego Jimenez and I had been trying to figure out a time for him to come from Bogota, Colombia to shoot Quinny. He was of course booked solid for months at a time. We finally narrowed it down to right after the New Year after his whirlwind four country shoot about soccer for National Geography and just before a feature he would shoot in Peru in February.

Scheduling the shoot for the beginning of January meant that I could look at student actors attending Juilliard, NYU and Columbia because it was between fall and spring semesters. I'd missed many of the third and fourth year productions for the semester by the time I realized this, but there was one play, Buried Child by Sam Shepard, at Juilliard that I could still try to see. Of course all the performances were sold out. My only chance was to go standby, and I made sure I was number one on the waiting list. Watching Alex, 6' 3", as Tilden, the almost silent damaged son of Dodge and Halie, I suddenly found that I could breathe again. Alex was so good I couldn't take my eyes off of him during the whole play—even when he didn't have any lines. When I found that Alex had gone to Harvard where he played wide receiver, I realized my miracles had indeed all lined up.

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He Knows What to Do With His Hands

When Deema walked in, my immediate reaction was, wow, he looks like a boxer. His hair was cut really short, and his nose looked like it might have been broken at least once. As with all the actors auditioning, I asked him if he had any questions about the script. My co-producer Kasia says she knew right away that Deema was special by the questions he asked and his responses to my answers. Me, I didn't realize Deema was perfect until he did his lines and blew us all away. I think I jumped up and down clapping in glee when he left the room. The thing I've noticed about really good actors is that they don't move around unnecessarily and they know what to do with their hands. Kasia, Jennah (our wonderful PA who taped most of our auditions), and I auditioned several really talented actors before and after Deema, but they all seemed wrong for the role of Cal.  Later, when my cinematographer Diego, my producers, and I were watching Deema's audition tape, I thought the playback was stuck because Deema was so still, so intense in his delivery. I've heard other directors say that when you see the right actor, you know it right away. I'd always thought it was because they were more experienced in choosing their cast, but now I know what they mean. It's visceral, an immediate gut reaction. I just knew Deema was my Cal.  

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Web site for the film