joe ballman and the folding of socks

as per my promise at the end of the last post, i am expanding upon the brief mention of a sock folding seminar.

context: for those of you who haven't read the script or visited the website (www.grammarschoolpictures.com), joe's character, colin, lives with his tragi-comic, agoraphobic father (played by jim). throughout the film, colin tries to ask advice from his dad, who, due to his mental state is unable to provide colin with the kind of sound, parently advice he craves. about 3/4 of the way through the film, colin tries one last time to pull some guidance from his old man, who, at the time, is unable to draw his attention away from the three newly-washed, unfolded socks that his housekeeper left on the kitchen table. after a few brief exchanges, colin gets frustrated at his father's inability to sympathize and grabs two of the socks, quickly folds them together, tosses them on the pile of laundry and storms out of the room.

so we start shooting the scene... it's a really simple set-up: only two shots (a pan from a cu of the socks to a medium shot of colin and his dad, and a reverse that highlights joe's folding of the socks). as we start shooting the medium shot (effectively the master), joe opts out of actually folding the socks (they are off screen at this point) so that he can get a solid rhythm to his action. i didn't think much of it, but he had also refused to fold the socks during the rehearsals earlier in the week. so, that's fine, he gets the rhythm and we switch to the reverse. and, it's during the dry run that we all realize that joe doesn't actually know how to fold socks (at least, in the classic, middle-class, american way wherein two socks are broght together, side-by-side, and peeled inside out (almost like a banana), so that the elastic from the (partially inside-out) dominant sock almost fully engulfs both it's own exterior as well as the length of the subordinant sock). as best i can tell, joe folds his socks by laying one on top of the other, then there's some kind of rolling of the socks together from top to toe, after that, i don't know really what happens. i think maybe he rubberbands the rolled socks together or uses scotch tape, maybe. anyway, it's totally convoluted and takes about twenty seconds and, frankly, it looks terrible on camera. and also it's a process totally incapable of expressing frustration (which is the whole point of the action). so we stopped shooting and spend about 15 minutes trying to teach joe how to fold socks the right way (and quickly). at first he had some trouble picking it up, so we tried different methods of teaching him... we had him mimic us slowly, we physically manipulated his hands for him, and we even tried the spooning method often employed in golf or tennis lessons. but all this was to no avail. our dp, gerry, then suggested a different technique (of welsh origin, i believe) that was very quick and ultimately resulted in the same sort of fold. joe would have to stick a hand fully into the sock, then grab the second sock (with his socked hand), then use his un-socked hand to pull the elastic of the sock that was on his other hand over the sock the he was holding in the socked hand. and it was a move easily capped off by an aggressive toss of the folded socks onto the table. the only problem with that method was that joe was having a great deal of difficult getting his hand into the sock. gerry suggested starting the shot with his hand already in the sock, but that option really limited our editing choices for the scene. finally, joe got frustrated and insisted that we just start shooting and he would figure it out. sure enough, he got a quick, frustrated, aggressive sock fold and toss on about the third take. we tried to get two more takes of the action, but he just couldn't repeat. the boy had one good sock fold in him, probably forever, and we were lucky enough to catch it on video. and that's what real acting is - pushing yourself to levels of accomplishment that you never even knew existed. our hats off to you, mr. ballman. for that day, you were an Actor.

fear of potatoes

nothing too terrible happened this weekend. and in honor of that, i'll keep things short and sweet here with a list (in no particular order) of things that were great about this weekend's shoot. (though, i reserve the right to expand on things in a future post.)

- the father/son chemistry between jim becker and joe ballman
- the endurance of the crew
- air conditioning
- the patience and generousity of my family
- the patience and generousity of one michael george johnson, actor extraordinaire
- dr. moe's gumbo
- finishing everything we had scheduled
- jim's wardrobe accidentally matching joe's wardrobe - perfect!
- the dolly shots!
- the dolly-zoom shot!
- the make-shift green room in my mom's garage
- muffins instead of bagels
- sour patch kids
- potatoes and potato related products (because, if you think about it, they're everywhere)
- natural light!
- lucy hiding in the back seat with a 3-iron
- our brief seminar on different sock-folding techniques*

* i'll expand on this later in the week.

something

yesterday at approximately 1:20 pm, pacific daylight savings time, joe ballman noted: "i feel like we sort of accomplished something this weekend." indeed, joe, we did.

(i'll try and keep the record short this week.)

saturday, we were back up in washougal at 8:30am. again, invading the home of dennis and misty plock. we were (supposed to be) wrapping up keira and colin's scenes at keira's house. which also featured zach (keira's son) and keith (keira's loser anarchist brother)... funny story about keith... we didn't hold any auditions for this role because we already knew someone who would be great in it. we contacted this person, and were happy to find out he was interested and would make himself available. then we had more than a month of radio silence. none of our phone calls or emails were returned. we thought that was a little odd (he's not the kind of guy to just flake out like that), but we really couldn't afford not to explore other options. in our brainstorming, we came up with a second name - another old friend who would bring a totally different energy to the part, but who would be perfect in his own way. we contacted him and, luckily, he was interested. his schedule was tight, but he would try to make it work. as the date approached, it seemed less and less likely that he could make the time to shoot for a full day with us. so we started brainstorming for third options. and alicia suggested her brother-in-law dennis (whose house we shooting at anyway). i liked the idea - he actually looked like he could be lisa's (keira's) brother; he was the correct age; and, from all reports, he was not entirely unlike keith back in the day. but he had no acting or performing experience. we talked to him about it and he agreed to help us out, if it came down to it. the next day, joe ran into the first person we had lined up for the role. his phone number and email had both changed (and he had changed jobs) and somehow our contact info had been lost in the mix. he was still very interested, but we were only two weeks away from shooting. at that point, we got a pretty firm commitment from him. the following day, i got an email from the second guy saying that he really really wanted to do it and would, happily, play the part... if we could schedule the scenes on sunday instead of saturday. since we had the first guy in place, i told the second guy that we were pretty well locked in and that we appreciated his enthusiasm. five days later, the first guy had to drop out. his new job was sending him out of town for the weekend. normally, we may have considered rescheduling the scenes, but this was the last weekend we were going to get with dylan before he left for a three-week vacation and that was just too much time to break between locations. so we called dennis... and after an hour of rehearsal on wednesday, he had it down. additionally, he had wardrobe that would work for the character and was more than happy to cut his hair into a pretty sweet mohawk for us. and he did extremely well - even with the difficult physical comedy that was written into his scenes.

the rest of saturday went pretty well... there were some difficult times as we were shooting a couple of intense, intimate scenes between joe and lisa (who really don't know each other very well). and we slipped just a little behind schedule (but only a brief couple of scenes didn't get finished). andre, the founder of pizza schmizza, actually delivered our lunch to us that day - it was good to finally meet him after all the back and forth between him and alicia. and the big weird moment of the day - gerry was feeling a little fatigued after lunch and excused himself to get some fresh air. a few minutes later, when i checked on him, he said he had it all figured out. before we ate, he went to his car to take some pain pills for his back. however, he accidentally popped a couple of sleeping pills instead (half a pill usually knocks him out at night). luckily, dennis had a rockstar in the refridgerator. so gerry chugged that and was a-okay (especially for the first hour or so). we wrapped the day just after 11pm.

sunday was hot. we started 9am at sewallcrest park shooting a basketball scene between colin and aaron as well as the scene where colin get caught stalking keira. we got off to a slightly rocky start as i had given nearly everyone the wrong cross-street for the park. but eventually people wandered the four blocks down and we got going only a few minutes behind schedule.

the basketball scene was really tough to shoot. as a lot of the continuity depends on the bounce of the ball, it's almost impossible to match action from the (wide) master shot to the (medium) sub-masters. we got plenty of cut-aways, though. and a few bridging shots and worked out the dialogue so it wasn't falling in the middle of any major movement and it should cut together pretty well. but it was incredibly stressful for everyone. (and it was bright too - the sun was incredibly harsh that day.)

so after lunch we moved on to the stalking scene and, inspite of the heat and a few tricky angles, and working in a public space, it all turned out just fine. and we took a nice three hour break.

that evening, gerry had to excuse himself for a family commitment, so i was handling the camera as we shot colin and keira's first date at the wine/coffee bar at southpark. the staff there was extremely accomodating and the crew really worked to keep things efficient. and so, we managed to a 2.5 page scene in 3 hours and wrap a pretty grueling weekend at 11:30pm.

and so yesterday, at approximately 1:21 pm, joe, having just noted that we did accomplish "something" this weekend, insisted that we not shoot for more than 24 hours in a single weekend again. i think that's not an entirely unreasonable request...

answer: 19 hours

question: how long was the shooting day on saturday?

so even with the best intentions and the most meticulous planning, things fall apart. on thursday evening, i found out that our dp, gerry, would not be joining us on saturday as he was stuck in eastern/southern oregon on a paying shoot that was running long. that left me the option to either (a) cancel saturday's shoot or (b) shoot that day's scenes myself. it was odd getting that information, because just the day prior, i had found out that my friend jered was having to cancel on us for the weekend. and when i told alicia about jered, she thought i said gerry and we both had a laugh about how terrible that would be... however, neither of us laughed thursday evening, when gerry actually did cancel. there were already too many balls in the air to cancel saturday's shoot, so i chose to stick to the schedule and handle the camera myself. and it actually turned out pretty well.

we started out at the basement, where a narrow hallway forced us to use an extremely wide lens and simple, stark lighting. the inimitable bob ham (bobham!) was kind enough to join us that day and spent the better part of two hours hiding in the bathroom and waiting for his cue to flush the toilet and exit. mike and joe were in top form and we were off to a solid start.

then we drove up to washougal, where we were shooting the first half of keira's scenes at home (using dennis and misty plock's duplex). shooting slowed just a little at that point largely because we started on the exteriors and therefore had to wait on things like trains, airplanes, and pimped-out ghetto-blasting mini-vans. but we pushed through and slowly but surely got what we wanted. dana and dylan showed up around 2 o'clock for dylan's scenes as zach. being that we were running a little slow, there was a lot of down time for dylan. the kid's a trooper, though, and it helped that his dad brought along his bike and scooter. he mostly seemed to entertain himself by gawking at an earless cat that was wondering around the neighborhood. (it was pretty creepy.)

i've always felt the mid-evening was the perfect time for nepotism. and sure enough, at 8:30, my mom and sister showed up in washougal to prepare for shooting mom's cameo that evening. her scene was to shoot in vancouver, but since we were running late, they drove the extra 20 minutes or so to hang out and observe while we finished up. two hours later, we were finally at a solid stopping point and we packed up as quickly as possible, and re-opened the house to misty and her kids.

then came the really fun part. at the 16th hour, i realized i was out of dv tape. i had only brought two fresh tapes figuring we wouldn't shoot more than 2.5 hours of footage. i was wrong. so after a minor detour in which i led a three-car caravan astray for 1 mile or so, i dispatched my sister to track down a store that sells dv tape (keep in mind it's after 11pm at this point), in a town she doesn't know very well, while we set-up the scene. luckily it all worked out and by the time we were ready to shoot, she had returned with two consumer-grade tapes (on which the footage looks just fine). the pov of first shot was from the street, and a little scary since all of the equipment and crew were in the middle of the road. luckily there was only one close call wherein some jackass either didn't see us or didn't feel like slowing down until he was right up on us (in spite of our yelling a waiving flashlights). he got close enough to running us down that, apparently, lucy briefly considered having to jump up on the hood of the car so as not to get run over. then he called us dykes and faggots and honked his horn all the way home. some people, eh? so we got back to work as quickly as possible, finishing my mom's scene first, then wrapping up with dylan (who was passed out in his dad's car for most of the set-up time) around midnight. finally, reduced to a four-person crew and two actors, we shot the last scene of the day and wrapped around 2am.

(wow. this post is almost as long as that shooting day. i had a coffee this morning - which i usually don't do - and also i haven't been writing lately. those are my excuses. sorry, if you're still reading this.)

so, sunday... i got to dot's at 6:15 (only a few minutes late) on about 2 hours of sleep. alicia was right behind me (what a trooper!) after stopping to pick up some batteries and creamer for the coffee she was going to make on set. everyone slowly filtered in and gerry (not having suffered through our 19 hour day) started working on sorting through the minor mess we made out of his equipment. mike arrived at about 7:30 and we start running lines. joe was not there yet. at 8am, i tried calling joe and lucy. no answer. at 8:30, i started to get more than a little concerned as there was nothing left to do but wait. so alicia (again, doing the dirty work (isn't she great!)). set out to go wake them up - and this involved knocking on someone's door so that she could ask permission to get into their back yard at 9am and throw coins through joe and lucy's window while shouting their names. apparently the coin thing worked and they showed up on set only a few hours late. but again, it worked out probably for the best. joe had it seemed just enough rest to get through the scene and we wrapped for the day at about 11am, canceling the scene we had scheduled for the afternoon.

i'm hoping that was the worst of it.

the fun part

so last night a few of us headed out to northeast portland to hang out with dylan rosemus, the seven-year-old who's playing keira's son in the movie. it went extremely well - the kid is just about perfect. he's got a great attitude, gets over his shyness really quickly and even looks like he could be related to lisa (keira). and he's hillarious. given our good luck with dylan, we'd been brainstorming ways of making his character a little more visible. the current idea is that he should be obsessed with pirates. so we went out and bought him an eye patch and plastic sword to carry around for the bulk of the film. i gave them to him yesterday and he immediately went into character - running around the park growling at people and trying to chop off his dad's leg with the sword. good times.

afterward, we got some food and beer and rehearsed this weekends scenes with joe (colin) and lisa. so far, the rehearsals have been the fun part. there are no technical glitches to work around, no locations waiting for you to leave so they can open, and no crew or extras to keep busy and involved. just the actors and the script. and the cast has really taken an active interest in the development of each beat. just last night we worked two or three new character driven jokes into a scene without having to actually rewrite anything. it seems at this point that we've been extremely lucky with our cast.

in the beginning...

to whom it may concern:

hello. you've landed (mistakenly?) at the production blog for drift, a high-definition feature currently being shot in and around portland, oregon. drift marks the feature directing-debut of myself (matt knapp). the script was co-written by myself and joe ballman, who is also the lead-actor. i won't trouble you right now with a full list of credits or a story synopsis or our resumes and credentials. if you're interested in all that, you can visit our website (www.grammarschoolpictures.com) for the full run-down. but, i'd prefer that this blog concern itself more with the day-to-day operations and the creative life of the project. so, here we are. and as much as i hate to get off on the wrong foot... i'm going to stop writing now and get back to work. but i promise, there will be more to come...