IHTSBIH

Chalk up hygiene and air-conditioning to the laundry list of “Things I take for granted.” There’s nothing quite like waking up at 5am, walking outside and having your shower immediately vetoed by the humidity of Shreveport. Then you realize it’s still dark, and there’s 14 hours to go. 12 on a perfect day, who knows on a bad one. We haven’t had one of those yet–of course we’re only on day 3–and I’m told things are running very smoothly so far. I have to be told this because I don’t really know the ebb and flow of principal photography–this is my first.

This puts me in the unique position of being blind to the fruits of our labor. Of course I can see the shots, hear the dialogue, everything. But there’s such a magnitude of work being put in, a lot of it that I don’t understand, to produce a finished product that I won’t see for several months. Because I’ve never been involved in film production, it’s difficult for me to see how all the elements will come together. It’s not “as it happens,” like with blogging or other media.

It’s the difference between tactics and grand strategy. You cannot afford to ignore either. Do the best photographers just “snap pictures,” or do they try to express a larger vision? Are you just trying to put words on a page, or are you telling a story? But they are interdependent, the menial supports the grand and vice versa. In movies, I can see how easy it might be to lose sight of either–you wouldn’t believe the ratio of man-hours to seconds of film until you witness it in person. It’s like watching people drag stones. They have their eyes on the summit, but they recognize the work it takes to get there.

I’ve worked lots of jobs with lots of people, but I’ve never really been in a position where I trust the people around me and their vision to really make something. In fact, I’ve never been around this many talented people period, the fact that we’re collaborating in an artistic effort–well, let’s just say that there’s no place I’d rather be, even if that place is wet, 95 degrees, and climbing.

This 4th of July weekend is a sort of “last vacation” for me. Literally, since it will probably be the only significant time off for awhile as production steamrolls ahead. (”Time off” is relative as well–there’s still work being done.) But more importantly, it’s my last vacation on a personal level.

I look through my room, or all the “drafts” on my blog, and I see that the obvious problems (messy and unpublished, respectively) are symptomatic of something bigger.

I’ve been learning that, as much as turning pro requires a single commitment, it also requires lots of small, incremental changes. One fuels the other. You have to route every aspect of your actions and character and, as Tucker loves to say, recheck your assumptions. Does this behavior help me? Does it harm me or impede my progress? Or do the same for others? This process never ends for a person interested in growth.

I’m not there yet, I’m not even close. But now I finally feel like I’m starting to see where there is. I can see what I need to do.

Now with all the alcohol, smoked meat, projectiles and explosives hanging around (and the guys here who have received special training from the government to make use of them), I plan to make the most of it.

Some recent ones:

1. In a sweltering military surplus store in the middle of Fucking, Nowhere, where an old man was showing me the proper way to cinch an army duffle.
2. Trying not to get submitted in a matter of seconds by a Pan Am grappling bronze medalist. And failing.
3. Murph Pup chewing up my condoms. At least they weren’t used.
4. Prepping food for grilling with our director. Eating steaks and drinking the Kansas City beer I brought, bullshitting with the crew. Right before Jeff shoots me in the back with a BB gun.
5. 

Yeah, there may be a logical reason for each of these:

1. I needed the duffle for sandbag training.
2. I’m learning MMA.
3. Murph will eat anything that’s not [this space intentionally left blank].
4. Jeff tends to be around living things that are wounded, or dead things that were made so recently. Neither by coincidence.
5. Louisiana may be known as the “Sportsman’s Paradise,” but even a capital-S Sportsman takes a backseat to the Lord in Shreveport.

But even when there’s a sensical chain of events leading to a surreal moment, it’s always nice when you realize one for what it is.

Friday morning, Tucker, Greg (another assistant of his), and I were having hamsteak and eggs for breakfast, as Tucker talked about what it means to be a pro. Here were a couple of his main points, and I’m paraphrasing here:

“Games are won in practice. It’s about doing it when it doesn’t matter–when no one’s watching. Because that’s what makes you great when it does matter. That’s what makes you a pro. There’s a reason Michael Jordan is world-famous and nobody’s ever heard of Earl ‘The Goat’ Manigault, even though he was a better basketball player. Jordan was a pro, and The Goat wasn’t.”

“What’s the difference between the mediocre and great? It’s usually not talent. I’m not the greatest writer or businessman or filmmaker or whatever, but it doesn’t matter because I work the hardest. Let’s say you’re faced with 10 important tasks. A loser will do few or none of them well, an amateur might do 5 or 6 pretty well but do ‘just whatever’ on the rest and let them slide. A pro will step up and hit all 10 out of the park, and then do the same thing with the next 10.”

This reminded me of a scientist I read about in A Short History of Nearly Everything:

For all his success, Rutherford was not an especially brilliant man and was actually pretty terrible at mathematics…he wasn’t even particularly clever at experimentation. He was simply tenacious and open-minded. For brilliance he substituted shrewdness and a kind of daring. His mind, in the words of one biographer, was “always operating out towards the frontiers, as far as he could see, and that was a great deal further than most other men.” Confronted with an intractable problem, he was prepared to work at it harder and longer than most people and to be more receptive to unorthodox explanations. His greatest breakthrough came because he was prepared to spend immensely tedious hours sitting at a screen counting alpha particle scintillations, as they were known–the sort of work that would normally have been farmed out.

This rings true in any job, any sport, any pursuit–but as I’ve learned over the past week, especially when making a movie. For instance, I never imagined casting strippers all day would be in any way exhausting. And let’s be clear: I was just a fly on the wall, trying to absorb the interactions and process. I didn’t have to make the precise evaluations of a producer or director or casting director.

Speaking of which, when you think PRODUCER, what do you picture? I bet it’s not prolonged discussion over bathroom fixtures and sofa pillows. Think about how much trouble people have just decorating their house. Now you have to keep the house within the taste of a character, then coordinate it with the character development of others, while making it consistent with the themes and evolution of the entire film. Now multiply this over several locations, many vastly different from one another, and then weave in all the practical considerations of money, time, negotiations, and the logistics of filming.  Everything is nuanced, everything counts, and every aspect of the film can be infinitesimalized as far as the artists want to take their art. But you can only manipulate each of these tiny segments so far, or you’ll warp the aesthetic curve of the film. That’s the producer’s job: to see the atoms and the universe.

Well, good ones anyway. The pros. The rest mail it in. This is mind-boggling to me, because even shitty movies require considerable time and resources to produce. As aggravating as that is, I have to remember that the same rules apply–3 out of 10, 6 out of 10, whatever–it’s just on a mammoth scale.

Now’s as good a time as any to fill you in: I now work for Tucker Max and Rudius Media. If you’ve read my blog at all, you probably know that’s a big deal for me. Anyway, I’m in Shreveport for the movie, staying at the party house. Survival is not guaranteed. Alcohol, archery, axes–I’m just starting alphabetically.  I’ll have more coming soon.