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2003 The Guardian Set Visit
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| 06-Jan-11, 5:28 PM |
The Guardian Set Visit 2003
On the courthouse set, scenes from episode #309 were being filmed. They were on day 5 of the 8-day shoot for this episode. The first scene, though it will be quite short in the end, took hours to shoot because there were many speaking parts (Judge Damzen, Nick, three guest stars and Lulu; Laurie was also present) - the director Felix Alcala had takes from every angle, both long-shots and close-ups. I watched proceedings from Video Village, where the monitors are set up just outside the wall of the courthouse set, along with the director, writer Nick Santana and various other crew.
Raphael Sbarge was on the set much of the day although he had no scenes. I met him briefly, along with several of the crew, over the course of the day. Dabney Coleman also came in that evening for one scene. As I sat watching the crew and actors at work, what really struck me was how normal everything was, in terms of a work environment - people chatted, gossiped and joked in between takes (both work-related and water-cooler talk). Then once it's time to roll, all the energy is focussed on what's happening behind the set wall for a few seconds.
Simon emerged from the set at one point to discuss his lines - he felt Nick's response to a client was not appropriate and wanted the line changed. In consultation with the director and writer they worked out something that everyone was happy with. Simon headed back to his trailer during a break, and I was taken to meet him. His trailer, which is right outside one of the sound stages, has a fence surrounding a small front yard filled with leafy bamboo(?). There's a beaded curtain over the doorway and the hippie theme continues with the scent of incense, light and open decor, a low couch and a large open space in the main part of the trailer. We chatted about the show, America and Australia, and the function he was going to attend on Saturday (for Penny Lane). Three Guardian Angels and myself had tickets for this event, and Simon showed me the piece he was going to read.
It was of course wonderful to meet him and to hear a true blue Aussie accent right there in Hollywood, and I couldn't help feeling relaxed in that lovely trailer, but for the life of me I can't remember many details of what we discussed. He first asked me how my visit was going. I said everything was bigger than I'd imagined; "Except me", came the reply. (This was not actually true - he looked just about right!)
Simon was called back to the set and I watched more filming for a while in the courthouse corridors. Back at Christian's desk (DH’s Assistant), David Hollander came out of his office and we were introduced. I asked him how often the final episode is exactly what he envisioned when he was writing the script - almost never, he said, but he didn't mean this negatively. He is a playwright and is happy to turn his script over to the collaborative efforts of the actors and crew, once the writing stage is over.
A little later in the day, I got the chance to talk with Simon again and his assistant took some photos. Simon also took a very nice shot of me and Christian - my favourite from that day, in fact. Simon told us about a recent misunderstanding he'd had on the set over his use of Aussie slang. I happened to have a couple of "Aussie slang generators" on me - I hadn't intended to give one to Simon, since for obvious reasons he doesn't actually need one himself, but I gave one to Christian so he could interpret Simon in the future, and gave the spare to Simon. He and the crew had some fun with it that afternoon.
The final scene took place in Nick's bedroom. I watched it from Video Village - Nick in a wife-beater and Lulu in PJs are, respectively, in and on the bed, and the discussion turns to a rather painful subject. Simon was concerned with the way his *#^&! pillow kept slipping between the cracks of the headboard of his bed, and he and Wendy joked between takes while lighting and camera angles were sorted out. They were both of the opinion that Nick should surely have a king-sized bed (I think it was queen). Again, once the camera rolled it was down to business and Simon became "Nick", and Nick wasn't a very happy chappy but in his Nick-way was trying to brush it off. The entire set-up was then reversed to do the shot from the opposite angle.
Apparently when the set designers were putting together Nick’s bedroom, they decided that Simon would probably know better than anyone what decor Nick would choose. So they deliberately put in some pieces that were *wrong*, then asked him what he thought, and this encouraged him to come up with more suitable ideas. There are two lovely carved cubic chests at the foot of his bed, and a very elegant dark-wood chest of drawers to one side. The room has a cool, slightly Asian feel.
They wrapped at about 11.30pm and to my knowledge Simon was not filming the next day. Wendy, on the other hand, was shooting all day Friday and that schedule had to be pushed back a few hours because the actors are required to have 12 hours off between each day's shooting. The Simon I met is pretty much the Simon we have seen on talk shows etc. - relaxed, funny, warm, and very Aussie. I got three hugs out of him! Addendum: The first scene I watched being filmed was a complicated courtroom scene (complicated because there were so many people with speaking parts) and only the guest stars had emotional stuff - it seemed to me there was some discussion about how to play it, how to move around the stage and interact with each other. Then there was the line that Simon wanted to change (and did). I also heard about a different, overly sentimental scene that was changed: the boy was supposed to break down and cry with his grandfather, and this didn't happen. Personally I think onscreen emotions are always more powerful when played close to the chest, such as we see in Nick so often.
The bedroom scene was a quietly emotional one, the kind we love! They seemed to rehearse it a couple of times mostly for the sake of sorting out the cameras. I didn't see Simon getting any direction at all except a funny moment where the director Felix Alcala suggested he not absent-mindedly rub his leg under the sheets as he spoke. (You had to be there! - it looked very... interesting, from the camera angle on the video screen.) Felix did ask Wendy to do her lines differently, more "playful" or light-hearted. In fact it's another scene that *could* have come across accusingly but fortunately I don't think the final result will be.
On the whole, it's a fascinating process to observe, especially when you consider that the scenes are filmed out of order, and laboriously and repeatedly - I can see why it must be tough to get "in the mood" for emotional scenes, for every take, but as we know Simon always seems to deliver.
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| Category: Close Encounters | Added by: Fran
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| Views: 679 | Downloads: 0
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