Hey guys.
Couple of people PMed me asking me to posty the update/scoop on my small part in the Tony Scott / Denzel Washington movie, Dejavu, since I finished the shoot about a week and a half ago. I was waiting til our scanner was unpacked so I could post the pic as well. Sorry the pic is only of me, it's from the costume dept. I think I'd get in serious trouble if I posted pics of Denzel or anything else anyway.
I was the 69th male lead, lol, and I was supposed to have only one line. Now I assumed my part would be like those guys on the crime scene in law in order when the regular cast cop shows up and says "have you found the weapon yet" and then the actor with one line crosses with his back to camera and his head cropped off and says "yeah over there by the dumpster", but that wasn't exactly the case ...
Denzel was IMPROVISING (gulp) so I wound up with like 4 lines and they covered my closeup from two different angles ... WTF?
I basically interrupt Denzel while he's on the phone talking through the mystery so far with to his team(which includes Val Kylmer) as they try to stop Jim Caveizal from doing bad things.
He's an ATF agent like my character and he walks into the crime scene having the above conversation and I was just supposed to interrupt him so it would be natural
... "you want me to just randomly interrupt Denzel Washington ... er OK" ... now that's how Denzel wanted to work, but jeez it was a little more nerve racking than a cue line.
So they're shooting rehearsal and Denzel comes in talking about the case and I step up to him and say my line "you want a mask?" and his line is supposed to be "no I'm fine" ... but that's not what the dude says ... dude says "What?"
Now I'm sure I blinked at least, but I was on my game enough to through it back at him and say "You need a mask?" He shakes his head slightly as if he still didn't understand me. "A mask?" I repeat this time pulling at the mask hanging around my neck and finally he says "No. I'm fine." .... Whew. Okay I can do this.
And each take was completly different of course. Sometimes he'd say what then say it again, sometimes he'd just look at me like he didn't hear me, and any combination thereupon with a few variataions.
Now the other part of the fun ... the fun being that they conflated two scenes with out telling me and now Denzel was playing our scene and his phone scene simultaneously when the were scripted as happening at differnt times and the fact that he was improvising, the other part of the fun was that he didn't make eyecontact with me ever except during the scene.
Now I don't think he was being a jerk or anything. I think he was conducting himsefl like someone that was getting paid millions of dollars to ensure that a movie would make hundreds of times that. He has a lot of responsibility obviously. And I'm sure it would suck to be trying to get your head into this murder story where your chracter has become too attached to the victim and having a-holes come up to you between takes going "oh man I really love your work, training day was da bomb!" Plus even if he wasn't famous and didn't have all this pressure on him, he seems like someone that would work by staying in character as much as possible anyway. But none the less its a bit un-nerving to work with someone that won't look at you. The one time I was a little late getting to my mark, he said "you got to come quicker than that" but with his back to me, walking away.
Fortunately after the first take, Tony Scott says in a crisp Brittish accent while the crew is resetting, "That's great Jack. Nice an' natural, just like that." And he was the polar opposite Denzel. He would make funny faces and crude gestures mostly for my amusement whenever he could and said after almost every take "great Jack, just like that". I think basically he realized that if you have an actor that's just getting his SAG card in a one on one scene with Denzel, who's improvising and who has a very demanding "maestro" aire to him (earned though it may be) you better keep telling that inexperienced actor he's doing great and making silly faces like a drunken crazy uncle or the actor would probably crap his pants.
I guess that's about it. Denzel never said boo even when we were wrapped. I shook Tony Scott's hand and thanked him for my SAG card and he said I did a good job and wished me best of luck when we were done.
There were also real ATF and FBI agents there that were expert consultants and they helped dress me on set so that part was cool too. They basically had all the pieces there and just put them on me.
Oh and the coolest part the day before when I was called and wasn't used (other than tony scott putting the antenae of his portable monitor under his shirt to simmulate an errection, lol) was watching the steadicam operator work ... dude was walking backwards (with an assistant of course) around a house shooting Denzel, but then Denzel walks down a 3 foot wide pier, so Steadicam is still walking backwards to near the end of the pier - not excatly perilous with the assistant, but still that's a lot of heavy expensive equipment on a narrow plank ...
but here's the part I thought was too cool. Denzel throws open a trapdoor at the end of the pier and the steady cam angles down on that and then back up to Denzel's medium closeup, Denzel steps back ... which means steadicam has to take a blind step foreward over an open trap door with the bayou just below the gaping hole.
Now I could take a blind step over a gaping hole while wearing a steadicam, but to watch him do it and watch the play back having just watched him taking this step, probing with his foot to to make sure he's found solid purchase on the other side, and then see the playback looks as smooth and level as a dolly shot ... well it was just damn cool.
So when I was on set again for my scene the next day I said to him between set ups "I enjoyed watching you work the other day" and he looked a little confused and I said "when you had to step over that trap door, that was badass" ... and he just lit up and said "OH thanks!" and started talking about the shot and saying he could barely move afterwards, lol. I guess not too many people come up to steadicam operators on a shoot and say they really dig what they are doing.
That's it ... I'm gonna go rest my typing finger now
oh and that light is from these giant ass silks
- Jack
Couple of people PMed me asking me to posty the update/scoop on my small part in the Tony Scott / Denzel Washington movie, Dejavu, since I finished the shoot about a week and a half ago. I was waiting til our scanner was unpacked so I could post the pic as well. Sorry the pic is only of me, it's from the costume dept. I think I'd get in serious trouble if I posted pics of Denzel or anything else anyway.
I was the 69th male lead, lol, and I was supposed to have only one line. Now I assumed my part would be like those guys on the crime scene in law in order when the regular cast cop shows up and says "have you found the weapon yet" and then the actor with one line crosses with his back to camera and his head cropped off and says "yeah over there by the dumpster", but that wasn't exactly the case ...
Denzel was IMPROVISING (gulp) so I wound up with like 4 lines and they covered my closeup from two different angles ... WTF?
I basically interrupt Denzel while he's on the phone talking through the mystery so far with to his team(which includes Val Kylmer) as they try to stop Jim Caveizal from doing bad things.
He's an ATF agent like my character and he walks into the crime scene having the above conversation and I was just supposed to interrupt him so it would be natural
... "you want me to just randomly interrupt Denzel Washington ... er OK" ... now that's how Denzel wanted to work, but jeez it was a little more nerve racking than a cue line.
So they're shooting rehearsal and Denzel comes in talking about the case and I step up to him and say my line "you want a mask?" and his line is supposed to be "no I'm fine" ... but that's not what the dude says ... dude says "What?"
Now I'm sure I blinked at least, but I was on my game enough to through it back at him and say "You need a mask?" He shakes his head slightly as if he still didn't understand me. "A mask?" I repeat this time pulling at the mask hanging around my neck and finally he says "No. I'm fine." .... Whew. Okay I can do this.
And each take was completly different of course. Sometimes he'd say what then say it again, sometimes he'd just look at me like he didn't hear me, and any combination thereupon with a few variataions.
Now the other part of the fun ... the fun being that they conflated two scenes with out telling me and now Denzel was playing our scene and his phone scene simultaneously when the were scripted as happening at differnt times and the fact that he was improvising, the other part of the fun was that he didn't make eyecontact with me ever except during the scene.
Now I don't think he was being a jerk or anything. I think he was conducting himsefl like someone that was getting paid millions of dollars to ensure that a movie would make hundreds of times that. He has a lot of responsibility obviously. And I'm sure it would suck to be trying to get your head into this murder story where your chracter has become too attached to the victim and having a-holes come up to you between takes going "oh man I really love your work, training day was da bomb!" Plus even if he wasn't famous and didn't have all this pressure on him, he seems like someone that would work by staying in character as much as possible anyway. But none the less its a bit un-nerving to work with someone that won't look at you. The one time I was a little late getting to my mark, he said "you got to come quicker than that" but with his back to me, walking away.
Fortunately after the first take, Tony Scott says in a crisp Brittish accent while the crew is resetting, "That's great Jack. Nice an' natural, just like that." And he was the polar opposite Denzel. He would make funny faces and crude gestures mostly for my amusement whenever he could and said after almost every take "great Jack, just like that". I think basically he realized that if you have an actor that's just getting his SAG card in a one on one scene with Denzel, who's improvising and who has a very demanding "maestro" aire to him (earned though it may be) you better keep telling that inexperienced actor he's doing great and making silly faces like a drunken crazy uncle or the actor would probably crap his pants.
I guess that's about it. Denzel never said boo even when we were wrapped. I shook Tony Scott's hand and thanked him for my SAG card and he said I did a good job and wished me best of luck when we were done.
There were also real ATF and FBI agents there that were expert consultants and they helped dress me on set so that part was cool too. They basically had all the pieces there and just put them on me.
Oh and the coolest part the day before when I was called and wasn't used (other than tony scott putting the antenae of his portable monitor under his shirt to simmulate an errection, lol) was watching the steadicam operator work ... dude was walking backwards (with an assistant of course) around a house shooting Denzel, but then Denzel walks down a 3 foot wide pier, so Steadicam is still walking backwards to near the end of the pier - not excatly perilous with the assistant, but still that's a lot of heavy expensive equipment on a narrow plank ...
but here's the part I thought was too cool. Denzel throws open a trapdoor at the end of the pier and the steady cam angles down on that and then back up to Denzel's medium closeup, Denzel steps back ... which means steadicam has to take a blind step foreward over an open trap door with the bayou just below the gaping hole.
Now I could take a blind step over a gaping hole while wearing a steadicam, but to watch him do it and watch the play back having just watched him taking this step, probing with his foot to to make sure he's found solid purchase on the other side, and then see the playback looks as smooth and level as a dolly shot ... well it was just damn cool.
So when I was on set again for my scene the next day I said to him between set ups "I enjoyed watching you work the other day" and he looked a little confused and I said "when you had to step over that trap door, that was badass" ... and he just lit up and said "OH thanks!" and started talking about the shot and saying he could barely move afterwards, lol. I guess not too many people come up to steadicam operators on a shoot and say they really dig what they are doing.
That's it ... I'm gonna go rest my typing finger now
oh and that light is from these giant ass silks
- Jack
