DAY 12
Saturday, August 22, 1998

The Production Office, Seattle
7:54 AM
Todd Howard, Producer

Last night it became clear to me that although I feel I am doing pretty well on my first time out as a Producer, there are some things I am not doing so well. And it was a bitter pill to get down, but I awoke this morning renewed and reinvested, and I feel that today will be the day that we all refer to as, "and boy, as soon as we hit that Saturday the 22nd, things really turned around.

I need to demonstrate more leadership and more organizational prowess in terms of the off-the-set (or behind the scenes if you prefer) runnings of things. Cassy, my ever-adept Production Manager, has made it quite clear that information and support need to flow far more freely toward her direction in the stream. The family-of-friends atmosphere that has long stood between, Jesse, Jesse, myself, Kate, Erika and Paul cannot be a substitute for sharing information with the rest of the crew - more importantly allowing and inviting the other key crew people (i.e., Cassy, Samantha, Katherine, Charles, Karl, and the rest) to be part of creating that information - in other words - being a part of the decision-making process that so very much affects them all.

I vow to make this a priority. I also learned last night that I am getting too involved on the set, which everyone feels is both impeding the process of "producing" and getting in the way of the on-the-set runnings. Jesse Howard said that he has a hard time taking ideas that I throw out on the set because in his mind there are 10 things he could list that he feels aren't getting done behind the scenes, that he feels like I should be doing. So I am going to re-apply myself on and off the set to try to do a more thorough job and get it done to every one's satisfaction.

The other hard truth that has come to light is that on a film set, the 1st Assistant Director is not like a Director's Assistant in theater. So what you say? Well, I believe that Kate (and the rest of us Home Moviesers) did not know that going into this, and for that reason we are at a loss. Kate is an incredible creative, adept, inspiring person, and one of my best friends in the world. She will tell you herself that the duties of a 1st A.D. are - if she had known what those were ahead of time - not things she would ever even think she would want to do. The problem is that the other folks that we have hired on to work on this film are used to certain roles being fulfilled on the set, and since Kate is performing many duties that might be likened to the Director's Assistant on the stage and not those of the 1st A. D. (at no fault of her own) the role that is occupied by said 1st A.D. is left vacant. Many people have told me that the Assistant Director is one of the most important positions on the film set. She/He must keep the entire set running smoothly and be the conduit of information from the set and the Director to the Production crew. There is also a certain amount of chops-busting that the 1st A.D. must do that again, Kate would tell you herself, is not something she likes to do. Not where she feels comfortable. That is all fine and good except for two things: 1) I want Kate to be on the set - no question, and 2) we need a 1st A.D. These things stand to be worked out, but if someone was to give me the power to wave a magic wand this is what I'd make:

Kate resumes her excellently performed position of Director's Assistant and helps Jesse on the set with the actors, and works on blocking and lines, and taking care of the talent and attending to needs that Jesse may have that he can specifically ask Kate to attend to, and we hire someone with experience as a 1st Assistant Director. Erika is primed and ready to be 2nd A.D. and desperately needs some direction in so doing. So that's what I hope will happen. We shall see as this drama unfolds.

It is at this point that I invite everyone who is reading this to go out and rent "Living in Oblivion" - an absolutely excellent film about an independent film crew making a movie. It is hilarious (lots of swears if you're thinking of renting it with your kids - rated R) and well written and acted. It is a film that totally pokes fun at all of these things we are going through. If you are part of this movie, or is you have some experience in the film world, this film will have you ROLLING. Check it out. It start Steve Buscemi (Fargo, Armageddon, The Big Labowski).

Well, today and tomorrow we shoot in Seattle in the private home of Eliana, "Bitta", and the scenes are elaborate and precise, and will indeed be very difficult. It is the "Sleep over scene" at Abbey and Bitta's house, and the boys crash the party and trash the house. We have a new 1st Assistant Camera person, Blake, and she seems really great, and Jesse Moore is being forced to use a different camera than the one he has been using all along because it was booked two months ago for this weekend. So there are some tricky things involved there, but I know we will all come together and make it work. Because we want to and we are able to. Simple.

This may all see really hard and maybe bad, but I must say that this is the best thing I have ever done in my life - and the most difficult. I love it.

-Todd

Home Sick, Seattle, WA
5:36 PM
Cindy Lamb, Publicist / Production Assistant

I'm warming myself in the blue light of my computer monitor from home. Yes, the flu bug turned into a much larger beast--bronchitis--so I'm unable spend any time on the Queen Anne set this weekend. In the meantime, I'm preparing the email and fax distribution of the press release in hopes to garner as much attention from the media as they'll allow--with no completed project to present. Creating a buzz is a challenge that I enjoy yet the response may reveal itself in different ways, different times. I hope to return a few days for the last production week, however, so make room for me at the plastic utensil recycling bucket (Thank you Paul Westfall), making a helpful nuicance of myself at the grip truck or talking to cast, crew and parents for little brush strokes on the big picture. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed my three long days on the set until I wasn't able to go.

Alas, writers make SO much money that we have to take on a full-time job. Yeah, that bubble was burst for me in L.A. a long time ago. Har! I've enjoyed linking my friends and colleagues up to the film's website (A doff of the hat to Todd H.!) and I hope they'll keep up with the production right on through edit and screening as well as sharing with their friends and plain ol' getting inspired. I thought it amusing and somewhat sad that two of the girls had mentioned how "scary" it was to see Snohomish citizens waving to each other on the street or knowing who passersby were. They both owned up to being city kids and I thought that was a humble admission but it proves how essential the underying current of The Last the end truly is. A town that time forgot. I come from a very small town in the beautiful, Bluegrass region of Kentucky. I remember coming home from years in Los Angeles and realizing how charming and simple it was that you could wave to a passing car, folks at the store and merchants in town--knowing them and their families. Maybe even more.

Their church, school, grandparents. My dad used to tell me and my friends confirmed upon my return years after his death, that there was a "code" to waving in our small county. One finger up from the wheel was a friendly notice for any stranger or tourist. A brief hand off the wheel was for acquaintances and a whole arm wagging was for close friends and family. Well, that and a tap of the horn. (We never used them for anything else, there was no traffic.) I realized that in L.A. or other metropolitan areas that a wave or gesture in town or traffic might signal crime or violence. Too bad. Even among killers, they didn't really know whose life they were taking. Still strangers after only one contact.

A simpler, far richer time is the place Jesse Howard is taking us. I feel it's where we are all from or would like to be from. We can 't leave everything up to Nick At Night with Andy of Mayberry or Leave It To Beaver although the bucolic days of America's youth before we wore the cattle brand of Nike and used pencils and encyclpedias for homework is preserved there. Jesse is helping preserve this age of innocence with his script, your film. Enjoy those beautiful dailies, gang and just imagine how Tink or Bitta will look when they're ten feet tall on a theatre screen. Thanks for letting me ramble.

-Cindy

The Friedman / Hechter Home, Queen Anne, Seattle
8:49 PM
Paul Westfall, Audio Designer

Well, it's been a while since I've had time to scribe.

I have experienced the trauma of DAT meltdown. . . but the Gods have been kind. Last saturday, in the heat of trying to get an intense set-up underway, Tim Haupt's faithful TEAC ate a DAT tape, and simply refused to do anything about it. Impromptu open heart surgery on a cafeteria table in the school gym revealed nothing other than our inability to extract the errant cartridge. So. Hmmm.

Well, providence and serendipity intervened in our favor. Some back story: The teac deck does not have a resident time code generator, and so if you want to stripe your audio with a time code, then you have to use up one of the audio tracks. This caused us some problems at Pinnacle, where our dailies are being made, as their machines only accept time code from the data/address track on the dat. To work around this, they had to clone our dat, sending the time code to the appropriate track in the process. Long about Thursday of week one, it became clear to us that the cost of renting a DAT recorder with resident time code would be less than the cost of cloning our DAT tapes at $175/hr. By Friday, an express order was put in to Wilcox sound (hooray for them!), and an HHB portadat was on it's way. So.

On Saturday morning Tim's DAT went berserk, and at the same time, our new DAT recorder was arriving at the Athman's. It was a simple matter to send Cassy out to pick up the HHB while Tim and I poked around inside the TEAC. The total down time, from melt down to new machine on line, was about one hour. WHEW! After shooting that morning, I went out into the field, kneeled down and kissed the ground while chanting "Thank you" over and over and laughing hysterically.

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