You Know What a Good Thing To Do Is?

A good thing to do is, when you've cut a scene that's a particular lot of fun, you take it up to the set and show it to certain people.  Like, it's good to show it to Marius, of course.  Believe me, as a director, no matter how many movies you've made, you still like to see that what you're shooting is going to not simply cut together, but will come alive, as though self-animating.  (Marius I'm not worried about.  He's an intensely smart director who also edits.  He shoots with one foot in the editing room.  This is a good thing.)

But almost more important than showing cut scenes to the director is showing cut scenes to the actors and to certain crew.  They toil away in the dark, not always understanding what they're shooting because it's all in pieces and parts and spread out over days and weeks.  Sure, the director has the total vision but not always anyone else.  And of course it's the editor's job to crawl inside the director' head, carve out that vision and turn it into a movie.

Anyway, so I like to go up to set with my laptop and a couple of choice scenes and show them around.  Yesterday I found Marius, Vladimir "Napoleon" Zelensky and Pasha "Zhrevsky" Derevenko.  I showed three scenes, one of which is an amazing bit in which Napoleon tries to woo Zhrevskaya with a song in a prison dungeon.

(actual frame from original footage)

They loved it.  I had to play it four times.

It's very gratifying as an editor (and when I'm making these scenes, I prefer to be a straight filmmaker because editing is filmmaking; editing is the very definition of cinema.) to get a great reaction.  Because you don't want someone to say "Great editing!"  What you want is someone to say, "That was so funny!" or "Oh my god, it was so scary I couldn't even open my eyes!"  Because the goal of good editing is to be invisible and therefore to create an emotional experience.  Good editing is never seen; it's experienced as that wonderful, semi-out-of-body experience you have when a story has utterly transported you.

In other words, if anyone other than another editor says to me, "Wow, great cut," then I figure I've failed.

After showing the guys the scene I had an amazing lunch on set.  It was a traditional Ukrainian soup of some kind with some sort chicken and macaroni thing and I thought I was in Heaven.  Even though bees were swarming me and doing the backstroke in my cider I didn't care.  I scarfed it.

After lunch, a hilarious scene in a steam-filled Russian banya (bath house) was shot.  The set was actually built inside a recreation of a period dwelling.

Actually, stage smoke filled in for steam.  You couldn't shoot with real steam because it can be hard to keep the lens from fogging.  As you may imagine.

Outside, in the ubiquitous video village bivouac, people were laughing it up.

Here's the video village bivouac at another location at the end of the day...

Kinda eerie.

Anyway, back at the banya, it was more fun.

I watched a couple of takes then hopped a car back to the editing room to get back to work.

TGIF

So they've got TGI Fridays here.  They come with the striped awnings and waiters with flair and crap on the walls and everything.  The menu is a reasonable facsimile of the same fare we get in the States but you definitely sense that the food has suffered in the translation ( as much as TGI Fridays cuisine is capable of sel-debasing even farther).  Think of it as the preparation equivalent of spelling hamburger hamberger.


We have a clump of Virgo birthdays here at the end of August.  There was me a couple of days ago.  Camera operator Richie Moore is today, I think.

He's on the right there, next to 'Napoleon' star Pasha Derevenko.  For some reason I also think that costume designer Anastasia Nefedova has a birthday here in the general vicinity.

She's there on the left next to DIT and solderer extraordinaire Alex Carr.  Longtime followers may semi-remember that Nastya (a popular Russian diminutive for Anastasia) was our costume designer on No Love In the City 2 in Moscow last year.  On Napoleon she's truly in the zone.

You truly have to see these things close-up to appreciate the stunning craftmanship and design of these things.  You know how you go to the Arclight and they have the case of costumes from some movie that's playing?  This is where these costumed belong.  After the actors are finished using them, of course.

So there we were at TGI Fridays.  Some of the guys have come up with some colorful euphemisms they like to use in their drinking.  "Syncing time code" is one.  "Jamming the slate," is another.  For those not acquainted with movie set jargon these aren't going to mean much to you.  But when certain crew get together and hang out after work you hear these phrases a lot.

Here's Richie looking a tad demonic...

I can't do anything about it.  That's just the way the camera took the picture.

Clip Show

I haven't been on set for the last couple of days so the supply of fresh photos simply isn't there.  But I feel bad for not posting so here are a few from the last day I shot that didn't make the last entry.

I Just Like This One

Lair-Bear Has a Cub!

I met Lara in 1998 in Juan les Pins, France, a small seaside neighbor to Cannes on the French Riviera.

Lara and Don had worked together in Los Angeles.  Don and I were in France working (and water skiing).  Lara and her amazing friend, Robin (who apparently lost her poor meatball), were knocking around Europe.  Don invited them down to Juan les Pins and we all hung out for the next couple of weeks.

I present below an archival photo from that very couple of weeks:

Lara and I did an ill-advised tandem bungee jump together over a parking lot in Antibes that we, against all odds, actually survived.  I wasn't going to do it but when her partner bailed on her, she asked me if I would pair up with her instead.  I said yes.  And when Lara asked me if I was nervous, I said, cool as a cucumber, "The battle is already won."  I like to think she drew confidence from my relaxed demeanor.  I actually wanted to throw up.

Anyway, ever since that elasticky jump, Lara has been one of my very most treasured and loyal friends in the world. 

A few days ago Lara had her first baby.

Billy Karchmer.  It breaks my heart that I'm not there to share this time with Lara.  But if Lara were to ask me if she was going to make a good mom and if Billy would be a great kid, you know what I would say to her?

"The battle is already won."

Don't Feel Like Writing Anything Tonight

So here's a few photos.

No Time For Love, Dr. Jones

Work is trumping my ability to provide detailed coverage of the shoot.

I'm still going to try to get to set as often as possible.  More soon.

Rocky Mountain High

One of the most stunningly beautiful places on Earth is Telluride, Colorado, USA.

My brother, Mark, makes it a habit of spending large chunks of Summer there.  And one of my best friends on the planet, Don Hannah, makes Telluride his permanent home.  It's not hard to understand why.

Mark has sent along a couple of photos he just took, as he's there now enjoying the grandeur/splendor/wonder/peace/transcendent beauty of this place.

In the Winter, Telluride is one of the best ski mountains anywhere in the cosmos (notice how my superlatives keep expanding?).

In 1858 gold was discovered in the valley.  But its difficult-to-access location kept the area from becoming a major cosmopolitan center or hub of transportation.  This was a very good thing.  Eventually, mining was the area's most dedicated enterprise and a lot of silver, zinc, lead and copper were taken out of the mountains.  Mining ended in 1978 and now it's just a place to live, breathe, and ski.

Independence Day

In early August of 1991 hardline Communists attempted to overthrow Gorbachev and his progressive government.  While holding Gorbachev hostage in his dacha in Crimea, the conspirators surrounded the Russian White House with tanks.  They considered imprisoning Russian president Boris Yeltsin but decided against it.  That was a mistake.

On August 19, Yeltsin climbed atop a tank and addressed the crowds of media and Russian citizens.  He demanded that the military stay loyal to Gorbachev and that Gorbachev be allowed to speak to the country. Inexplicably, Yeltsin's words were broadcast that night on Russian state television.  This galvanized the people and was one of the important contributing factors to the coup's ultimate collapse.

When the coup failed on August 24th, Ukraine adopted its own Act of Independence, declaring itself an independent democratic state. So today is a national holiday here in Ukraine.  "...Ukraine's glory has not perished, nor has her freedom...!"

(Interesting aside...  'Napoleon' rig tech Mike Johnson was a CNN photographer based in Moscow during this time.  He was actually in the scrum of reporters gathered around the tank from which Yeltsin made his passionate address.  Amazing.)

Today was also a kind of independence day for production.  Our first legitimate day off since the beginning of the shoot.  But there's an asterisk.  We screened select shots on a big screen at a big movie theater.

We did it because we wanted to check how our dimensional efforts were coming out and how they might look in a full-on theatrical environment.  But we had to do it early in the morning, before the theater's legitimate operating hours.  This meant that Marc, Damien and Simon had to get to the office at 7am, grab the equipment they needed and head to the theater for two hours of set-up.

Some day off.

Unfortunately, the theater itself, while gigantic, simply wasn't up to the task.  Even after turning their projector lamp up to 101% of performance, the house was simply too big for its own digital projector. Dim images on screen negated almost anything you would hope to learn from seeing it in this format.  I doubt we'll be doing it again.

Outside, we all loitered and chatted.  Most people would spend the rest of the day resting or catching up on basic chores like laundry or grocery shopping.  Ksusha, Olga and Kristina were hashing out a plan involving mani/pedi's, shopping and spa massages.  Girls.

Don't know what or if any part of it actually happened.  Like everyone else on the crew, these girls have gotten virtually no sleep in the past week.  I can imagine the entire day's activities foundering on the shores of an intended nap morphing into a 16-hour coma.

As for me, I worked.  I went to the editing room and for the first time on this show I actually felt like an editor.  All five days' footage had been re-transcoded by Simon and I was finally able to get in the tub with it. So that's what I did.  Felt good.

Jailhouse Rock

Thought I'd get your attention right off the bat.

My time spent on set is definitely entering a new phase, a new phase of not so much-ish.  I know I've been threatening that for a few days now but this time I mean it.  Yesterday I spent most of the day with the brilliant minds that constitute the editorial team, they being Simon, Damian and Marc.  I won't go into the whole imbroglio here but it was a Rubik's Cube sort of problem that demanded a lot of different minds to solve.  Eventually, it was solved but to be clear, I didn't solve.  They did.

What this means is that I can finally begin cutting in earnest.  So rather than hang out on set admiring the scenery I get to really buckle down in my lonely little room and do what they're paying me to do.  But till then, let's dance!

You know, it wouldn't be a Marius Weisberg film if people didn't break into dance.  The same thing happened in Hitler Kaput!  German soldiers performed a Busby Berkeley sort of thing in the forests of Berlin. This time it's a Russian prison.  I told Marius that from now on I'm gonna call this sort of thing "pulling a Weisberg."

A wide assortment of people were cast as prisoners.

By the way, this is a stereo movie camera...

I swear to god, the Large Hadron Particle Collider outside Geneva is simpler to run than these things.

Okay, back to the prison...  So we've got about a couple hundred prisoners hanging out in the yard...

...one of the Russian officers comes through looking for our hero...

And then something happens and basically, you know, like that.

Look, I'm kinda tired.  After the wrap last night, I went and hung out with Ksusha, Pepe, and some of the camera guys in a very low-key celebration of the completion of the first week of shooting.  We walked up one of the main drags, dodged traffic and finally ended up on some patio at some place.  Much was made over the high quality of beer available.

But I digest.

Pepe and the AD's worked hard to keep things moving, which can be especially tricky when having to wrangle often-sluggish extras.

More dance takes were knocked off, performed by guys who between the lot of them, well, how can I put this delicately... I'm not convinced that more than one had ever actually kissed a girl on the lips.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

By the way, there's no Seinfeld over here that I can tell.  Not entirely sure how you'd ever translate it.  Might work, though.  Hell, Hannah Montana's on all the time.

Okay, what were we talking about?  Oh, yeah, gay dancers.  Anyway, forget that.  Who cares.  It's time to get back to Anna Semenovich.

So Anna was the female lead in Hitler Kaput!  In an earlier life, Anna was actually a world-class figure skater.  Here's a shot I took of Anna a couple of years ago during the shooting of Hitler Kaput!...

So this is the second movie I've cut that she's in.  However, here in 'Napoleon' she has a cameo in which she plays a lusty warden's wife passionately in thrall with Zhrevsky.  She's determined to keep him at the prison.

Instead, she succeeds in working the prisoners up into a frenzy...

...which, I have to say, was probably the ultimate acting challenge for some of these guys.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And don't ask me what I know you're wondering, because I will not be addressing that in this blog.

After the scene with Anna, there was a valiant effort to shoot a last high angle before the light went away completely.

But by the time we were ready to roll, I think it was just too dark.

So that was the successful (mostly) completion of the first five days of principal photography.  God knows we learned a lot about stereoscopic motion picture production.  And of course, we still have lots more to learn.  For example we learned that a lens as average as 42mm is probably too long for a good 3D shot.  And I think that's stupid but there it is.  And we're learning to deal with that.  So, basically that's five down and 51 to go.

Yes, they're real.