July 10, 2005

• Hmm.  Last night’s premiere airing of “Attack of the Sabretooth“.  Despite all the technical talk of making sure the lighting of the fur was accurate, etc — in the end it looked as if we were being chased by Chester the Cheetah the entire time.  Granted, the cat didn’t look as horrible as our predecessor, “Sabretooth” — but when you’ve got the word “Sabretooth” in the movie – the Sabretooth’s the star and you better make sure it looks real.  Otherwise, why bother?  And then the computer generated effect of the building’s tooth falling at the end — yikes.  I so wanted to call the producer and ask if the image was fully rendered or did we simply just run out of money? 

  
  

  But hey, cash in the pocket for the family, good memories with the cast off the set for 4 weeks in Fiji and footage to goof on for druken nights.  It just sucks knowing all that time and money flying us in, putting us up in hotels, etc — gets simply chalked up as simply forever being a hokey TV movie.  What a shame.  But as Viggo Mortensen once said, “A film is like a painting and you are the color Blue.  All you can do is provide the best hue of Blue.”  That’s probably why I do talk about “BLT” so often, even years since I’ve shot it, because it’s so rare you get to be in something that just clicks.  But you just gotta keep movin’ on — which brings me to:       

  
  

  Dat’s a Wrap

  
  

  …on “The Gene Generation“.  (That’s my hand).

  
  

  Here’s a trippy story. 

  
  

  Some may recall that when I first landed this project six weeks ago, I was in the middle of picking out Granite Slabs for my new house.  I had my mom, wife and baby in tow when the whirlwind of phone calls began. 

  
  

  And since the Granite Store was located in a part of LA I’d never been to before, I didn’t know how to get to the various locations for the fitting and makeup tests from there. So I sat a good 20 minutes leaning against the Granite Store’s pillars jotting down dictated Mapquest directions from the production assistant.

  
  

  Flash forward six weeks. 

  
  

  On the last day of shooting the film, we moved to a new location and shot at this electronics store.  Driving to the location, the directions seemed strangely familiar the entire time.  

  
  

  When I arrived at the location, I looked across the street and lo and behold — what did I see?

  
  

  Like I said before.  Trippy.  Full circle.  A “You gotta be kidding me” moment.  I’m still trying to sort out the cosmic relevance of it all. 

  
  

  Overall, this film was extremely challenging and gratifying at the same time.  I’d say for the past 3 years up until “Hatchet“, I’ve been pretty much going on auto-pilot with a good portion of  the roles I’ve booked.  Just because it was always the same stuff: Either the: “Technically proficient but awkward around women” guy (*cough* “Attack of the Sabretooth” *cough*) or the: “Quirky, funny but awkward around women” guy or simply just the: “Awkward around women” guy.  

  
  

  But this role definitely did not let me get away with that.  When I saw some of the dailies put together with the special effects, along with my costume/hair extentions, etc, I caught myself several times thinking, “Whoa.  Is that me?” 

  
  

  And now the fingers are crossed that it all comes together unlike “Attack“, because a good portion if the film does depend on how the futuristic green screen effects are pulled off – which will then lead to a good distributor getting behind the project so that it will hopefully see the light of day in a theatre.

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