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| Introduction: Opening the Doors Cast and Crew Prelude Journal 2: ACT 1: Blacklisted! March 6 (Day 2) March 9 (Day 3) March 10-11 (Days 4-5) March 12-13 (Days 6-7) Journal 3: ACT 2: Welcome to Ferndale! March 20 (Day 9) March 21 (Day 10) March 22 (Day 11) March 23 (Day 12) Journal 4: March 26 (Day 13) March 27 (Day 14) March 28 (Day 15) March 29 (Day 16) March 30 (Day 17) Journal 5: April 2 (Day 18) April 3 (Day 19) April 4 (Day 20) April 5 (Day 21) April 6 (Day 22) Journal 6: April 8 (Day 23) April 9 (Day 24) April 10 (Day 25) April 11 (Day 26) April 12 (Day 27) Journal 7: April 16 (Day 28) April 17 (Day 29) April 18 (Day 30) April 19 (Day 31) April 20 (Day 32) April 23 (Day 33) April 24 (Day 34) April 25 (Day 35) April 26 (Day 36) Journal 8: April 30 (Day 37) May 1 (Day 38) May 2 (Day 39) May 3 (Day 40) May 4 (Day 41) May 7 (Day 42) May 8 (Day 43) Journal 9: May 10-11 (Days 44-45) May 14 (Day 46) May 15 (Day 47) May 16 (Day 48) May17 (Day 49) May 18 (Day 50) Journal 10: May 21 (Day 51) May 22 (Day 52) May 23 (Day 53) May 24 (Day 54) May 25 (Day 55) Journal 11: May 29 (Day 56) May 30 (Day 57) May 31 (Day 58) June 1 (Day 59) |
Journal 2 March 10-11 (Days 4-5) If you are familiar with Frank Darabont’s two earlier efforts (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile”), you can marvel at his story-telling talents, and his ability to paint a fascinating and colorful canvas on which to mount his movie stories. “The Majestic” is no exception. In each of his two previous pictures, the gifted filmmaker included an early, expansive sequence that precisely established his story’s background, or setting. In “Shawshank...,” he introduced the viewer to the environment he/she is about to enter with a sweeping helicopter shot above Shawshank Prison as a bus approaches the jail’s gates. Darabont took the better part of a day’s shoot to complete the scene using 500 extras (dressed in 1940s prison stripes), a refurbished 1938 bus (for the prison’s paddywagon) and the shuttered Ohio State Penitentiary in Mansfield, Ohio, to preface his dramatic tale of a man wrongly convicted of murder and his desire to seek justice over his twenty-year incarceration. The scene follows the “credit” (or opening) sequence, where we see banker Tim Robbins convicted and sentenced.  In “The Green Mile,” Frank began his film with a scene in a contemporary retirement home where he introduces the moviegoer to the story’s principal character, Paul Edgecomb, who relates in flashback his tale as head guard on Death Row (the “Green Mile” of the film’s title) in Cold Mountain State Prison. He then commenced the flashback to 1935, and as Edgecomb begins to narrate his story, we see hundreds of prisoners (this time, 1930s prison garb) on a chain gang, working a field amidst horse-drawn wagons, mules and shotgun-wielding guards as a paddywagon drives through the shot into the prison gates. His local casting director assembled 300 extras , the transportation coordinator found several period vehicles for the scene and Darabont shot it (again, taking most of a day) outside the gates of the shuttered Tennessee State Penn in Nashville. Instead of the helicopter he employed in his previous film, Darabont and d.p. Tattersall utilized a device called a “louma” crane for the fluid camera work on display. For his third big screen effort, Darabont has finally shed the shackles of prison environments and entered an entirely new world of make-believe -- Hollywood and the movies. And, like his two other projects, Frank brings an air of authenticity in establishing the world’s movie capital, circa 1951, on his fourth and fifth days of filming “The Majestic.”  The company was scheduled to report to the historic Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, California for Sc. 12 -- “Ext. Studio Backlot: Peter is blacklisted; Sandra dumps him.” While the crew call for these two days is 6:45 a.m. (to take advantage of completing a day exterior scene before the sun sets, today at 5:57 p.m. according to our call-sheet), costumer Karyn Wagner and her crew of eleven assistants arrive for work at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m.! On these two days, the production has cast 118 “extras,” those folks who populate the background of any scene. They are sometimes referred to as “background players” or “atmosphere,” and many of these people are also members of the Screen Actors Guild who work regularly on various movies, television shows and commercials in Hollywood. These folks will portray various actors and filmmakers in 1951, roaming around the backlot while screenwriter Peter Appleton is advised by his agent and studio lawyer that HHS Studios no longer requires his services due to his suspicious background as a Communist sympathizer. These two days represent Wagner’s biggest challenge of the film. Along with her assistants and staff (primarily “assistant costume designer” Heather Pain and “costume supervisor” Mark Peterson), she must dress all 118 extras in period wardrobe to simulate the thriving film community and bustling activity in evidence at the fictional studio where Appleton works. To affect the various movies that are supposed to be filming at the lot, Wagner commissioned over three dozen different genre costumes for these 100+ background performers.  Because costume epics were the rage back in the early ‘50s, Wagner outfitted some of her extras in clothes emulating a “Marie Antoinette” look (the sky-high wigs are courtesy of the hair department, overseen by another member of team Darabont, “hairstylist” Nina Paskowitz and her 15 assistants this day). Wagner has “showgirls”, “saloon girls”, cowboys and Indians”, a “Chinese Warrior” who resembles Attila the Hun, a quartet of“Gladiators”, a quintet of “convicts” and “studio guards” (re-using the actual prison stripes and guard garb from “The Green Mile”), something called a “Roman Hand Maiden” and sundry other colorful characters and caricatures. According to Wagner, “Much of these costumes were imported from London and New York. We had to re-dye and re-fit them for our actors. We worked with a gentleman named Bob Pecina who began his career in Hollywood back in the 1940s right here at Warner Bros., which would make him easily in his 80s. As we began collecting all these costumes, he would tell us that he used many of these outfits in some of the films he actually worked on fifty years or more ago.” Since cowboys need horses and “Egyptian Servants” require the usual camel, the call-sheet for these days also noted “livestock” (animals) for the background. Wagner remembers getting an e-mail from director Darabont several months before filming began about what he wanted to see in this establishing shot of Hollywood’s heyday, and she replied that he should have an elephant for the scene! Darabont didn’t forget.  Whenever a film calls for the supervision of animals on the set, the company employs someone who coordinates the casting of the creatures, usually one who has had experience training the animals. Thirty-year veteran handler Boone Narr again joined Darabont after his stellar work with Mr. Jingles, the “mouse on the mile,” in his previous film, “The Green Mile.” Narr this day would wrangle a 32-year old Asian elephant named Thai to walk behind actor Ron Rifkin while he delivers unhappy news to Carrey’s screenwriter (for you movie experts, you may recall that Cecil B. DeMille’s 1952 Oscar-winning circus epic, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” would have been in production around this time). Thai has been in the care of trainer and breeder Gary Johnson for the last 24 years, one of eight elephants Johnson maintains at his ranch outside Los Angeles. The gentle giant (weighing in between 8182 and 8500 lbs.), considered one of the most dependable Hollywood elephants working today, responds to about 60 voice commands, simple one or two-word directives. Johnson remarks that they don’t understand sentences, but do react to simple orders, as is evident when I ask “still photographer” Ralph Nelson (who documents the entire production with still photos later used to market the film) for a special request -- a shot next to the creature. And, no, I did not pose with a shovel at its tail, even though a publicist’s job does require scooping something every now and then.  Johnson packs up his pachyderm in a 57-foot tractor trailer for the trip to Warner Bros. When needed on the set, Thai lumbers out of his mobile home for the block-long walk over to the set (situated outside Stage 21, where such memorable movies as “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “The Roaring Twenties,” “Casablanca” and others were filmed decades ago). Johnson was happy to accommodate photos with the elephant for various crew members, who marveled at the creature’s gentle nature and ability to “hit her marks” and never ruin a shot for the camera. While the crew embraced Thai’s presence on the set, “Green Mile” producer David Valdes (producing the DreamWorks remake of the 1960 classic, “The Time Machine” at Warners) also came out to greet and hug his colleague Darabont (with whom he shared all those months incarcerated “on the mile”). He also said hello to star Carrey, with whom he worked on the 1988 Dirty Harry feature, “The Dead Pool.” The company wraps scene 19 on Saturday (scenes are noted on the “clapper board” tarting with the first, or master, shot, registered with its designated number; each successive camera setup is given an alphabetic letter, in descending order starting with “A” along with the scene number, so “film editor” Jim Page knows which scenes cut together for the finished product). When the crew returned on Sunday morning (same report time), they pick up Sc. 12 where they left off the prior day.  As Carrey leaves the set, I introduce myself to him, my first opportunity to do so since our first day last Monday. To my surprise, he recognizes me from our days together in Vermont on the Farrelly Bros.’ comedy, “Me, Myself & Irene.” We exchange pleasantries for a brief moment before he retreats to his trailer. Back to the set. Sc. 12 (finishing with letter “R”, equaling 19 “setups” or varied camera angles for the entire sequence) is finally completed at sundown on Sunday. However, before the crew can call it quits for the day, they have another sequence to film -- Sc. 56: Int. Clyde’s Washington Office: Clyde makes Pete his top priority. This scene introduces actor Bob Balaban to the production as H.U.A.C. Council Elvin Clyde, the “villain” of the story, who is out to ruin Appleton’s career. Balaban has traveled from his base in New York City for the half-day shoot before his return home Sunday night. Balaban must be on a flight this night, as he is scheduled to direct an episode of Glenn Gordon Caron’s new TV series “When I Grow Up” on Monday morning. His call time in New York is 7:30 a.m. He completes his scenes in “The Majestic,” at 9:45 p.m., makes his flight at LAX at 11:00 p.m. and prays that snowy weather will not delay his arrival back east. Tomorrow -- Hollywood Boulevard’s celluloid heroes! |
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