LA SHOOT – The Postmortem
- Joel Bryant eats a sandwhich
I’d love to say something snazzy and cool like , “hey…I just flew back from LA”. But actually I didn’t. In fact, I flew back from LA over a week ago. In fact, the LA shoot with Henry Winkler is sort of old news to us because it actually happened 2 weekends ago (7/25). In fact, what’s the point of having a blog if you don’t post news in a timely fashion.
I know…I suck. What can I tell you.
But here anyway is a wrap up of our shoot with Mr. Winker. How did it go, honestly in a word…spectacular.
First I can’t begin to tell you what an amazingly nice, down to earth, pleasant, funny and genuine guy Henry is. He was great to work with and seemed to go out of his way to make sure we were comfortable around him. After all, this is not some actor from central casting. Hell, it’s “The Fonz”..a certifiable television icon as well as an award winning producer, director, author and a host of other things that I’m sure I’m forgetting and that I’m sure Jody (Hillers Executive producer) will let me know about as soon as he reads this.
The weekend started with an informal rehearsal at Henry’s house. Incidentally, Henry offered use of his house to us for rehearsal – which will give you an even better idea of the guy he is. And no – I’ll get this out of the way – there was no motorcycle in the garage or no leather jacket hanging in the foyer (that’s the last Fonz reference, I swear). Just a very nice house into which we were welcomed.
Mark Travis (a director and producer who has been involved with Hillers since almost day 1) conducted a improvisational exercise with Henry to help him get to know and flesh out the character. Henry’s character is “Doctor” Sherman Watts – a therapist whose qualifications are almost as sketchy as his past. It was a truly great experience to sit and watch Henry improvise. Not to mention hilarious. We all discussed the character and the scene a left to get some rest for an early call the next day.
The day of the shoot started at 4:30am with crew call. I”m there at crew call tim
e because I won’t ask anyone to do something I wouldn’t do and besides…what the hell else am I going to be doing? The crew was great – special props to the fellas at All In One Truck for all the lights and stuff. Special thanks to our PAs who (as PAs often do) worked their asses off for nothing and did an amazing job. Also thanks to our camera and audio department who kicked ass in cramped quarters.
Henry arrived and started shooting around 7:30. All I can really say is that he nailed it. Completely and totally nailed the character, the script and the entire gist of the scene. He had great things to say about working with our two stars Joel Bryant and Tessa Munro.
I wish I had a war story here to make this a little more interesting. However, the shoot pretty much went off without a hitch. Oh, except for that “we can’t find the right adapter for this camera” thing that happened 2 days before. But – what can you do shit happens.
I’m going to be hitting the edit hard this comign weekend and hope to have a first cut of the scene by the time I come out Sunday night. Who knows when you guys will see it. But the new trailer with Henry is up at OUR WEBSITE. PLease check it out and pass it on.
And as far as that elephant in the room, like when and where Hillers will premiere. Here’s what I can say right now. When you have a great project – then you add Henry Winkler getting involved and the involvement of a few others whom I can’t really name right now, you start to get noticed. At the moment, several muckity-mucks want to talk to us about our plans for the project. And talk to them we will.
This is really another post – which will happen soon. Really. And that is a fact.
Thanks as always for all the support.
