One day to go before I film my movie on a boat. OK, "Pirates of the Caribbean" it's not. But it is my own first self-produced, self-written, self-(co)directed short film I'm starring in. Short. Very short. Five minutes short.
"Come on, let's go meet my Mafia homies," Sailor Steve, who owns the ratty, but lovable little tuna boat I'm filming on, says. He has a way of going off topic. He's driving me on a dinghy around the bay, so I can scout out the boat from the water. I met him while walking the Marina, looking for a boat to film on. He offered his. For free.
Stay on task, Sailor Steve. I'm here to shoot a film. Not hobnob with salty seadogs. In spite of my polite protests, he parades me by his neighbor's boat. A motley crew of depraved-looking, sea-going characters peer out at me, looking like they just stepped off the "Black Pearl". Looking like they've been locked up in solitary for two years and their eyes aren't used to focusing on sunlight - or the female form. My arms go prickly with goose bumps, as they stare. Not the good kind. There's a blond balding fisherman with a hooked nose, whose face and eyes look hard as a rock. There's a black-haired, beefy guy who looks like he'd knife and rape you in broad daylight. I'm glad he's on a separate boat.
"He's the Mafia guy," Sailor Steve whispers. The eyes follow us craftily, like in a Mafia movie. There's more shady characters behind them. I stop looking.
"They're sardine fishermen. I like tuna fishing myself." Sailor Steve waves to them. "Hi - bye!" he calls out. I'm relieved we don't get off. "One of them just got out of prison," Sailor Steve brags. "Eighteen years." I don't bother to ask who.
I guess the boat comes free. But this is the price I pay. He at least has to parade me in front of his jailbird Mafia homies.
OK - back to the business of scouting the location for my film. This will be a spoof. A remake of "Shutter Island", of how I would have escaped the looney island and the rats if I had been Dr. Rachel Saldana. I mean, come on, living with rats? What's that…? No, Dr. Rachel Saldana, you escape onto the ferryboat, even if you have to brave sharks and currents and a nasty lobotomy needle. It's better than dying of bubonic plague.
I can't believe I've gotten this far with my shoot. Getting L.A. actors all committed on the same day to one day of shooting even though they're not getting paid. And - finding a free boat to film on, to boot.
The next morning, Sailor Steve is ready for us when my D.P. and I show up. Ready in his sailor overalls and flannel shirt and gray hair, spiky from wind and sea, not from mousse. We do a walk-through. Sailor Steve follows behind, peppering me with ideas on how his role should get expanded. He's playing a deck hand. The highlight for him is when I take his gun and deck him on the head with it. But he's convinced he's Bruce Willis and the story should expand into me falling in love with him after I deck him. Setting up takes a lot longer that it should. He won't stop talking. This is the price I pay for a free boat…
We finally convince him to get on his dinghy and visit his Mafia homies. Our first setup - me climbing onto the boat. Sailor Steve has rigged up a rope ladder - an S & M sort of nautical ladder. The rope fibers cut deep into my hands, arms, and legs. Snaking up the flimsy rope is like trying to climb out of a deep overhanging cave on vines. Well, I'm supposed to be struggling and desperate, anyway. So it works.
Later… another setup. I've decked Sailor Steve with the gun, throwing his Bruce Willis idea to the winds. I'm now scanning the boat with the gun, looking for anyone who's after me. I try to use some of the magnetizing techniques that Tom Ardavany, my acting teacher from Venice Beach, teaches. Magnetizing the space around me with something meaningfully menacing to me, so that the space around me makes me react to it - rather than me projecting some fake idea into the space. The effect gets diluted. Dulled by the stress of directing, the logistics of dealing with Sailor Steve and his Bruce Willis ideas, and just the unnerving act of making a movie. Hopefully some of my preparation translates to the video.
"You're a doctor," Sailor Steve screams. "But you know how to hold a gun. You give life, but you're a killer too!" The guy doesn't quit. This is the price for using his boat…
The other two actors and my co-director arrive. OK, time to go. The big scene. Emily is directing it. I'm not used to sharing. I hate sharing. But she has some good ideas and a no nonsense, focused approach, very unlike my meandering one. This is a good lesson for me. Sharing the directing of my creative film with someone else. Making a movie is all about teamwork. Might as well start here. Sharing. Maybe now I can relax and concentrate on the acting, without the stress of directing or dealing with Sailor Steve or anything else.
I'm outside, waiting to go into the scene. "Action!"
I take a deep breath. Relax, leave the directing to someone else. Just act. Be in the moment. A big, sweet-faced sea lion dives in and out of the water, just feet away from me. Its fat oily skin looks sleek in the sunlight and water. I've done a preparation with my father. Somehow the sea lion reminds me of my dad - happy-go-lucky, poignant, sad, and doomed somehow. Something in me wells up. I'm fighting for my dad, I'm fighting for the sea lion. "Desperate!" Emily calls out. "You're desperate." I'm ready. Go!
And so, the filming begins. We overcome the challenges. The boat's wheel room, where we're shooting, is tiny. The camera and three actors don't all fit in it. The D.P. finds a place to shoot from from the deck in through the window on one side. He shoots from a ladder on the other side. Sailor Steve had the foresight to provide it. "I've been in the movie business, I know all about it," he says. "My brother was in commercials."
Another challenge. The closeup with the lobotomy needle getting ready to poke my eye doesn't come out like it did in my dream vision. We work on it. A Dutch angle extreme closeup finally comes partway towards fulfilling my vision. Not totally. Sometimes you have to settle. And move on.
There's something maddening, wonderful, frustrating, and exhilarating working with other actors and crew. All that is there. This is the work. This is what we do it for. The good and the bad.
The second take of my closeup is the one for me. It flows all the way through. I'm full, I'm alive. I know that's the take. Just at the fullest moment, towards the end, the sea lions start to bark. Loudly. Non stop. I'm full and alive and I can't get my line out. You wouldn't be able to hear it with the sea lions barking. Someone on a boat next door is feeding them. Frustrating. But you live with it and move on. Move on.
A couple of cutaways of the crew on deck. And it's a wrap.
No. There's one more shot. The shot I dread. Me swimming in the water towards the boat. I have to jump into the filthy marina water. I see oil slicks, fruit rinds, gas cans, garbage, all suspended in the sick, murky green-blue muck. I get disturbing visions. Maybe my eyelids and face will puff up with some septic infection, maybe my insides will spasm from toxic poisoning. But I have to jump. I jump. Frigid toxic wash shrivels up my skin. Get the shots! I'm not staying in here long.
Finally, it's over.
In the back of my muck-addled brain, I realize I missed a perfect opportunity to magnetize the water with all the crazy crawlies that might be in it. But I just want to get out. I'm toxic. I need to untoxify. I crawl out and jump into Sailor Steve's shower. Cheap 99-cent store shampoo, no conditioner, soap that's cracked and caked with grime. It's all good. It's better than toxic waste on my skin.
Sailor Steve makes a wisecrack about catching me in my wet dress on his camera. He can hardly wait to show his homies. The price of using his boat…
We all take a few pictures, Sailor Steve swings around on some contraption he's rigged up for when he's out at sea, catching tuna. He looks like a child, swinging. A salty fat seadog child with blue overalls and gray hair. He plays his guitar for a few minutes. His voice is a tenor-baritone radio-pop mix that's wonderful. Unexpected from such a cracked, gruff, salty sailor guy. Like hearing an angel voice come out of the exorcist.
Then we're done. Sailor Steve and his green tuna boat, the Frank F, fade into the background.
Soon my film will take center stage. All I have to do now is to edit it.