Keeping You In The Loop

First of all, a pic from several weeks ago:


This is from mid February. I snapped it during my ADR session for Lie To Me. ADR, or "looping" is when you go into a sound studio after something has been shot and re-record certain dialogue. It is usually done for one of two reasons: either because a line didn't come out clean (like, a plane passed during that moment, or another actor cut into the line), or because a line has been changed (to further explain the plot, or sometimes even to change it).

In this case, it was for clarification. My scene opened with a pan shot that, on its way to picking me up, passes over a waiter being interrogated in the corner of the kitchen. The director was afraid the audience would think the waiter was the one speaking. So to my original line ("If you're not part of the families, we can't give you the tapes"), they added the following for the sake of clarity: "We're professional videographers. We have rules. So....."

I guess the idea was that with the added line, the audience would realize that the waiter isn't a professional videographer! Brilliant!

ADR is nicknamed "looping" by everyone in the biz because in Ye Olde Days, the way they did it was to have an actor listen to and watch a "loop" of the same film clip over and over and over; after hearing it many times the performer was able to easily sync up with the soundtrack on the next "loop" and thus match his/her lips moving onscreen.

I've done a fair amount of looping on past shows and I feel like I'm pretty good at it. I've found that it's less about matching the lips perfectly (which comes with repetition) and more about matching the intention and intensity of the original scene.

In the case of this shot, there was no lip-sync to worry about: because my entire first line occurs during the pan, I wasn't even on camera until the very tail end.

A good production company will always get "room tone" at a location before they leave it. That's about a minute of recorded "nothingness" on the set/location that actually isn't nothing; it's whatever ambient noise exists that day: air conditioners, rain, even the hum of fluorescent lights. No matter how controlled your set is, there's always a little room tone to pick up. Later, if a scene has to be looped, they can mix the "room tone" under the new dialogue and make it sound more real.

Of course, there are varying degrees of success (or failure) at getting ADR to meld seamlessly into your final product. And as a viewer, once you're aware of looping, it jumps out at you all the time. Either because the room tone doesn't match well, or because even though someone's back is to camera, you can tell their cheeks aren't moving in sync with the dialogue (as was the case with me on Law and Order: Trial By Jury a few years back....but there was nothing I could do, because they were adding an entirely new line, so the synch would never have been right).

So now when we're watching TV, I'll often mutter "looping" when I see it.... much to Jody's chagrin.

"Tom, from the elevator, turns to Rachel, tears streaming..."

I'm back. It was a long layoff, I know. Basically, I got sick. And I was really busy at the same time. But lots of posts in the coming days, I promise...

...Starting with my shoot for Eleventh Hour, which took place the day after my last post. Warning, I'm still low on time, so this will be very stream-of-consciousness, just to get it out, and not the usual, refined writing you're used to. ;)

The title of this post refers to the lines in the script that were haunting me leading into the shoot. They wanted someone who'd be able to give a strong emotional performance on cue, and I'd been able to do that in the audition. But how would I fare on the set, with take after take after take, and about 50 people watching me?

"Painfully shy Tom, from the elevator, turns to Rachel, tears streaming...."

This is after painfully shy Tom has killed Hailey, his supermodel neighbor, and is now perched on her balcony overlooking Eighth Avenue.

Of course, by the time we did the episode, I was no longer Hailey's neighbor; I was now her doorman. And we no longer had an awkward scene in an elevator; it was now a creepy scene where I followed her upstairs to "give her mail to her" and then forced my way into her apartment.

The script changes came at the eleventh hour (ha ha, get it?), literally the night before, and they changed my day somewhat, that's for sure. Starting with trying on an ill-fitting doorman's outfit at 8am. And then psyching myself up to be "creepy guy" all day, instead of "painfully shy geek" which I was before. I threw on a little Brooklyn accent (much more polished than the one I did for LIE TO ME) and proceeded to set.

Where I encountered something I've never dealt with before: two directors. The episode director whispering in one ear, and the executive producer in the other one. And not always agreeing. The exec producer was a Scottish expat and had a THICK accent, and it was hard to take him seriously sometimes as he gutturally said, LAYTS NOOT MEK IT ALL HAWLYWID, YAH? LAYTS MEK IT REAL!

I did okay for the main scene, except I had to close the door behind me when I forced my way in to the apt., and the E.P. kept giving me alternate lines to end the scene with. (Original line: "Aren't you going to invite me in?" Alternates: "Maybe you should invite me in." "Shhhh, shhhhh, don't be afraid Ms. Vaughn." CREEPY!) And I'd say on about HALF of the takes, I forgot to close the door because I was trying to remember which line I was doing this time, and the director had to remind me a couple of times, and that sucked. I'd remember to shut it twice and then forget the third time, and about the 4th or 5th time this happened, I shouted "GodDAMNit!" after the take ended, and startled half the people on the set.

But it was a good creepy scene, and I was psyched that we got a nice shape out of it.

"Painfully shy Tom, from the elevator, turns to Rachel, tears streaming...."

So then I had a couple hours to kill. For one, we had lunch, and for another, they were shooting a quick intervening scene before my big breakdown. During the latter, I met Rufus Sewell, who was lovely, and was to be in my next scene. We talked a while about what it's like acting in Stoppard plays (Mr. Sewell originated the role of Septimus in Arcadia, and I had also recently seen him in Rock 'n' Roll on Broadway), which was a total trip.

I had spent some time trying to get mentally in shape for bawling. I had a full-on deep tissue massage the day before just so my body would be loose, with all the tense spots released—I wanted to be fully available to myself, as it were. I also made a playlist on my iPhone called "weepies", which had 7 or 8 tracks on it of songs that really move me emotionally. These included (in no particular order), the Finale from West Side Story, Albinoni's Adagio in G minor (which you may know from Gallipoli), Barber's Adagio for Strings (which you may recognize from Platoon), Górecki's Lento e Largo, andSunday and Finishing the Hat, both from Sunday in the Park With George. Last, but certainly not least, Judy Collin's masterpiece, Suzanne, which wound up being my key for the day.

But first, let me talk about the fun part. In this scene, I was to be seen on the balcony ("tears streaming"), and after a couple of lines, over I go. Suicide. Having just been shot the previous week, I was really looking forward to another yummy death scene.

I'd originally assumed this would be shot outside with an airbag or something. Ha! Not in the world of tee vee. When I found out we'd be shooting it in the studio, I wondered how they'd fake it and still assumed I'd be 3-4 stories in the air. Nope. My 16th-floor balcony was on the ground floor of the studio. The camera, which I guess would have had to have been on a crane otherwise, was on the floor a few feet away.

To give you an idea, here's the balcony I'll be appearing on, complete with its view of 45th ST and the Majestic Theater. (Try to imagine a few taxis honking below):


Now take another look at that same shot with a slightly wider view:

Pretty funny, huh? Pretty magical at the same time. I like how if you look closely at all the apartments across the street there's no one actually visible in any of the windows. Just sofas, plants, weird shapes. No people though.

"Painfully shy Tom, from the elevator, turns to Rachel, tears streaming...."

So all afternoon I'm pacing around, feeling mopey and listening to my iPhone. All of the songs above have led me to cry at one point or another. I respond very viscerally/kinesthetically to music, and I knew it was going to be my ally today. I pictured Mel Gibson arriving one second too late to stop the charge. I pictured Maria shouting at both gangs, "How many bullets left, and still have one for me?" I think of that quote and it gives me chills, even as I type this. I also shamelessly used what life has dealt me in recent years. You all know the various tragedies we've had to stare down and I went there. Thought about all Jody and I have been through, and what my worst fears had been on some of those days. I worked myself into quite a miserable state. And I tried to envision having just unexpectedly snapped and killed someone I knew (as in, the "event" of the scene), although, truth be told, that didn't trigger a whole lot.

We did a rehearsal of the shot for lighting, and when it was done, I turned on Suzanne. This song is a gorgeous and melancholy 70s ballad written by Leonard Cohen. And it has a powerful effect on me.

Sometime in his last year or so, my dad had figured out iTunes and was downloading songs from his past that he'd always really loved. He picked me up at Amtrak for a particular visit, and proudly popped a CD in the car's player, telling me it was the first CD he'd ever "burned". Suzanne came on and he told me how it was a song from back when they WROTE SONGS, not just crap, and how it TOLD A STORY, and how there was COMPLEXITY, and it MADE YOU THINK. And then we listened to the song all the way back to my parents' house, not a word spoken between us. I remember seeing the dashboard of the car and the smell of Barry's shampoo, and listening to this song. It's a cutting and profound and timeless memory for me.

And here I was on set, playing it over and over again, and thinking about all of our last moments, and his last moments with my mom, and of course I just let loose. Except I needed to try to harness all that. So I'd get to the brink, and then stop. And get up and turn off the music and go get a cough drop (I was already coughing that day), and chat with my stand-in. And when the feeling was going away, I'd restart the song from the beginning. And summon up the memories again. And so on.

When it came to shoot the scene, I had to have fake blood all over my hands, which meant no hanging onto the iPhone and then stowing it in my pocket until the last minute. I had to surrender it completely. But by then I was walking this fine line between cool actor on set and complete basketcase breakdown. So I hoisted onto the balcony with my bloody hands in front of me, and as they called the regular sequence of the shot—"picture's up......rolling!......speed!.....xxx scene 26 take two!"—I was summoning those opening chords in my head and picking one new memory of the last three years to focus on (mostly Barry, but stuff about Jody's dad as well, and my mom, and even some stuff that Jody and I dealt with).

And the tears came powerfully, and I sobbed, and we'd shoot the scene, and at "CUT!" I would just cut it off and hitch it back and STOP. Which was not too hard, because the scene ended with me pitching over the side of the balcony, falling a distance of about a foot and a half, and landing with a quiet "thud" on these two gymnasts' mats they'd stacked up. And that sideways "thud" was a weird enough sensation that it jogged these other thoughts right out of my head. And it was a bit of a relief to stop crying each time, but I was going so hard to the well that there was a lot more that wanted to come out, so it hurt a little bit to keep it in as well. But stopping each time was the way to go, because we did 9 takes from one angle and 3 from the other, and I was able to start it up again at the top and sob through every damn one.

I felt guilty the whole time. I asked myself if I was betraying someone—it certainly felt like I was cheapening my father's death or the like. But at the same time, I thought, "this is my job, I have to get there, anything is fair game." I'm sure Barry would have told me USE IT! USE YOUR LIFE! So I made my peace with it.

And then I was wrapped, and the director came over to personally thank me for giving him what I did for the scene. It's going to wind up being all of three seconds on camera, but I hope they pull in close for those three seconds. A lot of work went into them. Plus, I really hate watching TV and seeing someone making fake crying noises and they're not really crying. It's not an easy thing to do, and that's fine, but if you're not in that state, either GET in that state, or else play the scene the way you're actually feeling.

Okay, off my high horse now.

I was keyed up for the rest of the night, probably because I never let it all out. After being in that manic state for over an hour, letting out and then pulling it back, my body really wanted that final release. I could have sat in my trailer and blubbered, but it felt bizarre to try to trigger it at that point, and I was so tired, besides. So I called Jody as I was leaving the lot, and THAT triggered some of it, just telling her about the day, and I cried over the phone to her for a bit. And then she wisely took me out for a burger and a serious martini. The latter of which finally brought me down.

Okay, this is an absolute TOME, thanks for reading this far, I hope it's not too self-indulgent, but it actually helped me to write it all down. And as I said, more posts in the coming days, promise. :)

An Action-Packed Day

As you know from previous posts, Wednesday was my second day shooting on [redacted]. It promised all kinds of intrigue. Gunshots! Dust storms! Lightning shooting from my arm! Craft services!

The day began for me at 8:30am, when I got in the Prius and, after a pit stop at Intelligentsia, commenced the nearly hour-long drive out to Polsa Rosa Ranch, a 700+ acre site near Acton, CA. The ranch is basically wild terrain that has been dedicated to shooting movies, commercials and TV shows. They have gullies, tableaus, dry riverbeds, a water tank, an airport, etc., etc.. Pretty cool stuff.

When I first arrived, I thought I was on the set for The Sound of Music. This isn't a great picture, but it gives you an idea:

There was snow on the distant mountains, and apparently on the ground at our location as recently as yesterday. One of the wardrobe people told me they'd had to find over 100 vintage coats in the last 24 hours in case the snow didn't melt.

I was pretty amazed at what a TV studio can do when it puts its mind to it. They had basically built a small compound, complete with electricity (supplied by enormous generators) and running water, on top of a vast desert plateau several miles from the nearest civilization. Everything was set to look like the 1960s. Again, I'm being careful about not putting too much info out there, but here are a couple of cool buses that look like they could have been in a movie about the civil-rights movement:

There were, I'd guess, between 150-200 people on set: maybe 60-70 background actors, all in period clothing, plus 5 principals. And the crew: stuntmen, body doubles and stand-ins, gaffers, camera and sound, wardrobe, makeup, props, set and art directors, the show's producers, FX guys, safety consultants, caterers, etc. etc. A HUGE conglomeration of people on a chilly, muddy mesa in the middle of nowhere.

The morning and afternoon were mostly establishment shots of myself and my family arriving at the compound and being introduced to our hosts. Looking around and seeing everything vintage was a real treat. The costumes and hair design were fantastic. We did several takes from various different angles (including a few crane shots) and dodged the ominous weather on the horizon. We had one or two moments of sprinkly rain, but mostly the sun was shining.

I had always wondered how film crews dealt with making marks for actors to hit on rough terrain. You can't really put down tape. Turns out they use multi-colored beanbags:

... which look vaguely religious.

We broke for lunch at 4:30, so a loooong "morning", but a productive one. I grabbed some lunch along with the other 150 people....

... and a quick lie-down, although it was too noisy to get any sleep.

The day had been relatively comfortable temperature-wise (especially when the sun was out), but the night was another story. As the sun set, the wind picked up and our mountaintop went from a sunny 58° down to a windy 37° (which felt more like 20°). It was a wet, raw wind, and staying in it without protection for more than a minute or two set your teeth chattering. Plus, because the night shots involved the dust storm, we had artificial breeze to add to the natural one:

There were four or five of these wind machines on the set. Some of the shots had them as close as five feet away from me. Plus the "dust", which was really more like thick smoke. And tumbleweeds! They'd throw a few tumbleweeds rolling through each take. It was totally "Wrath of God" stuff, as Indiana Jones would say. Here's one shot from the video village:

Note the crane camera overhead, and the goggles the producer is wearing.

My night scenes were with my 9-year-old daughter, and she and I were in regular shirts for the scene. So we had people standing around with coats to throw on our shoulders after each take, and whenever there was a pause in the action, we would bolt for one of the set's propane heaters or, if there was enough time, for a dedicated "warming van".

The night scene also involved me hitting a guy with a bolt of lightning from my arm. There were several effects used to create this moment, and I imagine more will be done with CGI later. But the most fascinating part of it was the moment when the guy gets hit: he is driven back by the bolt. This was accomplished with a stuntman in a harness attached to a cable which was suspended from a crane about 70 feet in the air:

During the shot, I'd lift my hand, and then this guy would literally get yanked back about 15-20 feet by the cable. Incredible. He was clearly a pro, and had various moves he did to leave the ground delicately and land safely. There were a few takes shot from a ground camera which showed him in the distant background and then flying through the air into the foreground to practically land on the camera. Awesome.

I also got shot in the scene, which involved having a "squib", or small explosive charge, placed under my shirt. There are bloody squibs and powder squibs, and this was the latter. When it goes off, it rips a hole in the shirt, and leaves a black, burnt void behind the hole. Less gory, more about the bullet's impact. We went though 6 or 7 squib rehearsals and three different squib takes. The sensation was a little odd (in one take, I felt a little powder from the squib hit my chin), but ultimately felt really cool—I mean, who as an actor doesn't relish the chance to be shot onscreen?

I had to wear earplugs because of the squib. And this meant it was nearly impossible to hear the director. We'd get ready to start the scene, and between the earplugs, the natural wind, the manufactured wind, and the fan motors, I couldn't hear damn near anything. At one point the director was yelling "action!" at me through a megaphone from maybe 10 feet behind me and I still couldn't hear him, so he had to send the 1st A.D. running into my eyeline and waving at me to start.

We wrapped around midnight and I was home by 1am. All in all, an amazing day. By the end of it, everyone was frigid and chapped and tired—but we definitely got some magic in the can. The [redacted] crew are clearly having a good time working on an unusual show, and that infectious good cheer permeated every corner of our set. Alas, I know I won't work with them again (barring some other flashback), but the one day was plenty to chew on for a while.

Technical Difficulties

Wednesday on [redacted] was pretty awesome and crazy. A VERY long day.

Been very busy catching up with the rest of my life since then. I'll get a post up later this weekend with pics and all.

Also, I would have posted sooner, but I was having a problem accessing my computer...

Well, This Should Be Interesting....

To our Cast,

As per our conversation today, in Episode xxx, [redacted] will be recreating a dust storm. The Special Effects Department will be using FX Dirt which is considered the safest product available. Even though the material is non-hazardous and non-toxic, it can still be irritating to the eyes, nose and throat. Anyone with a history of asthma or other respiratory limitations should advise the production office. The FX Dirt will be used well within the the regulatory permissible exposure limits for nusiance particulates. A representative from Ellis Environmental, an outside testing company, will be on set during the heavy dust days monitoring the air to maintain a safe and healthful work environment.

[redacted] has blocked the scenes to minimize your exposure to this effect. We will be using stunt doubles in wide shots and only bring you in for closer shots. Our medic will be equipped with all materials to deal with this type of effect including having a portable eye wash station on set. If you experience any discomfort, please notify production or see the medic immediately. Attached please find the Material Safety Data Sheet for the FX Dirt.

All's Well That Ends Well

I am trying my first mobile blog post.

Am on the set of [redacted], and just heard that 11th hour is a go.
The two productions were nice enough to find a work around. Yowza!

This has been some crazy week, and it's only Thursday...