Three Movies in Three Weeks: A Multitude of Sins Part 3

In which I achieve personal glory at the last minute, and including a small note about actors

It turns out I love to abuse actors. I never really knew for sure because before, I just got to watch actors take abuse, but now, after being the director and having the power to abuse them myself, I understand the true depth of my thesbimasocism.

Let me explain.

Because it took me awhile to commit to the script of "Sins" I ended up using, and because I had "Mary" coming up for later in the month, I had to shoot most of what I shot for "Sins" on the coldest weekend of March.

Because of continuity and a couple of other factors (like I really wanted this one actress' midriff in the dream sequence) every single one of my actors found themselves working outside in the cold without a coat for a significant amount of time, like enough that nobody would be surprised if they had ended up getting a cough.

Now, you'll remember that my first surprise upon my first day as a no-crew, no-budget movie director was that being a director isn't all that tough. It is, at its root, just another set skill.

My second surprise was that people took me seriously, or at least seriously enough to do what I asked.

Why were my actors willing to stand in the cold for me? What did I really have to offer them? Why do people sacrifice themselves just to make a movie? And, more importantly, why do I feel such a sick instinct to take advantage of that?

Maybe it's just a test of how bad they want it. I've acted before (better than my acting in this, even), and I decided it wasn't the best way to break in to the film business. In fact, I decided it was an idiotic way to try to break in to the film business.

Actors rarely work, almost never get paid, and have to do probably the most creative work of anyone on a film set under circumstances that are trying for everybody.

On the other hand, they don't have to know how to coil cable, they don't have to carry four 12-bank PAR light frames up six flights of stairs, they don't have to deal with the stalled car or the trash or the locals. They don't have the toughest jobs on a film set, but they do end up with a lot of the glory.

Basically, an actor has to want it. I just like to know how much.

In any case, I discovered I loved making my actors stand in the cold. I was never abusive, I was never unreasonable, and I always made sure they could put on their coats as often as possible and tried to keep them at least warm enough to talk and think, but once I needed those cameras to roll, those actors had better be ready to freeze their asses off and look like they were enjoying it.

I couldn't tell you why, but my actors put up with the cold, and me, and they made a great movie. Vaughn got the worst of it, the poor kid - in his first movie and dressed like a cowboy for two straight weeks on the streets of New York. The day after we finished shooting he cut his hair short and started dressing like Jon Voight at the end of the movie.

The way the audience film works, you get a month to do the thing from start to finish. With all the other shit I had going on, I ended up cutting that particular deadline preeety close. For example, there are a few story-critical shots, like the flight from Houston to New York, that I shot maybe three hours before the screening.

In fact, I finished editing "Sins" about a half-hour before the show. By then, I had My Cousin the Revolutionary with me, and we frantically outputted it to DVD and made it to the show minutes after they started. I handed off my DVD to the projectionist and took a seat in the theater.

At some point, I realized that fifty other human beings were going to see a film that up until then had been screened only by me and a man who still thought Trotsky may have had the right idea. It was then that I started to get nervous. Not too much - I was sitting next to Vaughn, for one thing, and I didn't want to freak him out by freaking out, if nothing else - but just a tad nervous.

Audience films screen right at the end, so we had to get through the whole program first. Finally, Jay and Victor introduce my movie. They say roll the movie. The movie rolls.

There is no picture.

At this point, I do not panic. I was late getting to the theater so we didn't have a chance to make sure the DVD played, they had to switch over from the DV tape, and I had sort of expected this in a worst-case scenario kind of way.

They try a couple of different things. Still, we hear the opening lines of my movie, but see no picture. The crowd, many of whom came to see Vaughn in his screen debut, is becoming restless.

I quickly and quietly make my way towards the projection room. Victor calls me out from the front of the theater as I stand at the back door and asks me if I have a backup version of my film. I bashfully admit that I don't. I slip out.

In the theater, Victor, a stand-up veteran, is covering for us with the crowd despite still being in a completely darkened theater. Thank god for Victor.

Jay and I are in the projection room. It's like we're behind the Wizard's curtain. The projectionist is running around, trying the various DVD players. There's a loose wire somewhere, but she doesn't have time to run it down. I know the DVD is working because we can see it on a TV in the booth, it just isn't making it out to the theater. At some point, we get picture but no sound.

I can't really do anything but watch and wait while this turns in to the longest period of dead air in First Sundays history.

I only think the words "abject failure" once, when Jay proposes pushing my film back two days to the special Tuesday show we're having for the fifth anniversary. The projectionist says she's close. We wait. Finally, sound and picture play in the theater.

I return to the theater. My movie is playing on the screen, meeting my only real goal for this project.

My movie is funny. My editing is weird, but it's sort of an underskilled and twisted version of the cartoony style I was originally going for, and it's also funny, so I decide I'm okay with that. Some of my shots are hokey, but it's a comedy and that's why I can get away with that. My directing had actually improved by the second half of shooting as I'd gotten more comfortable with Vaughn and learned how to use the camera and watch the acting at the same time.

People like the movie. People laugh. I kept my credits short, but people clap all the way through and more. It's more than I could ever ask for.

Jay and Victor call us down and ask us questions. Vaughn says "it was certainly educational." I explain to everyone about how cold the actors were.

We go to the after party. At each successive First Sundays after party, I feel like more and more of a hero. The world of New York short film and internet video is small and largely trivial, but for one night each month, the people in it are not quite sure if I might not be some sort of a big deal. It's not much, but it's mine, and although I can't resist taking it with a grain of salt, I also can't resist soaking it up like a sponge.

The biggest upward trend at these after parties is how many people want to talk to me. At this last party, coming off my heroic no-budget, no-crew, in the cold, strong-narrative film-making experience, enough people want to talk to me that for close to an hour, I do not have a chance to get myself a much-needed drink.

Finally, I retreat to the upstairs bar in the hopes of a beer and perhaps a moment's quiet. There, I run in to Victor, who introduces me to the bartender, who, it turns out, is also an actress. I talk to the bartender, but I also get my drink.

There is more to this story - of not singing Yellow Submarine, of becoming inebriated, and of falling asleep during Korean monster movies, but I prefer to leave it here. Me, drink in hand, living in the glory that only deeply personal achievement before the devoted public of an extremely limited world can grant me.