Now, I've mentioned throughout the blog's existence how last fall I was offered the opportunity to work as a property master on a film being produced by the SyFy Channel being filmed in Buffalo, NY. So yeah I like totally said yeah. I got to experience what it was like working on a (semi) legit film set, meet some relatively well-known actors, and see stuff I helped with end up in the final cut of the film. That all sounds nice, which is why that's all I usually tell people when describing my experience. I feel I've made enough distance in time to really look back on that time and tell an honest tale about the making of the film Battledogs. If curious, the film can be watched on Netflix instant stream. And you might see a familiar face in the background of the 13:14 mark.
Having never seen a film set except in DVD special features, I had only a vague idea of what to expect. The reality was much weirder than I had anticipated. It was pretty cool getting to read a film script before anything production-wise had been completed. I was reading everything with a fresh mind, with my own cast of actors visualized as the characters including Rosario Dawson, Robert Wisdom, Kevin McKidd, and Michael Emerson to name a few. Sadly, none of them were in the actual cast, but that's not to say the real cast was not (mostly) impressive.
I probably should've started this section off by saying the script for the then-titled Ward's Island read like absolute shit. I wasn't even sure who the main character was supposed to be until I was about halfway through it. Every major plot point seemed to be resolved with a good old-fashioned chase scene. Seriously, there were a lot, lot of chase scenes. My job, however, was not to criticize this B-movie but to read through and make notes of props or set pieces we would need to make happen.
All of the major props, weapons and such were mainly already purchased by the production staff, and our art department (a whopping three of us) were responsible for everything else. The film was being distributed by The Asylum, but we worked directly with a smaller company called Infectious Films. I don't want to say anything negative about anyone but even they would have to admit that working together was a challenge in and of itself. If my bank account matched the budget we had to work with I'd be broke within a few months, even with income. Also, some of the props the script called for were things that were quite difficult to get a find in Buffalo, resulting in entire scenes being re-blocked and re-written.
You know what, though? We powered through it and we worked every day of the two weeks of pre-production we got (that's not a lot, by the way) and when the first day of shooting came we were...not even close to being ready. As it turned out I had no idea what I was doing, I was only there because my friend invited me to join the film crew. I learned that my job was basically, when not being yelled at by the director, to stand around and wait for an actor to need a gun. Actually, it was more like stand around and try and guess when the actor needed the gun, because it seemed like neither the actors nor the director knew either.
Speaking of guns, safety was super strict on this set and, despite the weapons mainly being Airsoft rifles, weapon safety rules still applied. Actors were not allowed to point them at anyone and keep their fingers off the triggers of the unloaded toy guns. Yeah, even the fucking Nerf gun. There was one real gun among the props, though, and it had its firing pin removed. Any time the gun was taken out of its protective case I had to gather everyone around and explain that the gun was real and not to be played with. That I understood because it was technically a weapon. Same with the real dart gun and the spark gun we got later on. Yeah, blanks were apparently outside the budget so we got this handgun that fires off electric sparks that sound like a really quiet gun.
As for the rest of the props, we had to use a lot of our own stuff. My passport and laptop are seen clearly in the movie, as well as my car. Anything else we needed we ended up borrowing from the on-set medic. I blame all the fucking hospital scenes in the script.
I liked the director of the film as a director. Even as a person I appreciated that he managed to never hold a grudge against anyone who fucked up. This was good, because I fucked up a lot. He was a very precise person, and even a minor detail being off would set him off. I had myself a new asshole ripped when an actress, who was supposed to be holding her camera in a scene, had it hidden in a bag, making it not line up with a later scene. There were a lot of days like that, including a day when we couldn't get a hold of television monitors for a, you guessed it, hospital scene. There was about half a day wasted because of that.
He expected a lot from us despite the budget we had and the limited control we were given over things we should've been entirely in control of, but looking back I'd say he was justified considering he was trying to make a god damn movie while the universe seemingly did everything in its power to keep that from happening.
The downtime was the best part of the process. There was very little of it, but every once in a while we just had nothing to do while the cameras were rolling on something else. My favorite was a day where they filmed a boat chase (don't get me started on how stupid boat chases are and should be banned from film) and once I gave the actors the props and guns they'd need for the scenes, the boats and cameras took off to film and we were left to dick around on land. I found myself getting along with the extras and the production assistants the best, the two groups who usually get shit on the most during filming. I had been feeling pretty shit on myself so naturally there was a connection. The extras seemed to like me too since, as one actor put it, I was actually nice to them. Do you know what extras have to put up with? They arrive at the beginning of the work day, wait around, and maybe get on camera. Sometimes they don't even get to do anything. And they're not allowed to get lunch at the buffet until all of the main crew and cast have gotten their plates. That's some bullshit f I ever saw it.
On the subject of actors, let's talk about the cast:
Craig Sheffer as Major Brian Hoffman
Craig might be most familiar with fans of One Tree Hill where he played Uncle Keith, or his younger years where he starred in A River Runs Through It opposite Brad Pitt. As the protagonist of the film, I would say they chose well by casting Craig. His performance was honest, likable, and he's got that everyman look to him we can root for. As a person he's a lot of fun to be around, always cracking jokes and not taking anything too seriously, except of course for his acting. He was probably the most professional actor in the entire film, which is saying something considering the familiar names you're about to see.
Dennis Haysbert as General Monning
Haysbert is immediately recognizable as the man with the deep voice in those Allstate ads ("Are you in good hands?"), as well as playing President Palmer on 24. The film marketed the shit out of Dennis as he was the most familiar name in the cast, so much so that the mayor of Buffalo requested a special visit to the set to meet him. His adorers all assumed he was playing the hero of the film, when in fact he was the villain. Dennis was an interesting person. He's like seven feet tall and could crush your skull in one enclosed fist, while at the same time he comes off as a man who was dropped into this world without an instruction booklet. I noticed while watching him work that he does not so much "act" as he just says his lines in that deep, earth-shattering voice of his, and it still come off as acting. That's when he actually knows his lines, at least, which he hardly ever did. I have serious doubts he even read the script beforehand. However, he was also a joker off-camera, playing his character as from the ghetto and awing us with Darth Vader impressions.
Ariana Richards as Donna Voorhees
Ariana played the young girl Lex in Jurassic Park and the love interest in Angus. I wish I had more to say about her but, as she hardly used any props I did not spend much time around her. She held my passport in the film, though. As far as her performance goes, she didn't really convince me she was this daredevil adrenaline junkie the script insisted her character was. It was a very plain performance. Perhaps this was a result of miscasting, but I believe it had more to do with the underwriting of the script.
Wes Studi as Col. Falcons
Let me start off by saying Wes Studi is the fucking man! I remember my excitement when I read the call sheet for the next day, turned to my friend and said breathlessly, "Wes Studi's in this movie?" Magua in The Last of the Mohicans, The Sphinx in Mystery Men, the Nav'i chieftain in Avatar, along with work in films like Heat, The Doors, and The New World, I'd seen this guy in SO many movies that he was a celebrity to me. When he first arrived on set and stepped out of his car I literally froze. But enough sucking his dick already, Wes was awesome. His character's only personality trait was "henchman" so he really didn't have much to work with, so he made up for that by being an absolute badass. He was a quiet man off-camera but he had some interesting stories, like how the one person from Mohicans he keeps in touch with is the guy whose heart he cuts out in the film. Their families have Thanksgiving together. Also, Wes Studi loves playing with toy guns. Anytime the director was talking to the cast or he had nothing to do, you could see Wes aiming his rifle around and squeezing the trigger making gun noises with his mouth. He pulled a Ewan McGregor a few times by making the "Pew!" noise with his mouth during takes.
Ernie Hudson as Max Stevens
I can't believe I can't find a picture of Ernie from the film, but this one will have to do. Ernie was a Ghostbuster, and that's all you really need to know if you don't (but you SHOULD). He also turned out great performances as the lead in the HBO series Oz, and the films Congo and The Crow. Unfortunately he was another case of an actor not using a lot of props so I hardly interacted with the man at all, not even to tell him how bummed I was when he died in Oz's penultimate episode, or to act out Congo quotes in front of him. Alas. Anyway, I was surprised they cast him in this role because even in the script it was a very small supporting part, and his character has a really lame death scene halfway through and then we're forced to watch the rest of the film without him. His performance was honestly a highlight of the finished product, despite how obvious it was that Mr. Hudson was simply phoning this one in for his next paycheck.
Bill Duke as President Donald Sheridan
Bill Duke is most recognizable from Predator as the black guy that wasn't Carl Weathers, and he played an intimidating prison warden in an episode of Lost. I unfortunately don't see him come up enough in film casts, but his performance was definitely among the strongest in the film. Particularly his monologue as he regretfully approves a city-wide nuking to contain the lycanthropy. Though again he required absolutely no props, my friend and I got the chance to sit down and talk with him briefly while we prepared something for the next scene. He is the absolute nicest man I've ever met, period. He may look tough and sleepless, but the man is as friendly as can be.
Other actors and actresses included Kate Vernon of Battlestar Galactica as Dr. Gordon; Benjamin James from Two-Headed Shark Attack and a memorable episode of 1,000 Ways to Die as Corporal Parkins; Darin Cooper from The Social Network and an episode of Monk as Secretary Woods; and horror movie scream queen Debbie Rochon in a one-line cameo as a SWAT team leader. Getting to meet and see the work of these many talented people made the entire process worth it in the end. I even managed to get myself on screen in the background of an early scene as an infected person (13:14 mark, walking arm-in-arm with a girl behind Craig and Ariana). I also acted as a stand-in for a helicopter pilot in one scene with Wes Studi but I wasn't even remotely visible in the shot. I sat in to play Wes's thigh in another helicopter scene and the jury's still out on whether that's actually my leg in the final cut or not.
The film premiered on the SyFy Channel this past April and...I can't say I was too impressed. I feel the film really suffered in the editing process, as some deleted scenes included details or dialogue that was referenced by characters later on in the film, creating some confusion. It was always going to be a bad movie, but I found the end result to be bad in a bad way, not in an awesome, Sharknado-bad way. It's not very rewatchable. Maybe it's because I watched it all get made and had a hand in a lot of it, but the film didn't seem to fit together right to me. It was a lot of fun telling my family and others all about the making-of process while the film was going on, though, and pointing out the "cool ones" in the cast. There's also a drinking game just waiting to be played involving seeing the same extras from scene-to-scene, despite them dying in almost all of their appearances.
So that's my tale. I feel I've told it truthfully. I don't think I'll ever attempt to work on a film set again unless I've got a real handle on my job and how to do it, but I appreciate the opportunity my friend and the production crew gave me nonetheless. I am now officially on IMDb and in the credits of a film. If you're curious or just want to me my infamous walking-in-the-background scene, get on Netflix and look for Battledogs.
Until I write again,
Tyler
No comments:
Post a Comment