THANK YOU IAN

Ian Wallace, the wonderful man who played drums on 8 of the tracks you will hear in Callback, died yesterday. After an incredibly long career that included spells with everyone from King Crimson to Dylan and Eric Clapton it appears that those recordings will be among his last.

I’d been thinking about putting a small dedication to Stinker the cat at the end of the movie whose demise I wrote about earlier. It will be an honor to say thanks to Ian in the same place. I hope he’s OK about having equal billing with a mischievous tabby cat.

God bless you Ian.

JULIE

Nathan, our sound guy, sings and writes songs for a band called Julie and, according to the pix on their website, is starting to look more and more like Wes from Mad Max every day. Their album is out next week and you know what? – it rocks. Check ‘em out here. What’s this got to do with Callback? – everything & nothing of course.

In the spirit of the Callback free-trade agreement I’m hoping that Nathan is going to let me shoot some stuff for his band and in return he’s going to sing some of the tunes on our soundtrack. “How much more Dick does this movie need?” I have heard you say. Well the people have spoken – you’ll be hearing Nathan’s pipes instead of mine.

Meanwhile I was shooting a video at the week-end and in our lunch-break I got Steve Karas, the label guy, to give me five minutes of his time to pose behind a monitor and pretend he was directing the Mr.Tampon commercial. We did four good takes but I was panicking, “You should be back at work!” my guilt-complex was screaming at me and then I found the mics on the camera were turned down! Crap – where’s a decent director / producer / cameraman / sound-guy when you need one?

HARD. DRIVE.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I’d just trot over to Ian Wallace’s pad in the Valley with my external hard drive and let him at my tunes with his drum-sticks. A busy day and a few cups of tea should cover it I thought.

Well first his computer wouldn’t read my hard drive, so I bought another one. Then I imported the wrong files. Then…oh bollocks you don’t need to know the details it’s so frustrating. Now it’s Thursday, four days after we started all of this, and Ian’s drumming is a bunch of dots and zeroes somewhere in the pile of hard drives and Apples that’s sitting in my spare bathroom refusing to talk to each other. I could cry.

Pro Tools sucks! That’s how I feel right now…Obviously it’s been a crap week. Grrr. Bah. Humbug.

P.S. Ian by the way, has been an absolute gent, is a fab drummer and has some great stories – including a new one about some director bloke who told him, “That was too good. Play it worse!” Check him out here.

TRAILER

Paint drying I hear you say…

Music…I’ve finally got the external hard drive on the Pro Tools working (thanks Barry) and I’m taking 8 tracks over to Ian Wallace tomorrow so he can play drums for us – very exciting.

Trailer…Dec and I have been trying to learn how to make trailers and so far it’s been a steep learning curve – most of it down-hlll! I’ve learned in the last two days that most trailers have lots and lots of talking by that Mr. Deep Voice guy. This evening we’ve come up with a new plan and discovered that in our midst Jordan, our co-writer, has the perfect voice for a Callback trailer. Hopefully we can put something up on the site soon.

Selling…I was in England last week drumming up interest. The momentum needs to start rolling in that direction I think.

Pick-ups…As I was going through customs and immigration on my way back from Blighty last week Jord was stealing shots of people arriving in limos on Hollywood Blvd., at the big show that I can’t name in case I get into trouble. His instructions were: “Get us wide shots but don’t show anyone’s face!”

Re-shoots…It’s getting sunnier. Time to get my ass in gear and get this thing finished.

SCREENINGS

If you read enough about Hollywood you’ll eventually come across rants by various directors who detest test screenings. The directors all whine about the way randonly-picked strangers watch their precious film and suggest ways it can be improved. How dare they? To be sure it’s a delicate process and whenever you show your work to someone you find yourself loving the people who liked your film and despising those who didn’t.

I’ve shown my first assembly of the movie twice now. The first screening was a success with lots of laughter and merriment, pats on the back and even a round of applause at the end. The second screening was a maudlin affair with long faces. Quite obviously I really enjoyed the first screening and hated the second one. But now that the dust has settled I can see a number of truths emerging…

a) Some people really get what Moe is about, embrace him and his wonderful blind optimism, and enjoy his journey – Kevin did a fine job.

b) Some people don’t get the movie at all – they never will and nothing I can do will change that. I have a certain sensibility and they don’t. That’s the way of the world. Move on, get over it.

c) Nearly everyone thinks Moe’s voice-over should be extended and put on camera as part of his acting-class project. Ironically this approach was in an earlier draft – for some forgotten reason I took it out. I guess it’s going back in.

d) No-one gets why Kremenz changes his mind and lets Moe read for the sidekick. They want to see that onscreen and not offscreen. Now I think about it it’s a basic rule of cinema – at the end of Act 3 the hero needs to be victorious over the antagonist: preferably face-to-face.

e) No-one understands that when Vivian gets the phone call from Kremenz about “Bruce, kids party, dinosaurs…got it.” that this is the clue that inspires Moe to make steal Erika’s body stocking and build his dinosaur costume.

f) Moe needs to be arrested, Keystone Cops-style if possible.

g) Seeing a man in a banana suit is very funny.

h) Test screenings are actually very useful – you find out what’s working and what isn’t. Just remember to bring a bucket to puke into next time. Or, if you’re lucky, a laurel wreath to wear on your head so you can feel like a true genius and a pompous ass at the same time.

i) Making movies is tough – and don’t you forget it.

I remember once being asked to make a video for a huge Hollywood movie and drove out to Thousand Oaks for a test screening. When the movie was over the rest of the audience had to stay behind and fill out score cards while I slipped into the Mens Room to take a leak before the long drive home. As I was standing at the urinal I was joined by two men who I assumed to be a suit from the studio and the movie’s producer. As they drained their lizards the studio guy quickly formulated a plan for ’saving the movie’ which entailed voice-overs, new music, and drastic cuts.

“But what about Lewis?” asked the producer. “We should consult him. He’s a respected director and the reason why this film got made.”

“Screw him!” said the exec, zipping up his flies and checking himself out in the mirror, “I never liked him anyway.”

That’s Hollywood for ya. There’s no studio around on Callback, not yet anyway, and I only have one duty and that’s to make the best film I can. I need to swallow my pride, stick to my principles and then learn what I can from what people are experiencing when they watch the movie. And if some people don’t get the movie – that’s OK. Others will.

TUI

I know this is Totally Useless Information but I thought you should know that we’re going to record our own version of “Act Naturally” for Kevin to sing along to.

He wants to do it in the Key of G.