>the kid makes a movie< or Joanna's Directorial Debut, Part One

Today's not the day to bring Joanna the wrong flavor of cream cheese on her toasted cinnamon raisin bagel but, guess what, I'm human and it happens and - hey maybe we ran out of whipped dill, did you ever think of that? - but anyway, more importantly, she's sort of forgotten about it by now so let's all do Brian a favor and pretend this paragraph doesn't exist. Cool? Awesome.

Jo and I wake up jubilant and refreshed and get started on what I'm almost 90% sure is the right foot. Both of us. The right feet.

Nearing our rehearsal space and shooting location, Joanna spots a 7-Eleven and goes Ooo-ooo-ooo and hollers what may very well have been Stop there Jeeves and asks that I retrieve her a pot of coffee. When I approach the cash register, the clerk cries conspiracy and barks something in Farsi and insists that a coffee pot's worth of coffee is not a valid 7-Eleven menu item. As a twisted and time-sucking compromise, he demands that I pour the pot into the appropriate amount of breakfast coffee cups until it's empty, and then - 17 and 3/4 cups later - he's charging me for 17-3/4 cups plus $15 for the coffee pot itself. $30 later, passing the pot to Jo in the backseat, I pretend she doesn't ask This is decaf, right?

The space we're shooting in is an unused courtyard at the rear end of a Silverlake pre-K and elementary school. Maggie and Matthew (also recently relocated New Yorkers), who are both starring in and producing the video, beat us to the set and are found wandering idly about the rundown block of cement with LA-appropriate sunglasses and arms akimbo. This music video will promote Matthew's new single - Goodbye - on his most recent EP - The Goodbye EP - or at least that's the idea.

In minutes I find that I too am wandering about the space: the gated entrance to the north; wheelbarrows and mounds of dirt to the east; a cement wall topped with tall green pine-ish trees to the west; and at the south end, a 3' high stage, complete with an aluminum overhang, non-working electrical outlets and a bizarre assortment of Christmas decorations in dilapidated cardboard boxes, Halloween-related banners, wooden doors, glass panels, children's clothing, bike helmets, and a living room-worth of furniture that the Goodwill would downright refuse.

Joanna stands in the center of the courtyard, taps her cane three times on the ground and goes, Here, so I fetch the ventilated canopy from the trunk of the Hummer limo we've rented for the day and set it up in the designated spot. I tell her that her caprese salad will be delivered at 11:30AM on the nose and that the restaurant didn't know how to make an Arnold Palmer but I've ordered her an iced tea and I've made a batch of hand-squeezed lemonade so we'll make it in-house and she seems "o-k" with that.

The premise of the video is that Maggie - Matthew's wife in real life and his muse in the world of the film - is supplying Matthew's words/lyrics for him. He tries to introduce himself, begin a conversation, get this mysterious woman's name, but he can't seem to grab her attention. He brings on an assortment of props to assist in his efforts; when that doesn't work, he shifts gears from props to production value, bringing on various circus acts to impress her, but it's no use. Matthew's efforts backfire as the stage becomes a virtual circus and the swarm of people he hoped would assist him are now trampling him...

...and you'll have to wait for the video's premiere to find out what happens.

I scan the crap furniture hoarded beneath the ridged aluminum sheets and select the pink and cream paisley couch - without a doubt the crappiest of them all - and we lug it down the rusted steps, off the stage and into the frame, and the crew huddles around to see how it looks in the monitor and we all go Ooo. This is where Maggie and Matthew meet at the beginning - in this very artistic-looking alleyway - and the couch is sort of the centerpiece of the video, albeit dusty and potentially diseased...

...but let's just keep the whole "Maggie and Matthew" thing between you and me, cause Joanna - don't ask me why - insists on referring to them as Zucko and Sandy for the entirety of the project. It's all "Zucko does this" and "Sandy feels this way about it" and god forbid someone call them by their actual names cause she might just throw a stick at them but, seriously though, I didn't even know she liked musicals...

The rehearsal is more productive than we could have hoped and we all celebrate with warm water bottles and sweaty high-fives. Most of the crew departs at this point, but Joanna and Zucko (::cringe::) and I stick around to audition some cheerleaders, ballerinas and football players. Joanna has the talent stand on hollow blocks and recite this monologue she downloaded from moviescripts.com. You might remember it. It's the one where Lieutenant Dan pulls Forrest down onto the floor of the barracks roundabout midnight and tells him that he was supposed to die in the heat of battle.

Needless to say, the majority of the actors have trouble connecting to the piece, which Joanna blames almost 100% on saturated fats and, while I'm sure that that does play some part in the lack of connection, you kinda gotta blame it on the fact that the scene's a tiny bit intense for a music video audition, but whatever, you didn't hear it from me, but Joanna's pleased with Girls A, D and F and Guys 3 and 4 and casts them on the spot. We pack up our things and the leftover pizza and we're on our way.

I filled up the tank this morning but the Hummer's already down to a quarter so I stop at the 7-Eleven pumps to refill on gas. From the backseat I hear an Ooo-ooo-ooo and of course I know what that means - Wild Cherry Slurpee - but she wants it with crushed up oreos and a real spoon, not a plastic spoon, but like real friggin' china.

p.s. If you know anything at all about Joanna and/or her direction, you also know that I can tease her like I do because she's the most good-natured, kind, unimposing director you'll ever meet. Even with the whole scraggly beard slash Che Guevara thing she has going on these days, I still have to push her to take charge. Just FYI.

Tune in ... uh, some other time ... when we rock Part Two of the kid makes a movie. Oh, and did we mention that the whole video is shot in one take?




Okay, so listen, Joanna totally told me to write that thing about the "good-natured," "unimposing" blah blah blah. I'm kinda borderline thinking I'm not gonna make it out of this stupid video in one piece, so let's --

hold on

oh, here she comes, i gotta go crap okay bye