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For three years, I have been in China teaching Swing Dancing. Now I'm wandering yet again...
2005-09-23
Another movie, plus updates on the previous ones.
So, it did happen again. I just finished filming another 1920's movie with dancing, this one staring Edward Norton (of Fight Club, Rounders, the Italian Job, etc.) My role on this was as a general dance consultant, and I'm supposed to get the title of Choreographer in the credits, if they hold up on their end of the bargain.
I received a call about two weeks ago. An actress friend of mine put in a good word with the movie producer about my dance contribution to the White Countess, and I was able to negotiate a small contract over the phone with them. We had very little time to prepare - only about three days from the point we agreed upon terms to the shooting beginning. I called up a bunch of people I'd worked with on the last film, then we scheduled a training with another dancer I worked with on the last movie. We held one practice session, and three guys and twelve girls showed up. All three guys, plus myself and my friend were in the movie scenes, plus a random assortment of girls. I instructed everyone on what they might expect on the set, what to bring with them, and the skills they's have to have in addition to dance to get the scenes finished properly. My friend handled most of the dance instruction, since it was waltz this time.
When the day of shooting came, we had to be at the local movie studio at 4:45am, to take a bus to the backlot. This was on a Monday, and on the previous Sunday I'd just held the training lesson, AND we had swing dance night Sunday night. It was 11pm Sunday when I got home, and I didn't sleep at all, just knowing that I would have to wake up at 330am. When the alarm went off, I gathered my things, took a shower, then walked down 15 flights of stairs in the dark. (My new apartment building is in the older Chinese style, which means an elevator attendant sits in the evelator all day long and presses buttons. At about 1am, she goes to sleep, and if you are on the first floor, you have to ring a bell to wake her up. This bell does not exist on the other floors, so there's no way to get in the elevator, and you must literally walk down the entire way).
We arrived at the backlot at 530am, and all of the dancers entered costume first. The men were wearing tuxedos (which also makes the third tuxedo I've worn, in three consecutive movies). But these tuxedos were pure wool, and thick as a warm blanket. It was 33 degrees (celcius), which comes to around 90 farenheight. Not comfortable.
It was about 10:30am when we entered the set. I had a little trouble getting the ear of the Director. I dealt mostly with the Assistant Director, which is actually reasonably typical. I had wished I would have had more time to interact with them, but as it stood, the steps I had taken did ensure a good shoot for the dancing on the day.
I picked the five couples to perform the waltz in the scene, and advised the director to remove the table from the center of the room, since it would make dancing impossible (and he did so). I picked out a suitably slow waltz piece with a steady, easy-to-hear beat. Some of our dancers had never done waltz before the previous day, so I needed it to be kind to them. We all took positions on the floor, and we began our counter-clockwise waltz rotation. It was beautiful. Costumes, set, and the whole thing.
It was, however, damn hot. There was no airconditioning on the set, and the lights for filming and from the other equipment must have increased the temperature to 110 degrees. Every single male sweat completely through his undershirt and tuxedo shirt. My own tuxedo sleeves could at times even show the perspiration coming through.
During this day, we shot two different scenes. The stars were present, but not dancing at this time.
After about 30 minutes into the shooting, I realized no one was saying anything about the dancing. I asked the Assistant Director, "Is everything OK?" Last time, and almost every time, we could grow to expect all sorts of comments and criticism, then try to modify things several times to get it right. But this time, not a word.
The AD said to me, "Well, as they say, in this business no news is good news. If you haven't heard anything, you are doing a good job."
At the end of the day, we were pretty tired. We went back to costume, and when we took off the jackets, our white tuxedo shirts had taken upon multi-colored stains from all of the perspiration dissolving the dirt and dyes of the tuxedo jackets. It was an awful situation, plus there were no drying or dry-cleaning facilities, so we'd have to put these costumes on again, still damp, in less than 12 hours.
During the day, however, we did have the best food I've ever seen on a movie set. This was a Warner Bros production, and they'd gotten a great local Canadian caterer to make western food. Honestly, probably the best eating I've done in several weeks was there on the movie set!
The next day came the scenes with the primary actors. In the morning, I'd been told it was decided not to go with waltz for this day's shoot. It was perhaps too difficult for a steady cam (a camera moved around by a person on foot) to capture the action of two people dancing in turns and rotating counter-clockwise at the same time. Instead, we were doing what I like to call the 'two-step'. This is really probably the simplest step of all, just alternating feet and rotating. It was a bit of a dissapointment, but it worked on screen. Plus this scene was a dialogue scene and the dancing, in the end, was blurred out.
I did have some challenges on the set with the dancers I had brought with. It's a difficult thing to navigate your way around a movie set, especially in this case because I only had two days total to learn everyone's personality and assert my own authority. You have to carve out your involvement, and each meeting with the director is brief, intense, and may change the eventual amount and quality of your contribution.
My friend, who served as dance trainer, was an invaluable aid in getting the people prepared. But on set, he proved to be a bit of a loose cannon. Very enthusiastic to show his skills, and perhaps to get screen time, he over-emphasized his moves in front of the camera, against my specific request. This, unfortunately, lead to a potential close-up of him being removed from the shooting. I had a few words with him afterwards. First of all, it was a greatly successful project. Second, I said, when we are on the set and I am Choreographer, you defer to me in all matters and take my advice on how to, well, you know, choreograph. The trick was, he was more experienced in ballroom styles, so it was a difficult spot for me to balance.
In the end, we got a good result. With better teamwork, we could have achieved a better result, but I have had this discussion with him and we have both agreed it was a learning experience for the both of us.
SO DID YOU MEET EDWARD NORTON? DID YA DID YA?
Yes, I did. And I found his mannerism is very much like his characters he portrays. Fight Club and Rounders both seem to show aspects of his true personality. He is a very intense, very focused person. Also very busy, and as an A-List star he holds a lot of sway on the set and everyone listens to what he has to say.
I did get to instruct him in dance, but just a few basic tips since he had an idea of what he wanted to do. Both his character and his dance partner's were supposed to be people who just knew the basics of dance, so there was no great amount of training. I wished I have gotten more time with both him and the director, but there's another lesson learned, you got to be quick!
And that was the nature of this whole project. The end result was quite good, and they were pleased. The thing which I found most remarkable was the time from agreeing to do the project to it's completion. It was only about five days, of which only two were on set! The White Countess took two weeks the first time, with a month pause, then three weeks afterwards. This was was in-and-out in less than a week.
So that was that. Look for the Painted Veil in Fall 2006.
Indidentally, Look for the White Countess in January February 2006. I will be dancing with the lead actress, and if you see a guy dancing around very foolishly wearing white-and-red face paint makeup, that's me too.
Also, out in the film festivals right now is Everlasting Regret (www.everlasting-regret.com). In this movie, I did Tango. I imagine it may be hard to get ahold of in America, but it did just win two awards at the Venice Film Festival (Best Supporting Actress & Best Cinematography), so maybe you can find it. Look for me (if you can see me at all) in the Tango scene towards the end of the movie, around the time one of the characters threatens a female character with a gun.
So that's all for now, folks!Q@
-J
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