Movies Til Dawn

A couple of fun snippets to close out our recounting of the first week of production. First, a little walking tour through the set. Dig it: And a clip from the diner table of Julianna Margulies being rudely interrupted by a grandfather clock.This was shot early in the week we've been discussing. More in a minute...   Subscribe in a reader

Day Six of our shoot--our first Friday--was a late call, 11:30 AM according to the above call sheet. This allowed us to work into the evening, shooting some night stuff involving Ezra Miller, Steven Strait and Julianna Margulies. During the day, however, we shot several scenes outdoors--and a lovely day to be out of doors shooting it was. Scene 92 involved Andy Garcia and Steven Strait working together in the yard--Vince (Andy) having brought Tony (Steven) home on the pretext of helping him convert a boatshed into a guesthouse. Later in the day, we made another scene--A99--between the two in which Vince confesses his secret desire to be an actor. Here's a still of a rehearsal of scene A99, shot before lunch (served at dinnertime due to the call) in the late afternoon: And here's a bona fide outtake from Sc. 92, which appears to have been the first thing shot that day. Enjoy. And by the way, if you want to see Andy Garcia on Jimmy Kimmel last night, go to our Twitter feed (righ...

WHAT: Andy Garcia appears on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! in support of CITY ISLAND WHEN: 12:05AM (EST & PST), TONIGHT WHERE: ABC– Check local listings   Subscribe in a reader

Before I continue with the sinister saga of shooting "City Island", let me lay on you the cities and theaters the movie will be opening in. As I've mentioned before this will be a slow roll out, starting in NY and LA on the 19th then moving to eight more cities the second weekend. If people like the movie, more theaters will be added in these cities and then more cities (and suburbs) will be added. Viz: Theater Name City State Circuit Name Playdate THE LANDMARK 12 (WESTSIDE PAVILION) Los Angeles CA Silver Cinemas Inc (Landmark) 3/19/2010 ANGELIKA FILM CENTER 6 New York NY City Cinemas 3/19/2010 LANDMARK CENTURY CENTRE 7 Chicago IL Silver Cinemas Inc (Landmark) 3/26/2010 LANDMARK KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA 9 Cambridge MA Silver Cinemas Inc (Landmark) 3/26/2010 RITZ AT THE BOURSE Philadelphia PA Silver Cinemas Inc (Landmark) 3/26/2010 LANDMARK EDINA 4 CINEMA Minneapolis MN Silver Cinemas Inc (Landmark) ...

A couple of stills of the crew on the day described in the previous post--Day 4.   Subscribe in a reader

On the fourth day of production, we shot the above pictured scene between Vince (Andy Garcia) and Tony (Steven Strait), standing in a little boatshed behind Vince's house. Because of the size of the shed (small), one wall of it was built 'wild'--in other words, it was removable. Thus you can see how there was room for all of us and our gear in a space that appears in the finished film to be no more than five feet wide. Production day four, according to the below posted call sheet, fell on a classic New York summers day--high in the mid-nineties with strong chance of rain predicted. Since we were shooting both interiors and exteriors that day, the juggling act involved staying one step ahead of the weather; were we outside at the optimum time (no precipitation for long enough to complete a scene once started)? And were we moving indoors at the right time (as long as we're indoors let it rain, though it's not great for sound...)? We seemed to have worked another perfe...

A gracious good Monday to all of you dear ones who are back for more production madness. Before I go any further, let me urge you to check out the City Island Facebook page , where there's info on a screening tomorrow night (Tuesday) in Los Angeles. And guess whose second column posted this morning on Salon.Com? Yes, I am now no longer exclusive to myself--the very prestigious Salon.com is letting me mouth off for the next few weeks about--guess what subject? Yeah. My movie. Well, at least I've found a niche. Greetings to any of you here for the first time who found us via Salon. Click on the above photo to observe the call sheet for day three of the shoot. It appears that we worked outside and inside--filming Vince (Andy Garcia) and Vinnie Jr. (Ezra Miller) talking on the porch, as well as the family screaming match that results from Vince bringing his long lost son Tony (Steven Strait) home from prison. I remember being electrified by how radically far both Andy and Juliann...

In another stunning example of my memory being much faultier than I would ever have thought possible, the below captured event turns out to have happened on our first proper shoot day in City Island--a savage attack on the nice old Ford Galaxy by propmaster Dan Fisher (cheers to you, Dan, if you're reading). I would have sworn this happened deeper into our stay on Horton Street, but the call sheet bears this out as having happened on the first full day of our shoot. The above photo is us shooting the scene after wrecking the Fords grill. Dan had to wreck the Ford's grill because in the previous scene Andy gets into a fender-bender while driving his daughter home from school. More to come...   Subscribe in a reader

Well, let's begin our journey on our production with an error. Shooting did not, as I said, commence on a Thursday, but rather on a Tuesday. The reason for my not remembering this clearly was that it was not much of a shoot day. It was a kind of warm-up second unit day--albeit with first unit "talent" (me and the DP Vanja Cernjul). A look at the attached call sheet (click on it to enlarge) shows that we spent the day cruising around City Island, making shots of roads, signs, traveling point of view shots and so-called "beauty" shots of the island. A full three days later (as you can see on the bottom of the sheet) the crew loaded-in to City Island. And then, the following Monday--July 21, 2008-- the real shoot began. Click below to see our first official call sheet. As you can see after clicking and enlarging on the above call sheet, we kicked off fast and furious, shooting an impressive four and two-eighths pages. We started in the upstairs of the house, filmi...

Tomorrow begins our virtual production history, a complete day-by-day account of the filming of "City island", featuring call sheets, production stills, behind the scenes clips, outtakes, angry e-mails and other ephemera. If you are enjoying this blog, do me and "City Island" a favor: e-mail it to a friend. Hell, e-mail it to your whole address book! Or send someone you love a link to our Facebook page. Cuddly thought, that. Click here to read a wonderfully enthusiastic review of the movie from a blog called whatchuckthinks. Not sure how he saw it and not sure I want to know. Downloads are a fact of life these days but if they provoke enthusiasm like this, they're worth the lost income... And dig our sexy placement on Fandango. Featured! Saturday night! Not sure what this means! But I love the exposure! And Hulu's exclusive clip, titled "Before We Met" and posted here, ain't exactly hay! Whatever that means! Enough. Tonight I'm joining ...

Welcome any and all new readers who may have found us thanks to Salon.Com where I've become a guest columnist (plug...). How cool is that? Aren't I groovy? Don't you want to touch me? If you've landed here for the first time, you're in for a treat if I do say so myself. Starting this Thursday, I will begin posting a day by day history of the shoot of our movie, "City Island"--which stars Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies and Alan Arkin-- complete with call sheets, production stills, outtakes and behind the scenes clips. The 27 days of the shoot (which began on a Thursday) will be recounted as they happened. Even the days off will be mercilessly blogged! All of this mishagoss is, of course, leading us up to the theatrical release of "City Island" on March 19th. So there. Now, before I continue with the sinister saga of shooting "City Island", let me lay on you the cities and theaters the movie will be opening in. As I've mentioned be...

Welcome, dears, to another installment of my on-line book about the making of our movie "CIty Island". When last we left off, nobody seemed to want to play the part of Joyce Rizzo. I'll get to the remarkable stroke of luck that saved our collective asses in a moment. But first a few annoucements. For new readers (and what the hell--for old readers as well): this blog and "making of" book that's being written on it are part of our grass roots effort to reach the people out there whom might be interested in helping make our movie "City Island' a hit. If you like what I'm writing about, like the trailer of the movie (in the right column--see it?) or have managed to see the movie already and enjoyed it, please PLEASE e-mail this blog to one friend. Or send them a link to the movies website or Facebook page (all are findable in the right column--see them?) And now two plugs: please visit our wonderful, devoted reader Marianna from Greece's blog. ...

Attention readers who live in the New York area: if you're interested in seeing a screening of "City Island" tomorrow night, click here to go the movies Facebook page and learn how to get in! More tomorrow on the making of the movie!   Subscribe in a reader

Through all of the ups and downs I've been describing--the feeling that we had a movie about to really happen and the concurrent feeling that we were in the midst of multiple rugs being yanked out from under us--the life-saving event was:: The recce. Short for: Reconnesaince trip. Or: location scout. Every day a group of us would pile in a van--me, our location manager, production designer Franckie Diago, a couple of PA's and off we'd go to check out various prisons, houses on City Island, possible midtown offices, theaters, streets in Tribeca, etc. No matter how weird it was to be starting this movie with two big parts uncast, these journies made it feel like we were going to make the damn thing no matter what. Except for the occasional times when they didn't provoke that reaction and instead made me yearn for a life owning and living over a liquor store in Vermont. (This idea, for some reason, has been a soothing concept of disappearence for me for many years...) Best...

We set up production offices in Queens, just over the East River from Manhattan, and hired the extremely capable Ged Dickersen as our line producer/UPM. The offices were basically one super big space divided into two sections--approximately one-third of the space was partitioned off from the rest of the space by a glass wall. This enclosed glass space is where the producers and I--Zach, Ged, Lauren--and our assistants hung out. Andrew Saxe came on as our Production Supervisor. The accounting staff was next door. From the window we could look out into the space inhabited by the ever growing production staff. I began interviewing Cinematographers and Production Designers. Generally I asked them to meet me at a coffee shop across the street from where I live in New York, rather than coming out to the office. When you interview these people, you're interviewing people at the top of their game--there are no bad ones, otherwise they wouldn't have ascended to the jobs they now have. (...

Okay, we're back. But first, click here to listen to a nifty little podcast where Andy Garcia is interviewed about the movie --it also includes audio clips of scenes from the film. This was done for the magazine AARP. When last we met, I provided what I hoped would be a cliffhanger involving the sudden disappearance of a number of our cast members shortly after our successful trip to Cannes, 08. For after getting lots of foreign buyers excited about our as yet unmade movie and feeling destined about the likelihood of going into production soon, we were suddenly having the proverbial rug pulled out from under us. In short, both Marcia Gay Harden and Chloe Sevigny suddenly seemed to have other things to do rather than be in "City Island". It's a bad phone call to get, and usually it isn't one phone call. It's a series of calls from the actors agents in which certain phrases start popping up, phrases that might seem innocuous to the uninitiated but are filled wi...

Dearest readers, followers and City Island hounds-- Profuse apologies for the pause in the on-line book about the making of our movie. It seems that I got preoccupied with a staged reading of my musical "Buddy's Tavern" (adapted from my movie "Two Family House"). And very well it went, too. But that was the past four days for me and today I fly back to LA fron New York, so this pause button will be on hold until tomorrow. Meanwhile: Click here to check out the superb placement of our movie on Apple I-tunes movie trailers. Top right module, first row thumbnail. Nice. And go to Hulu and rate the trailer--it looks to me like we're only a star away from having their top rating. Has anyone noticed on the comments page the proliferation of unbelievably annoying spam? Though some of it is quite amusing in an Ionesco kind of way, I think it's mostly an annoyance and no doubt due to the twitter stream appearences of the blogs address. As a result I'll be ...