CITY ISLAND: I'M SORRY, IT'S WEDNESDAY???

A massive case of blog-avoidance coupled with mucho work on behalf of the movie has led me to these neglectful waters from which I drinketh reluctantly.

Can you say the above in pig latin?

"City Island's" second weekend was as strong as its first, with a more than healthy per screen average of just under seven grand per screen according to BoxOfficeMojo. We are now opening in quite a few more markets and are, I hope, poised for a real word of mouth explosion. I'm curious to hear from anyone who sees the film in non-metropolitan centers as to how it plays for so-called "general" audiences. The thing about the film that we're hoping gets across is that, while it is very New York and ethnic in some ways, the story really could happen anywhere and thus the humor is not relegated to strictly urban communities.

Click here for a complete listing of where we're opening over the next few weeks. And New Yorkers--dig that we've added one of my favorite of all Manhattan theaters--the Loews 72nd Street (at Third Avenue). I have so many memories of seeing movies there since I was a kid and to have my movie there is a distinct honor. Hope some of you will attend and keep it there for awhile.

And read this truly heartfelt and very sincere tribute to the film from a fellow blogger and screenwriter who goes by the name of Saffron and who I had the pleasure of meeting at one of our LA q&a's just last weekend. It more than makes up for the unfortunate dismissals by the so-called "highbrows" such as David "amiable but no 'Moonstruck'" Denby and A.O. (they call him Tony!) Scott. I and City Island appreciate your warm words, Saffron. All the better in that they come from a real person and not somebody who gets paid to render an opinion...

But, kind followers, we still need your help! All of these new cities require enthusiastic opening crowds. And what better way to spend a weekend--assuming you're in one of our new markets--than by having your very own "City Island Party"? This fast-growing trend among the smart-indie-cine crowd (all right, I just thought of it) involves bringing a large group of your friends to see the movie...as well as bags of fried Shrimp (a City Island specialty) and large shakers of a Bronx Cocktail (gin, lemon juice, and whatever else strikes your fancy). Multiple tweetings from the screening alerting others of the presence of a "City Island Party" are a must. You must be thirteen or older to participate.

Starting tomorrow I will get back to the production diary of the movie--how the hell long, after all, can I keep up this relentless good cheer and self-promotion? Meanwhile, dig the legendary "Movie Irv" Slifkin's review of "City Island". What? You've never heard of "Movie Irv?" You been living underneath a rock for the past twenty years?

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CITY ISLAND: WEEKEND #2 COMING UP

Friday morning (barely) and weekend number two awaits us. "City Island" is still exclusively at the Landmark Theater in LA--it will expand to other theaters in Encino and Pasadena next week. In New York we are still downtown at the Angelika and have added a screen in midtown--the Empire 42nd Street, one of the cities biggest movie palaces, you should pardon the expression.

And we've hit four new cities as of today. The movie opens, today, in Philadelphia, Dallas, Miami and Toronto. Next week we hit Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis. But as of today:

Check out our excellent Philadelphia Inquirer review.

And dig the Miami Heralds heaps o' praise.

The Dallas Morning News review aint exactly hay. Whatever that means...

And our northern neighbors at the Toronto Sun seem pleasantly pleased with our movie.

Have I eliminated the negative reviews, you ask? Of course I have. It's my damn blog! But the above press is indicative of our
general reactions...

And for those of you in LA, Andy Garcia and I will be doing another personal appearence at the Landmark tomorrow night (Saturday) following the 7: 30 show.

Thanks for all the support--please tell your loved ones and your not so loved ones to check us out.

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CITY ISLAND ALERTS!

A good Wednesday to ya'. Still coming down off the franticitivity of the past weekend. Multiple plans are being made for mulitple new theaters and cities to show "City Island". The word is spreading like the proverbial wildfire...so much so that we've added an extra screen in New York for this weekend (The Empire 42nd Street). And the film with bow in Dallas, Philiadelphia and Miami this Friday, the 26th.

For a very complete list of all our cities and the theaters that we're coming to over the next few weeks, click on this
link to the movies Facebook page. There you go. See? Now bookmark it. And then forward it to your whole address book. Whoppee!

Again a thank you to you, dear readers and "City Island" hounds...the good news that's coming in about the movie owes much to the steady, never-waivering kind of interest you've all brought to the project. I've truly always felt that since this blog began and the sharing of the production history of the film got underway, the movie began to belong to the people who were intereted in it. It's success is your success.
And for goddsakes, keep telling people to see the movie!

Now for mulitple listing of when you can see Andy Garcia on the Wendy Williams show. Viz:

Wednesday, March 24th

WHAT: Andy Garcia appears on THE WENDY WILLIAMS SHOW.

WHEN: 4:00 PM (PST)

WHERE: KTTV - Check local listings

WHAT: Andy Garcia appears on THE WENDY WILLIAMS SHOW.

WHEN: 10:00 PM (EST)

WHERE: UPN - Check local listings

WHAT: Andy Garcia appears on THE WENDY WILLIAMS SHOW.

WHEN: 12:00 AM (PST & EST)

WHERE: BET - Check local listings

TUNE IN TOMORROW!

Thursday, March 25th

WHAT: Andy Garcia appears on THE WENDY WILLIAMS SHOW.

WHEN: 8:00 AM (PST & EST)

WHERE: BET - Check local listings

Now here's a clip from the archives--one of my faves--of Andy G. playing a little piano rhapsody during a lunch break on the set. Enjoy...

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"CITY ISLAND" MAKES BOFFO DEBUT--2nd HIGHEST PER SCREEN AVERAGE IN COUNTRY!

From IndieWire:

Raymond De Felitta’s “City Island” - a big winner at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival - opened on two theaters in NYC and LA this weekend, and while that screen count obviously benefits it, it managed the second best per-theater-average of any film this weekend behind “Greenberg.” Starring Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies, the family drama grossed $35,000, averaging $17,500 and becoming distributor Anchor Bay’s strongest opening ever.

Yes, believe it or not, we hit this one out of the park...of course being on two screens helps. But I never thought I'd live to see the day that our little Bronx family comedy would stand up in the company of the mega-plex grossers.

Natch the execs are all pleased--enough to begin rolling the film out to multiple cinemas in New York and LA and other cities a little earlier. Next up are Philly, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Boston, Miami, Toronto...and more to come!

Meanwhile, read one of the best reviews I've ever gotten--not just because he likes the film but because its a truly thoughtful critique--from Salon.com, written by Andrew O'Hehir. In these times of super-snarky, short attention spanning, everyone's-a-critic kind of reviews, a piece like O'Hehir--personal, inquisitive, historically contextualized--comes as a breath of fresh air. The length at which he writes and his interesting and discursive method of discussing the movie put me in mind of vintage Pauline Kael stuff from The New Yorker.

And dig Leonard Maltin's superb review, posted on his blog, on indiewire, on just about everywhere that the ubiquitous Mr. Maltin surfaces. Did you know that Leonard began as a film historian, editing a little magazine called Film Fan Monthly? I subscribed to it, back in the early seventies, and couldn't wait for each issue to arrive. I mentioned this to him once and he seemed genuinely bemused by my remembering this early effort of his (he was, I think, a teenager when he began the magazine). I wonder what happened to those old copies I had of FFM?

More to come as more comes in. Meanwhile, please feel free--feel MOTIVATED--to share this blog with your movie-loving friends. Or the City Island Facebook page. Or anything that will encourage the audiences to get out and catch us in the coming weeks in theaters near you...

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CITY ISLAND: MORNING OF THE CARNIVAL

I'm happy to report that, while it's early in the game, big time raves are (mostly) coming in for "City Island", enough to fill our ads and posters for the weeks to come. And these are only in New York and LA.

Check out the New York Posts 3 1/2 (out of 4) star review.

And the New York Daily News gives us a major thumbs up.

Here's Marshall Fine's super piece from the Huffington Post.

So as to be completely objective, I'll include the not very positive (or even coherent) review from the fast-fading New York TImes. The once-influential "grey lady" now farms out reviews of limited releases (like ours) to people from other papers, in other states--in this case somebody who seems to have been in a bit of a mood...

And Peter Travers, long one of my favorite film writers, gave us a glowing write-up in Rolling Stone. I'm deeply moved by the closing lines of his review. Unfortunately it has yet to post on-line...perhaps later today? Keep checking--well worth reading.

More to come. I'm heading over to the Landmark (I"m in LA) in the early afternoon to check on the b.o. take...won't somebody do the same at the Angelika in New York? (Lauren?)

Cheers and whatnot. The journey continues apace!

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CITY ISLAND: X-1 IS HERE...

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to conduct a four hour, career-spanning, interview with the great filmmaker James Ivory ("Howards End", "Remains of the Day", "A Room With a View" etc.) This was done under the auspices of the Special Projects committee of the Directors Guild of America--the Guild asks directors to interview on videotape other directors to capture an "oral history" of the filmmakers career. Anyway, at the end of the interview I asked Mr. Ivory what the best part of filmmaking is and what the worst part of filmmaking is. The best part, he said, was the shooting. "That's when I'm really living". The worst part? "The days just before your movie opens and you don't know if you have a hit or a flop."

Ahem.

"City Island" opens tomorrow, March 19th, in LA and New York. What can I say but..PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO GO SEE IT.

Click here to listen to a very nice radio interview that Andy Garcia and I did with Pat Morrison. It aired two days ago but improves with age.

And click here to dig Julianna Margulies personal message on her Facebook page telling her fans how much she likes the movie. What a honey. Love the way she (correctly) pronounces my name.

Have i ever bothered to thank you, my dear loyal "City Island Hounds" for following this madness over the past year and a half? Well, thanks a billion. For real. I'm delighted those of you who've been hanging about found the making of the film interesting enough to follow and promise (threaten?) to do the whole thing again with my next movie.

And now the time is here...and so I face the final curtain... (say it, Frankie...)



Cross your fingers...

Think good thoughts...

Better yet see the movie. If you're not in LA or NY, hang on: we'll be in other cities soon. Take it, AG...

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CITY ISLAND ALERTS: AN ALL ANDY G. KIND OF DAY OR TWO

Click here to go to Andy Garcia's Facebook page and see a video message that he left for his fans/friends/followers talking about "City Island".

And click here to go to the Experience Project and their wildly successful "City Island" promotional kind of thing. It's all about sharing your darkest secrets and if I'm not mistaken, the tote board at the top of the page says that four million plus stories have been received thus far. Four million? Could this possibly be correct?

And now for some more promotion--our movie's star is being worked seriously hard by the ravenously hungry publicity machine and is nothing but a super-pro about. Why, over the next forty-eight hours you can see him at...

TUNE IN TODAY, Wednesday, March 17th

WHAT: Andy Garcia appears on tonight’s THE TAVIS SMILEY SHOW.

WHEN: 11:00PM (PST) / 1:00AM (EST)

WHERE: KCET(LA) / WNET(NY) – Check local listings

TUNE IN TOMORROW! Thursday, March 18th

WHAT: Andy Garcia interviewed by Sandy Kenyon on tomorrow’s WABC NEWS.

WHEN: 6:00 AM (EST)

WHERE: WABC (NY) - Check local listings

WHAT: Andy Garcia/City Island segment with Toni Senecal on tomorrow’s WPIX NEWS.

WHEN: 7:00 AM (EST)

WHERE: WABC (NY) - Check local listings

WHAT: Andy Garcia in-studio interview on tomorrow’s PIOLIN POR LA MANANA.

WHEN: 7:00 AM – 11:00 AM (EST)

WHERE: KSCA La Nueva 101.9FM (LA)

And now, apropos of absolutely nothing to do with "City Island", Andy Garcia or myself, here he is--the one..the only...

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CITY ISLAND: DUH, I FORGOT TO BLOG

What better excuse to have dropped the proverbial ball and failed to post for the past few days then having a movie about to open?

"City Island" opens this Friday in LA (at the Landmark, Westside Pavillion) and in New York (at the Angelika). But you probably already knew that.

You probably also already know that "City Island" has become a grass roots indie fave, a movie that audiences feel belongs to them--a perfectly appropriate reaction given that the films success began with it winning the Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival. And so, ever since, I have been hectoring--rather, urging--the followers of this blog to spread the word and help get people in the theaters on opening weekend.

The weekend after next, we open in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Toronto, Miami, Philadelphia and San Francisco. If folks in these areas fill the theaters in those cities (and it's only opening on one screen in each city) the movie will continue to expand outwards, into suburban shopping centers, outlying areas and the like. This will happen because the people who have followed and supported the movie all along are simply overwhelming the movie with good vibes. And the reviews we're getting--not to mention the barrage of press focusing mostly on Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies--ain't exactly hurting.

Click here to read Marshall Fine's superb review in the Huffington Post.

Dig the MSN movies featured clip by clicking here.

My fifth Salon.com column appeared yesterday. Click here to groove, baby.

And I'm always posting pix of the actors at the big events, so today I thought I'd post a pic of some behind the scenes folks.Click here to see me with my fab producer Lauren Versel and the heads of our distribution company, Anchor Bay: Gordon Prend and Bill Clark.

Below is Julianna Margulies appearence on Ellen De Generis, which aired like an hour ago and of course is already all youtubed up. Her lovely "City Island" plug happens four minutes and forty seconds in. Enjoy. And one of these days soon--after I've slept a bit more than I have in the past five days--I really will continue with the production history of the movie. Oh, and tomorrow I'll tell you about the DVD extras segment that I taped yesterday with the cast--a bunch of us sitting around eating pasta and drinking wine (a la Rizzo family) at ten in the morning.

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CITY ISLAND: X-8 (or is it 7?)

Our premiere night was a smash--wonderful crowd, big laughs, awfully pleasant party at Le Rouge Tomate ("The Red Tomato"? Seriously?) I sat in front of Hugh Jackman who very helpfully laughed at the jokes just a beat before everyone else did--thereby encouraging everyone to show that they were as hip as he was. A very nice chap indeed--he and his wife seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.

And then I slept late the next day and traveled to Miami for the film fest (I'm writing this from a hotel on the beach). Our red carpet screening is happening tonight, then back to LA. Hence my day off from blogging yesterday. And what the hell of it?

Click here for a bunch of pictures of our New York premiere. As we get closer to our opening, which is next Friday March 19th in New York and Los Angeles, I will once again bug the crap out of you dear readers to turn your friends on to our movie...or this blog...or the various City Island contests that seem to be abounding in the universe. Like this one in Chicago, for instance.

We need your help and your friends help. Movies ain't what they used to be. Asses need to be in seats on opening weekend in every market we open in and I'll be updating you on what cities we'll be rolling out into over the next week or two. Once the press insanity is over (tomorrow--temporarily) I'll get back to the history of the production process--we still have seventeen shooting days or so left to cover, after all.

A few nights ago in New York, Andy Garcia did a "Learning Access" interview evening with Peter Travers, the Rolling Stone film critic. Some very helpful audience member taped it and has gifted it to us, via youtube. Thank you, Neal B., wherever you are. Here it is below in two segments.

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CITY ISLAND PREEMS IN NEW YORK F*%@#ING CITY TONIGHT!

For thems that missed it, below is Julianna Margulies terrific appearence on David Letterman which aired last night. Included is a clip from the movie, a very good and amusing summary of the plot from Julianna, the shockingly weird news that Letterman spent a summer on City Island a decade ago attempting to learn to sail, and a wonderful story from JM about being a waitress when she was starting out and having to deal with an incredibly rude Julia Roberts.



And here are Andy Garcia and his fab daughter Dominik Garcia-Lorido on The View, which also aired yesterday. More to come...

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CITY ISLAND: X-11(or is it 10?) (Warning: Innocent Content Abounds)

Good late morning. Rumor hath it that Julianna Margulies will be on David Letterman tonight (Tuesday) discussing, among other things, "City Island". Check local listings, as they say. Whatever local listings are.

This afternoon (Tuesday) rumor hath it that Andy Garica, Julianna Margulies and I will be doing a q&a for the National Board of Review. Since this is a closed screening, I don't know why I mention it. Perhaps to serve as a reminder to myself to show up.

And dig my fourth Salon column which posted a bit late--due to Oscar coverage, natch.

Day thirteen of our shoot was a predominantly exterior one, with a little bit of work done inside the IGA supermarket. And much of the daylight exterior work involved the wonderful Emily Mortimer. Here we are--Andy, Emily and a few dozen camera guys with rigs all set to do some driving scenes, sans process trailer. Dig and don't forget to click to enlarge:



Later that day, we shot my favorite scene in the finished movie--a walk and talk confessional between Andy and Emily on a Pier at the City Island yacht club. Viz:



I mentioned the supermarket work with which we began the day. It was always an eye-opening pleasure to begin the day with Ezra Miller--to say nothing of Carrie Baker Reynolds, his BBW muse. Here's an almost completely worthless clip of Ezra and Carrie singing it out on that memorable morning...

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CITY ISLAND: X-12 (or is it 11?) (Warning: Graphic Content Below)

Every good makeout includes a fondled breast.

Say what?

I said, click on the above call sheet and tell me why the above stated sentiment is being used to describe Scene 132? Obviously the AD team was having a bit of fun (or alcohol) when they wrote the short description of the scene for our call sheet.

Day twelve of our shoot took place in one of the worlds biggest parking lots, in Orchard Beach--adjacent to City Island. In this scene, Julianna Margulies straight up seduces the younger by a decade plus Steven Strait. I won't give you any more information about this scene, other than the fact that it was as uncomfortable to film as any of these sex/love things ever are...and at one point I became rather fascinated watching the two of them make out and kind of sort of forgot to call cut for awhile. When I finally did, Julianna gave me a look and said: "Jesus Raymond!"

The only other thing I remember in detail about that shoot day is that it was on August 4th, and my son was on the set where he celebrated his fourth birthday. Last year, on his fifth birthday, I said to him: "wow, last year you had your birthday on a movie set". He replied, "Yeah, that wasn't a very good one." Hmm.

Tomorrow morning (Tuesday) Andy Garcia will be on the Today Show. Tune in and turn on. Below is an outtake from the above referenced scene. Can't really tell what makes Julianna crack up at the end of the take, but what a lovely sight it is...

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CITY ISLAND: X-15 (or is it 14?)

As you can see from the above call sheet, the page count on this Friday evening--day eleven of production-- was ten and three eighths pages. On a normal day we would shoot an average of four pages of script--which is considered quite a bit if you're a fifty million dollar movie, but if your shooting a 28 day schedule is just about right.(Do the math--28 times 4 equals 112 which is roughly the page count of my script). This eleven page scene, however, was shot all in one night--a considerable feat of energy for the actors as well as the crew. Why? Because it just seemed to be one of those unstoppable scenes, a huge verbal slugfest, that would be better caught in one long go than in breaking it up over a series of nights. I knew it was a risk scheduling it for only one night--by committing to the idea we effectively were cut off from the possibility of letting it spill over into another night--but I felt that the high level of professionalism of the actors (to say nothing of the crew) would make it possible to get the whole thing done. Also, I had two camera's running through each take, thereby cutting in half the amount of time it would take to pick up the necessary coverage.



However the downside was considerable: the scene takes place at night and we were shooting in the dead of summer. Night fell late--around eight thirty PM. And the sun rose at five AM. That means we only had an eight and a half hour workday--a normal shooting day for us was twelve, sometimes thirteen hours. And the street had to be lit--which chewed up the first two hours of the night (our call was, I believe, 7PM). Also, the scene was so long that we had to rehearse and shoot it in segments--i.e., lets take the first four pages and rehearse and stage it, then the next four, then the next four. Then lets shoot out each side of each segment facing in the same direction (so our cameraman didn't have to turn all the lights around more than once) and then spin around in the middle of the night and do all three sections of the scene again facing the other way. It was close to three AM when we turned around and we were fighting daylight to finish the coverage of the scene. Somehow we made it, though the last couple of takes had a distinctly blue light--the usually lovely arrival of morning in this case spelling doom. Nonetheless, the scene got completed and is pretty damn good if I say so myself.

A couple of interesting things in the below clip. It's from the early part of the scene and was shot early in the evening--so we were all still fresh and still finding our way. Note the two clappers--one for this camera and the second, in the background, for the B camera. Then note how halfway through the scene, the cameraman pans away abruptly, seeing the set, on-lookers etc. and appears to be in the process of complete collapse. Then he finds his angle again. What was going on here? I suspect that we were experimenting with re-positioning the camera during the performance--since we had a second camera filming as well we were "covered" for the material during A camera's repositioning. Ultimately, the angle he returns to is the original one and I believe we abandoned the re-po experiment in place of good old-fashioned standard coverage (note that whole scene was shot hand-held as well).

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CITY ISLAND: X-16 (or is it 15?)

We're just over two weeks out from our opening weekend. (Pause).

Would you like any more sparkling dialogue?

Then let's get started. At the screenings where I've been doing q&a's this week (I've got another one coming up tonight in Westchester) I invariably get asked these three questions: How did you come up with the story? How did you cast all those actors? And what was the hardest scene to shoot in the whole film?

I'll skip the first two since I've regurgitated those answers ad infinitum, ad naseaum all over this blog for the past year and a half. But the hardest scene to shoot was one that is coming up tomorrow.



Today we do day ten. Tomorrow day eleven. But day ten and eleven were inextricably linked and one served to set up the other. You see--for those of you who haven't seen the film--the ending is a huge climactic family fight on the street in front of the Rizzo's house. The fight begins indoors and moves outdoors. It all takes place at night. It covers fourteen pages of material--and if you've been following along for the past few days, you'll notice that since we were averaging four pages a day, fourteen pages in two days is quite a bit more to get.

So click on the above call sheet and dig: we were called for four pm, gradually pushing our start by a few hours a day in order to eventually arrive even later the next night--when we would shoot all night long. On this day/night, however, we used a few hours of daylight to pick up some random shoots in the backyard (that's the list of things you see that have N/A written under the page count...inserts of matches flying through the air, tv set screens, stuff like that). Then we moved inside the house and shot the first part of the argument--this was four plus pages of material and it involved a stunt as well (Andy flying through a doorway and landing on his face...not really him, of course, but a stunt guy). Stunts invariably slow things down and this was no exception. An inordinant amount of time was spent staging the work in this scene. We finally got it all shot but that doesn't mean we were done for the evening.

Because the interior fight leads to Steven Strait running out of the house and Andy following him...and then the rest of the cast following him. This eventually sets up everyone standing in the street, delivering a whopping eight more pages of dialogue.



We moved outside sometime after midnight (might have been closer to two am) and shot the two men chasing each other outside. Then the women following them. And then we wrapped. Because my theory was that once the actors started in on the long argument in the street, we would be better off getting it all in one go and not breaking it up into two nights.

Day ten, therefore, was a prelude to the hardest shoot day we had. And that I'll come too tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a nifty snippet of on-set confusion captured on the tail of a camera mag...it's from the Day 10 interior fight location. Julianna Margulies stands on the stairs. The tall handsome chap wandering around on the left side of the frame acting like a cameraman is...Vanja Cernjul, our cameraman.

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CITY ISLAND: X-17 (or is it 16?) PLUS A ROBERT WISE PAUSE

Here's a nifty story on celebrity "spawn"--kids of famous actors who are becoming or have become well known in their own right. And guess who leads the pack? Yep--our lovely Dominik Garcia-Lorido. This piece comes complete with trailer--a very nice way to spread the word as we move into the crucial final weeks of promotion before the movie opens on 3/19.

Speaking of crucial...have you considered e-mailing this blog to a dear friend or sworn enemy today? Every little bit helps.

I've been doing screening q&a's every night this week--Monday night the movie was screened for the Producers Guild at IFC in downtown Manhattan, last night for a class from the School of Visual Arts. Tonight I head out to Westchester to speak to a group that's headed by Marshall Fine, a very good film historian who wrote a terrific book on Sam Peckinpah called "Bloody Sam".

Last nights discussion was moderated by Ralph Applebaum, with whom I share an interesting personal connection. Ralph was mentored early in his career in film by the great director Robert Wise ("West Side Story", "I Want To Live") and spent some time working with him on the set of "Audrey Rose" in 1977...which happened to have been written by my father (it was based on his novel of the same name).

Now, through having made this film, my family became close with Bob Wise (pictured above directing Natalie Wood) and he became something of a mentor to me as well. More than something. A wonderful man to learn filmmaking from--and to learn an attitude of how to approach the difficult business of filmmaking in a sane and refreshingly enthusiastic way. Anyway, Ralph and I had a drink afterward and spoke of Bob (who passed away a few years ago) with real affection. We talked about his films as well and I said that my favorite set-piece from any of his films was the "America" number from "West Side Story".

When I got home, guess what was on TV? Of course: "West Side Story". I won't make too much of this conincidence...oh, hell, why shouldn't I? What are the chances of these things happening? Hi Bob. Thanks for checking in from wherever you are.



Day Nine of our shoot was an eleven am call and contained two scenes that were shot but cut from the finished film--both short and not worth worrying much about...but you can imagine how frustrating it is to work on a tight schedule and be convinced that everything you're shooting is an absolute necessity, only to discover how much time you've wasted on stuff you don't need once you cut the film. In this case, we eliminated a scene of Julianna watching Steven Strait from the upstairs window of the house (Sc.109 shot during daylight)...and Ezra and Steven bumping into each other in the hallway and uncomfortably getting out of each others way (Sc. 79, shot in the evening).

Since we're once again clip-free from these scenes, I thought we might instead watch "America" from "West Side Story". Click below and settle in for a few minutes that will knock you on your ass--high octane musical filmmaking of the highest order. Cheers to you, Bob...you were much on our minds last night.

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CITY ISLAND: 28 PRODUCTION STILLS AVAILABLE AS OF TODAY!

Dig! Want to see 28 production stills of our movie? Click here to go to the IMDB photo page. This posted just this morning and represents the largest bunch of aggregated stills yet available from the movie. Superb placement we got too--we're second under the NAACP awards gallery. Many thanks to Phil "God of Stills" Caruso--for shooting all of these masterworks and for e-mailing this morning to tell me that imdb had put them up.

Day eight of the City Island shoot was a split--our call as you can see from the above click-to-enlarge call sheet was noon, making midnight the end of our twelve hour day, with lunch called at the convivial hour of six pm. This allowed the schedule to gradually work itself later and later until, at the end of the week, our call would be six PM for an all nighter ending at dawn. I'll get to what happened on that fateful night by the end of this week.

The scenes we shot on day eight mostly involved Steven Strait and Julianna Margulies. Strangely, though, I don't find any available outtakes from these scenes in the youtube grab bin. So instead, I'm posting an "interview" with me--conducted on set--where I blather about Ezra Miller (the young son in the movie) and why I think he's going to be the next Robert Downey, Jr. Enjoy the clip...and the stills!

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CITY ISLAND: X-19 (or is it 18?)

Good morning. Our movie, "City Island', opens in 19 days--on March 19th (so does that make it 18?). Well, what-evah. After eight years of planning, two years of making, a year and half of incessant blogging, this puppy hits theaters in LA and NY on the 19th and in ten other cities the weekend after. (Psst--if you want to know what cities and theaters, go back a couple of posts and check it out. I'll repost all that info as the time gets closer).

How are things going, you ask? Well, dig the above shot of our slightly oversized banner which is hanging on the side of the Westside Pavillion in West Los Angeles--which is where the movie will be playing. The banner is apparently visible from outer space and I, for one, will not feel that our distribution company missed the boat by not loudly proclaiming our presence more effectively. Furthermore, dig the trailer on the sidebar--very well done and, I'm hearing that its being shown in a lot of theaters in front of a lot of comedies and other semi-appropriate fare. Finally, the TV spots have been cut--thirty second and fifteen second versions--and, for what they are, they seem pretty pungent as well. (Fifteen seconds is an awfully short time to explain anything about an ninety minute film but I suppose its really a reinforcement tool--getting something into peoples heads that is hopefully already there).

And Salon.com essay number three, by moi, posted this morning. Which doesn't exactly make me Montaigne or even Malcolm Gladwell, but does put me and our movie into some farily tony company. Check out the other articles once you're there--quite a bit of interesting filmy stuff to kill some of your work day with.

But remember (he reiterates): "City Island" is your movie. For us to have any "legs", we need seats filled in our theaters. And this requires people hearing about the movie. So if you're enjoying this up close and personal journey on the making of the movie, please share this blog with a friend or two. And send them the movies website and/or Facebook page as well (all links can be found on the right column).

And now for Production day seven. There is little for me to say about this shoot day since I remember virtually nothing. In other words it was a successful and uneventful day of exterior City Island shooting. I can tell you, however, that:

Day seven's call sheet looked like this...(hint: click to enlarge)



Day seven's set looked like this:..(um: click to enlarge!)



And sometime around day seven, a news crew came and did a local story on our shooting a movie on the island. Here's the finished piece, taped off of somebody's television:

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