Movies Til Dawn

Greetings all. Click on the above to enlarge a view of our crew on the street in front of the house across the street from the Rizzo house. How would you like to have this madness going on in front of your house at night? The owners of this place were terribly nice and came out and watched us shoot exterior night scenes, inviting friends of there's over and serving cocktails. Christmas madness has descended so this will be brief. Item: Dig the below clip--Andy Garcia being pushed through the streets of Tribeca in the old Ford Galaxy that is Vince Rizzo's much loved old car in "City Island". Don't know why but I thought this clip was appropriate given the lumpy, clumsy and oafish season that is upon us. All I can say about getting through the holidays is: shlep, shlep and more shlep. Item: The Twitter streams have been full of nice words to say about "City Island", most of it stemming from our screenings over the past couple of weeks. If any of the movi...

I blog from a sound studio in Santa Monica where I await the arrival of Dominik Garica-Lorido, who has to loop one word consisting of four (maybe five) letters. The minutiae of moviemaking has never seemed so minute. But it's also extremely important that this get done right. Because the reason were here has to do with the all-important MPAA rating. We desperately wanted an MPAA rating of PG-13 for "City Island" and, after making an adjustment or two in language, received one. But the MPAA also controls the trailer and advertising to a certain extent, and they didn't like the fact that the trailer of our movie ended with Dominik yelling "Jesus, Dad!" So we cut out the last two letters and it became "Jeez, Dad!". Only to my ears, that didn't sound right. It's very important that the trailer end with a punch, a real "zotz" of a joke, if you will. The joke that we end on--I wont give it away--works very well. But it was dependent on...

Click on the above to enlarge us filming the fabulous Julianna Margulies. And click on the below to enlarge a wider view, with the assistant camera girl replacing JM in the window, slate dutifully in hand. Anyway, thanks for the nice comments on the "new look" for our blog. The new look, designed by web-artiste cosmicJANE, is meant to signify a new beginning for our mission. As of the first of the year, I'll be blogging the whole damn history of getting "City Island" made. The purpose: self-promotion, of course. But I'd also dearly love to create a book, complete with the screenplay and oodles of photographs. There's a certain air of urgency to this ambition of mine considering the whole damn format of bound books printed on paper appears to be on the verge of extinction. So what better place to write the first draft of the book then on this blog. If I time things correctly, I'll be done with the story on the day before the movie opens, March 18 2010...

From our day at the strip club, Staten Island, New York, courtesy of the ever effervescent Phil Caruso, God of Stills. The authoritative looking tall guy, pointing and giving direction, is our excellent cinematographer Vanja Cernjul. The guy to the left who appears to be asleep on his feet is me. Click to enlarge, dude. Here's a clip of an on-set view of a scene being shot outside said strip club. Steven Strait and Dominik Garcia-Lorido are the actors. Enjoy!   Subscribe in a reader

Above is an image from "The Longest Night"--an evening where we shot the entire climax of the movie (eleven pages of script) using three cameras and going from 6PM to 6AM, or whenever the sky began to turn blue with the rising sun. The scene is a cathartic explosion of family truths and lies and was originally scheduled to be shot over two nights. But I felt that it was such a dynamic, crazed, explosive scene that it would benefit from being done in one mad rush--a nutty kind of decision (most directors don't ask to have their page count doubled...) And I think it worked--we got the whole scene and in my opinion it couldn't work better. Don't forget to click the above to enlarge. Why not make it your screensaver? On the far right, back to camera wearing the trench coat, is Emily Mortimer. Julianna Margulies can be seen left, in profile under the sign that ominously reads "End". Back to camera, in the bathrobe, is Dominik Garcia-Lorido, who plays Andy...

Enjoy the first of many behind the scenes production stills I'll be posting in the weeks leading up to the release of "City Island" (3/19/10). Click to enlarge. Re: the trailer. I think we'll be ready to put it up on our various sites (movie website, facebook and of course this blog) in two weeks. In answer to a readers queary, no--the director doesn't have final control of the trailer. A company that specializes in creating trailers puts a few different versions together and the releasing company--in concert with the filmmakers--looks at them all and gives notes. Ultimately the end product belongs to those who are releasing the film--in this case, however, we are all on board with the trailer and delighted with how it turned out. Now for the mantra. Remember that spreading the word about our movie is the key thing to getting it seen and in the hands of the audiences. So please forward this blog entry to as many of your friends (and enemies) as you can. Anyone int...

I blogged all last week, but my dog at my posts. I posted. Only I didn't hit "publish". I hit delete by accident? It depends on what your definition of "is" is. Seriously sorry for the disappearing act. I've been following the shoot on "The Good Wife" and more often than not there simply isn't internet access on location. And by the time I get home I'm too wiped from having spent a day on set not doing anything productive. And the last two days of the shoot are upon me as I speak. So enjoy a clip and stay tuned for a lot of semi-exciting updates (for instance, the movie has a kick ass trailer which I will unveil in a few weeks, as well as a mega-online promotion plan which you will all certainly be made aware of/a part of). And now, Andy Garcia serenades you on the piano, during one of our lunch breaks.   Subscribe in a reader