Molly Rocks Out

Shot the club scenes today.  One more weekend of shooting left.  Tired.  A little sad for some reason.  Get over it.

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Molly and Tracy; Kat and Vic

This is a Guntar shot from last weekend.  It’s the final scene in the movie.  Today we shoot all the car stuff and then tomorrow it’s the backstage concert stuff.  Then one more weekend and we’re done.  Amazing.

Ran the play on Thursday and based on that made some good cuts.    We have one more week in the rehearsal room and then on stage.  Working through the play again and then another run on Wednesday.  It’s hard to really find the therapy scene when we’re still on book.  It needs to be so inside us, the many silences need to be so full.  This requires knowing what’s coming so clearly, moreso than the character does.  It’s different than usual.  It’s all about avoidence.

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Happy Rob

Our happy Stage Manage Rob.  Yes he’s always this happy.  Well not always showing it like this but very easily provoked to happiness.   Spent the last three days rehearsing at the Art Barns on Christie, Tarragon was having a big benefit so we had to vacate the rehearsal room.  It was a nice change but we’re ready to be back home.  Worked through the play scene by scene and today we run.  Such a deceptive play.  Nothing is random, nothing is a tangent.  Everything is connected to something.  Often connected to things that are never spoken.  Good work.  Today we play a game.  Something I seldom do.  I’ll let you know how it went.

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Tracy is Vic, Molly is Kat

A still from shooting today by Guntar.  This is post fist-fight - well actually more of a wrestling match.  A very good couple of days.  The girls are unstoppable.  As is the crew, the producers and Bruce.  Jen, the producer, says every day is miracle.  This is true.  The planets are lined up and the Universe is smiling.  Today we shot a flashback scene where Kat sees her younger self and Vic’s younger self playing in their first band “The Shut Ups”.  I think “The Shut Ups” are my new favourite band.  Tomorrow I rehearse “Communion” in the day and in the evening go to Allen Gardens for two big “Trigger” scenes.

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Scene 2

The ugly bed.  A rehearsal hall version of Scene 2.  Worked through Scene 3 yesterday and blocked it.  Then ran 1 and 2.  The play is now fully blocked.  Now we spend Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday working through each scene individually and run the play on Thursday.   The actors drop in a little more each day and this weekend they will spend time getting off script as much as they can.  The real work needs hands and eyes.  Especially eyes, nothing to look at other than the other person - or nothing not to look at other than the other person.  Had an interview with Paul Gallant from Eye Weekly yesterday at lunch.  It’s the first time I’ve talked about the play in that kind of depth.  It’s more personal that I thought.

Today we shoot Trigger.  A three day weekend.  Today and tomorrow at Etobicoke School of the Arts for the afterparty scenes.  I had written the scenes to take place in a suburban mansion with the final confrontations to take place while chasing one another along the Lakeshore.  My first round of rewrites placed the scenes in a high school - rented out for the afterparty - and the scenes of pursuit taking place in the empty hallways.  Since the film was orignally set in the spring it was important to make sure we had weather cover.  Lucky we did that since Toronto has a cold weather warning this weekend.

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Caroline is Leda, Sarah is Carolyn

Day 4.  Going well.  Nearly blocked.  Worked on both of Athena’s scenes today.  With Caroline (Leda) her mother and Sarah (Carolyn) Leda’s therapist.  Lots of interesting discoveries.  The plan is to map out a blocking and adhere to it so that we can more deeply explore the play.  It’s in the style of Hagen I guess where we attach a physical action to text so that we focus on the physical and get out of the way of the psycholgical/emotional action.  A challenge for the actors is the extent of layering necessary.  What we think we want has nothing do do with our true motivation.  But we must play what we think we want while the truth, that we don’t acknowledge, drives us.

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Day 2 Communion Rehearsal

Going well.  Good calm vibe in the room.  It’s fascinating working with the actors.  There is so much unsaid in the text, so much obfuscation, evasiveness, reacting and deflecting.  So much fear masquerading as anger.  Silence and babbling.  Sarah, playing Carolyn the therapist, has a tough job - all focused and listening.  Listening can be exhausting.  Caroline, playing Leda the patient, has a war within herself - avoiding and confronting.  So far we’ve been working through the first scene, working through beat by beat.  Silence by silence.  Outburst by outburst.  The goal is a first run by Friday.

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Tracy and Don on Set

Tracy plays Vic, Don plays her boyfriend Brian.   Shot the scenes today that take place in their apartment.  Tonight Molly and Tracy shot the long walk-and-talk on Queen Street West between Vic and Kat where they run into the Lost Soul, played by Caroline.   It rained a bit but just enough to wet down the street so that everything glistened.  Thirty-five minutes in the can. The Universe is on side so far.   Tomorrow I start rehearsing “Communion” at Tarragon.

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Bruce Directs Tracy

Shot all day at Canoe on the top floor of the TD Centre (my favourite building in Toronto).  An amazing day.  Tracy and Molly were “the pefect girls” as Bruce put it.  The crew is tight and focused.  We shot a twelve minute (!) scene, an homage to “My Dinner With Andre” - actually the first 25 minutes are an homage to that movie.  The whole first act takes place in Canoe.   I was the maitre’de: “A drink while you’re waiting Ma’am”.  Bob Martin was a waiter Tracy tears a strip off.  Fiona was a drunken trophy wife.   Everybody was great.  Everybody’s exhausted but nobody cares.  Tomorrow we shoot on Queen Street all day.  The concert scenes (the centre of the film is a concert)  are  happening at The Mod Club on February 14th in a public benefit organized by Brendan and Sarah from Arts and Crafts.   It’s all happening.  It’s all happening now.

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Production Meeting

Just back from a five hour production meeting.  We start shooting “Trigger” on Saturday and we shoot over the next four weekends.  I finished a third draft (with LOCKED! pages) yesterday and here we go.  Bruce is a cowboy of a filmaker and the measure of a man.

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