Last night, a neighbor and I stumbled into a location shoot on 7th and B for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. The film is an adaptation of a hit teen-novel (20- and 30-something ladies, take notice) and is directed by Peter Sollett, his second feature after Raising Victor Vargas. Is Sollett an emerging teen-indie auteur? Not that anyone can ever take that title away from John Hughes.
The specific shot we observed involved Kat Dennings (the frustrated virgin daughter in The 40 Year Old Virgin) walking out in the street, getting on her mobile and hailing a cab. I haven’t read the book but I’m guessing the context of the scene is that a boy she really likes has pissed her off. So to add insult to a dramatized injury, the crew was having problems preventing the taxis from taking Dennings seriously who were stopping to pick her up. I suppose the cab drivers were oblivious to the large HMI lights on lift cranes, film equipment and trucks around the block. Or they didn’t care.
This is yet another example of how film production is anything but glamourous and more like hell on earth. The temperature is below 40°F and the crew has their fingers crossed that they might be done by 4:00am. AD’s and PA’s are having to manage extras and control people from walking through an open set (I can only assume they did not have the budget to actually shut down this part of the street). The director is calling for take, after take hoping to get this 20 second shot down right without any taxis - or any other unknown variables messing it up.
And who knows, under these conditions, what kind of personalities are being dealt with from the crew and talent.
For those reasons and many more, I determined a while ago that film production just wasn’t for me. More power to the people who do it - and do it well.
I was just listening to Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O Mine