Monday, November 29, 2004
Week 110 - The Little Spy
At long last, prinicipal photography on The Little Spy has commenced. Mad ups to the stalwart cast and crew for enduring rain and high wind on our picturesque SoHo Rooftop location. Please allow me to introduce:
THE CAST
Annah Boyer is The Little Spy, a high-kicking, gun-toting bad ass. She’s pretty, all right, pretty deadly!
Tara Merdjanoff is Annah’s nemesis, the smug, self-assured and gorgeous evildoer Mira Black. She’s lethal with a sword, a staff and a .45 magnum. Ease back, gentlemen, she’s taken... Taken you to School!
Shot on location in New York city without permits, The Little Spy is an experimental kung fu cartoon that utilizes New York’s uniquely gorgeous cityscape and cutting edge low budget animation techniques to tell the story of a Little Spy with a big heart. It’s the Matrix meets On Golden Pond, except there’s no pond, and no, um, gold?
Production Notes:
Saturday, November 21. Got up at 9:00 a.m., reached Tara’s promptly at ten with no cash left to pay for the taxi. Borrowed $30 from Tara before she was really awake.
11:00 – neighbor comes up to the roof, asks ‘what the hell we’re doing up there.’
‘Shooting a movie,’ I say gleefully. ‘Are we too loud?’
‘My boyfriend is trying to sleep.’
Oh, I say, well I guess we shouldn’t make art today, because your boyfriend is a light sleeper.
No, I didn’t really say that. But I should have.
12:00 - people staying in the nearby hotel are looking out their window. We have fans!
It starts raining. We make Annah do many many cartwheels through puddles.
Tara hits herself repeatedly in the head with the staff. BUT ONLY BECAUSE THE RAIN MADE IT SLIPPERY.
6:00 p.m. Saturday night – we go to the overpass near Battery Park to film the dream sequence. Despite the fact that Annah is wielding a sword and a Desert Eagle on the pedestrian bridge, nobody bats an eye. New York is a one of a kind place. Pull out a video camera in Richmond and everybody wants to be your pal. Pull one out in New York and you’re an NYU Film Douche.
Sunday morning, director moves call time from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. to delight of a tired cast and director. We arrive at the public library at 42nd and 5th ave. The whole place is blocked off. My first reaction: Oh crap, they’ve blocked off the steps. My second reaction. ‘Oh, crap, they’ve blocked off the steps! If we get inside the barricade and act authoritative, people will think they blocked off the steps FOR US!'
The strategy, which usually backfires, in this case works. There is no rain, but the same gorgeous overcast light.
Two ladies fight with swords on the steps of the New York Public Library and nobody cares. I repeat, what a city.
10:00 a.m. - The Bryant Park shoot behind the library is 86ed – who knew today they’d be dressing the park for the holidays? Hundreds of workers mill around, ruining every shot. Boo hoo.
A homeless man approaches, singing. We guiltily buy him off with 57 cents, which, after paying back Tara for yesterday’s cab ride, is all the money the director has left in the world.
12:00 noon - We go back to Tara’s. Shannon has gamely offered to go to Queens to pick up our weapons – we need the guns and staffs to finish what we started on Saturday.
In what promises to become a recurrent theme, she arrives at Tara’s with no money to pay for the cab. David, on the roof, has been to the ATM, says he’ll drop his wallet down 7 stories. Annah suggests that this is a stupid idea. She suggests that he needs to be smart and WRAP HIS WALLET IN HIS JACKET before he drops it. She is serious.
We drop the jacket over the side, the winds picks it up, carries it over to the next building, and dumps it on the fire escape next door. Nobody’s home at this apartment, so we ask a local vendor for a ladder, and using one of the staffs Shannon has brought, we disengage the jacket from the fire escape. Production is only stalled ten minutes because of this stupidity.
MEET THE CREW:
Meet Fight Coordinator Thomas Cook, this actor, martial arts expert trains the ladies for three hours a day, turns them into ninjas in no time flat! With superior teaching methods, a gentle hand and a wise philosophy, Tom wins the part as a ninja master in episode 2 and also the title role in the upcoming mockumentary, Kung Fu Billy, the story of a blind kung fu master who thrills and kills at the Special Olympics.
Producer Shannon Chirone ably smooths the production process as advisor, assistant. Sparks fly on the set when Shannon tells the director she thinks ‘that one should grab that one by the ponytail and throw her off the building.’ What an eye for action!
MORE ON THE LITTLE SPY next week... ¶ 10:20 PM
THE CAST
Annah Boyer is The Little Spy, a high-kicking, gun-toting bad ass. She’s pretty, all right, pretty deadly!
Tara Merdjanoff is Annah’s nemesis, the smug, self-assured and gorgeous evildoer Mira Black. She’s lethal with a sword, a staff and a .45 magnum. Ease back, gentlemen, she’s taken... Taken you to School!
Shot on location in New York city without permits, The Little Spy is an experimental kung fu cartoon that utilizes New York’s uniquely gorgeous cityscape and cutting edge low budget animation techniques to tell the story of a Little Spy with a big heart. It’s the Matrix meets On Golden Pond, except there’s no pond, and no, um, gold?
Production Notes:
Saturday, November 21. Got up at 9:00 a.m., reached Tara’s promptly at ten with no cash left to pay for the taxi. Borrowed $30 from Tara before she was really awake.
11:00 – neighbor comes up to the roof, asks ‘what the hell we’re doing up there.’
‘Shooting a movie,’ I say gleefully. ‘Are we too loud?’
‘My boyfriend is trying to sleep.’
Oh, I say, well I guess we shouldn’t make art today, because your boyfriend is a light sleeper.
No, I didn’t really say that. But I should have.
12:00 - people staying in the nearby hotel are looking out their window. We have fans!
It starts raining. We make Annah do many many cartwheels through puddles.
Tara hits herself repeatedly in the head with the staff. BUT ONLY BECAUSE THE RAIN MADE IT SLIPPERY.
6:00 p.m. Saturday night – we go to the overpass near Battery Park to film the dream sequence. Despite the fact that Annah is wielding a sword and a Desert Eagle on the pedestrian bridge, nobody bats an eye. New York is a one of a kind place. Pull out a video camera in Richmond and everybody wants to be your pal. Pull one out in New York and you’re an NYU Film Douche.
Sunday morning, director moves call time from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. to delight of a tired cast and director. We arrive at the public library at 42nd and 5th ave. The whole place is blocked off. My first reaction: Oh crap, they’ve blocked off the steps. My second reaction. ‘Oh, crap, they’ve blocked off the steps! If we get inside the barricade and act authoritative, people will think they blocked off the steps FOR US!'
The strategy, which usually backfires, in this case works. There is no rain, but the same gorgeous overcast light.
Two ladies fight with swords on the steps of the New York Public Library and nobody cares. I repeat, what a city.
10:00 a.m. - The Bryant Park shoot behind the library is 86ed – who knew today they’d be dressing the park for the holidays? Hundreds of workers mill around, ruining every shot. Boo hoo.
A homeless man approaches, singing. We guiltily buy him off with 57 cents, which, after paying back Tara for yesterday’s cab ride, is all the money the director has left in the world.
12:00 noon - We go back to Tara’s. Shannon has gamely offered to go to Queens to pick up our weapons – we need the guns and staffs to finish what we started on Saturday.
In what promises to become a recurrent theme, she arrives at Tara’s with no money to pay for the cab. David, on the roof, has been to the ATM, says he’ll drop his wallet down 7 stories. Annah suggests that this is a stupid idea. She suggests that he needs to be smart and WRAP HIS WALLET IN HIS JACKET before he drops it. She is serious.
We drop the jacket over the side, the winds picks it up, carries it over to the next building, and dumps it on the fire escape next door. Nobody’s home at this apartment, so we ask a local vendor for a ladder, and using one of the staffs Shannon has brought, we disengage the jacket from the fire escape. Production is only stalled ten minutes because of this stupidity.
MEET THE CREW:
Meet Fight Coordinator Thomas Cook, this actor, martial arts expert trains the ladies for three hours a day, turns them into ninjas in no time flat! With superior teaching methods, a gentle hand and a wise philosophy, Tom wins the part as a ninja master in episode 2 and also the title role in the upcoming mockumentary, Kung Fu Billy, the story of a blind kung fu master who thrills and kills at the Special Olympics.
Producer Shannon Chirone ably smooths the production process as advisor, assistant. Sparks fly on the set when Shannon tells the director she thinks ‘that one should grab that one by the ponytail and throw her off the building.’ What an eye for action!
MORE ON THE LITTLE SPY next week... ¶ 10:20 PM
