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Production Diary For Next Stop Wonderland by Laura Bernieri Part 1 of 6 Next Stop Wonderland is the second film written and directed by Brad Anderson whose first film, The Darien Gap, competed at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. At Sundance '97 Brad was voted one of the top new directors in the world to watch. Financed and produced by Robbins Entertainment president Mitchell Robbins, Wonderland is an independent feature that involved 42 locations, 65 actors, and hundreds of extras. Mitchell's challenge working with Brad as a new director was to assemble the most capable production team and present Brad with the best technical and artistic options that could take him from the guerrilla stage of his first film to the greater vision of Wonderland. Like Cassavetes or Woody Allen, Brad favors an improvisational approach. He likes to depart from the rigidity of shot lists and storyboards. Mitchell hired Michael Ross, a Martin Scorsese award recipient at NYU, as first A.D. Michael's preproduction job was to accurately schedule the number of scenes per day. As they visited each location with Uta Briesewitz, our German cinematographer, a recent graduate of AFI, Brad would agree to first camera position. Kim Caviness, yet another director who just received her masters at Boston University and recipient of the Sumner Redstone award for her thesis film which played at Cannes, was hired as our location manager. Although we were told that directors working together might cause problems, we feel the film benefitted from the fact that there were other filmmakers on our crew. In the end, they were all instrumental in the success of bringing Brad's vision to the film. As co-producer, my job was to oversee all aspects of the creative process and to interface with the press. Having good relations with journalists served us well. By the end of production, our press kit looked like a book. But being so high profile also had its downside... CHELSEA Wednesday, October 16 - First day of principle photography Over the course of the day, it has become increasingly more difficult to lock up sound. There seems to be an inordinate amount of traffic on our industrial cul-de-sac. Although at the end of the street, there is an oil refueling station, trucks of all types are driving past the set, turning around at the dead end and revving their engines by us once again. Some even blow their horn. We are dumbstruck when a UPS driver parks his truck directly in front of our exterior, jumps out to make deliveries down the street. We slowly come to realize that the walkies are jamming. Something or somebody is interfering with our frequency. As if this isn't enough to worry about, one of the extras who has been high maintenance has exposed herself to the extras wrangler who is literally left shaken from this bizarre experience. Looking forward to lunch, the crew is told that instead of eating on the second floor above the bar, we have been invited to use the PPC--Polish Political Club. The Club's modest accommodations are a welcome sight for the hungry crew. Luckily, they never saw the thousands of cockroaches that scattered for cover when location manager Kim Caviness opened the apartment doors where we were going to eat. There was Kim, at six a.m., knocking on doors, trying to find another place for crafts services to feed us as well as a holding area for talent. She was lucky to find the Poles amenable, and also the MassPort Authorities who, after some cajoling and fast paperwork, allowed us to use their storage office across the street. After this rocky start, the fun begins. As the story goes, Hope's mother, concerned that her daughter is pining away, puts a personal ad in the paper. Angry at her mother's initiative, Hope changes her tune when she discovers she has fifty responses. Ruthlessly she deletes most of them as we hear their humorous pitches. An old bar has been transformed into a cozy neon pub where she meets the dates she selects. The bar building is owned by Rob aka Felicity Lane, a transvestite, winner of the Miss Gay New England contest whose gowns were strewn around when art arrived to check the place out. We agree to give Felicity a cameo in the film as part of the location fee. Angelo Palermo, who lives around the corner, stops by. He takes the art crew into his basement, turns on the switch and says, "This is what it looks like in Times Square." Neon signs from the defunct Revere Beach amusement park advertising roller coaster rides, hotdog concessions, an old barber pole. We can use it all. For nothing. Just let him be an extra at the bar. A string of actors are on hand today doing short scenes as Hope's suitors. Academy award winner Ernest Thompson, Larry Gilliard, Jr. from Straight Out of Brooklyn, Dr. Katz's Jon Benjamin. Robert Stanton is so funny as the salesman from Waltham who deals in "rubber nubs" that Hope breaks up during a take. CHARLES RIVER ESPLANADE - TRAVELING SHOT Veteran stand up Steve Sweeney plays a cab driver who takes Hope on a frantic trip to the airport. Although he's been given a paragraph of dialog, Sweeney improvs for half an hour about driving in the Hub: "Boston. The oldest city in America--they still haven't finished it!" CHELSEA Thursday, October 17 Another day at the date bar. Even more traffic problems. When Mitchell returns to his black Mercedes after we wrap, he finds the driver's window has been blown out. COPLEY PLAZA HOTEL Friday, October 18 The model market scene requires ten extra hair and makeup artists, all professionals volunteering to work with local makeup artist Maria Scali. Tommy Hilfiger supermodel Jason Lewis festoons the set today, making all the women--and gay men--a tad giddy. Determined not to be seen as just another pretty face, Jason improvs in a lively scene with Holland Taylor and Katharine Kerr, that he's in med school. It actually works well since Hope's character is a phlebotomist and he knows what that means. After wrap, a Wonderland contingent revels at backbay bistro Sonsie's, discovering later that Jason chose to stay in his room and read the Chekhov book he carried conspicuously around the set. Production Diary For Next Stop Wonderland by Laura Bernieri Part 2 of 6 BOSTON COMMON Sunday, October 20 It is a moody, overcast autumn day. The park is dotted with trees ablaze in yellow, red and orange hues. The location P.A.s take refuge in the winnebago with hair and makeup. Some of us are bundled up in wool hats, huddled on top of a crafts services table. Kim begins a game of who's got a crush on whom. Of the 45-person crew, only a handful are married, so production crushes abound. (Much later in the shoot, Kim confides in me that she's fallen for Lyn Vaus, Brad's co-writer who was the star of his first film. But Kim insists that Lyn has to get certain things in order before she'll let him move in. I chuckle to think that life is mirroring art: Kim is like Polly Joy in The Darien Gap.) We have lunch above the Cheers bar in a clubby, wood-paneled Beacon Hill dining room with blazing fireplaces and a spectacular view of the park. <Picture>Back on the set, Brad is shooting private moments of Hope in this "city oasis" setting. Mitchell, playing the LEERING GUY, must sit down beside Hope on the park bench. Michael Dynice, our key grip, is bullish about sawing through a foot-thick chain that's been on the Common since the American Revolution to give Brad the dolly shot he wants. Michael faces off with Kim, declaring, "I'm picture, and you're just the place we put it on." She won't give him permission, despite him being twice her size. I think he has a crush on her. Uta Briesewitz, with her European style poorboy cap, looks like a female Ingmar Bergman as she circles Hope on the dolly. A Boston Police mountie arrives at the most auspicious moment to be included in the shot. Brad recruits gaffer Ken Perham, with his ruddy New England complexion to don a yellow slicker and rake leaves like a park worker. Brad orders the art department to gather up more red leaves. The predicted rain has been held off, but seems imminent as the wind picks up. Just as we think we can celebrate the end of another successful shooting day, Chris Temper, production driver, arrives with the news that Alan Gelfant, our lead, got a bad haircut. He's somewhere on Newbury Street trying to get it cleaned up by another stylist. Maria Scali and I jump in the car as Chris trawls down Newbury in search of Alan who is in one of the 80-odd salons on that 8 block radius. Somehow we find him. Good news: he hasn't cut it too short. SOUTH END Monday-Thursday, October 21-24 Union Park is the most beautiful street in Boston's South End. When Brad described the view he wanted outside Hope's window, it immediately came to mind. Not only do the brownstones look out onto a park, but also a fountain. Very early on we decided that the locations should all highlight water, since it is thematically interwoven into the script. I'd spent a lot of time on that street over the past ten years since Tim Grafft, deputy director of the Massachusetts Film Office, lives on it. Tim assured us that the South End was basically film friendly; but weĠd have to do some P.R. With parking at a premium there, locations came up with a brilliant idea: Give everybody in the neighborhood a coupon for a free ice cream cone at the local parlor. What--are we in the live action version of 101 Dalmatians? Everybody on this chi-chi street has a dog: afghans, poodles, boxers, great danes, wolfhounds, airdale terriers. Luckily, they dutifully carry their pooper-scoopers. Haley Klein lives two doors down. Haley volunteered as a P.A. and was so good she was elevated to art department coordinator. It was her job to watch over the mad geniuses like Humberto Cordero when he had an electric screwdriver in his hands or a saw. Like a whirling dervish, Humberto could get carried away with the exultation in his abilities to transform a room with his drill. Today, in his paint-spattered overalls, he emerges from under the house in search of the most diaphanous dust kitties to place in Hope's bedroom. Haley lets the female production staff sleep over during our four day shoot, creating warmth, camaraderie and a bond, the benefits of which are felt through the duration of production. They'd trundle up the stairs of her brownstone, get cozy on the floor with pillows, giggle like schoolgirls at a slumber party until they fall asleep; then roll out of bed onto the set the next morning. Continue to Next Stop Wonderland Production Diary Part Two |