Looking back with a vengeance
WE HAD BUT A FEW shooting days left to wrap the movie, “Vengeance,” when the production company pulled the plug. COVID-19 had been hovering over our heads for weeks and the crew’s conversations crackled with gossip and rumor. That evening, Friday, March 13, 2020, I met the director, BJ Novak, on the set at the Rodeo Grounds in Belén, and I offered my commiserations. He said, “It’s just a glitch. We’ll finish it soon enough.”
Director and location manager become close during the ‘prepping’ of a movie, both figuratively and actually. Many days, and often weeks, are spent alongside one another in the front seats of the scout vehicle, exchanging opinions on the ‘look’ of the picture, the appropriateness of the locations, and all else from the current political situation to whether LeBron and the Lakers will make a run at the NBA championship that year.
Some months earlier I had picked up Novak from the airport in El Paso and we spent a delightful week driving through West Texas and much of New Mexico, scouting locations for “Vengeance,” his pet project, for which he’d written the script and would play the lead and direct. Known chiefly for his work in all those roles on “The Office,” Novak was a wonderful road companion, ‘sympatico,’ smart, informed and opinionated.
In a career spanning almost five decades, one does many projects to pay the rent, to get children through college, to fix the house. “Vengeance” was one of the others, one of those you want to succeed and love working on: clever script; shrewd, original concept; lovely, talented ‘auteur’ at the helm.
But now his labor of love was stalled and he faced multiple challenges to get it completed. When would he be able to start shooting again? Would he lose key crew and cast? Would his A-list actor whom he hoped would ‘open’ the film at the box office refuse to work in a pandemic? Would he be able to keep his financing? How would the production companies and the unions establish protocols for how to work the set safely?
The appetite for content from the multiple media outlets of the 21st Century is voracious and not easily stymied by a mere virus sweeping the globe. During the worldwide lockdown last summer, forces from the industry were hard at work breaking down barriers in order to get cameras rolling again.
PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to be worn by all and sundry was the first priority. Next was testing; all productions had their various methods, but the essential format was the same. The crew was divided into groups according to their necessity to be close to camera and therefore in unavoidable proximity to others; Group A were those who had to be there, such as camera operator, Boom swinger, actors; Group B would be those who came and went, grips, electricians, prop guys; Group C were those whose jobs required them to be on set seldom, if at all: drivers, caterers, PAs, production office staff. The higher the group you fell in the more you were tested.
Obviously additional staff was required to expedite all this abnormal work and consequently an increase in budget. Some producers estimated the overage between 10 and 15 percent. Medical personnel were brought in from hospitals, medical schools and Medicins sans Frontieres.
Perhaps the most challenging hurdle to overcome was political. Thrashing out a modus operandi within the industry was one thing, convincing the governors of the various states to designate the entertainment industry as an ‘essential business,’ when virtually all other commerce was shut down was another matter. Abetted by the film commissions, producers lobbied the state politicians and soon the required status was conferred.
By the fall of 2020 we were all hard at work on “Vengeance” again, filming was completed and postproduction began. When I spoke to BJ Novak this week he said, “I can’t believe what a big glitch it ended up being! It’s a miracle we were able to finish it, all thanks to the doggedness of Jason Blum (principle of the prolific Blumhouse Productions) and the commitment of the local crew.”
The appetite for content from the multiple media outlets of the 21st Century is voracious and not easily stymied by a mere virus sweeping the globe.