Either You're in or You're in the Way

by Logan Miller

“Guys, look at me,” Ricardo said.

  It’s even bigger than we thought…A giant meteor is speeding toward earth. We’ve got a few minutes, at most.

  “Pray for sun.”

  “Sun?”

  “Yes. Sunshine. I’ve worked too hard for too long. So have you. We need beautiful sun. Sunshine. You got it?…This fog is crap. Now pray.”

  Ricardo bowed his head, closed his eyes, and squeezed our hands. He was right. We needed sunshine later in the day for a scene scheduled at Red Barn Road in Nicasio, just over the hill. It had to be golden sunshine, magic hour, a sweeping pastoral shot in the fading hues before sunset.

  If we couldn’t control the weather, what could we control?

  So with heads bowed in a circle of three, we prayed for sunshine, begged, pleaded, offered our souls, held mass under the tree throughout the morning.

  But the sun never came. Not even a peek. All day. Fog. Dense. Heavy. Leaden. Sometimes Mother Nature doesn’t care about your plans.

  But Mother Nature was the least of our afflictions.

  We had ourselves to deal with.

  For our first shot of the day we had concocted an elaborate and unnecessary crane move. Stupid, idiotic, first-time-director nonsense. Stupid! Let’s display our skill, our artistic vision with this elegant camera move for a scene that could be shot with three simple setups. No, let’s take the simple and make it complex. Why? Because we’re young and stupid, green, smarter than everyone else, smarter than all that have come before us.

  It took two hours to set up the crane. It should’ve taken thirty minutes. We were behind before we started. After each shot, it took fifteen minutes to get the crane back to its starting position. Furthermore, the crane was experiencing technical problems. So were the young actors, twin boys playing us as kids. They were enamored of the crane, couldn’t keep their eyes off it, wanted to take it home and make it their pet. The crane would creep down the side of the building and sweep around the corner and find the boys, and each time—whammo—they would look directly into the camera, forgetting that we were making a movie.

  “Cut.”

  “Let’s go back to one.”

  It took us eight hours to shoot two hours of work. But it wasn’t the kids’ fault or the crew’s fault or even the crane’s fault. It was our fault! The twin directors’ fault, dumber than most, smarter than the rest.

  Our afternoon filming at Red Barn Road was canceled. We had grim visions. If we proceeded at this pace we’d run out of money, never complete the September shoot. At the end of Day Two, we were a half day behind. And our schedule was only getting tougher.

  But we rallied on Days Three, Four, and Five and made up the half day we lost on Day Two. We finished the first week on schedule, a massive pivot in the course of battle. We ended Friday at Red Barn Road, the sun golden, prayers answered.

  Jeromiah brought out a cooler of beers for the crew. It was hot September, everyone sweating, beer-drinking weather.

  We handed out the frosty Lagunitas IPAs and congratulated each person for a job well done. They were all fired-up. The crew is like a pack of sled dogs. They enjoy working hard, love to complete the schedule. When they don’t, they get down, lose confidence in the movie. We had turned the week around from a disastrous Day Two and were now ending the week one scene ahead.

  But the celebration was short-lived for us, didn’t even have time to drink an IPA.

  Ricardo, Connie, Taylor, Jeromiah, and Bao walked over.

  We were flying. They were not.

  “Guys, listen. Big Angry is outta control,” Jeromiah said.

  “He left the exposed film in the lobby for two days,” Connie added. “Two days!”

  Our happiness died.

  Connie continued, “Last night when we walked into the lobby after shooting, I looked over and saw our cans of film sitting on the couch, unguarded. I couldn’t believe it. I asked the woman at the front desk who left those there. She didn’t know, thought they had been there all day.”

  The exposed film represented every penny, every line of dialogue, every person’s salary, every ounce of contribution to the movie—our seven years of work! IT WAS THE MOVIE. What you record in-camera is EVERYTHING. It cannot be replaced. And it was left in the lobby—for TWO DAYS!

  “So me and Katie took the film up to our room. Then I called Big Angry to ask what’s going on, why the film is sitting in the lobby…and he says, ‘Fuck you, you dumb bitch. Don’t talk to me that way. You’re below me, you cunt!’ and then he hung up.”

  Connie was in tears.

  “You guys gotta do something,” Ricardo said. “Or else he’s going to ruin your movie.”

  “Bao, Taylor, Jeromiah, let’s get back to the hotel,” Noah said. “We need to take care of this.”

  We jumped in a minivan and drove to the hotel.

  The first week had been shot on rural locations: the Russian River to Point Reyes to Nicasio. For economic reasons, we’d been staying at our mom’s house; it saved the production over $100 a day. We were the first ones on set each morning and usually the last to leave. Consequently, we hadn’t stepped foot in the production office at the hotel during the first week of shooting, which is where Big Angry spent the working day.

  Jeromiah and Taylor also informed us that one of our financier’s had seen Big Angry’s burnout buddy taking shots of tequila on Day Two in the bar across the street from where we were filming—during work hours—and then driving actors from set to the hotel. One actor refused to let Burnout drive her and her children. Burnout was also getting high in the production trailer, leaving his bag of weed on the desk as if it were a paperweight. What’s more, Big Angry had never been authorized to hire this guy. He hired him behind our backs, put him on the payroll. These were not the type of people we wanted representing the Miller Brothers.

  NO MORE ANGRY

  We walked into the production office. It looked ransacked, like someone had emptied a file cabinet and then turned on a leaf blower. Important contracts, bills, invoices, and various other documents were strewn across the desk and floor, intermingled with pizza boxes, soda cans, candy bar wrappers, and Chinese takeout.

  Big Angry and his smoked-out partner were at the end of the table with $10,000 in cash, dividing up the crews per diem. A few other people were in the room.

  “We need everybody except Big Angry to get out of here.”

  Big Angry’s buddy slithered out of the room.

  We sat down. So did Bao and Jeromiah.

  Big Angry slammed a handful of money on the table and then stomped over to a file cabinet. “If I’m going to be on trial, then I’m going to show you my evidence!”

  “Big Angry, your buddy is fired. Gone. Send him home. He needs to pack his shit and get out of here now. Either you tell him, or we’re going to throw him out,” Logan said.

  “If he’s outta here, then so am I,” Big Angry said.

  Great, we all thought…On the drive over, we had discussed firing him—thought it was necessary—but were concerned he would try to sue us. So before we fired him we were going to run it by our attorney. But Big Angry saved us a $300 phone call. His anger had finally paid off for us.

  Then he started yelling, packing his gear, unplugging his laptop. “I’ve given everything to this project! Everything! This movie is in economic ruin, and I’m not going to stick around and watch it crumble. You’re on the road to bankruptcy!”

  It took the greatest angels of our nature to keep us from ripping him apart.

  “This project is doomed,” he said, grinning. “Doooooomed…You’re going to run out of money in a few weeks. You’re fucked. Good luck.”

  THE DELUGE

  FOR WEEKS, WE’D been asking Big Angry for a cost to date—a report listing how much we’d spent and the projected costs for the remainder of the movie. He never produced one. As a result we knew very little about our financial condition. Did we have ten thousand in the bank, one hundred thousand? Were we bouncing checks?

/>   The financing was held in escrow, disbursed to our movie bank account on a drawdown schedule. On September 7, a certain amount was released into the movie account, on September 21, another amount was released, and so on at intervals that corresponded to our budget. This demanded fiscal responsibility. We couldn’t outspend the drawdown schedule. Nor could we exceed our overall budget. Not knowing where we were at financially was a dangerous position, especially on a low-budget independent film. There was no studio to hit up for more money. Once the budget was exhausted, that was it. We had a crisis on our hands, and it demanded immediate attention and action.

  First step: organize The production office was so messy you couldn’t think inside.

  It was 9 P.M. We all started cleaning up the room.

  “Jeromy…Do you think you’re ready to be a line producer?” Noah asked. “No bullshit, here. Can you handle the job?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good, you’re hired.”

  It was a battlefield commission. Jeromiah had just vaulted from private to colonel.

  A month earlier, Jeromiah was selling life insurance in San Francisco. He was making six figures a year. When we finally raised the money for Touching Home, we called with the good news. It was just an update. NOT A JOB OFFER. Mind you, he was making six figures a year. We thought he might be able to help us out on weekends, volunteer a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

  Thirty minutes later he fired us an e-mail:

  i’m giving my two week notice tomorrow. i’m coming to work for you guys.

  We called him back immediately. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Jeromiah. We can’t pay you much, maybe five hundred a week. And we already hired a line producer…You’ll be a P.A. or something—far below your ability.”

  “Guys, I’ve already made my decision. We dreamed about this day back in the War Room in L.A. I’m in. I’ve always been in. I don’t care what my job is or how much I make—I just want to be a part of it.”

  JEROMIAH RUNNING WATER ZAJONC

  Jeromiah Running Water Zajonc comes from good stock. His father, Bobby-Z, is a renowned helicopter pilot and aerial cinematographer. Bobby has filmed movies all over the world for the world’s most celebrated directors: Spielberg, Zemeckis, Howard, etc. He learned to fly choppers while dodging rockets and gunfire over Vietnam, logging over one thousand combat hours during his tour.

  After Jeromiah graduated from UCLA he started working for line producer Paul Kurta, and writer/producer Scott Rosenberg. Back then, Jeromiah and Taylor were renting a house together in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles. When one of their roommates moved out, we moved in. The four of us turned the garage into the War Room for movie production. But nothing materialized when we were living together. After a few years, Jeromiah moved back to the Bay Area but never lost his love for movies, always planning to return to the business one day. And one day had now arrived.

  ACCOUNTING FOR THE UNACCOUNTED

  Our eyeballs were burning tangles of red veins, looked like someone squirted Halloween juice in them. Yet this bastard telling us that we were doomed, and snickering about it, rallied us. A bunch of bad energy had been dumped south.

  By midnight, we had cleaned up the production office. It was far from organized, but at least you could walk around without squishing a slice of pizza into a contract.

  “Get your asses down here and have a beer with us,” Evan Jones said over the cell phone. “Take a break.”

  The crew was down at the Pint Size Lounge celebrating the first week. They were having a loud time when we arrived. There was a wonderful cohesion; the grips, the electricians, transpo, hair and makeup, camera, the actors, all the departments were drinking together and enjoying life. They gave us a hearty toast and loud cheer. We told them that Jeromiah was now the line producer. And an even louder cheer erupted. They had our backs, and it felt good.

  We drank a couple beers with them and then drove back to the production office with Jeromiah and Taylor and worked until 3 A.M., crashed on the production office floor, and started working again at 7 A.M., mainlining coffee, chewing tobacco, and drinking Red Bulls and Rockstars, with an occasional handful of peanuts and party mix.

  We needed to find out where the movie was financially. None of us had any experience in accounting other than balancing a checkbook—and the only time we did that was high school math class. We made a few calls to movie production accountants. Their estimates for coming in and balancing our books were far too expensive. We needed a solution, and the solution was us.

  “I think the first thing I should do is go over the deal memos,” Jeromiah said. “It will help us figure out the daily burn rate.”

  Two hours later:

  “We don’t have one signed deal memo,” Jeromiah said. “I can’t believe that…Actually, there is one for Burnout…We need to find out what we’re paying people each day…Worse, we could be violating labor laws. This exposes us to a bunch of bad things.”

  So…

  One by one, we called each crew member into our production office—Room 4207—and asked them what deal Big Angry had screamed at them. Over the past few months, we (Logan and Noah) had personally brokered the deals with our department heads—the Keys. But it got tricky with the rest of the crew, around fifty people. Some of the wages Big Angry had orally promised were excessively high, as if designed to bankrupt our movie. Rudimentary mathematics—somewhere between first-and second-grade level—could have figured that out. On the other hand, there were deals Big Angry brokered that threw people into the poorhouse—so who knows what he was really thinking. But either way, we had to correct the math. So we increased some salaries and reduced others.

  The negotiation was fairly straightforward from our end: either we modify your deal so we can finish the movie, or we have to let you go. WE ARE completing our movie, with a crew, or without a crew. To their credit, the crew was willing to work within our budget. Everyone loved our energy, proud to be part of Touching Home. Even at that dire moment, the crew believed in us. Jeromiah drafted up deal memos and had everyone formally employed by the end of the day.

  We then sent unnecessary gear back to vendors in L.A., brokered new rates with caterers, and persuaded the hotel to reduce its price. While the crew slept and barbecued out by the pool, caroused in San Francisco, or tasted fine wines and fine cheeses in Napa Valley, we worked each night until 3 A.M., crashed with Taylor and Jeromiah on the production room floor, and attacked the workload again at 6 A.M. (Jeromiah slept both the September and December shoots in the production office, such was his dedication to Touching Home.)

  Those two days off from filming gave us time to get the machine back on track and streamline the budget. Our burn rate was now approximately $40,000/day, down from nearly $55,000/day. In addition to wages, we provided two catered meals (around $2000/day for the entire crew), a hotel room with a pool and hot tub, complimentary breakfast ($88/night), and $20 per diem, plus gas money. Craft Services, a hot truck stuffed with sandwiches, breakfast burritos, muffins, doughnuts, cookies, cakes—a fossil-fuel-guzzling-diabetes-inducing-snack-shack—cost roughly $500/day. Food overflows during principal photography. Most of the crew gains weight and carries home a notch or two of guilt—just like a Caribbean cruise.

  We were physically and mentally smashed. But not beaten. We just needed two more strong weeks like the first. It was time to reflect on the road behind and envision the road ahead, remember why we were here. So in the dawn before we resumed filming we jogged to the top of the hill above the hotel to clear our heads and talk to Dad.

  Growing up, we used to ask him, “When are you gonna teach us how to put on a roof?”

  We were always the grunt labor, tearing off and loading the roofs for him or whatever contractor he was working for; our tool was a crowbar, his was a hammer. We destroyed, he created. Even though it’s backbreaking and brain-melting hot, we wanted to learn, wanted to know what Dad knew.

  “Never…,” Dad would say. “I’m not ever goin
g to teach you how to put on a roof…I don’t want to give you this to fall back on…”

  If we’d had something to fall back on after baseball, we never would have started writing, wouldn’t be making this movie—NO WAY. It was too far from us, too far from everything we knew, which could be summarized in the educated world as—next to nothing, miles from nowhere.

  Our dad never gave us any path to follow. And so we made our own. Perhaps that was his intention.

  “I’ve seen how stressed you guys were handling the production issues,” Jeromiah said when we got back from our run. “I don’t want you to worry about them again until we’re done shooting. Let me stress. I can handle it. Focus on what you do best and direct this movie.”

  We blazed through Weeks Two and Three and completed our shooting schedule on time. We averaged twenty-seven camera setups a day, nearly double the industry average. We had worked with massive quarry equipment, baseball action, rain machines, kids, built a carnival and populated it with over three hundred extras—not easy scenes to orchestrate.

  For a day, we felt accomplished and then started worrying about December.

  SLEEP-DIRECTING

  A psychotic disease fell upon us when shooting ended. We thought we’d never fight our way out. We called it Sleep-Directing. And we have the terrifying scars on our hearts and minds to prove it.

  Here’s how it attacked:

  It would start out as a nightmare and then morph into a hallucination once we opened our eyes. Actors didn’t know their lines, the camera was chewing apart film, the crew had food poisoning and the outhouses were locked, someone embezzled our financing and fled to Mexico, packs of wild dogs were mauling extras, swarms of locusts were eating our props, and giant eagles were carrying off actors.

  The hallucinations were so intense that it would take several seconds for one brother to slap the other brother back into reality. One haunting night, Noah woke up shouting, “Where’s the camera going?!” and threw his pillow at the wall, then ripped off his underwear and threw them at the ceiling, screaming “WE CAN’T MAKE A MOVIE LIKE THIS!” Another night Logan woke up and started punching holes in the air, believing that someone was trying to steal the Perfect Car.