welcome to...

My Wasted Life - January 18th, 2008 - part 2:

Okay… I promised a year-in-review-type thing… so here it is… 2007 began with serial killers, ghosts and cops... zombies who didn't think they were zombies and ended up with discovering the missing link.

The movies took me from downtown Los Angeles to sitting in a cornfield outside Bakersfield at 3 in the morning, to the scorching heat of the Mojave Desert, the hills above Malibu, the biggest little city in the world - Reno, Nevada... and last but by no means least... bat infested caves and the tropical rainforests of Panama.

I worked with stunts, special effects, guns, boats, helicopters, the famous, the not-so-famous, kids from 6 months to 16 years old, dogs, frogs, cows, snakes and crocodiles – okay, so it was a spectacled caiman… but that doesn’t sounds nearly as impressive as crocodile!!!



Wow… a year in half a dozen words or less? That doesn’t sound particularly impressive… what about all the nitty-gritty bullshit of making a movie? I know… I know…

Like I said previously… it’s difficult trying to balance telling it how it is (which is kinda the point of doing it) and keeping things friendly and on the record… but I’m willing to give it a go.
I mentioned before that I’d tried to keep a sort of production diary for the Panamanian gig. It didn’t work out too well as by the time I got home of an evening the last thing I wanted to do was sit down and write about my day… but I tried… and so here for your delectation is at least a few snippets:

At the airport met up with the peeps I’d be travelling with. The flight(s) to Panama was fine… straight thru to Houston with a bit of a bumpy landing but then plain sailing all the way to Panama. Arrived at 6.25pm local time – same as East Coast… it was pitch black. Picked up by the Line Producer and a local PA.
Taken out to a local supermarket and told to buy food and supplies for breakfast and lunch the next day... got cereals and bits ‘n’ pieces… supermarkets are pretty much the same all over the world. Then we went to dinner in a nice restaurant in Panama City where the Colts were playing on TV – and losing to the Chargers.
I thought I’d dive in with the local cuisine and so had fish and chips… it was okay… bit luke-warm and bland… but that’s fine. Had a local beer which was like water…

Then we drove thru the darkness of Panama for several hours to where we are staying. Got there at 11.25pm… two dark houses right on top of the ocean… no toilet seat or lights in one… toilet seat and some lights in the other… So the adventure begins…
Had a look round… no one seemed happy or quite sure what was going on… Somehow the Producer invited me to stay in his house – so I hightailed it there and left the others to fend for themselves…

My room looks out into complete darkness… but you can hear the waves crashing against the shore at the bottom of the garden. Had a great night’s sleep and woke up to the sun shining in thru the window and a view of nothing but ocean for as far as the eye could see.

Ate some of me snacks and cereal and everyone got together to head out for the day. We headed down to the jungle location which is only about half an hour away… it’s real proper jungle. I wore me hunting boots… funnily enough the DP had bought exactly the same $39.99 boots from Big 5… so it was great to see him stay dry when he stepped in the river and got his feet wet.
It’s a jungle… just like you see on the telly and like I read about as a kid. It was hot and sweaty… although a bit overcast – it had rained for three days solid before we arrived. We wandered thru the jungle paths looking at some of the places that we are going to be filming… then it was off to the place that made this jungle the ideal jungle for us to use….
There’s a canopy tour round the jungle… ziplines between the tops of trees.
I was a bit nervous… (fear of heights, flying… being killed, etc) but couldn’t really show it in front of the boys… but I felt kinda okay about it cos our 2nd Unit Director is one of the legendary stuntmen of the world… so I figured if he was around and happy with things then it shouldn’t be too impossible or dangerous – it was a policy that had kept me calm on the flights here… so I guessed it would work now.
The roads are really bumpy, steep and windy… not my favourite things either but I kinda just sit looking out the window at Panama rather than concentrating on the things that make me nervous…

We got to the first platform… which is on the ground but at the top of the hill… and there was a thin metal wire disappearing off into - somewhere… we had harnesses around our waists… and these two little Spanish speaking kids hooked us up to the line and off they went…
When it came to my turn I’ll admit to being a tiny bit uneasy but everyone else seemed well into it so I guessed the only thing to do was hold on like they told me and step off… so I did.

It was great to go zipping through the air… the first line wasn’t that high so it was a good way to get used to the idea of flying… but I actually felt safe and calm and really enjoyed it as I zipped thru the trees…
Then line two came and went and then line three… a real long one over a hundred feet in the air.. when you get to the end there’s six of us crowded onto a little metal platform way up in the trees where you can see for miles and miles of just green. It was pretty cool… and I’d love to do it again but don’t know if we have time cos of the amount of work we have to do.

Then we headed off to the caves… but I got loads of stuff to do now… so I’ll have to continue this later..

When I went out the front door on Monday morning… the first thing I saw was this HUGE lizard thing running through the flower bed… he must have been about two feet long… it was so cool.
There’s loads of vultures here… and dogs everywhere… every road you go down there are just dogs wandering everywhere… every house has at least one dog sleeping outside. At the jungle location there is a dog… and she’s just given birth to puppies… they’re soooooooooo cute... little tiny baby woofies… barely with their eyes open… I so want one.
Do you think I could smuggle on home in my bag?

So… where did I get to?
I’m in me room it’s just me and a tiny gecko. He’s two inches long – about 1/3 the size of the ones outside on the porch and patio… he seems to like to live in the crack in the wood by the door.
I’ve been doing a new schedule this evening and got that out of the way. I wrote some postcards but don’t know when I’ll be able to bribe someone to go take them to the post office.

Where did I last get to in me diary? Blimey… only as far as Monday?

Well... yesterday we went to check out the beach location. It’s a huge drive – probably about two hours from here – which will have a big impact on the shooting of the movie – or a huge impact on the sleeping of the crew… time will tell which variable suffers the most.
You drive for a long time along the coast road… truth be told, it’s the only damn road around here but it does indeed go along the coast.
You go thru the tiny town of Portobelo – which is kinda where we’re staying but it’s actually about 10 minutes drive from here. It’s small and hardly there any more but at one time Christopher Columbus was here and about 50-70% of all the gold in the world (depending on who’s relaying the information) passed through the main building in the town as it was the major departing point for all the gold the Europeans pillaged from the Americas…
It’s also pretty much the location of the real Pirates of the Caribbean… how cool is that.

Anyways… you do this long ass drive… then head off up a long winding unmade road to the top of a steep hill. From there, you get out and stumble down a steep path about a foot wide to this beach in a tiny cove… it’s just like you see in the movies and on postcards… just sea, sand and then jungle…
The weather had been rough so there was lots of debris all over the place – pity the poor art department.
From that beach we trekked down to another part of the jungle where there was supposed to be hundreds of parrots – but apparently they don’t head down there until the late afternoon… so hopefully we’ll get the timing right when we come to film there.

Then we headed off to look for another beach – yeah… one idyllic beach isn’t enough for us… but our luck was out and we drive past the chain warning us not to go any further and ended up at the bottom of this hill and our four wheel drive just couldn’t make it out… uh-oh… stuck in the wilds of Panama… with the thunder and lightning as the weather and darkness closed in.
We all set to grabbing as many palm branches as we could find to try and get traction under the wheels.
We managed to get the vehicle spun round and halfway up the hill but then had to give up and call for help in the shape of our trusty production designer who had been with us but who had gone for help when we realized that our valiant rescue efforts would all be for nought.
Even when we got home it continued to rain… and rain… and rain… and rain… it poured down… the little grass backyard outside my window slowly disappeared under water and the ocean disappeared into a grey miasma of clouds…

Anyways… we made it out and got home in time to head for the local restaurant and a bit of dinner.
I think that was all that happened yesterday.

Today?

Well... up at the butt crack of dawn to thunderously grey skies. We headed off up the coast past Portobelo again to a tiny little beach place where in the drizzling rain we got on a little motor boat to head out to investigate a possible candidate for our hero boat. It didn’t really look the part but it’s been a while since I was out of the water and just part of the cool adventure to be out in the Caribbean off Panama… woot!!!
From there it was back to base… change me pants cos I had a totally wet ass from sitting on the bench seats of the motorboat… then we headed off to Panama City to do a bit of stuff..
Panama City is a madhouse of Latino drivers… all pushing and shoving and jostling for position without a seeming care or understanding of road etiquette or safety. Fortunately – or not – we had F with us.. a very jovial father of seven who was tearing up the road on the way there… shouting and swearing at the other ‘imbeciles’ on the road – as only a truly red-blooded Latino driver can do. This resulted in much hooting of horns and a passing car throwing a bottle of water into our vehicle – which soaked us all but was extremely funny.

I’d meant to spend some time in the internet café trying to contact the outside world – or see if the outside world had bothered to contact me… buy some t-shirts as I hadn’t packed nearly enough (it’s a whole lot hotter, wetter and stickier than I’d expected) and also maybe pick up some reefs as I’d forgotten pack mine and they might come in mighty handy at the beach if I need to go into the water – which I probably will…
Anyway… such are the vagaries of timekeeping, Panamanian roads, production duties and lunch… that we barely managed to achieve our primary goal of visiting this church we want to film at.
The church is in a spectacular part of town – old Panama city... the ancient, rundown poor bit of the city… but oh so amazing looking because of it. Lots of narrow cobbled streets and centuries old buildings… it’d make a brilliant location for a movie…
Anyway… we were looking for this church and so F got us to a big old building – obviously the big church in old Panama City – but it was closed till 5pm… fortunately it wasn’t actually the church we were looking for… but we found the real one around a few corners.
It’s not that special from the outside but when you step inside you understand exactly why the director likes it and why we have to shoot there… It’s got a huge high ceiling – maybe 60-70 feet high... but the far end – where the altar is… is just a wall of gold… all carvings and stuff… it’s pretty amazing.

From there we were on our own as F was part of the party picking up the arriving crew from the airport.
Any road up… it’s getting loud outside… I guess the crew are arriving and deciding to hang out with the producer… who I can hear on the phone having another one of those ‘raised voice’ phone calls... but he’s gone into another room so I can’t hear the nitty gritty of it… no doubt there’ll be ramifications in the morning…oh the joys of making movies.

It feels like I’ve been here for ever… but in fact it’s only been three days… and we still have all the joys of shooting the movie to get through yet. My computer is telling me it’s 8:51pm local time in Los Angeles… which makes it approaching midnight here in the beach front villas.
It’s hardly rained at all today - since this morning - and despite the voices in the living room, I can hear the ocean waves crashing at the bottom of the garden.
Tiny Gecko seems content to sleep in his post by the door and I guess I should do the same as it’ll be another long day tomorrow.

Now it’s Thursday – I just realized I forgot to talk about the caves…. We went to the cave… it’s weird… it’s just off the main road between like three houses… you step inside and it’s totally pitch black inside… completely dark (I realized the cheap and cheerful flashlights I bought really aren’t up to the job and I should have invested in a proper mag-lite). I meant to buy a new flashlight – which I did - in Panama City but had no time to check out a proper flashlight store and so just had to get another cheap and cheerful one from the supermarket.

Anyway… back to this cave… it’s kinda small… and you step inside and there’s this chirping and whistling noises… you shine your flashlight into the dark and there’s just little tiny bats flying everywhere. There’s probably no danger of them actually hitting you cos they can see in the dark, but they do come pretty close… so I think I’ll be wearing me hat so they don’t land on my head.
In the cave there is also a river – where we’re supposed to do a stunt but we’ll check that out once we get there and lights are up, etc…

The bulk of the crew flew in last night.

This morning it was heavily overcast… I got to the breakfast place – we’re being catered from here on out – and the rain just dropped. It poured for about half an hour, thunder, lightning… and then half an hour or later… the rain eased and stopped, the clouds drifted away and it’s now bright sunshine – boy it gets hot when the sun is out.

Anyways… it’s lunch time now – so I’m heading back to grab some food and meet the crew who decided to sleep thru breakfast…

The real work starts tomorrow… so we’ll see how much – or little – time I get to communicate with the outside world.

And that takes you thru the first five days of getting used to being in Panama… ugh… it all seems a bit boring and family friendly to me…Maybe I should move on and write about 2008.