tbs.com - Production Blog, Week Nine

	Production Blog, Week Nine
	David A. Kleiler, Jr. grew up amidst the art, rock and film scene of Boston in the 80�s where his father was a well-known cinema studies professor and film programmer. While still at Brookline High he was the guitarist and founder of hardcore punk band Sorry gigging with the likes of Husker Du and The Minutemen. Later David joined Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott�s Volcano Suns and toured the US/Europe. After attending NYU�s Tisch School of the Arts for film/tv production, David directed music videos for such artists such as Yo La Tengo, Guided By Voices, The Fall, Helium, and more. Production Blog, Week 9 It takes a �Video Village�... These first two days have flown by�the consensus is that we�ve picked up where we left off last season. Now I remember what it�s like to shoot the show, and what the best part is: laughing around monitors. Watch 10 Items closely, and you�ll see John occasionally looking out of the corner of his eye, just as he did with his college buddies who went to see his improv shows in Chicago. They savored his free associations because they knew he had just dosed on LSD. Here when John psychedelically riffs about Nanoscience, sex or bodily functions�we laugh because we know this spurted verbiage will NEVER make the cablecast�and probably not even a webcast. Nobody appreciates these tangents more than the inhabitants of �Video Village��we are his special audience... On any set, �Video Village� is made up of a posse of jerks that watch everything as taped/filmed, commenting, correcting, suggesting, making sure everything�s �right,� or consistent. Obviously, the Village leader is Nancy Hower, though, this year she has a fully functioning �tree� of her own: three monitors, which means she can be closer to the actors as she directs, and not bound to the Village. But Nancy often comes back to visit her elder Village tribesmen that include: feisty, suffer-no-fools script supervisor Maureen Tenenbaum. She is SUPER crucial to the whole operation, making sure that in this free-for-all improv world there�s some semblance of continuity, that actors basically pick up coffee cups with the same hand from take to take, or put down newspapers and put them in the same place. Maureen often says, "The cameras are pointed in the wrong direction." She plays the "straight man" to her kooky Village co-inhabitants. Mark, our new DP this year, grumbles into the walkie-talkie microphone, telling the three camera people how to set up their shots � he�s slowly learning how flexible he�s got to be with his shooting gameplans, because this is REAL improv, and the actors make up a lot of their own blocking on the spot. Maureen and I can tell that sometimes he�s amazed at how things go down on set� There�s also Tim, who this year does most of his work writing up Nancy�s scene notes, while on set, and also provides crucial research tidbits as I do sometimes. Then there's me...who, crazily tries to transcribe nearly everything that the actors say on set while they're performing...but, of course because I'm no court stenographer, it's only about 75% accurate...so I end up typing documents like this, a �transcription� of a scene. This is so that Nancy can read it soon after we shoot, and remember what it was we shot. Using these loose transcriptions, Tim and I also refresh her memory in super early (pre-shoot) morning meetings over breakfast. On set this morning, back at the Village I type up a scene where Leslie tries to get Richard to tell Ingrid the guy she�s dating is a polygamist (�L� stands for Leslie, �R� for Richard and so on): L: who told you to wear that? Why are you� I: Dale thinks it makes me look pretty L: likes you in a dirty old dress..? L: everybody McFarties�spores�.its� a dress with skidmarkds on it�.soak it�never wear it again�what we are about to tell you�super super..big important�we�ve thought a lot about it�Richard tell her� R: I can�t even sa� WHISPTER FIGHT�assistant manager�promotion�now tell her�she�s dying�so sorry Richard is doing this to you� R: there�s information she needs� L: tell her.. L: you�re hypnotized by his ASS�. L: Ingrid�relationships are like eggs�all of us are different�what are eggs�dead baby chickens�this could have blossomed into a cute little chick you could�ve given a kdi on Easter�.grandma Ethel�some people like lots of eggs�there are a few people�who have dozens every single day�. When I typed that scene, I felt another comforting surge of familiarity�I was psyched, as was Maureen and Tim, to witness the season�s first��Whisper Fight.� Though you could probably discern just by reading it, a �Whisper Fight� is a little 10 Items convention that happens here where two characters bicker in hushed tones, usually behind another character�s back, or in a situation where they have to maintain a bit of composure. As John leers over towards us while smashing raw eggs (Maureen rolls her eyes � how are we going to cut this?) in the scene to emphasize a crazy polygamist metaphor, those of us in the Village stifle giggles�trying to maintain a bit of composure ourselves� The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer/speaker and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc.�