you ever been punched in the face?
you ever been punched in the face?
Most often, when you take a blow to the noggin, it doesn’t go much beyond a bit of pain and perhaps some light bruising. No big deal. But sometimes - oh boy. There are times when a punch to the face can cause a traumatic brain injury, the milder form of which is commonly known as a concussion.
Concussions are no fun. They hurt. Maybe you get knocked out. Maybe you wake up seeing stars, like they do in the cartoons. And then there’s the long-term effects. Headaches. Brain fog. Nausea. Anxiety.
Some people bounce back from a concussion in a week or two. And for some, it takes months. Concussions fucking suck.
Why am I telling you this?
Well. Last fall I was asked by a friend to help him produce a short film that he wrote. My friend - let’s call him Gus - had been a long time camera department maven and was ready to make the big jump to the director’s chair. I was elated to be asked. There are very few things that are more fun for me than being on a film set (which some people might find a little psychotic, but hey), and I’ve learned over the years that I’m quite good at herding cats, so I jumped at the chance to put together a team to bring Gus’s vision to life. The film was to be shot on-location in Lower Manhattan, which brings with it all sorts of difficulties and potential headaches, but as I said, I kinda live for this shit.
And to make things more exciting, this was to be an action film, complete with an elaborately choreographed fight scene requiring eight actors and a stunt coordinator.1 I had never before worked on an action film, so in addition to the thrill of helping bring Gus’s vision to life, I was champing at the bit to stage a hand-to-hand combat ballet on the streets of Gotham. And to boot, I’d be working with my favorite cinematographer and with a very talented production designer that I’d wanted to work with for years. What could possibly go wrong?2
(This is a pretty neat scene from the excellent Indonesian action film THE NIGHT COMES FOR US (2018). I recommend you skip it if you are not into bloody action cinema. Seriously.)
I always - always - make it a point to run a professional production. By that I mean that it is important for me to create an infrastructure around the film that allows the artists3 working on the movie the space to create and to perform their craft with maximum freedom. To create a safe space for them, to use the parlance of our times. Now, it’s a fast-and-hard rule of film production that something - or many somethings - will at some point go wrong, but if you’ve got a sturdy infrastructure in place you can usually put out the fires without impacting the artists too much. This generally involves hiring a full crew of capable and proactive people, among other things, so my productions tend not to be shoestring DIY affairs. That’s just how I like to work.4
This being an independent film - an independent short film at that - the budget was naturally going to be tight. Gus did a fantastic job raising funds for his movie, but still. I inevitably had to make some compromises. And one of those compromises was that I needed to cut some of our crew costs - one of those cuts being a driver for the film’s equipment truck.
Before I continue, let me tell you a little about what it’s like to be a skilled driver in New York City. By skilled I don’t mean Max Verstappen. I mean having the ability to, say, drive a big box truck through the clogged and unruly streets of Manhattan. Which, yeah, not exactly a Herculean feat. And while there’s certainly not a dearth of drivers in NYC - as Manhattan’s perpetually traffic-jammed roads can attest to - it is nevertheless not uncommon to meet people in this city who have never obtained a driver’s license. And if you happen to be the sort of person who can drive a moving van without breaking into a cold sweat, someone at some point will likely ask you to put those skills to use.
And since I have the ability to drive a box truck without my palms getting all sweaty and whatnot, guess who got stuck driving the equipment truck?
This isn’t the first time I’ve been on truck duty as a producer. Even on projects bigger than this one. Again, fewer skilled drivers in NYC than wherever you live. And honestly, I don’t mind. Part of the allure of making movies - at least for me - is the bond you form with your cast and crew. And when it comes to bonding with your crew - most of whom do hard, manual labor for 10-12 hours each day - getting your hands dirty is the way to go. So it was decided that on the day prior to our first day of shooting, I’d drive around the city and pick up all our rented gear, load it onto the truck, and would then be responsible for getting the vehicle to our Lower Manhattan set every morning (and back to a parking lot in Queens at the end of each shooting day5). It’s kind of a pain in the ass, but hey, the show must go on.
So I spent the day driving around Queens and Manhattan picking up lights, lenses and sundry grip & electric gear. In the meantime, Gus and the stunt coordinator were conducting final fight rehearsals at a studio in midtown with our lead actor - let’s call him Milo - and his on-screen antagonists. Milo is a charismatic performer with a 90’s Bill Pullman vibe, and I was pretty excited about seeing him in action the next day - so much so that I’d get giddy thinking about it as I drove that stupid truck back and forth across the East River.
I did manage to swing by the rehearsal studio at the end of the day, just as they were wrapping up. I was told that there’d been a scary moment during rehearsal when Milo and one of the stunt guys collided head-to-head, and Milo got the worst of the exchange. They’d halted rehearsal for a bit, but after Milo recovered everyone got back to work. Okay, well, good. Tragedy averted. We were all ready to go for real the next morning.
The first day of filming went off without a hitch. I cannot overstate just how rewarding it is to be on set on the first day of production and see all of the prep work you did begin to pay off. It helps when your crew is made up of seasoned professionals and your cast is committed to the work. To quote Sidney Lumet, it became clear very early on that everyone was making the same movie.6
It was a long and tiring twelve-hour day, but it was the sort of happy exhaustion that comes from having worked to create something. I was rearing to go again the next day.
And then the phone call happened.
After I parked the truck in Queens and returned home (maybe around 10PM), I got a call from our other producer - we’ll call him Barry. Milo had called Barry from an emergency room at a nearby hospital. Milo had been seeing stars all day and had become worried, but being the devoted professional that he is, he didn’t want to bring it up during our workday and risk halting production. But quite evidently the knock to the head that Milo had suffered during rehearsal was having lingering effects.
Barry and I immediately told Milo that we were ready to stop production. That’s a pretty monumental decision to take. Literally months of prep and tens of thousands of dollars had already been invested into this film, not to mention the work and dedication of more than two dozen people. The horse had already left the barn, and….well, here’s where my metaphor falls apart because we were basically ready to shoot the horse dead if we needed to. A member of our team had been injured. This was a big deal.
Milo was having none of it. He assured us that he was actually feeling better, and the folks at the ER had given him a clean bill of health. They had performed an eye scan on him fearing that he’d detached his retina, but the results showed no damage, so they sent him on his way.7 Milo’s concerns were sufficiently assuaged and he assured us he was ready to go the next day. So Barry and I relented. We also agreed not to tell Gus - directing a film is a difficult and often stressful job, especially when it’s your first time doing so, and we didn’t want to needlessly add to his burdens.
Much to my relief and delight, Milo was already on set when I arrived the next morning. He was looking over that day’s scenes as he waited for his turn at the make-up chair - that morning’s pages called for him to receive a thorough ass-kicking from the bad guys, and his face needed to look sufficiently bruised up. He was in good spirits and was feeling fine.
Unfortunately for Milo’s noggin, his first set-up that day required him to be kicked in the face. Of course, he’s not actually getting kicked in the face; it’s all basically glorified pantomime. But upon taking the “kick,” Milo had to fall back onto a mat strategically placed outside of the camera’s view. It’s a cushy mat, but he still had to fall back with enough force to mimic the impact of a kick to the head.
It took seven takes to get that shot.
After the shot was finally captured to everyone’s satisfaction, Milo took Barry aside and told him he was feeling nauseous and his head was throbbing.
We shut down the production on the spot.
I’ve worked on sets for two decades. I take pride in the fact that my productions - whatever their size - run like well-oiled machines, and all my peers would agree. And I’d never had someone injured during a project nor had to stop work in the middle of a shoot.
Barry immediately took Milo to an emergency room at the nearest hospital (not the hospital Milo had visited the night before), where they quickly determined that he was suffering from a concussion. Gus was understandably devastated. Not only was he concerned about Milo’s well-being, but this film that he’d been developing literally for years - his baby - was going up in flames.
I felt like I had been punched in the face.8
I ambled around the set in a daze, informing the crew of what had happened and that we were stopping production. To my surprise, a not insignificant portion of the crew had gone through similar experiences before - a film that had to be stopped because someone got injured. I thought stuff like this was a rarity, but apparently not. Not that it made things any easier. I was pretty crushed. Gus, doubly so. We called off the shoot, dismissed the remaining cast and crew, and I arranged to return our rentals the next day (Barry got saddled with filling out injury reports for SAG-AFTRA). And just like that the life of our little movie was suddenly in limbo.
After the initial shock began to wear off, we began to entertain the possibility that maybe we could salvage the film in relatively short order. Milo would likely recover in a couple of weeks, and our cast, director of photography and production designer were available to resume in the short-term. And everyone - very much including Milo -wanted to finish the movie. Also, the footage we had captured so far looked positively excellent. This isn’t to say that Milo’s well-being wasn’t everyone’s priority - it was - but it began to seem like there was a way back.
And that’s when Milo took a turn for the worse.
Remember that thing from the top of this piece about the potential long-term effects of a concussion? Headaches, brain fog, nausea, anxiety? Well, Milo began to experience all of those rather suddenly. He also wasn’t eating or sleeping. The anxiety was especially debilitating. Milo is a big, strapping dude, and hearing him describe these terrible afflictions was concerning in the extreme. He had all sorts of tests done, and began seeing a psychiatrist who prescribed him anti-anxiety medication. We couldn’t help but feel responsible, and indeed we were. Thank the gods for insurance.
At this point the thought of completing the movie went out the window. The only thing we wanted was for Milo to get healthy again. Milo, however, had other ideas. He remained in communication with Gus and repeatedly expressed his commitment to completing the film. This was heartening, to say the least, but we took a wait-and-see approach. Let’s let Milo get back to full health, and then and only then, we’d talk about perhaps picking up where we left off.
Fast forward to today. Milo is still on anti-anxiety pills and still seeing the shrink. But he’s working again! And all those nasty symptoms have subsided! In fact, he landed a gig as a recurring character on a series currently in production. And, Milo being Milo, is aching to complete our little movie. Of course, the fact that he’s got a recurring gig complicates things in terms of scheduling, but whatever. I’m actually happy to have to deal with such problems. We’re looking to get the whole machinery of this film moving again in the spring. It’s going to be a huge pain in the ass to raise the additional money and get everyone’s schedules to align, but it’s a pain I’m more than willing to endure.
And I’ll likely have to drive the stupid truck again.
Guess what? I finished the first draft of the football movie screenplay!! And if you’ll allow me to pat myself on the back, it’s really, really good. I mean, it’s still a first draft, and there’s lots of work still to be done, but I’m quite happy with where it’s currently at. In fact, I’ve begun the next draft already. More on that on the next entry.
And by the way - for the very, very few of you that read my dumb musings (thank you!) - I plan to get back to a regular weekly (or thereabouts) posting schedule again. Between Milo and the screenplay I took my eyes off the ball, but I’m back, baby.
I should also point out that the film’s script is well-written, with a clever conceit and the sort of fun, crackling dialogue that actors love to sink their teeth into.
This, dear reader, is what is referred to as foreshadowing.
Note how I used the word artist instead of creative. I find the increasingly widespread use of the word creative to describe someone who undertakes an artistic endeavor to be execrable. But that’s perhaps the subject of another post.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the shoestring DIY approach; it’s just not my bag.
Whenever you rent hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of film equipment, one of the stipulations imposed on you by the insurance company - because if you don’t buy insurance, no one will rent gear to you - is that it must be stored overnight in a secure location, like a sound stage or a bonded parking lot. And the majority of the more affordable lots happen to be in industrial Queens.
The quote is from Lumet’s book, Making Movies. If you are a filmmaker or interested in the filmmaking process or film history, this is a highly recommended book. It’s also a fun read.
There’s probably a point to be made about the half-assedness of the ER staff, but since I wasn’t there, I’m not going to delve into it.
Yes, I’ve been punched in the face. I used to box, so in fact I’ve been punched in the face repeatedly. Also, my brother once knocked me out in the middle of 14th street, but we were only play fighting.