Hey folks, Harry here with a brief intro to Dmann's Set visit to DOT, a film that shot here in Austin back in the October time period in Austin, and while Dmann was in town trying to find sex, booze and films... he found his way on set and... to Elisha Cuthbert... That's ok... hate Dmann... we all do!
Hey Harry, here’s a little something I thought you would like.
Set visit- DOT
I arrived in Austin for the film fest, which normally means an extended weekend of movies, beer, panels, beer, women, beer, friends, beer, schmoozing with Hollywood types, and of course, beer. Normally, this weekend entails some sort of unplanned adventure, but when my friend, lets call him VAR, called, wanting me to do a set visit on this little indie he was working on, I thought “this is gonna cut into my drinking time.” Then he told me that it was the new film from Jamie Babbit, Director of BUT IM A CHEERLEADER, I was intrigued, but not convinced enough to put down my Guinness. Var then informed me that it would star Elisha Cuthbert, I was sold. What can I say, I’m a guy. So, after about a million calls, messages, carrier pigeons, and one very bizarre singing telegram, I was put in contact with producer Joel Michaely. Joel might seem familiar to people from his acting work in RULES OF ATTRACTION, as the geek on the roof with the afro and retainer in CAN’T HARDLY WAIT, the aforementioned BUT IM A CHEERLEADER, or the upcoming KISS KISS, BANG BANG. Joel finally arranged for me and my buddy DeKalb to head over to the set on the very last night of shooting.
We pulled in, saw Var, and found Joel, who proceeded to give us the deluxe, 5 dollar tour of the set, a.k.a. the Texas School for the Deaf. As we wandered the grounds, Joel explained what he could about the plot of the film, remaining guarded against leaks. (We are with aintitcool.com, after all!)
It seems that DOT is about Dot, a deaf mute girl who has to move in with a suburban family. This ends up being a break in the serene veneer of the family, and all of the deep, dirty secrets come out Of course, I can’t tell you any of the secrets, no really, I cant. They wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t see a script, an outline, a synopsis, nada. (Henceforth, whenever the word “secrets” is used, it should be read in a hushed tone, almost like on one of those true Hollywood inside the music shows.).
There is a word you are going to hear in this set report, and that’s “nice”. That’s because everyone was, to a person, really really nice. If this were a concerted asskissing, it would have required an effort the size of Montana. Not once did I hear anyone being uncool or even terse with each other. Now, I have been on a whole one set before in my life, and the set of DOT could serve as the photo negative of that particular picture, which will remain un-named, at least until some smart ass friend of mine figures out what movie I worked on and taunts me with it mercilessly.
One of the first people we met was Shannon Woodward, running around the set, taking pictures of everyone with her little digital camera. Shannon is a bubbly, effervescent presence, with a smile and personality that made my heart drop straight into crush mode. {paragraph about what I know of her role.}
Next, we were introduced to David Gallagher, a young actor whom is most recognizable as Simon, the young son on SEVENTH HEAVEN. David is one of these young actors who have been acting since he was a toddler. There must be something about growing up on sets that has given this guy a work ethic that would humble any of my hardworking Midwestern brethren. He was simultaneously doing this movie, the TV show, not to mention a full slate of classes at USC. Maybe I'm just prototypical gen x slacker, but that sounds like a hell of a lot of work to me, but he seemed to take it in stride. He may have hit the genetic lottery as far as looks go, but this guy has an inner geek that is just waiting to be free. Listening to the way he talked about his work, his career, his pride in the audition tape he did for DOT, I feel confident he is destined for a path much different than many of the child actors of the past.
Speaking of child actors, a number of the actors in this cast were working actors as children, and honestly, it scares me. If this is what former child stars are these days, where will comedians get cheap jokes? Where is the next Bonaduce, the future Todd Bridges? Certainly not from this crowd, a bunch of normal well adjusted professionals. Oh well, there's always Shannen Doherty
.
We talked to David especially on your behalf. He said his character did indeed go on a date with the Olsen Twins, and no, it wasn't that big a deal, just another day at work. His screen kiss was with Ashley, and it was just a teenage screen kiss, sorry to disappoint you. Also, Joel Michaely wanted me to pass along the messages “Call me”!
END SPECIAL MESSAGE TO ELI ROTH
Next we met Katy Mixon, a relative newcomer to the business, whose smile was as big as her character's hair. From what we were able to witness, Katy has a natural comic timing, adding just enough flourish to her character's drunken stagger to keep people biting their tongues during every take. Katy evidently kept the set quite lively with impressions of the cast and crew. We tried to make it our mission to get an impression of Joel from her, but what can we say...we failed.
We briefly met Director Jamie Babbit, who was nice, and genial…however, she was busy most of the night doing all kinds of work. I don’t know what was so important about finishing the film on the last day of shooting, but she could have stopped everything in order to talk to a couple of aging dorks from a website! Sheesh and you would think she could get her priorities in order! Or possibly not.
Moving on, we met Elisha Cuthbert, who just has “it”…that intangible quality. I mean, sure, she’s absolutely gorgeous, with deep blue eyes that a man could lose himself in for a week, but I mean something besides that, when she was working. When we sat down to talk to her, She wanted to tell us all about her character, all the ins and outs, all the deep secrets. However, Joel jumped in and told her not to. The look that she shot back at him was downright chilling. I made a mental note then and there, that no matter if I became a rich Hollywood mogul so powerful he could light a cigar inside a bar in LA, I still would remember, “Don’t Fuck With The Cuthbert”. That one look aside, Elisha was charming, she knew what she was doing, career and character wise. We didn’t get the total of her secrets, but watching her work, not just the idle chitchat about aspartame and how diet drinks may or may not give people brain tumors, but when she was shooting, you could get a sense something going on behind those baby blues. Joel later told us that this is the darkest character Elisha has ever played, people are really going to see her in a different light after this hits.
We left the growing warmth of the gymnasium set, heading down the hill toward the trailer village, once there, we ran into David and Shannon again, both of whom were relaxing for a spell. This is when we were introduced to Shawn Ashmore, the guy all you geeks wish you were, the Iceman himself.
While talking to David, Shawn and Shannon, a couple extras came over, and man, they made me and DeKalb feel old. They were all talking about Team America, and really just enjoying spending some time with these actors that they were obviously fans of. The three budding stars couldn’t have been nicer, they didn’t even really treat them like fans, just like, people who were hanging out. That’s what I meant when I said these kids were cool. Yes, I called them kids, because this was the point at the evening that one of the extras said “Man this is like the perfect campfire group, I love hanging out with you Old Gu….” Ouch man! Excuse me, I have to go take a geritol. From then on, David christened us the OG’s. Of course, that makes me Fred Williamson, and DeKalb, well, he gets to be Pam Grier.
Writers Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft were also on set, two nice guys our age, two great guys who haven’t done much of anything they wanted to brag about, a couple TV movies. To hear the rest of the cast and crew talk about these guys, we haven’t seen the best they have. They were on set the whole time, stopping to rewrite things. Now I have heard about writers doing this before, it may not be the norm, but every where I went, I heard about how great it had been to have them around.
We were able to sit down for a few minutes with Dot herself, Camilla Belle. Camilla was by far the quietest member of the cast we met. Not really as much shy, as she was just kind of quiet. I wonder if that was because she was playing a deaf mute? Camilla told us that she came to the project late, after another actress dropped out. That left her with just two weeks to figure out not only how to play someone with no hearing or speech, but to re learn all her old piano skills. (Evidently Dot is a pretty damn amazing pianist). She said that it was a real challenge just trying to not react as a normal person would, some one would say her character’s name, and instinct says to turn and react, but that isn’t an option.
Heading back up to the gym, as filming was resuming for the first time since our arrival, we were confronted by what can only accurately be called a herd of clean cut, well-dressed teenage extras. All of who were listening, doing what they were told, and giving me crap all to write about. As they were wrangled into the gymnasium, the temperature automatically raised 10 degrees; with all of the good looking people inside. If it wasn’t for DeKalb and I, the room may have spontaneously combusted from the sheer attractiveness of it all.
Speaking of the gym, If you saw Jamie Babbit’s first feature, BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER, you noticed the use of color as a tool for the storytelling. This set continues that, but in a decidedly different mood, Blues, mixed with greens and reds and….aw hell, I took a picture, see for your self.
That’s the Gym…spiffy, huh?
It was quite a set for shooting to be going on in, what with the eleventy thousand sweaty, hormonally challenged teenage extras all dancing in odd combinations of height and appearance, one pair of kids were grinding so hard, I swear they were trying to make fire. Add to all of this the lights, giant crane, and the oppressive mid October temperatures in Austin, and it was hotter than the devil’s dick in there. My big fat ass was sweating buckets all night, but no one seemed to mind. Like I said approximately 23,983 times before, everyone was so damn happy to be there, it wasn’t really that bad. Well, it was, but you know, good people, good times.
In Between takes, NAME IDONTKNOW was running around with a little video camera, shooting a bunch of stuff for the DVD extra features. He informed me that DOT is going to have some of the most complete extra features ever. There will probably be a full disc of documentaries, covering every aspect of the film, from pre-production, through final editing. The idea was that the DOT dvd will be a film school in a box. You can follow any department, from hair and makeup from the design stages, all the way. Pretty cool for a little indie feature, if you ask me.
Don’t they just look sweaty and ready?
To sum things up, I can’t tell you a hell of a lot about the deep dark secrets of DOT, because no one would tell them to me. What I can tell you is that if the tone and feel of the set were any indication, this movie could be a really memorable little film. It was a wonderful experience for my set visit, and I need to thank everyone, Joel, Julie, all the producers, the craft service guys, Var, everyone.
P.S. Here’s a pic as proof that I met Elisha Culthbert, and for no other reason.
DMANN OUT!
