Here's a set report from Field Marshall Jo, she passed up a fortune for a gun and the right to watch Walken doing his thing on the set of THE OPPORTUNISTS. Her two friends, The Colonel Lynn (Playgirl of the Liberation Army) and The Brigadier General Mei Ling (an Activist in both politics and love) just ate up being around the tonally cool Walken. So enjoy their visit, and chime in with your own, I'm all ears...
Last friday (sorry this took so long to send but I wanted to think of what I had to say) I and two of my friends got to visit a film set in New York. But not just any film set, one with CHRISTOPHER WALKEN on it! That's what makes this whole thing even noteworthy. It was for a movie called THE OPPORTUNISTS which my screenwriting teacher wrote and is directing.
We were guests of the director, Myles Connell on the set, an old warehouse being used as a soundstage. And it was a shitty soundstage too. Production assisstants kept running outside telling trucks to shut up because they were downshifting too loudly (no kidding). Someone's cell phone went off once and I thought I was going to witness an actual execution.
They had built a set in the middle of the warehouse and made it to look like a bank vault. Apparently Chiistopher Walken's character, Vic, is stealing some money along with someone else (an unknown with an Irish accent that I couldn't determine was fake or not) and they are both smashing around in the vault, looking for these black duffel bags containing the money. It was cool because we had to stay out of Christopher Walken's line of sight when they were shooting, or else he'd break charater and fuck up. Another cool thing was how quietly they spoke. The microphones evidently picked up their every utterance. Christopher Walken would be barely audible, yet they held the mic to his face and went on shooting. It was interesting to see a movie scene unfolding right in front of me but live, without the bias of the camera...it was a truly unique experience.
I had brought a video recorder with me from my college's TV station with hopes to get some cool on-set footage and maybe score some screen time with Christopher Walken on video at least, but the latter never happened. I was allowed to shoot between takes, so their "Cut!" was my "Action!" The director showed us all around, made sure we got food from the (god-awful) caterer and tried to show us his trailer, but they needed him on set as soon as we got to it's door. We tried to get an interview with the producer but I had absolutely no clue what to ask him about since it was on the spot and I blew my chance at getting anything worthwhile on camera there.
After 3 hours we got antsy waiting for Christopher Walken to come up to us, tell us Myles had shown him our short films and wanted us to direct him in his next big flick. The only time we did get to speak to him was when he came over (I had my fucking back turned and thus missed shooting this) and told us we could shoot whenever the camera wasn't rolling regardless of whether he was on set or not (we had been a little afraid to let him see us directly filming him - he looks just as psycho in real life as on screen). He asked us if we were there to make the film's "Making of" special and I have to admit, even though I tried to be cool about the whole thing, cannot remember even stammering out one word. I don't think I said a damn thing. I just made this little sound like "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooo." He then went back to work. We didn't want to even think about asking for an autograph, he was so into the character he would walk around on set just trying to stay in the character's head. Reportedly, after the shooting day has ended he'll kick back, grab a beer and shoot the bull so to speak, but when he's working he's very serious about it all. He's the guy that won an Oscar, so we respected his decision and left him alone.
At one point the producer suddenly saw us shooting and decided that he didn't like us anymore (maybe because I hadn't interviewed him before) and told us sternly that we were not to shoot when Christopher Walken was on set. This gave us a chance to very proudly say (and I did not stammer this or fuck it up) "Oh no, Chris said we could shoot him, unless its during a take." Well, this sort of ticked him off, so before we knew it he was talking to this girl who had shown us around before trying to get rid of us (so says my friend Casey, who claims he read their lips. It was pretty obvious anyway). They couldn't though since we were guests of the director! But we didn't want to be on a set where everyone was hostile toward us. So we decided it was a little boring anyway and since they were already behind schedule and working extra hard to get as much done as possible so they could finish with Walken by the end of the week before his contract ended and he would cost more than they could afford to keep on (long sentence!), we decided it was time to leave. We packed away our stuff and as soon as the girl saw us doing this she very excitedly asked us if we were leaving, to which we replied yes and she hurried back to tell the producer who seemed pleased. Yeah, he was just doing his job, but he didn't need to be such a prick about it.
Anyway, there's my account of my visit to a film set. I liked it, and as it is my chosen field, hope to some day allow future filmmakers to linger as long as they like on my sets.
Ashley J. Williams aka Field Marshall Jo
