Directors Journal

JUNE 2004

The dog days of editing. The dark ages. More than once we wondered if it would ever end.

Jeremy Simmons steps in and takes over from Will Grayburn, who heads back to London after a beyond-the-call-of-duty tour of duty. The switch actually works well for the film. Fresh pair of eyes may be a cliche, though that doesn't make it any the less true.

FRIDAY JULY 9TH
Brian calls and says he's screening the film for the brass at Universal. "I told them all how cool you guys were and so wondered if you could go by at the beginning of the film and just be yourselves. You know, be cool." So we went by and got blue curb parking which was exciting - because we were parked right outside the screening room. Inside there were maybe half a dozen people and we just chatted with them and tried to be cool without seeming like we were trying to be anything other than just our cool selves!

Good news is that even before the screening they had decided that they would distribute the film. Can see the headline DEEP THROAT TO OPEN WIDE.

TUESDAY JULY 27th
Had a Hollyweird screening of the film at Brian Grazer's house. Something seems to be bothering him about the film.

MONDAY AUGUST 2ND
Brian calls: What is this film about? These calls will become a drumbeat. No pressure!

MONDAY AUGUST 9TH
We are on the Australian Gold Coast at the Spaa conference, doing a sort of retrospective, and as part of that we showed a snippet of the intro to the film. When the numbers come up about how much the film had made the audience gasps audibly. That's when we first knew we really had something here.

But back in the States, general confidence in the film seems to be slumping.

There's a feeling that the merry band of renegade filmmakers who have the bright idea of shooting the film isn't playing and that we should cut it down. Count Sepy is removed from the cut. Mercifully this issue goes away with the first test screening when it plays uproariously well, and the swinger Count is restored to his rightful place in the film.

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 14TH
First test screening. As the lights go down lovely Wilmer Walderrama sneaks in.

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 29th
Second test screening. The test scores have hugely improved on their previous total.

The test screenings - and altogether we did three of them - are tremendously helpful in shaping the pace and tackling the ending of the film. Kevin Goetz who runs them is a master of the cross examination of a select group of the audience afterwards. His tour de force begins with him asking upwards of 20 people their names. Every time he returns to them he addresses them by name.

As editing grinds on, there's a concern that the film fails to connect with the present. The remedy for this is to shoot frat boys, teen girls, and seniors talking about oral sex, to try and show the shifting perspective from oral taboo to the no biggie it is today.

Although the material doesn't fit in the final film, shooting the guys at Brian Grazer's alma mater, University of Southern California, proves an interesting experience when campus officials swoop down. Although we have permission to film, once they get wind of the subject matter they decide to close down the shoot. They attempt to confiscate the tape we have recorded, and urge the students not to say something that they might regret. Perhaps the most shining example of the climate of fear pervading the culture today. It's okay to download porn in private - and all these kids do - but to have an intelligent open discussion about it is verboten. Odd for a university administration to be afraid of the exchange of ideas. Isn't that what establishments of further education are for?

One of the toughest things is to determine where the film should end and the audience reaction to it begin. We especially see-saw about the position to take vis-a-vis the modern porn industry. Sheila Nevins at HBO thinks we should cut out the whole idea of the pornolization of the mainstream, and the use of sex in advertising because it feels like a whole different topic, and the subject of an entirely different movie. On the other hand Brian Grazer feels we need to address this because today so many of the people who cheered on the sexual revolution now feel uncomfortable with their children doing the same things that they did in their younger days. They don't want their kids going to blow-job parties because it's not safe. But behind the convenience of the HIV shield lurks the real feeling that its just not seemly. Anyway, whatever the reason the liberals of yesterday are the naysayers of today. They haven't gone Republican - that would be going too far - but they do find themselves in an uncomfortable position. This ambivalence is the morning sickness of what eventually comes to term as institutionalized hypocrisy. It's the only way to get through the paradoxes and conflicts confronting us at every turn. Lie, cover it up, and in your wrongness claim righteousness and invoke God! The breakaway feminists who put the brakes on the sexual revolution by protesting the male rape and porn were the early adopters of this liberal dilemma that remains so desperately unresolved today.

Be all that as it may, how much of it should we put in the film and how much of it should we leave to the audience to discuss after they have seen the film? If we end the film prematurely the audience might feel that we avoid the issues, on the other hand if we get into it too much we'll probably come off as shrill and preachy.

This goes on for months, going back and forth, back and forth as we try every possible combination.

Don't worry, says Sheila, films have to get worse before they get better. But this seems to be getting nothing but worse and worse and worse.

Gotta dash - it's Brian on the line. "Hey guys, blah blah blah, so I was just thinking (on the jet, on the freeway, in New York / Rome / Paris, at home, just in a meeting with [insert name of a-list celebrity or world leader]), What is this film actually about?"

Where is the button on the Avid you can press that just auto-finishes the film?

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 13th
Brian calls. What is this film about? Brian's in New York on his cell phone, walking down 5th Avenue. Amazingly every passerby seems to know him and calls out "Hi Brian" or "Congratulations." We think this perhaps distracts him from actually getting the answer to his question, which we're still not sure that we've every really satisfactorily answered.

(To be continued)