8/6/23
Newsletter #419
The Crack of Dawn
In New Zealand to be “thick” is to be stupid. After Edith won the lottery, but before she moved back to Wellington, we were hanging out at my apartment in Auckland. Edith was making coffee with a French press, and she poured in about a half a bag of ground coffee. The coffee was so intensely strong that it was like a milk shake. I said, “Thick and rich.” Edith said, “Just like me.”
Back in L.A. making the movie, If I Had a Hammer, my buddy Edith was the 1st assistant director for the first time in her life. As I suspected, she immediately took control of the set without the slightest problem. She was able to keep everyone moving without having to raise her voice or ever losing her cool or her sense of humor. Edith and the producer, Jane, got along wonderfully, and Jane was happy to show Edith the ropes.
Even though we were shooting in L.A. and had as good of a crew as you could have for a low-budget movie, I still ended up firing more crew members than I ever have on any movie before or since. Here’s how I fire people. I say, “Jane, fire that guy.” Jane would then fire the person, go straight to her office and cry.
We had a particularly attractive young gal named Jenney working as a production assistant for the first time in her life. Not only was Jenny not doing her job, but she also didn’t have the slightest clue how to do it, and instead kept flirting with the guys and not letting them do their jobs. Edith was particularly annoyed by this situation. No matter what job Edith assigned her, Jenny couldn’t or wouldn’t do it. At lunch one day, Edith dropped into the seat beside me and said, “I’ve found the perfect job for Jenny – set security.” Her job was simply to stay on the nearby set while we ate lunch, making sure nobody stole anything. Honestly, ten minutes into lunch Edith’s walkie talkie squawked and Jenny said that she couldn’t sit there all by herself. Edith said, nicely, just do it. Five minutes later Jenny came back on the walkie and said, “I can’t do this. I’m falling asleep.” Edith was nearing the end of her patience, which none of us had yet seen her lose (this was a week into a four-week shoot). Jenny radioed back that her situation was dire, and Edith recommended having a Coke. Finally, after a few more exchanges with the deathly weary Jenny, Edith looked up at Jane and I and said, “What do I do?” Jane said, “Fire her.” Edith said, “I’ve never fired anyone.” Jane and I smiled. Jane said, “Then this will be your first.” Edith fired Jenny, who burst into sobbing tears.
Edith and I shot about a hundred reaction shots before lunch one day, which isn’t really possible. All of act two is in a folk club where we ultimately see five musical acts perform. I had thirty costumed extras for one day, seated at twenty tables around the club. I needed reactions to all of these different songs, some of which were sing-alongs, as well as reactions to various dramatic events that occur throughout the act. It was to be shot on a Monday. Edith came over to my place during the weekend and we figured out a routine that actually worked. As we kept running over the possibilities of what she would say to make these people do the necessary actions, we both realized that extras don’t need to know why they’re doing what they’re doing – just do it. So I figured out the exact bits that I needed, and Edith turned them into a rap song.
Here’s how it went. I had all of the extras spread out at the tables around the club, in various configurations of two, three or four people. Kurt, the DP/cameraman, and I had worked out a scheme where each table had its own various colored lamp. We then just moved from table to table – lighting each table with its bult-in color from the lamp – and getting the exact same routine from the extras at every table. And it was all set to Edith standing in front of them waving her arms and saying something along the lines of, “OK, now we’re lookin’ left, now we’re lookin’ right. Now we’re singin’ along, ‘This land is your land . . . Come on sing along, ‘This land is your land . . .’ now we’re lookin’ left and gettin’ angry, now we’re smiling and drinking with our mates and enjoying the song. Thank you. Next.” And we then we’d move on to the next table. Bang, bang, bang.
As far as productions go, If I Had a Hammer was a really good one, primarily due to Jane and Edith. Since I cast musicians who could act, instead of actors who could pretend to play, there was music on the set all the time. Guitars, banjos and singing. It was lovely.
Anyway, after the shoot Edith drove the shit out of that old Le Baron, from one end of the country to the other. Edith died of liver cancer when she was 47. In her own house in Wellington, with her awesome girlfriend, and 1st AD on a feature. She continued to work as a 2nd AD on Lord of the Rings there in her hometown of Wellington, but never again as a 1st. Edith really and truly lived her life, was a one-of-a-kind person, and was a joy to be around. For years she said that she could be a good 1st AD, and she was, and it’s not an easy job (I’ve never done it). But once she did it, she never did it again.
Au revoir, Edith. You were thick and rich.