xtcian

8/11/02 Exactly one year ago

8/11/02

Exactly one year ago today, we finished principal photography on our film, The Pink House. It was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life (which includes getting dysentery in Jamaica, collapsing form malnutrition a few weeks before my parents' divorce, and sitting through the first half of the Columbia County High School production of "Crazy For You").

The year since has been pretty exceptional, and I'm not sure if we are as far along as I expected to be. As I said, it's the little victories that have propelled us, but if you'd told me on that typhoon-raging night of August 11 that a year from now I'd still be editing, I'd probably have blown a gasket. Yet here we are, and it doesn't seem all that horrific.

That last night of the shoot, we all met at the local moderately bad Italian restaurant, the full cast and crew, and I was so thankful/ashamed/relieved/exhausted/unsure of the whole thing that I wrote each lead actor a little note expressing my feeling at having worked with them. Here's one I wrote to Pilar Punzano, who despite being one of the Pink House residents, spoke nary a word of English in real life:

Pilar- I know Jorge will translate this for you, so I wont get on the internet and try to do a translation. Besides, the internet translation tool always makes me sound like I’m in kindergarten.

But despite it all, you shone like the sun. I am so proud of the risk you took to come to America, and it is obvious to me that you are a fantastic actor. Even the language barrier couldnt get in the way of your talent. Each time you were on the screen, the entire scene would light up with reds and yellows. You were terrific.

Pilar and Jorge on set

And when we walked into the restaurant, I fully expected us to get booed, and instead, the entire place gave us a standing ovation. We had put these people through hell, and there they were, a year ago tonight, getting drunk and giving me bear hugs. I was so delirious and high from the experience that I jumped into the pool with all the rest of them and swam around nekkid as a jaybird with Rick Gradone.

When I got home, Tessa was comatose, but I still had a raging fire. I'll let the email from that night do the talking:

This project can't be described in any facile terms. We weathered a week of solid rain and two violent tornadoes, and yet we still made the movie. We had to sit on top of a black roof on the hottest day in 23 years, and yet we still made the movie. Our lead actor injured himself on the set, leaving a bone was sticking out of his hand, and yet we still made the movie. Our gaffer went ballistic and nearly killed three extras with his car, the 1st AD hadn't read the script, I had a tooth FALL OUT, a typhoon washed away our set, one of the lead actors threatened to fly back to Spain... and yet we still made the fucking movie. Our movie was called "The Pink House," yet the girls who actually live in the actual Pink House wouldn't let us even open the back door.

I'm convinced the only way to get through this project is with pure primality. By the third or fourth day, we were stripped of decorum, blanched clean of our vanity, and went into battle mode. Tessa turned to me during one of our tornadoes and said, "Feel like you're on the Titanic?" and I said, "No, this is the Carpathia. We're rescuing the last few hearty swimmers."

A year later, I still fucking burn. Hope passion is contagious, because we need things to go our way from here on out.

the directors, producers and cameraman furiously save the last days of shooting