Hollywood Dreams

BY RICHARD SHINNOW

Tanna Frederick, the daughter of David and Nancy Frederick, the young woman who graduated from Mason City High in 1995 and who was in all those Stebbens plays and high school productions before that, is fulfilling a dream-she is starring in a Hollywood movie.

Oh, she's been in a couple of other movies, but those were small parts. Not this one. In this one, titled “Hollywood Dreams”, Tanna shares the lead with co-star Justin Kirk who was recently nominated for an Emmy for his role in Mike Nichols' film of “Angels In America”.

Around them is a strong ensemble which includes David Proval (“Sopranos”), Melissa Leo (“21 Grams”), Paz de la Huera (“Ciderhouse Rules”), Zack Norman (“Festival in Cannes”), and veteran actress Karen Black “Five Easy Pieces”.

Frederick's connection to this film is its director, Henry Jaglom, who is famed in Hollywood for the thirteen independent films he's made over the last thirty or so years, films which explore the relationships within families and between men and women. They met a few years ago and Jaglom became her mentor. Last year Tanna led the effort to revive an early play of Jaglom's, “A Safe Place,” and starred in it to rave reviews in the Los Angeles' newspapers and trade publications.

“Hollywood Dreams” is about Margie Chizek, a young woman from Iowa (sound familiar), who goes to Hollywood with aspirations to become a star. Not only has Jaglom based much of his story on his young actress, he has also incorporated numerous references to Mason City into its dialogue. Although none of the film is shot here, Iowa figures prominently in the movie.

About a month before shooting began, I received an e-mail offering me a small part in the movie and an opportunity to see how “Hollywood Dreams” is made. I took a couple of seconds to think it over before replying that I'd do it.

Hollywood

Fortunately, when I arrive in Los Angeles, it is sunny. It has been raining, and rain isn't good for making movies, but now the weather has turned nice, again, so the director's spirits are buoyed. They have been shooting six straight days, but they have a day off, and I meet Tanna and her director for lunch. He looks very much like the man I've seen in several of his previous films but, of course, older-around sixty, I'd say.

Tanna is thinner than I've ever seen her-camera thin, I call it-because the camera adds weight here and there. It occurs to me that if I actually do get on screen, I'm going to look like Dumbo.

They are relaxed from which I infer that things are going well. My part in the movie is to be Leon, one of two butlers, but as we talk and the director learns more about me, he and Tanna begin to bounce ideas off one another and a new character is evolved for me-a writing professor from Iowa who has written a novel that has been optioned for a movie. I can only hope that life imitates art.

As we part, Tanna gives me a hug and a 130 page outline of the film which Jaglom uses instead of a script because it gives him the flexibility his technique requires.

The Set

My first day with an actual movie begins by driving to base camp, a parking lot just off Interstate 405, from which we are ferried by van up into the hills to a large house where shooting takes place. It is on a cul de sac which is already crowded with a generator truck, two trailers, and assorted other vehicles. Near the side entrance where we go in is a long table laden with snacks and coffee and tea and soft drinks and water which, I will learn, are available for whenever we need them. The double garage is crowded with lights and other gear which overflows onto the patio.

The house belongs to Zack Norman, who has known and worked with the director for years, and it is what most of us think of as pure Hollywood. It's most spectacular feature is the long, stone patio that runs the length of the house beyond which lies a stunning vista of the San Fernando Valley-just like in the movies.

At around $2,000,000 this is a low-budget movie by Hollywood standards where a star like Julia Roberts gets $15,000,000 just to show up, but it looks pretty elaborate to me. When I look at the call sheet that the assistant director gives us, I count 26 people who are involved in some aspect of the shooting plus the 15 actors who are required to be on set, today. Besides these folks, others are involved with the office work, catering services, or driving the 11 vehicles the production requires. I, like a number of other actors, am being paid the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) minimum of sixteen hundred and twenty bucks for the few days I'm putting in.

Shooting begins at 1:00 pm and ends 9 hours later and Tanna Frederick works in every scene. This may be her first big role, but there isn't a hint of indecisiveness about any thing she does. Every line and every expression is consistently on the mark, even when there are multiple takes. Although Jaglom often coaches or cajoles others involved in a scene, he seldom tinkers with anything she does. They've worked on the outline together, and it's clear that they share a vision of how these scenes are supposed to look on screen.

I sit or stand behind the camera set-up or off to the side, watching the proceedings and the TV monitor attached to the camera through which the director can observe the composition and movement of a shot. They shoot on the patio until after sunset, and I'm amazed that they can keep working with so little available natural light, but they go on until it's almost dark and getting cold.

Each actor wears a hidden microphone and each scene is also recorded through an overhead boom. The director wears a headset so that he can hear exactly what's being recorded as the scene takes place. A couple of times they must stop as planes drone overhead.

Around 5 we break for “lunch” which is catered to tables set up in the driveway of an adjacent house. For some reason the only lighting is impracticably provided by candles, but the lighting crew quickly brings equipment in and we are able to see our food which is hot and plentiful and delicious.

The most involved scene of the night takes place in the spacious living room and involves 8 actors and requires 11 takes and there is some fraying of emotions, but Jaglom keeps after what he wants, insisting and insisting until an actor gives it to him. Even late in the evening, there isn't the slightest reduction in his intensity or attention to detail. Except for lunch, he's the only person who hasn't had a moment of break, but 8 hours later he's going as strong as he was when the day began..

The Moment

Yesterday Jaglom told me that I'd be doing something onscreen today, and my nervousness woke me this morning at 6:30. I work on this article for an hour or so, then go to have my “head shot” taken in the morning by the producer's husband, Adrian, who has generously offered to do it for free. A head shot is just that, a photo of my face which is required by SAG.

Adrian is an Aussie transplant who has worked for years as a film editor and, more recently, as a director. During the hour I spend with him at his home he talks movies and more movies. As he shoots my photos, he gives me tips on how to energize myself before a scene. It reinforces, again, what a powerful affliction the movie virus is.

I get to the set at 2 and sit around until almost 9 when Jaglom calls me forward from the edge of the set into the lights. The butterflies in my stomach all take flight. I have just watched Melissa Leo, who plays Bee, Margie's aunt from Iowa, and Karen Black, who plays Luna, a disdainful Hollywood drama coach, play a wonderful, mostly improvised scene together.

Now, without prior notice, the director wants Black and me to do a scene in which my character, Leon, the theatre professor from Iowa, is ridiculed by Black's character for not training Margie effectively for the movies. It takes place at a party, so each of us holds a glass of wine and stands only inches from the other.

“Now Karen is going to say this to you,” Jaglom instructs, “and then we'll see what you come up with.” This might seem cruel to some, possibly an embarrassing set-up for me, but I know that it isn't. It reflects his confidence that I will come up with something that will work, the same confidence I've seen him demonstrate with others so many times. Three days ago, my character and this scene did not exist, but now Karen Black and I are about to bring them to life.

It is a good scene for me, because I know how I would react if someone were to deride Iowa, to put down the training that Margie would have gotten at the University of Iowa, the same university, I chide Luna, that Tennessee Williams attended back in the 40's, the university famed for its Writers' Workshop. My reply to her is forceful and natural and the director tells us that he likes it a lot and I have now completed my first scene in the movies.

In the next scene Tanna delivers a beautiful long exclamation of Margie's hopes and dreams of becoming a famous actress. Then, the director yells cut and turns to those of us who are watching with a pleased smile. It is almost ten o'clock, but the night has ended on a crescendo that sends the actors-us-energized and babbling out to the waiting vans.

Actors

The next day I hang around the set, watching, and occasionally getting into a conversation with the other actors. Since they don't know that I am essentially an imposter, they chat easily about the movie at hand or others that I've seen them in. They are all otherwise “normal” people who are committed to a life of make-believe-it's quite wonderful.

Karen Black, who I first saw in “Easy Rider” in 1969, is just as exotic as I had expected, and David Proval is so physically Richie Aprillo, the character he played in the “Sopranos”, that I can't disconnect him from that role. When I talk with Justin Kirk, I find that he is from Minneapolis. There is a deep quietness about him that I can't help but like. Here, he is playing Robin, Margie's romantic interest, but just last night I saw him on HBO, playing an anguished dramatic role with Meryl Streep in “Angels in America.”

Later in the afternoon Eric Roberts and his wife come in. No written dialogue exists for Roberts, so Jaglom is improvising, again. Roberts asks a number of questions as he tries to get a grasp of his character, but the director gives him as little as possible to keep the sense of his character being a newcomer to the action of the film.

When the scene finally begins, Roberts launches into a long, completely unrehearsed bit that Margie breaks into with comments about Iowa, pigs, and her grandmother Chizek. It is so convincing that I wince with embarrassment. When the actor leaves a few hours later, the crew claps, apparently in homage to his star status.

In the evening we are shooting a party scene for which an elaborate table with real food is set. While the scene is being prepared, Tanna emerges from the dressing room in a one beautiful dress after another which the director emphatically does not approve of. Finally, with the fifth selection, he is happy-effusively so-so they can go ahead with the scene. It leaves me wondering just how many dresses they had available back there for this particular scene.

There are a number of attractive women on the set, the make-up girls especially, but also production assistants, but none of them could wear these dresses the way that Frederick does. I know that she was required to lose ten pounds for this film, and this is the payoff for she is so slender and elegant that each dress seems to have been made just for her and just for this particular scene.

It's A Wrap

The last evening we work until midnight. Although I have no scenes, I wait around, still enjoying the experience, chatting between takes with one or another of the 20 or so people I'm on a first name basis with. In the last hour or so, I can see the actors' weariness. Tanna and David Proval are quietly learning lines for the next rather involved scene, but Zack Norman doesn't even attempt to get his down, so the director feeds them to him as his scene goes on.

Then, finally, the last shot of the movie is completed, and the actors who still remain begin to leave, a band of gypsies scattering into the glittering Los Angeles night, some to new roles, some to uncertainty, some on the way up, some on the way down.

For me, it's back to Iowa and the reassuring predictability of my “real” life. Jaglom has promised that we will have a local premiere of the movie back in Mason City, and I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to see and hear how all of the work that went into “Hollywood Dreams” will come together on the big screen.