"The Chair" is an experiment
when you take the same script
and you give it to two very different directors
and you allow them to each make it their own.
I've always been fascinated by the situation
where you could actually see how two different directors
would take the same material
and turn it into two separate movies.
Now, what if you could really show that to people?
I would like to welcome everybody to day one.
My major concern with Shane,
it's that he's acting in the movie.
He's a first-time director. I don't know how he runs a set.
What time is it? Anybody, time?
Action.
Can she take what's in her head
and convey it through the actors
in a way that the audience is feeling the things that
she wants them to feel?
I feel like I'm overthinking it, and I'm, like, freaking out,
and I'm scared I'm gonna freak her out.
I was having a lot of loud thoughts about how...
all the things I possibly could have already done to fuck this up
and that's exhausting and it sucks.
The Scott role is really difficult for him.
I know Shane does not see himself
as like this popular, cool guy.
Dan maybe is in the most difficult position
of anybody else on this entire project
because he had to let his script go
to these two different places.
They can let us do this one more minute,
60 more seconds, and then we have to shoot this.
These are all really ambitious days.
Like orange tape on it or something that actually...
Yes, it's labeled with a couple of extra cracks.
Yeah.
Today, we're at Frank's house, our DP.
We're kind of stealing a shot. We don't have a permit today.
But we're gonna have Scott take a poop on the lawn.
Could you poop with somebody watching? That's the question.
Could l... I can't even poop alone. I mean, I'm so constipated.
Bring that in.
He has real motivation right now. Your objectives are clear.
- This is really a mini objective... - Yeah.
...that falls into a greater objective.
- No, yeah, totally. - Yeah.
It's gonna be a powerful scene.
Yeah.
Can this be the scene that we show
when we go to, like, festivals?
This'll be the scene that we, like, offer up early for press clips.
- Yeah. - Thanks, Frank.
MTV Movie Award!
- MTV Movie Award. - So, Shane...
All right, guys, here we go.
Action.
Come on, seriously.
Open your legs, Shane, just like that.
- Hold. - Hold for car. Shane, don't move.
Let's wait for the second car to pass,
and we're gonna have you do your end line again.
Keep those legs open.
Keep them open, girl.
And cut.
Ripped By mstoll
It's, um...
the night before the beginning of week two.
Week one was incredible. It was really, really, really good.
Like... weirdly good,
frighteningly good, to the point where
I feel like the major thing I have to do right now mentally
is just not complicate things.
If something's going well, prepare for it to go badly
because there's no way that it could keep going this well.
Watch out! Watch out!
There's so much more traffic here
than there ever has been when I've been here.
Well, the thing is this is a shortcut.
Hey, Josh, you need to make sure that
the cars that are coming through here are going really fucking slowly.
Car!
Okay, guys, I had no idea about that car.
Why did no one tell me?
Logistically, it didn't seem like it was gonna be difficult
because we're shooting at a house
and we're shooting this other driving scene
and we're literally shooting a block and a half away.
So, Siena, we're looking like 30 minutes for everything
including the stuff with him watching her drive away.
Lunch is in 25 minutes, and we don't have any time
to push stuff that we're supposed to get before lunch after.
There's no room, so whatever we get now we get.
The logistics of everything were just insane,
and it was because we've had to shift on our feet so rapidly.
Guys, I just want to let you to know there's gonna be a change
in the schedule for today,
and I just want to see if you guys are prepared for it.
So, guys, we're gonna move on and get the shot of it leaving.
I would love that.
Okay, I thought you were gonna tell me you didn't have time.
Well, we don't.
Oftentimes, I feel like we waste time on a set
deciding whether or not it's time to move on.
Yeah, we can't move all that. We don't have time for that.
- Sorry. - So what am I shooting, then?
Getting the instinct to know that you've got your shot
is something that's gonna come with time for Anna.
Right now, it's not quite there.
My concern is that I wasn't thrilled with the Toby close-up,
like, I feel that they just finally got the scene just now.
So I'm just thinking, is there any Toby moment
that I really need?
Moving on means, okay, we're not in that shot anymore,
so I have to live in the editing room with just those takes.
And that's a scary moment, because as a director
you want to get as much as you possibly can.
So what I did was I got them saying all these lines,
and I wasn't that happy with it, for some reason, in the end.
It just didn't quite feel great.
Because of snow, Siena had to shift some stuff,
and because of that, she shifted this, like,
very intense exterior running scene
and there was very little prep time.
So whatever they do in this first run through,
we're not gonna add or change things.
- No, definitely not. - We're just gonna shoot the camera...
Nope, we're just trying to get what I wrote. That's it.
Cool, thank you.
Everybody quiet, please.
Hey, wait, wait!
It was really, really cold and nobody saw it coming
because we weren't supposed to shoot that scene anyway,
so we were just like, "Oh, we'll just do it."
Like, we started shooting the scene
and then I started seeing how cold the actors were.
I was like, they're wearing less than me and I'm freezing.
I'm gonna have to have a chat with Siena
'cause we may just be owing some shots on this day,
'cause we can't go too much longer in the cold.
It was just bad that we were underprepared
for the level of cold that befell us.
We're approaching now or never time.
We got to shoot it. We have zero time right now.
Hey, guys, we're gonna shoot this, so I need to make sure
that everyone's out of the road and that things are clear.
So, we didn't think the logistics would be that difficult.
- We thought it would be easier. - Easier than it was.
It was not easy. It was not easy.
If you could do me a favor and just go really, really slowly.
That would be great. Thank you. Thank you.
Hi, if you could do me a favor and just go really, really slowly...
- Oh, absolutely. - I'd appreciate that.
- Thank you so much. - Not a problem.
I am here on my set of the movie.
I'm gonna give you a quick little tour.
Over here we have the monitor that I look at.
And that's a monitor that everybody says, like,
"Oh, that's terrible, Shane's terrible. Let's redo that again."
And then we have Frank, he's the DP.
- Hi. - What does DP stand for?
DP? Uh, double penetration.
Really? Really?
Yeah, it is what it stands for, and he's really good at it.
He got inside me and Cherami at the same time.
It's true, in the back of the old Suburban. There it is.
There it is. Speaking of which, nice segue.
Uh, Segway.
Here is the set today.
This is the Suburban that me and Tori make love in.
See in there? Smell it in there?
Feel the love in there?
And then over here we have all this equipment
and, like, wires and shit I don't know how to do.
Over there's the camera
that does a bunch of shit I don't know how to do,
and that's about it.
I am not nervous for me. I'm nervous for her.
'Cause like... she's gonna fall in love with me,
and, like, how awkward that is, like, you know,
and then she's gonna have to leave her fiancé.
And then I'm gonna have to tell my girlfriend.
It's gonna be, like, uncomfortable.
She's not gonna be able to resist the D.
So we're gonna be fucking like this.
Actually I'll be... actually she'll be from behind.
Oh, shit, should I get the big dildo?
No, I'm actually very terrified.
I think she's gonna hate it. She might throw up on me.
Right, want to go simulate some sex?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
All right, and... action.
You were supposed to take lessons from the list
and apply them to your life in New York.
You're supposed to go back to school and meet new people
and have great experiences.
You're not supposed to retreat back to whatever's easy for you.
Cherami is Tori.
Her deliveries are better than what's in my head sometimes.
She is kind of the embodiment of what I pictured.
I'm really enjoying seeing the Tori come to life
because Tori is really the same as she's always been.
She has like the same beats. That hasn't changed.
She's the most consistent character from my script to this script.
Oh, my God, really, dude?
Cut.
It's a little better, but he's one-note the entire time.
Yeah.
As written, the character of Scott
was intended to be charming,
really good-looking, an athlete, very successful,
kind of always had everything come to him.
This weekend is kind of the first time
he's realizing that he's facing adversity in his life,
and so a lot of those characteristics are there.
Shane is just not the athlete golden boy actor for that role,
so he's a little bit different and in doing the rewrite
we tweaked it to make it more like Shane.
He was popular, he was almost, like, you know,
a politician in that sense,
people always liked this guy, and he was just charming
and that charm I think... Shane is really charming in real life
and he's having trouble getting that out in the performance.
From a commercial standpoint, I think it might be a good decision
to have Shane Dawson to be the lead of your movie
in every other scene.
For the movie itself, if Shane had, like, a really great actor
the way he's got a great actress in Cherami,
and Shane could just focus on the directing
and just focus on playing those bit roles,
I think it could be awesome.
I would love to have somebody who can match Cherami
in that way, and I just don't think he can.
Shane had a lot that he wanted to accomplish
in a short period of time,
and in many ways he chose the easy way out.
He chose basically to avoid shooting outside
as much as possible because it was really fucking cold.
You know, Anna, on the other hand, the polar extreme of that,
and Anna did shoot outside.
It makes it really challenging to keep your days.
When do we get police access to shut down the road?
I have to talk to Mitchell about that.
Hey, Meena and Stratton, this is our officer.
We don't have permission to lock up this road.
This is a state road.
No, this is just too busy of a road.
- You went over the bridge. - I did go over the bridge.
It seems to be entirely secure,
but it is for sure, a bouncy walk.
Yeah.
It's not the single most safe thing a person can do.
Okay, so what... tell me my options are.
We're walking across the bridge a total of three times.
Uh-huh, but if it's safe enough to walk across,
why isn't it safe enough to stand on?
It's not that it's not safe to stand on.
It's that the longer that we keep actors out onto the bridge,
the bigger the exposure on this location is.
Bigger the exposure?
Meaning, like, if they walk across the bridge
a total of three times and we are done,
that feels safe to me.
I would have probably played a lot more with the improv.
I had to decide on one joke, one moment,
and I had to decide what exactly the words would be.
'Cause Hetzler wouldn't let them walk across more.
What if we did wide just of them walking across,
another wide, walk across land in the middle
and have some dialogue
and then one punch in on that action?
- Yeah? - Yeah, totally.
Hey, Kyle, watch your back.
There are cars coming everywhere.
We can't let that happen.
Are we listening? Safety meeting.
Okay, first off, we are shooting on a road that is open.
There are cars coming through here.
Everyone should know this by now, but nobody walks across this street
without my PA who's across the street telling you that you're free to do so.
And the other deal here is that we're gonna be shooting
on this bridge over here,
but we want to make sure two things...
one, that you guys feel comfortable going across it,
and so after we have this conversation
we're gonna walk with you across it and just, like, judge
how you're feeling, and that's the most important thing for me.
If you guys don't feel comfortable
don't try running off the bridge.
Don't try... just stand still, and somebody will come
I know, but you laugh I mean, some... I've seen people,
they'll freak out and then they'll wanna run off
or fix another solution. Just stand still.
And one more thing with meetings,
I like to bring in in real quick before we do this.
- I do, too. - Yeah, yeah.
Hollidaysburg on three.
One, two, three! Hollidaysburg!
Roll camera.
And standby for slate.
Waiting for Anna to say action, over.
Okay, guys, just walking across real normal and pretty like.
And... action.
Nice.
It turned out perfect.
It's like sometimes maybe it's better when you just keep it simpler.
Maybe the performances weren't exactly what I wanted,
but we're so far away that I was able
to just get the performances I wanted on wild track
and I'll lay them over that, ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Perfect.
- Cut. That's a cut. - Beautiful.
- That was three, yeah? - Three, that's it.
All right, that's it. Let's do it.
About this scene, you didn't think that the energy in the beginning...
like, he was playing down to her being tired.
- They were sleeping. - I know, I know.
They were just fucking and sle... they were just sleeping.
- I know, but... - That's the scene.
But I think he's full of energy is the idea.
It's like he's excited to go on a road trip.
He's got to match her energy. It doesn't make any sense.
- Let's watch it again. - Watch it again.
I think everybody has a different idea of who Scott is.
I think the writer has a very specific idea.
I think Josh has a specific idea.
And we're not all on the same page with Scott.
So we slightly disagree on this.
I think in the beginning,
you really want to spend the time with her.
You really want go on this road trip or do whatever
and get her to stay with you and, like, fight for that.
And I'm not really seeing where you fight for it
and believe in it, in my opinion.
And Lauren thinks it's a little more like they just woke up.
And I think the idea's like he woke up but he's full of energy
because he just had sex with Tori last night
and it was, like, the greatest night of his life,
and now he's the guy who wants to go on this road trip
and like she's not into that,
and so that's where the conflict is, in my opinion.
The scene we filmed in the car post sex was interesting
because that is a scene where the movie changes
and Scott changes,
and trying to figure out who he is in that moment,
and then after we filmed it,
I had 10 different voices coming at me
telling me what they thought, what they thought, what they thought.
It's difficult 'cause he's the director
but he needs direction.
No, but he knows. He's struggling with that, I think.
It's always tricky on a set to figure out when and how
to give a director notes.
He says it's confusing for him because he has one take on it,
Lauren's giving him another take on it,
Corey had another take on it,
and so it's sort of confusing him as to what to do.
One of the challenges that we have on Shane's movie
is there are a handful of people that sit at video village
and have thoughts and have ideas
and we need to find the right way to approach Shane with it.
You have to understand this is me being honest,
like, as an actor and the director,
when I look through the window
and I see like, 10 people giving a million notes,
it's very frustrating.
So if you want to give me notes, give me notes,
but if you're gonna talk behind my back about the notes,
and then when I walk over get quiet and be like, "Well"...
just fucking give me the notes.
I want to take all of their notes and I want to hear all of them out,
but I just have to remember that this is my movie,
I'm directing it, and if I felt like the scene worked,
if I felt like I was Scott in that moment,
then it's the right decision.
I think from now on, though, obviously depending on time,
I'd like to get two takes and then the barrage of notes.
Sounds great.
Because I need one take to redirect my actor
- or redirect myself. - Okay.
Even today after the first take I knew... all the notes you gave me,
- I already knew. - Okay.
- I just need, like, two. - No problem.
We got it. Good job, guys.
Hey, guys, that's a wrap!
If we end up spending, let's say 625 instead of 6...
Uh-huh.
It's our job to be worried about going over budget
every minute of every single day.
And we talk about it every single day,
and we worry about it every single day.
This is the moment where we say, "Anna, hey,
it's fine, we can do whatever you want to do.
Just so you know, if we go over our budget,
then it's gonna come out of your"...
I don't think that's true. People may be saying that,
but I don't think that's contractually anticipated.
We had some big dramatic shifts mid stream, obviously.
Somebody burning out a clutch.
Suddenly we have to pay for that out of pocket.
Have you talked about what the plan is if you go over,
or you're just not allowing it to go over?
Uh, we are planning on not going over.
Right now what happens if we go over
is we try and figure out how to minimize our costs in post.
Almost all of that number can be and will be
and is attributed to union
and teamster additional things that we have to pay for,
because otherwise, there are so many other departments
that we are going under budget on.
When you're paying in a non-union situation,
you're paying them their salary.
When you're employing union members,
you're not only paying their salaries,
but you're also paying into their pension, health, and welfare.
That's why they cost more money.
- Hi, how are ya? - Hey, good, how are you?
- Here you are at the 31st... - Hi, Corey.
Yeah, hey.
Initially, when we came on board, it was my intention and my goal
to be in Pittsburgh for at least a week of each of their shoots.
And to be on the ground and to be available
and to be a part of the process.
Neal, you'll be happy to know that there's a party bus
- that we're shooting in now. Mm-hmm.
- Nice. - Just like your wedding.
It's a lot like your wedding's party bus.
Right around the time when the dates got set to go shoot these movies,
a movie that I've been working on, putting it together for about a year,
the financing fell into place, the cast fell into place,
and we have our dates,
and they're almost exactly the same dates
as the shooting of Shane and Anna's movies.
Another interesting aspect of independent filmmaking
is unexpected schedule changes, whether it's with actors
who are in your movie or actors who are advisors,
as in my case, because I got a job.
That's definitely a step up from your wedding, I hate to tell you.
I'm off to shoot a movie for three months,
so I'm only gonna be available remotely,
which is a bummer to me 'cause I was really looking forward
to being there and to being a part of the process.
What are you shooting today?
Basically, we have to finish up shooting this party scene.
That's what we're dealing with. I'm not gonna be on the ground.
But I'll be kept abreast of everything via email
and Neal and I will be sort of checking in.
I'll be able to stop in and visit,
but I'm not gonna be able to be there hand in hand, side by side
making the movies so I'll have to leave those jobs to others.
Smooth jazz.
Does that affect my voice?
I think my favorite moment so far has been Zachary Quinto
showing up on set and me being in full drag
as a horny 75-year-old Jewish woman.
No sex in the car, kids!
Last thing I want to see is two young semi-ethnic-looking,
possibly native American teenagers make a mess
on my brand-new pleather interior,
forcing me to lap, lap, lap it up like a golden retriever
on a hot-ass day.
In the meeting that I had with Shane,
I tried to express the concern of...
be mindful of... taste.
Be mindful of where the limits are and respect them.
God damn it. Son of a bitch!
Fucking native Americans.
I thought you were Ecuadorian.
So I think the test for Shane is gonna be,
how does he transition from that very familiar,
very comfortable environment into an entire production
and a feature-length production at that?
Got some lasers from this Chinaman I met online.
So if you got aversion to seizures
you might want to avert your eyes.
I don't want anybody dying back there... again.
He said a couple times in the first meeting
that we had with him that this was going to be a Shane Dawson film
and this was going to be something...
he knows his fans and he knows his fan base very well.
And knows what to give them.
I worry a little bit that it's a little myopic
and that it might lead him to just make more of the same but longer.
- Shane? I'm gonna roll. - Hey.
I've got a thing, but congrats, man.
I think he was probably like, "Oh, my name is on this.
That's scary."
Maybe he wasn't aware that I was gonna be wearing wigs in this movie.
Have a great time, and I'll see you when I'm back,
but it probably won't be before you're done shooting.
Oh, no worries.
And I'll come back when I'm... yeah, I'll be back.
But congrats. Have a great time. Good to see you, man.
See you soon.
I think he thought it was funny. I think. I don't know.
He's either a really good actor
or he actually thought it was funny.
I can't pay 64, 65 hundred more dollars for catering.
That was part of what we were saying to them.
If it's eating up your costs that much
then cut back or don't make as elaborate food
because otherwise we can't afford it.
I can't make more money appear with this budget, I can't.
I can tell you this is who I can afford to feed
and this is how much I can afford to pay for it.
And if you can make that work, then we can do this.
They're great. They're awesome.
- I just can't... - Afford it anymore.
Does that mean we let them go for the last week
and we go to drop off?
I mean, like that sucks. That would really suck, bad.
I don't know if maybe that is what we do and that sucks,
and it's sad for them and sad for us.
Okay. I'll talk to them.
So we know that obviously you guys have numbers
way far beyond what we obviously...
Originally contracted before,
and that's difficult for us because we had not anticipated
originally feeding the executive producer entourage
which has been going through the line every day.
Raises the number by six to eight people and all...
This is gonna to shock you a little bit.
Yeah, because after we did it it,
it ended up being like $6,700 up to date.
- I know you don't have that. - That is true, we don't.
But we also don't want you guys going out
of your your pocket to cover that, either.
Like right now, we figured out
we are about $4,800 out of pocket.
Okay.
And we figured that out because we went to pay our bills
and we were like... oh, there's no money,
which is horrible but I'm just being honest.
Yeah, yeah.
I just want to be able to try and figure out
how to make this work for you guys
and make it work so we can actually...
Accommodate it in our budget.
And get you guys so you're not, you know, screwed.
- Okay. - All right.
Well, let us go back to our budget
and scratch our heads and...
And try to figure out where we stand here.
And if you guys have any other places where you know
you would be able to save, obviously present those to us.
So whatever the result of this show is,
whether I win or Anna wins,
the real winner is going to be Drew Monson.
He's trying to get a shot of you, obviously.
Hmm?
Because he's going to be a superstar
and he's going to be richer than all of us.
He's gonna have McLovin money.
For fun, we're just gonna get you doing a bunch of different passwords.
He's stealing the movie. He's stealing every shot he's in.
What is the line? It's Draper something...
Draper uses the same password for all secure files, it's...
Blah, blah, blah.
He's created the weirdest character I've ever seen.
Draper uses the same password for all his secure files.
It's "anus party 85."
It's "asshole party 67."
"Birthday pussy 420."
It's "Julie Chan's asshole, yes please."
Draper uses the same password for all his secure files.
It's "the clits go marching one by one."
Come on, one more, one more. You can do it.
Draper uses the same password for all of his secure files.
It's "clit dragon mommy."
He's taken a role that was literally just written to be the crazy, nerdy,
never-has-a-chance- to-get-the-girl type role.
And he's turned it into a, like, oh,
maybe-this-guy- should-get-the-girl type role.
What if you and I were stuck on an abandoned island together?
You're getting super horny. It's been, like, seven years.
All you need is the feeling of a warm hard man
inside of you again.
You're thinking, "Okay, I'll go artificial."
You're looking for a dildo. You're searching the island.
You can't find one, you see me.
I just gave myself a nice little salt water bath.
I look great.
I made myself clothing out of palm trees. What the fuck?
Which changes the movie
and it's going to make people really hate Janie.
There's no monkeys on the island.
You can't fuck a monkey. So don't think about that.
What are my chances?
Well, in that scenario,
I think you might actually have a chance.
Spoiler alert, she doesn't fuck him.
- Okay. - Cut!
He's terrified of everything. He always thinks he's late.
He always thinks he did something wrong.
And I keep having to tell him that he's doing amazing
and everybody loves him.
But it's been fun.
It's definitely been nice because the reason he's here
is because I really fought for him.
So the fact that people love him makes me think,
"Oh, I'm always right."
Wardrobe has been very interesting.
It's kind of similar to the art stuff in that,
like, I feel like have to break people's hearts a little bit,
and be like, I know this is important to you,
but it's not important to the story.
And I don't think she should be wearing burgundy the entire time.
I'm so sorry. I just couldn't communicate it.
It's a cheapness and a youngness
that I'm going for rather than a specific color story.
Craig's not black, Craig's like bright and cheesy,
and I think she should look...
she should be like the branded American Eagle...
she over-wears the brand, know what I'm saying?
So sounds like we can do it from what's on the truck.
I can't think of... she can do them with the tight and the...
Oh, wow.
The tight and the boot and, um,
- Are you okay? - I'll be fine.
Deep breaths, James.
- I'll be fine. - Deep breaths.
I'm so sorry. You're doing amazing.
I think a lot of the wardrobe stuff is on me
because early in the process
I was so kind of doing a million things
that James would show me all this stuff and I would be like,
"Ah, yeah, good... Iooks good."
And then I would leave and think, like,
"Oh, yeah, I'm gonna, like, figure that out later."
Seeing as I'm probably not gonna use the airport stuff
- 'cause it's so snowy and whatnot. - Right.
I've decided to, uh, zhuzh Phil's costume a little,
'cause I thought carpenter jeans were weird, so...
Those are his new ones. They just haven't been washed
because I just didn't expect them to be in the shot.
Got it.
I've had to make some major right turns from James' vision
to bring it back to my vision.
Because American Eagle gave us so much free stuff,
there's a real tendency for it to look like an American Eagle ad.
Scott all of a sudden is wearing a really pristine puffy coat
with a logo shirt and, like, eh. So I've had to, like, down...
play it down, like more mundane gray t-shirts.
People don't dress like this in real life.
Nobody looks like a catalog.
So today is the big emotional breakup
between my character and Heather.
There's gonna be a lot of crying.
There's gonna be a lot of heartbreak.
And she's also gonna be blowing me through a hole in the wall.
And then our first AD is gonna be an extra
who's taking a shit in a toilet.
We're doing the glory hole scene right now
where Heather lures Scott into a bathroom to have very crazy sex.
And then decides to parkour over a wall.
We got lucky because our stunt coordinator was able to be
both the stunt coordinator and the stunt player that day.
I'm essentially doubling a girl playing Heather in the movie
and she decides to sort of parkour herself over the partition.
My job is to do the flipping over.
And action.
And cut!
That was fucking awesome!
I turned around and looked at nothing
but thumbs in the air.
Great job!
I couldn't see it, but it felt amazing.
The next thing you know you're doing your scene
and you have, like, 45 minutes to get it done.
And action, dolly.
I was thinking more like, you know, maybe my place.
Public sex is way in right now.
It's the second top search term on YouPorn...
...right under "brother/sister stuff."
Oh, my God. I'm gonna come, here we go.
Are you... are you crying?
It's fine.
It's just a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be.
- Okay, cut. - Cut.
It's not playing real at all.
I think that what you need to do, Shane,
is honestly, I think the move is just against the wall like,
"Oh, my God."
But this isn't for the line, this is literally for...
- If she's... it... - I can move it.
But it's still... it just looks camp. It doesn't look real.
The only note I would have is this time you played it, like, kind of scared.
Play it more like "What the fuck are you doing?"
We were crazy with time.
In the very end we finally were like, wait a minute,
he needs to be really upset because she runs out,
and we got one take of him doing that.
Watching it back, I wished we got another one
with a little bit bigger of a reaction?
Sure, but, like, that a time thing.
This scene is definitely in the other movie as well.
And you guys... it's the same thing happens,
but so, so differently.
They have a glory hole?
They don't have any glory hole.
Theirs is, like, in a car, and it's like...
I won't tell you anything about it,
but they're making love when she breaks up.
It's just executed in... in a completely different fashion.
The break up scene has always been right
at the beginning of the movie.
It's our introduction to Scott and to Heather.
The genesis of the story and these kids coming home
was always about these two characters that stayed together
in high school coming back home and breaking up
and that was the spark for the whole movie.
In the original script, the idea was
that Scott and Heather went off to college.
It's the first time they're seeing each other.
And Heather has sort of guilt break-up sex with Scott.
It was our comedic set piece opener.
Whether it's "American Pie" or "Something About Mary,"
movies that open with big laughs, it's a great way to get into them.
Shane saw that, and he's like, "Let's go further."
Filtered through the mind of Shane Dawson
it turns into the scene in the bathroom with a glory hole,
the Heather character parkouring over the partition in the bathroom,
and then break up with him through the hole in the divider.
Anna saw that scene in Heather's childhood bedroom
and they're having sex and she starts crying
and it leads to them breaking up.
In the original script, Heather goes into the scene
knowing she wants to break up with Scott.
So she's gonna break up with this guy.
She's gonna give him really good sex before she does.
And that's the comedic conceit of the scene.
I think that was lost a little bit in Anna's scene.
She got that it was awkward, but, like, that wasn't as clear.
And Heather is breaking up with him in the moment
because that's what she decides.
For Shane's script, it was challenging to write in his style,
which is super broad and way over the top.
So I just had to have fun with it.
It was definitely the first time
I've written a scene around a glory hole.
Oh, stop being such a pussy
and give me your dick!
With Anna, there was a certain point
where I was cut off from the development process.
She has a team that she knows and she trusts
and they work together and I get that.
It was her choice to make.
It was frustrating not to be involved, but she's the director.
This is how it works.
Okay, now, look... let's do it one more time
but you look away from her, think about it, look at her, no, got it?
Cut!
Lovely.
Okay, sorry about that long take.
I don't know if I'll be able to do it again.
Right now we have 40 minutes left to get everything.
Cool, okay, let's punch in on him.
You feel confident about that?
- Are you sure? - Mm-hmm.
- Okay, cool, let's do it. - Thank you.
We love and trust Siena up to this point,
and now we have to see if she can deliver
on a set of circumstances that are incredibly difficult.
Yeah, you're saying we can't go over at all, then, yeah.
Now we can go a little bit over. We can't go an hour over.
I want us to be out of here at 12:08,
and by us I mean everyone else,
but we should head over there pretty soon.
The schedule is the biggest concern, and it's not...
I mean, I think Siena did a very, very good job scheduling it.
It's just there's a lot of stuff.
At this point, we only have one take of this.
Guys, we're just rehearsing.
No, I know, but there's, like, overtime.
Yeah, I'm totally aware,
but we haven't even shot anything yet
so we just got to make sure she can get her takes.
Give me five minutes. We're not shooting anymore.
Ah, well, we see.
I think sometimes there's a little bit of difficulty
between Stratton and Siena. Part of that stems from the fact
that he's worked on 50 features and Siena's worked on maybe four.
I wasn't gonna put her off.
Trust me, I wasn't gonna put her off.
Well, it's just it's not worth stressing everybody out.
I know but when you're saying that
in front of the entire crew, it's making me look bad.
I'm just making sure that you have time
because your director hasn't, and that's the stuff
that she gets stressed about.
No, I understand that, and it's my relationship with her
that's important, but can you... look, Stratton,
we have a camera on us right now.
Yeah, that's why we'll talk about it later.
But if you start tearing down Siena in front of Anna
and in front of Meena, that's gonna create a division
and that's gonna be a serious, serious problem.
And Siena's gonna keep running in the way
that she's running
but there's a part of me that wonders if, you know,
Stratton may have been making a little bit of a point today.
It's a negotiation always with Siena,
trying to figure out how much time I'm allowed to play around.
Whenever you... so we say cut and you look to me
and you're like good and I'm usually like, "Yeah,"
and then I think about it, let's... I'll go hold,
and then we'll think... like, I need 30 seconds to a minute
to digest and then we'll decide.
I think let's... yeah, let's take the minute every time.
Let's make sure that we don't move on for a minute, yeah.
- Okay, 30 seconds. - Yeah.
It's this and then it's a punch in on, uh, Tobin's face
and then it's a reverse on her face.
Okay.
And I can do each one in one take if you want.
There's no dialogue.
She's trying to tell me that I can't do this.
It's the frustration of trying to get everything perfect
on your first shot which is generally gonna be the wide.
And you spend a lot of time on that wide, then,
trying to polish things.
It would be easier and more effective to polish those things
in the coverage, but it's hard to let go and to move on.
I don't know what to do.
And I think we all want to make a good movie.
- And we're running here... - Oh, yeah, I mean obviously...
For somebody like Anna, she's very, very concerned
about moving on to the next part
if she doesn't feel that she has every moment she needs
in that full take of the wide shot.
So, yeah, things have been a little stressful that way.
Siena, this is our last thing, right?
Yeah.
#assventures," so...
That sounds kind of gay.
Y-yeah, I guess it does.
Oh, great, cut. We got it.
Can we... just the gay line, I want her to do one
where it kind of has like a secret, like,
"That sounds kind of gay."
Like, now when she played it where she's like realizing it...
There's a funny "that sounds kind of gay" that that I liked.
- All right. - Um, I liked the last one...
I want him to do one where she like tells him...
I mean, really, you're gonna go to other people
- and try to get people to... - No, I wasn't!
Come back to me and agree with a note?
No, you're not gonna do it. We've moved on.
I was just telling him what my note was.
This is what I'm talking about, like, everybody going back
and talking about that, oh, we wish we could have gotten.
You know, so tell me who I can talk to.
Oh, he's driving me fucking insane today.
Did you create the monster? Or was it always there?
No, it's always there. You guys are just seeing it now.
And then I'm gonna go, "Bye, Janie."
And you just go...
and that's when you walk over and turn around to look at her.
- Can you show me where I'm... - Yes.
- Mm, yeah, mm. - Fixing my hair.
Yeah, and then, "Bye, Janie."
That's all we're getting? Okay.
I just want you to know I totally, like,
I want your thoughts on the scenes and stuff.
Don't be afraid to... I don't know it felt like maybe
- Lauren said to not do that. - No, nobody told me not to.
I just don't want to...
I literally don't want to step on your toes.
No, no, no, I really... every note you've given me,
I'm like, totally, yeah.
I mean, listen it's hard when there's 10 people giving me notes at once.
It's a little...
You know what that was actually
was that it was coming from other people.
That's why I was a little hesitant giving it to you... it wasn't mine.
Mm.
- Is that you? - Joel, what are you doing here?
Yeah, it's great, let's do it.
Um, the scene in the gym's the big, you know,
- "my whole life sucks" scene. - Mm-hmm.
And we're literally gonna have, like, no time to do it.
So I need help as far as rehearsing it.
Okay, do you want... they're setting up?
No idea, I have no time so I don't... but I need...
How much coverage are we doing in that scene first?
Not anywhere near what we were going to.
What is the minimum? Wide and two punches?
I mean, there's... she falls off the rope, she walks over
she sits down.
Obviously, we're not gonna overdo it.
We have almost two and a half hours, like...
Well, we have to be done with that scene by...
- By when 'cause it... - 9:00.
We're not gonna get in there till 7:00.
This is new dialogue that I haven't like read out loud
so I need to practice it.
The two of you work well together.
Things generally happen fast.
You both are on the same page with direction.
I don't want to stress you too much.
I think we can do this.
This is hard, 'cause I don't want to rush that scene
Wait until we're done.
I don't want to get anything in the way of what's going on here.
I know all the drama that happened yesterday.
You guys did capture some of that, right?
Pumpkin pie day. It's a stressful day.
It's a big scene.
Anna has been getting from A to B in this movie
by having one voice in her ear, which has been Phil.
You want to talk about crank a little bit, or...
After the skin?
Lmprovise for me something about, um,
- The skin? - When she says the skin stuff
and... yeah, perfect, Phil.
She relies on Phil to help her come to a lot of the decisions
that she's coming to and it makes her feel confident
in the choices that she's making.
Phil's very much not able to be present that day for her
because it was a big day for him as an actor in the movie as well.
Phil's not a trained actor. He had a monologue.
Anna wrote a challenging little scene
that had a lot of moments in it.
There needed to be switches in it and changes in it.
And Phil wasn't nailing that monologue
the way that Anna was envisioning him doing that.
So I go to the store and I grab some canned pumpkins,
add them to the real pumpkins.
Only problem is I got to go back to the score...
I got to go... only problem is
I got to go back to the store for more canned...
And it became tense.
It became tense because she didn't have anybody else to talk to.
She didn't have anybody else to, like, figure it out with.
And, Phil, if when... at the end when you're looking at that pie
really... really stare at that pie and see where it is
in terms of baking process.
- You know what I mean? - Uh, no, I don't.
What's... what do you mean?
Which pie, the prototype three or prototype six?
You lose something from Phil as a performer
if he loses his comfortability.
He was not comfortable yesterday.
He didn't know what he was doing at certain points.
He got nervous with the direction that Anna was giving him.
Go back to the store for more canned pumpkins
'cause the goddamn real pumpkins are taking over flavor-wise.
Start scraping out the bowl again.
Like, get everything out of there as you talk.
Oh, sorry, but just keep going.
Uh, I'm sorry, where did you want me to do that?
Just keep scraping out the bowl as you talk.
- At the top of the scene? - Right now. So just continue the scene.
Meanwhile...
Who would Phil want to talk to
when he's struggling with something as an actor,
as a performer, when he's off camera?
When he's not with his director in a professional setting?
He wants to have a conversation about this.
I ran it with Victor yesterday a bunch of times and this was the sort of
what he said was like...
He's gonna turn to his more experienced older brother, Victor.
It created a conflict because it got personal.
Because the personal and the professional
then mixed in this.
I was like, you rehearsed it, and I feel Victor like pre-directed you.
On a personal level, that make Anna feel belittled
in front of her crew, and then it was just personally,
like, why the fuck are you talking to my husband for direction?
He's not your director. I am your director.
It just created this conflict.
Okay, can I talk to you now as an actor?
Sure.
I feel like Victor directed you a little bit
and now you're sticking with those decisions that you made
when you ran it with him.
Let's just play with it and just don't fight me on it, yeah?
Yeah, when I was telling you about Victor
it was not because Victor directed me.
It was the understanding of the reading,
the idea of what's happening in the scene.
Right, so when I say something like, "I think maybe
we should play it really relaxed," and you say, like,
"Well, this is what I'm trying to do"...
- Right. - I took that as resistance.
I'm just saying, let's make sure that we keep it open.
All right.
Okay, and action!
Morning.
I got the mix ratio right, Meesh.
Pretty much perfect.
I think the thing... Phil is such a sweet, nice guy
and so fun-loving that sometimes it's weird
to remember that he's also a younger actor
and you don't... it's hard to tell that he's not comfortable.
In addition to a director, actor,
and key creative collaborator relationship there,
there's also a brother/sister relationship.
Roll camera.
Right, 51 alpha, take two.
And action!
Playing Scott has been interesting
'cause I'm trying to play it a little differently than is written.
New York, everybody thinks it's so great.
Everybody thinks living there is, like, a dream.
It's not. It's horrible. It smells.
Hobos? Not as funny as they are on TV.
They pee on you.
If you give them not enough money, they pee on you.
Trying to throw in a little bit of my humor
and to make him a little cooler and a little more fun
and willing to go on the adventure with Tori.
For the purposes of what we were doing with this story,
Scott needed to be likeable, and relatable.
I'm failing literally every class. I'm failing yoga.
And look at me. I'm flexible as fuck.
The reason that all those large moments and that broad comedy
is going to work
is because Scott and Tori's relationship is very real.
This is the moment when we cue the CW soundtrack.
It builds... there.
I mean, really?
- I'm trying to have a moment. - It was a beautiful moment.
I really appreciate it. Thank you for that.
The essence of the scene was the reveal from Scott
to Tori that he's not the cool guy that he's pretending to be.
Behind that is actually a guy who's really unhappy.
I fucking hate college.
I hate it. I hate everything about it.
I hate the classes. I hate my professors.
They suck the fun out of everything.
That was really the first time for me that
I saw Shane turn it on and become the character of Scott.
Yeah, it took him some beats to figure out what he was doing,
but once he landed it, he really discovered
what Scott's objectives were, why Scott was back home.
That's how Shane found the balance.
I think the Scott role is requiring Shane
to bring a lot of his own self to it,
and it is getting better with each passing day.
If we had a million more dollars, would we reshoot
maybe some stuff in the beginning
because he was getting his groove more?
Sure, but, like, you always want that.
Well, don't forget my phone.
Oh, yeah. Can I jerk off to this picture later?
I'm really into crying and stuff.
- You're such an asshole. - I know.
All right, cut.
Why do you think he lets him talk so long without...
- Without interjecting? - Mm-hmm.
'Cause he's on a roll. He's telling him something.
What do you think he would say, like?
- I don't know what he would say. - "You're crazy!"
I just know that when somebody does a monologue in real life,
it's for two reasons.
It's because the other person is either not listening to them...
- Mm-hmm. - Or it's because they're just talking
too fast or too much that they won't let the other person interject.
Mm-hmm.
Anna is used to processing information in her inner circle.
And if you're not in that circle,
she kind of won't process what you're talking about.
- I'm just posing the question. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Monologue in the middle of your screenplay.
- I like monologues. - ♪ Monologue ♪
There was actually 130 pies, I believe,
that were brought in by the art department.
- That is a lot of pies. - There was a shed full of pies.
The shed literally behind this house
there is a shed full of pies.
- It was amazing. - A pie cottage.
It was pretty kind of amazing.
There's a pad on it. Mm-hmm.
A...
Not if we don't have it, but they probably have a tablecloth.
Hello.
I don't know, it seems like everything
is in such a degree of packing
that, like, a tablecloth is... is just seems...
it doesn't seem like in sync with the rest of the world.
That would be... make sense.
- It's just a visual thing. - I totally understand.
I don't want to crowd the visual space
with, um, packing and pies.
I just want pies in a dining room.
We have to ask the home owner
if they have a tablecloth 'cause Anna doesn't like
the packing pad on the table and all the pies are on the table.
It's crazy.
Because it's the one room that Phil hasn't moved out of yet.
It's her movie. That's what it is.
We're talking about pies.
And the fact that Anna's obsessive to the point
that putting pies in the right places is more important
- than shooting her film. Uh-oh.
The last two shots, it's been everyone saying,
"You have to stop now. You have to stop.
You have to stop obsessing."
Okay. I'm sorry.
No, don't be sorry.
These are the things that weigh on me.
As the... as a prepared production designer
in the art department, like, I-I felt that we were prepared
but didn't have enough time to set.
- Anna... - Yeah?
We need to have a little chat about, um, the pie...
- Situation. ...situation.
And what's going on with the laundry room?
The idea is to follow him up the stairs...
That's gonna be a huge job ...into the kitchen.
For art team that they didn't anticipate.
No one is ever going to know the geography of the space
like you know it.
Would you rather spend time establishing the physical space
of this house in continuity
or time on the performances of your actor
in one of the biggest scenes in the kitchen?
- Yeah, but, obviously... - If it was the most brutal
continuity cut in contemplation in this space,
very few people would notice.
Would notice, hmm.
It definitely seems like we waste too much time between takes sometimes.
It's like either you're gonna do another one
or don't do another one, but don't sit five minutes
talking about if you're gonna do another one.
No, I know.
One of the biggest things I think Anna will take away
from this process... is that she's gonna get in that room
and she's gonna see that she has five different versions,
one maybe slightly more beautiful of two seconds of screen time...
- Yeah. - ...and she'll have one
and two versions of big scenes that she really cares about.
- I agree. - It's like, oh.
So I'm really excited 'cause we got to film in American Eagle.
Like in an actual American Eagle store, which would have costed me
I don't know, $5 million in L.A.,
and here it costed me a handshake and, like, a handsy
from, like, one of the guys. I don't know.
And it was really fun to film there.
I mean, we got to film at a store. We got to throw clothes around.
I got to tell all the extras what to do.
Could you walk in between them?
- Walk in between? - The two that are coming.
And even violent. Just...
- Okay. ...push right between them.
- I can do that. - Cool.
Literally create a Black Friday experience.
Go through your racks, grab stuff.
Pull stuff, you know what I mean?
Like just energy, like 2,000%, okay?
The people without actions,
what do you think their response should be,
are they, do they think this is weird or do they...
I said you see it for like a second
and then go back to your own... this is... everybody's crazy.
Yeah, that's like nobody should just be doing nothing.
That's what I said. I was like, "You need"...
Even from the original script, I've always had a Black Friday scene.
I've always intended it to be a wild set of the extras in the background,
and we wanted to capture that like ravenous thing
that goes on in America.
But it wasn't as wild as Shane wanted it to be,
and I ended up liking it.
I thought it was a really nice choice
that there was ridiculous extras in the background going crazy.
Honey, you're like three sizes bigger than Janie...
at least.
- Cut! - Very nice.
I didn't get a chance to tell you last night.
I thought you were great in the gym scene.
- Really? - Yeah. You were like so...
you were like loose and you guys were having fun.
Thank you. I was really nervous about it 'cause I felt like I...
I thought you looked really comfortable. I really liked it.
That was like the one scene I was like,
"I haven't practiced this at all."
It felt really loose and just...
you two were really cute together in that scene.
- Yes. - It was really good.
Okay, cool, yeah, as soon as you bring them in here
we're going to do a blocking, so, thanks, bro.
After she says her line, "Quit stalking me," he says...
he's talking to you and then whips it out, shoots...
and then I'll fall, and we'll follow me to the ground.
And then we just need to get a clean close-up of him saying...
Okay, so we'll shoot?
We also got to work with a wrestler.
Does Anna have a wrestler in her movie? Maybe she should.
She needs to get on my level.
Is this guy stalking you?! Shit, my gun's stuck.
- Back to one, one... - We're still rolling.
I was actually really nervous about Kurt Angle,
because I didn't know if he was an actor or not.
And then I remembered that wrestling is fake.
He was really funny.
I literally just walked up to him and gave him a note
and then he did it.
And I've only ever been tased by real security guards.
So to get tased by a pro wrestler,
Olympian, gold-medalist security guard was pretty great.
Is this guy stalking you?!
Shot!
And cut.
That was it. Yeah! Yes!
Cool.
I think they liked it over there.
That's fantastic, guys. Thank you. I like it.
I think you're having too much fun, I love it.
No, I think it's good.
The original script is something I worked on for a few years.
And I did this rewrite for Shane,
and I have a vision for it, but I'm not the director,
so I have to sit there and bite my lip
because I know that it's not helpful for me
to me to go in there and say, "Oh, I think it should be this way."
That's not gonna help us make our days,
so there's no reason for me to do that.
I'm sitting there stewing sometimes, but it's fine.
Things don't get easier.
They're going to start to get a little bit more challenging this week.
We've got days with more company moves in them.
I just want you guys to be prepared for the fact that next week,
it's going to be back into like, party scenes, ten scenes in a day,
and it's going to be a different pace.
Even though we've been pretty good
about keeping to 12-hour days,
and people aren't being crazily overworked,
I am worried that people are going to get really sick.
People get exhausted, and people make bad decisions.
And the problem is that when things aren't going well,
the only solution is more time.
We're shooting some later call times
so the nights are going to be longer.
We've been making our days, but they've been like three pages,
three and a half pages.
There's a couple of days next week... we have a seven-page day.
And I don't know how that's ever gonna possibly get done.
We've got some locations that are a little bit tricky.
Heinz Field.
- We got it? - You got it?
We got it.
Yay!
Thank Joey, wherever Joe is. There he is.
Joey! Joey!
Directing movies is what I should be doing
and what I want to be doing.
I can handle the stress. I can make the decisions.
I can deal with people.
I can get everybody on the same page.
We have, like, big mountains to climb in the next two weeks.
For a first time director it's hard to know
like, how many versions of this do I actually need?
That is the difference between us making our days and not making our days.
There were a lot of days where I was like,
"I don't know how the fuck we're going to do this."
And I'm a little scared of next week.
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