So, it all started about 3 weeks ago. I met with the two producers on the film, and we hit it off famously. I could tell in our first meeting that our vision for the piece was nicely lined up, and the thematic story arc would be a fun one to execute. But then, the challenges. See, I wasn’t the first director on the project. They had started the project with another director whom they had to fire. So I was coming in to a piece which was partially shot. And some of the footage couldn’t be reshot. (location and actor issues) Combine that with the fact that all the actors were already cast, and many of them were already established in the footage that couldn’t be reshot.

That’s right – I was walking in to a situation with a group of actors already cast for me, and having to match footage close enough that the former directors footage could seamlessly integrate with what I was shooting. uhhh…ok. No problem. Sure. Easy. Done.

First I met with the Director of Photography. Now, while I have my DPs that I work with and like, this DP was on the first part of the shoot, so working with him was going to be critical to make all of the footage go together. After all, he knew exactly what the last director had used from lights to lenses, and it was his handheld work that was going to have to match up. As we sat down to coffee and started talking, a wave of relief flowed over me. This guy was good. I immediately knew he was on top of his game, knew his equipment, and yet was fairly laid back (an unusual and much sought after quality in a DP)

Next up…actors. As everyone knows, a big part of directing is getting the right actors who can actually do the roles. Now, the fortunate thing is that the actors were actually fantastically talented. As I scheduled the rehearsals for each scene, I relaxed more and more. These guys were good, and able to give me what I wanted. The jokes popped, and none of them were afraid to attack the physicality I wanted to add in to make the scenes work even better. Another sigh of relief.

Now the actual shooting. Our small crew gelled quickly, and we were able to move through the scenes at a nice pace. Shooting outdoors in LA can be tricky, but the days were semi-cloudy creating a great lighting situation, without having to throw up silks. A couple bounce boards, and we were good to go. The sound…well, we had to stop gardeners, cut shots for fire engines, and wait out a tow truck in one of the locations. But that’s the nature of shooting here.

The most stressful part was the morning of the second day. We had a firm time for taillights out of our second location, which meant we had a limited period of time in our first location also in order to make our day. We all arrived at the first location ready to be up and shooting in 20 minutes, only to find it locked. WHAT? About a half hour later, someone finally arrived to unlock it – and then spent the next 1/2 hour meticulously going through the location cleaning it before we could shoot. We stood around, helpless and frustrated. Everyone got all the gear ready, and the minute we were able to, we had camera up and rolling. Did we make it? Well, we weren’t QUITE taillights out of our second location at the allotted time, but we were very close.

So now, the editor has all the footage, and I’m waiting on the editor’s cut – which I’ve been promised by end of this week. Time to see how everything comes together in a charming piece which I know everyone who worked on it is going to be proud of. Well, I think. Ok, I hope. All right – let’s just go with fingers crossed for the moment

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I had wonderful nights hanging out with new friends from the UK, Southern Germany, Munich, and Ireland. I had incredible turkish food, saw inventive burlesque, learned how to properly drink feigling (complete with cap on the nose),

a couple of my new German friends introduced us to Feigling. It's a fig vodka that fizzes.

But, truth be told, I always find Berlin cold. The people, not the weather. You’ll notice that none of the new friends are from Berlin. Berliners could use a couple of pointers on being friendly. The use of the words “please” or “excuse me” wouldn’t hurt, either (strangely, “thank you” is in full effect)

And while there are a couple parts of Berlin which are striking, the majority of Berlin was built after the war, and looks like any other major city which has no character. when listening to people talk about it, the same story feels like it is on repeat: “there was something really great right here, then it was completely bombed out, so this lifeless building was erected in its place. But trust me, before, it was pretty cool.”

and then there are strange clubs like this, which seem to be dropped in from Miami Beach circa 1986

Therefore, I declare it here. Next time I come back to Berlinale, I will take a few days, and go somewhere outside of Berlin to discover what it is that people love about this country.

It is, to put it lightly, exhausting. You schedule as many meetings as you can before you get there, and then spend all of your time which is not already scheduled in meetings meeting more people to take more meetings with. And most of these people are nowhere near as interesting as books. Especially the aforementioned books which seem to be about orchards.

Now, the good thing is, you can knock out the number of meetings which would, in LA, take about 6 months to get through, in a week. Simply because everyone is here, focused, and, well, taking meetings. So you meet financiers, distributors, sales agents, territory buyers, etc from the time your feet hit the market floor in the morning until you leave at night. Meetings generally take an hour at least, and as you sit talking to who you are in the meeting with, invariably people you know will walk by and stop to say hello. You introduce them to the person you are meeting with, everyone trades cards, and BAM there’s another meeting to be set. But don’t worry, because five minutes later, someone the person you’re meeting with knows will walk by, and the favor will be returned.

Berlin is currently bitter, bitter cold. Getting to Potsdamer Platz is less than a quarter mile away from where we are staying, but we still mostly grab taxis as the idea of walking even that short distance seems foolhardy in the cold and wind.

So far, I have seen exactly zero movies this trip. And that sucks. One of the best parts of being at a festival is the opportunity to see films that may not come out for a couple of years…or may never get released at all. Unfortunately, taking the two hours to watch one is a luxury which is unavailable during the first half of the festival and market when all of the buyers are in town. I’ll try to grab a couple during the second half, when the crowds thin out a bit.

So for now, I’m reveling in the few minutes of quiet while I catch up on some other business before diving back in. Reveling and relaxing with a bite of something to eat (the Turkish food in Germany is amazing) and a beer (it’s Germany for heaven’s sake!) PROST!!!

I have a strange relationship with travel and work. I’ve traveled the entire world for work. In my early twenties, I got my passport stamped from most of the countries that people have on their wish list. I met people all over the globe based on these travels. I feel lucky to have had that experience, and yet, most of the countries I’ve been to for work, I have seen very little of. I would fly in, perform for 1-3 nights, and fly out (or train out to the next gig) immediately.

So now, as I travel for work, I refuse to travel in that same way. I insist on taking a day or two to experience the city as I want to, or visit another place. I have, for the past couple of years, refused to waste the travel opportunity anymore.

Los Angeles as an entity encourages myopia, and this is one of the ways that I fight against it. Be it taking a couple days to raft down the Amazon when scouting Sao Paulo, or taking a couple days in Bath after doing meetings in London.

So, as I sign off for Germany (and Spain on the way back), I look at the upcoming 18 hour days of work with a joyous anticipation of the couple of days after them where I get to calm into a couple cities I love.

But then you have to think about the nature of bleach, and how it works. It literally makes proteins disassociate. This is no small feat, as the alpha helices and folded chains are some of the most difficult to separate. And yet, they are made to fall apart under the power of bleach.

Lately, I’ve been cleaning with bleach. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a cleaner that was completely bleach based. This isn’t something I normally do. The smell gives me mixed feelings about the idea of clean and destruction. Yet, I scrubbed the house down with it. The sink kept getting dirty, and I kept spraying it down. I used it directly on the bathroom floor instead of mopping. In dusting the shelves, I kept spraying it onto paper towels, and wiping down my environment with this instead of using normal dusting spray.

Last weekend, before I had a small dinner party, the entire house had been wiped down with it.

Yesterday, I walked in to my place, and it no longer smelled like bleach. It smelled like my perfume, my new sachets, and books. It smelled like me. And I was, finally, for the first time in nearly a year, comfortable.

And I realized what I had been doing. Cleaning had become a manifestation of my mental state. I had been trying to break apart a strand I had become caught in. The beta sheets and looped chains I found myself caught in needed to be broken. Bleach had become my way of trying to release myself from the horrific restrictive chains before I could say the words.

But now, looking around, surrounded by the familiar smells of comfort, I start to distinguish. I see the individual building blocks which I am looking forward to stringing back together in a manner that no longer needs to be broken apart. And I smile. And that smile is a happier one than I have had in the past year.

However, I’m really glad I have an unusual name. Seriously. Both my first and last names are unusual…not so much so that people think I’m the child of a self involved Hollywood star that has no concern for the mockery of their child, but enough so that when people hear or see my name….no matter how long it’s been, they know it’s me.

Case in point. I keep this blog. I recently got a comment from someone I haven’t seen since I was in college. In high school, we were good friends. His house was the first I had ever seen a Mork style egg chair in. He introduced me to a ton of music. We went to the beach…a lot. His was the first family I ever saw have a vacation itinerary written up for travel. I think of it now every time I travel, and make no plans…

He was a couple grades above me, and left for college. We kept in touch, but the last time we saw each other was one day when I was driving with some friends down the Haight in SF, and he was wandering down the street. I was looking out the passenger window, and yelled “STOP!!!”

Jumping out, I ran up to him, and we gave each other huge hugs. Talked for a couple of minutes, but I had to jump back in the car as we were headed to a theater performance.

And we haven’t talked since. Not for any reason except losing touch. Life. You know.

And then, a month ago…he saw my name on a film I did. And looked me up. And apparently found this blog.

My heart warmed. And it was because of my name.

So, I guess I need to learn to connect to my name. Not because of what it has meant, but because of what it means now. There’s a calculator online that will tell you how many people in the world have your name combination. For my first and last name, the answer was 1. In the world, just me. The only one.

So if you want to find me, I guess all you have to do is look. It’s only me out here.

And Mike…I’m so glad you got in touch.

The landline rang and I groggily raised my head. Knowing the voice mail would pick up, I tried to stay awake enough to hear what was so important as to wake me up this early in the morning. The caller hung up before leaving a message. A few seconds later, a cell phone rang. Not mine because it was turned off. The Bald Man was crashing at my place for a few weeks before he moved back to Houston, and it was his distinctive ring that was going off in the other room. A few seconds later, the banging on my door began. “D, D, get up. Now.” The door flew open. “We’re being bombed!” All of a sudden I was wide awake. The Bald Man threw me the phone, where Mr. Gazpacho was calling from Spain. “Dude, turn on your tv, call me back later.” I flew out of bed, and the Bald Man and I began to watch the horrific footage.

We sat mostly in stunned silence, as the scene continued to unfold. We talked little, but most of the conversation revolved around being in the center of what, very likely, could be another target. We tried to call everyone we knew was in NY, and those that were traveling, but we weren’t sure where exactly they were. We got through to only a few. My neighbor’s cell phone began to ring, waking him up. He knocked on the door, asking to come in and watch, as he didn’t have a television at the time. We all three sat in silence. I watched the television, and I watched as the two transplanted New Yorkers in my living room watched their home city be under attack.

It was the second day of a 5 day voice-over job. I called the studio, to confirm that production was shut down for the day. The producer giggled nervously. “Did you know anyone in there?” “I…I don’t think so” – it would be almost 24 hours before I learned that I was wrong. The director was from a war torn country in South America. Terrorism was commonplace to him. The voice session was still on.

I drove to the valley, not able to stop my eyes from constantly darting up to the sky. The calls were starting to pour in from everyone in town. Was everyone ok? Were we all meeting up somewhere? The Sound Engineer was out in Calabasas, and wanted me to come out there to be away from the middle of the city, but my job called. I walked into the voice studio, and turned off my phone, realizing that in doing that, I was cutting off my lifeline to hear what was happening not only in New York, but everywhere else in the country.

The project was “The Color of War” The copy I was doing v.o. for was to go along with some of the first color and colorized footage of a war retrospective. The copy consisted only of letters. Letter written from wives to husbands telling of their fears. From daughters to fathers, telling how much they missed them. From mothers to sons; old friends to old friends. And I wept. Sixteen different letters and nine accents later I was wrapped for the day. My heart was broken, as were the capillaries in my eyes from crying. The emotion in my voice was real as I read letter after letter bemoaning the tragedy of war, and the terror that comes along with it.

I walked out of the studio, and knew I wasn’t ready to go home. I needed to be anonymous in my grief that was so mixed up between what had happened that morning, and what has always happened. I walked across the street and into a small english pub and sat without taking my sunglasses off. There were four screens on. Three of them were tuned to the footage and commentary. One was still tuned to a replay of a soccer match. The englishmen at the bar started going seamlessly between watching the constant coverage, and watching a game. It was the first inkling I had that things might eventually go back to feeling normal.