Haynes takes Route 66′

Quick Links > I’m Not There > Todd Haynes > Cate Blanchett > Marcus Carl Franklin > Christian Bale > Richard Gere > Heath Ledger > Ben Whishaw

The connection between music and filmmaking stems all the way back to his debut in Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story and later on reflected with Velvet Goldmine – for Todd Haynes film and music are the creative outlets and the soundtrack of his life. The Bob Dylan-inspired I’m Not There – a Montreal (and outskirts of Montreal) based production is in its last week of production and since the moment I found out that they were filming in my backyard, I was hoping to somehow get a peak of the production. Despite my promise to wash dishes for a month, access to the set as confirmed by the unit publicist was not possible. Obviously the heavily guarded storyline and the symbiosis of the 6 characters in Bob Dylan persona means that, you ain’t part of the production – you ain’t welcomed.

So the day before Sunday (my calculations means Saturday), I got an enthusiastic call from a friend exclaiming that they were setting up shop for an exterior day shoot, the following day.

Sunday morning: I find myself at the location around 10-ish thinking that the lack of people meant that they already wrapped up and they have gone elsewhere, so I snapped a couple of souvenir pics and then who do I bump into? Todd! He was checking out the parameters and perhaps going over the entire look of the front walls, so I asked if I could take a picture of him with the backdrop of the set behind him (see crappy pic below) and while in the process I threw some general questions at him – how the production went? and how he liked working in the city (this is his first non-US production) and I also asked if he managed to catch the Raconteurs the night before (Jack White of the White Stripes is among some of the talent to be participating in the film’s score). The answers were great, great and no.

He could have told me to f**k off (if that were my set I’d be stressed out) but of course he was accessible and the extremely friendly and gave me a moment of his time (I also meet him for a couple of seconds at the beginning of the year at Sundance and had that same impression). I snapped my pic, wished him good luck and told him I’d see him in Cannes – (unless he spends crazy amounts of time in post prod – I imagine it should be prepped for May of next year and I hope to be there to cover the fest for ioncinema). I respectfully didn’t take other pictures (though I wanted to for the sake of this piece – it’s a big no-no and I would have had my head bitten off from a team of folks). So if I can’t offer a pictorial description, I’ll offer you a visual account of what I saw. Sorry no spoilers here – nor scoops but an appreciation for a filmmaker filming one small portion of perhaps his most ambitious project yet – the shear complexity of creating several personas under the Dylan guise shifting from one character to the next, it should be interesting to see how this all pans out on film.

Yesterday’s exterior day shoot was on the bottom of a hill portion of one of Montreal’s longest and oldest boulevards called St. Laurent Street (between Ontario st. and De Maisonneuve). A normally washed out area of Montreal was transformed into a NYC façade – dated back to 1966 (the back of the NYC license plates a one of those political poster confirm the year). If I had to put money on it, the setting looks to be a Greenwich village type of space – the coffee shop, beatnik present bohemian-feel serves this notion.

I was excited to see the production crew start laying out a long railed platform – I estimate the shot to be a 15 yard, 25 second shot that commences at one end of the street to end at the neatly constructed sign that reads “Café Jolie” – the word Jolie in French translates to ‘pretty’ and the purpose of the location came across as a strip joint of sorts. After the tracks were laid out, there was a half a yellow busload of extras for the scene, none of the amazing cast of players that are attached to this film were present, – my guess is that the long tracking shot (perhaps 30 meters long), serves to have the camera’s POV serve as the character’s eye-line. Among the extras were: a man in a newspaper garb serving as a spectacle for a family of four and one of those old Kodak moments with them huge bulb flash pics, a young fashionable couple smoking some cigarettes and admiring each other’s company with the girl wearing a beret, several women ranging in age, and perhaps a hippie who looked like Jack Black’s Nacho Libre in full costumed tights. Long turtle necks and tweed women’s fashion complete the costume design. Soon after, a line up of antic cars made there way onto the location. While the sidewalk had plenty of activity, part of the moving props were a orange-colored Chevy pickup, a couple of staple NYC scenery yellow taxis and a Studebaker circa 1960-something. I don’t believe that the frame included these cars, but they were only in the shot to insure that the possible reflection of the store front windows offer the extra detail.

I was keenly observing how the information was relayed between the different depts. The drizzly afternoon meant that everyone was in rain gear, I’m not sure if Edward Lachman (A Prairie Home Companion, Far from Heaven) was behind the tracking shot lense – but common sense says yes. In all, the shooting was not a complex one but it asked that everyone in the background hit their marks – Haynes appears to be a hands on kind of filmmaker and would offer suggestions on postures and positioning for some of the key extras in the shot. With everything matched in terms of essential 60’s garb, they did a test run, and perhaps 10 takes in all before they broke for lunch and then I decided to continue on with my day.

From my observation gallery, what I found interesting (I’m not sure if this is standard procedure) is when they yelled the word “action”, there was a portion of a Dylan song being blasted from some sound system in sync with what was being filmed. In true Dylan form, what I heard was indecipherable – the only lyrics I could make out were “Memphis” and “blues” (google spits out this title Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again) which makes complete sense since it was released in the magical year of 66’. To my delight while the tracking shots were being filmed there was also a young lady who was totally independent from the main shot who with an beeline-like approach was responsible for shooting ECU-style of the extras. At first I thought nothing of it but once I ntocied what she had in her hand I can only say I was surprised to say the least. She was holdin what appears to be a 16mm camera?! So perhaps we can expect a mélange of film stock – it thus provides more descriptive details to the era that this particular 66′ narrative might explore. So that is what I did just yesterday, and today I should be getting back to (and staying within theme) with producer/ Killer Films CEO Christine Vachon’s newest book: Killer Life: How an Independent Film Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond. Two chapters in and I’m hooked!