John Ottman: Projects - Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)

Urban Legends: Final Cut
(2000)

On-Set Diary

We're supposed to start shooting late September (probably somewhere in Toronto - where else?) and have only just hired the casting director, Randi Hiller, and my line producer, Richard Rothschild, who has his work cut out for him getting everything set so fast. Hopefully we'll have an office to work out of soon!

Amanda Goodpaster, my music editor, will also be stepping up to be associate producer, as well as music editor down the road. I'm on the search for a great DP who can give the film an affected thriller-like style while at the same time working as fast as a gorilla film-maker. Knowing me I'll want to do a million shots under severe time restraints that allow less. I feel sorry for what ever editor I choose, as I will most-likely drive him/her batty. My hands are going to fling at those controls at some point! It's low budget, obviously, so the production designer will have to be inventive; we'll have to use mostly practical locations as opposed to sets.

So, we have a lot of people to get on board fast.

We're still refining the script, constantly trying to make sure the logic flows as much as possible. I can't give away details, but it's the kind of story where if you tug at one story point another comes toppling down. We're making it more of a mystery/thriller than a slasher. Hopefully we'll have a more final draft this week.

Well, nothing else eventful as of this writing. Just general stuff right now. Will try to update more as I am prodded by Dan Goldwasser.

A hilarious thing happened a couple weeks ago while location-scouting in Toronto. I had put my back out, so I was being pushed in a wheel chair through a dungeon-like tunnel underneath a place called Castle Loma. (My poor line producer, Richard Rothschild, had to push me around the whole time.) The tunnel has a curve in it. Suddenly around the bend comes walking Bryan (Singer) with his entourage scouting the same location! Bryan, being recently more cognicent of wheelchairs (given that Dr. Xavier of X-Men is crippled), looked at the chair right away, but it took him a moment to look up and see it was me! So there we were both looking at the same tunnel for our films. He was standing there with Lauren Schuler Donner, Tom DeSanto and about 6 other crew, facing my "huge" crew of Richard and a Toronto scout. That about sums up the sizes of our films next to each other.

Of course, I assured Bryan we were not using the upstairs portion of the castle (which he wants for Xavier's home), but the funny thing is that we may very well be filming simultaneously in the same location because I need the top of the castle for some interior stairwells, and he needs the downstairs. Too much irony.

I just hired a production designer, Mark Zuelzke, who is up in Toronto now trying to make our low-budget film look a little less than that by figuring out how to make many locations look like one. Mark has worked as an art director for top designers for years, and this will be his fun foray into the title of designer.

I've begun casting, which is exciting for a couple reasons: First, it's relieving to know the lines actually work and that the interaction of the characters will as well. So this is energizing. I also love working with actors, and it's been a long time since being able to interact - especially being a hermit composing and editing for the last few years. Second, there is, thank God, some really inciteful talent we've come across for the leads. The heroine of the film has to be somewhat Jodie Foster-ish and organically beautiful. The weight of the film is on her shoulders, and my fears of not finding a capable actress I think are alleviated after our last cast read-through. We have many more though. The male lead is also complex, and haven't found one yet. Because our budget is so low, we may not have any names, but new faces; which is ok with me.

I'm agonizing over DP's now (Director of Photography) who I have to hire very soon so that there is a meeting of the minds between me, the designer and him. I will be going back up to Toronto in a week or so, but have to make it back for the technical awards ceremony for the Emmys -- you know, those ceremonies that get a few seconds on the actual Emmy telecast. But my mother will kill me if I don't go and bring her along. (I'm getting enough flack about not being able to get her a role like she got in Apt Pupil!)

Belive it or not, we are still working on the script. The shooting script will be "complete" very near to shooting, (mid-October) which is always a hardship on the crew for preparation. So I am worried about that. I'm also worried about budget, because this is a far-more ambitious script than the original Urban Legend, yet with a million less. So, we'll see what kind of rabbit can be pulled out of the hat. What we need is greenbacks being pulled out of a wallet!!! The last UL had next to no sets and shot entirely on location. Our story dictates sets and soundstages, and we have to use exteriors for our school three hours out of the city, which costs a lot. So, I hope my next entry here is not about how the script has had a labotomy in light of these things. We already have to cut 20 pages. Ouch!

So, until next time, whenever that is, I'm sure a lot more will have transpired.

Well, what can I say, things get a little BUSY! After weeks and weeks of 17 hour days, we locked down most of our locations, hired all the crew and cast the film. Mainly new-comers for the cast. Jennifer Morrison is playing the lead, Amy, and Matt Davis is playing the roles of Travis and Trevor. Hart Bochner plays Professor Solomon. Joseph Lawrence (previously Joey) plays Graham. And Loretta Devine is back as the now quite disgruntled security officer Reese. She's now a security guard at Alpine University after being fired from Pendelton -- as no one believed her story then. And when things start going a little awry at Alpine, Reese's instinct is to stay far away from it, much to our heroine's dissapointment.

We deceided to not go the typical gothic university route, as it's getting tired. I wanted this film to have an entirely new look, so it will be staged at a modern university, which in it's own right offers a creepy feel with it's hard edges, rough cement walls and strange architecture. It's a very very tricky film to make because there are many interior locations, all which are supposed to be our university. But we only have enough shooting time and budget to use the exterior of the university only. All the interior scenes will be faked at multiple locations throughout Toronto and sets we have to build. You know, you have chacracters enter one extrior door and they enter an interior door three weeks later 200 miles away.

Our biggest drama lately (among many, believe me - which I will bite my tongue about) is when I was suddenly being plagued by acute back and leg pain. (Probably from all those years sitting on my ass as a composer/editor). It got so bad I had to fly back to LA for emergency back surgery this week. It was a 10mm disk displacement and some spinal "bone spurs." But miraculously, I am up and walking and flying back to Toronto tomorrow for shooting in a week! When I awoke from surgery I could not believe the freedom from the chronic pain I had gotten used to for so long.

When I left for LA this week, I left a crew suffering from bad colds anyway! We were doing a location scout at an amusement park in the pouring cold rain for 3 hours, and then we had to go back to the office for a meeting soaking wet. Everyone had the same hoarse voice for days. It was pretty funny.

We're doing costume fittings, make-up tests and cast read-throughs and rehearsals this week, and BAM -- we shoot our ever morphing script - which drives me MAD.

The funny thing is that despite the mayhem, politics and impossible situations, I don't remember ever laughing harder than at certain times on this film -- only because there are so many people with whom to interact (which I love and have missed out on as a composer.) I am a people person, as they say, and am finally unshackled to able to talk to them! I have also found it a rush to work with actors and actually get to shape and work with them BEFORE they end up on celluloid in the editing room. The adrenalin keeps the exhaustion in check - so far!

Next update? -- WHO KNOWS???!

Was up for 22 hours straight yesterday as we returned from a small town two hours north of Toronto called Peterborough. We filmed there for two weeks at a super unique university called Trent. It's a modern yet creepy place where we actually constructed a bell tower, which the story called for; yet the university didn't have.

Peterborough was hardly a stable environment in which to shoot. We had cold outdoor night shooting; and one night there was a freak snow storm, which will have to make sense in the storyline now! There was one death scene I ironically wanted to be in snow, but we were behind in time to deal with the fake snow (which can be an ordeal), so we went with fog. Because there is an established river by the university, I set it up that there is fog everynight. In my attempts to make this different from the first film, it never rains once in this story! It did pour cats and dogs one night, so we had to retreat and film a scene inside. THEN, as if that wasn't enough, our tower caught on fire when a light fell over from the wind inside. But we got it out in time as our key grip ran and climbed up the scaffolding with a fire extinguisher. Hero of the day.

Trying to make a mark on this film is proving quite a challenge. The first, somewhat less complicated Urban Legend 1 had a 55 day shoot. Our 45 day shoot is brutal to say the least. Stepping onto the set with my wish-list of shots and walking away with, well, less, is quite depressing. It has come down to gorilla tactics at times. However, I'm happy with a lot of the stuff. The actors are really helping me in my attempt to make some ludicrous moments in the story (as are a trademark in this genre), as believable as possible. They're a great and quite inciteful bunch. I feel just terrible in scenes where the lead, Jennifer Morrison, has to cry or scream hysterically. I end up leaping up and hugging her as it's hard to watch someone make themseves go through that take after take. It's all looking pretty nice. Naturally I'm terrified about the editing, which is the process it all boils down to.

We move to sound stages this week -- a more controlled environment. After having gone through a few weeks of shooting, I can't imagine having gone through it without having the back surgery, which I decided to do just before the shoot a month and a half ago. Two weeks before we were about to shoot, I suddenly had agonizing back pain which had been building through pre-production. I was in a wheelchair to preserve my back. Amazing: Flew to LA to have the operation, and was back in Toronto a week later, pain free and walking fine. I'll never take walking for granted again.

As we were filming on an airplane set the other day, I looked to my side and there was Bryan Singer standing there watching. Ironically he was filming on the lot across the street. I toured the gargantuan sets for X-Men which boggled my mind. Even their posh production offices made ours look like a third world country slum! Bastard :) I'm growing concerned that his schedule and mine are now on a collision course, meaning Fox may feel the completion of my film is too close for comfort in terms of my scoring X-Men, which will kill me. But I also can't slight the film I've invested so much of my life into the last few months. Time will tell. Always hoping for that X-Men disaster where they might have to push a couple weeks!

Well, the head of the studio and the bond company arrive this week to observe the shooting of UL2. So set stress will be at a level 10 or so. Yikes. I hope no pink slips go out.

Until next time ...

Wrapping up the Shooting

Well, all I can say is we made it through alive. Some of the shooting was, well, precarious at best. One location was in an amusement park ride that we converted from a log ride to a "Miner's Ride." I this large cave we built track up an inclined conveyor belt, which normally would pull up the logs; but in our ride, heavy mining cars were to look as if they are going up the incline on the track we laid for them. Our technical system for pulling up the miner's car was a cable attached from the front of the car to a truck parked way out in the parking lot. When we wanted the car to pull Jennifer up the ride's incline, a driver far out there would step on the gas! Hilarious. (I don't think Jennifer knew that's how she was being pulled up:) Anyway, this large cave was at this 45 degree incline with crew members stumbling over each other as we filmed all night for five nights in 25 degree temperatures. Crew members were setting lights and leaning there bodies out over long drop-off areas within the ride, as I cringed fully expecting some horrible injury. Miraculously we all emerged without a scratch.

I flew back to Los Angeles a few days ago after wrapping up the shoot. It's time to hit the gym again and try to look human. In one way the shoot felt like a year, but in another it seemed oddly short (which it was), especially when we filmed our very last shot of the film in the tower set at 3AM (I think take number four) with Jennifer screaming in a panicked frenzy and with so much energy after being up for 15 hours. She's amazing. So I asked the camera crew if the shot was ok technically, as is the question I asked hundreds of times, only to realize that this was the last time I was going to ask it. Everyone kind of looked at each other and realized, "Shit, we're, uh, done." Then came all the hugs and we retreated to a secret compartment in the camera truck called The Viper Room where the beers were, and said our goodbyes.

Farewell X-Men

The only cloud over the wrap-up experience was the simultaneous behind-the-scenes pleas from Bryan (Singer) and me to the studio to let me go for a few weeks to score X-Men under a deal we proposed. But to no avail. They understandably wanted to keep all their options open despite a fall release of UL2, and I officially had to say no to X-Men. With X-Men's accelerated date of June 30, there was nothing more we could creatively propose. This was a hard blow for me, as I had so many ideas brewing throughout the months for X-Men musically, and I knew that for once, this gargantuan score I was going to write would actually be heard by many. All those years of putting my heart and soul in to scores for films that tanked would have paid off. Bryan and I commisserated on the 24th, and I told him I'll need therapy everytime I see an ad for the X-Men. NO ONE can even mention it around me or I might start talking to myself with strange stutters.

Yes, I'm elated to start directing, but nothing will ever out-do the fullfillment I feel accomplishing a musical score. It's so much more personal and it's like giving birth in a way. It would also have ensured my being in the forefront musically so I could be more choosy in my scoring projects between directing. I'll have to make sure I choose my directing assignments well to make sure I'm satisfied all the way around!

Next...

So the next phase is for me to drive my editor to drink as we put the film together. We'll have some dreaded test screenings in a couple months. It's going to be weird being on the directing end of those. I get nervous enough at those things just being the composer, let alone the director as well. Somehow I will also be recording the score with the Seattle Symphony (as usual) sometime in late March or early April (barring any disasters beforehand.)

I think UL2 is a great buzz word to promote the film -- like H20, T-2, ID4. But everyone is not on the same page with this. I believe it to be a great idea. The title "The Final Cut" kind of concerns me. It's a play on someone being slashed as well as a final film editorial cut; but do the masses of audience members know this? Will it instead be interpreted as a hokey slasher film? It's a hard thing to title other than just Urban Legend 2: and some title. We'll see.

Temping and Viewing

After having been involved in the editing for last few weeks, I'm now feverishly temping the film with soundtrack music so Mike Medavoy can view the film in my office off the editing console. (I hate people seeing the film that way, but that's the way it is.) Because my time has been taken up getting the film in shape for viewing, I've had to resort to temping with film scores, rather than write an original mockup. The better the temp I create the more of an enemy to myself I will be when it comes to writing the score! A lot of the stuff is working great too. I must have digitized cues from 20 scores. Not surprisingly, the older scores (pre-mid-80s) dominate the track. I even discovered intriguing/creepy moments on small cues from unlikely films. From the film Midway of all things, I used a strange piano/flute motif reminiscent of the "Fortress of Solitude" cue in Superman (same composer). I then over lapped that on top of the creepy flute motif from Alien to create this weird textural feel in the film. How I am going to top that when I actually write the score I don't know!

The film, as it stands now, is 1 hour and 37 minutes cut down from a 122 page script. I think the ultimate running time will be about 1 hour and 35 minutes, which I think is perfect. I might be violating an Ottman rule of having an opening title sequence. It kills me because I like to set the tone and set up the musical motifs early on via a title sequence, but in terms of the unconventional design to the film's opening, it might serve the flow better to put it at the end. This will be new for me. When the film ends and that "directed by" title does up AFTER they have seen the film, I better hope like hell they liked it. Yikes.

I hope on the DVD I can put some cut scenes in a separate area to talk about. I really liked one of the scenes I cut out, but in the rhythm of the film, it slowed things. It would be nice for it to exist in posterity. It was a short and simple love scene that looked really pretty :)

I think a couple of the deaths in the film are feeling really classic and not gratuitous, and I think therefore more riveting because of the worse tricks your imagination can play if you don't actually see the whole thing. Just as you HEAR the stabs in the Psycho shower scene, I've attempted the same concept here, which is far more brutal for any audience, and is why films like The Sixth Sense (among other reasons) resonated so well in the creep factor. As a thriller, I want the film to have a tense feel. Alien is sort of my mentor, as it was the only film that really scared me. All of my interpretations of WHY that film felt so scary I am trying to apply in as many ways as practical in UL2. Gee - quiet moments in a modern film of this genre? YEAH - maybe so! I hope I can prove how much MORE intense the quiet can be. But, who knows. I'm sure die-hard Alien fans will be able to analyze UL2 and pick out isms. Even the characters of Dirk and Stan can be seen as my versions of Yaphet Koto and Harry Dean Stanton!

Not confirmed, but it looks as though I may be going to Munich to record the score. I can get a larger group for the buck there. Should be interesting.

Back to the temping. Test screening comes up in March. (Definite Valium evening.) You can find this thing from a test screening called the Stupid Bomb. After the test, you then plant it in your film and light the fuse. After the explosion, your film is "dumbed down." Then you test again hoping for "better" scores. I hope we don't have to light that fuse. Film-making: What an art!

Ok ok, I should have had a lot more updates before now. Been just a TAD busy. There are so many behind-the-scenes creative and political tidbits to comment on in the making of a film, but most of them can't really be talked about until far after the release. Some can't be talked about until one's retirement! So I'm struggling a bit about what I can say that's half-way interesting. Hope this isn't too boring. Anyway, we're now in our final dubbing phase after having an excellent test screening (WHEW). (You know how God-awfully important those things are! Eh hem.) The film will be complete in a few weeks and still released mid-September to mirror the release pattern for UL1.

A major hump for me to get over was the recording of the score in Munich. From day one of the production I knew that stepping onto the scoring stage would be a milestone. Ever since getting back from Munich I'm sleeping a lot better and elated to see that there is LIGHT at the end of this yearlong journey. It was one of the most difficult scores to write purely from a practical sense. As director I would be yanked from place to place looping actors, approving effects shots, and having creative, uh, "meetings". (Ok ok, some were battles.) As editor I was always making tweaks. Yet as composer, I was supposed to be sitting my ass in front of a keyboard writing the score! Then, just as I was making ground, we decided to add a new scene to the film. We went into pre-production, location scouting, script-writing, eh, "meetings", and filming. I got the scene edited together and approved a mere 3 days before leaving to record the score. And now I had even ANOTHER scene to score. But miraculously it all got done in the nick of time. My biggest fear was that the sheet music for the orchestra would not get there when we did. One day late would be as good as never. We had only 31 hours to record 70 minutes of complicated music. So my second biggest fear would be that we wouldn't finish on time. I reintroduced myself to Ativan for a couple days.

As we sat in the plane in LAX for a prolonged time, the captain got on the loudspeaker to announce that the cargo had to be unloaded and loaded again. I broke out in a sweat and immediately felt that our three boxes of sheet music would somehow not be on the plane. I worried the whole way there. When we got to Munich it was no surprise to me that the boxes were MISSING. We were recording the NEXT morning. After some hours we tracked down two of the three boxes. None had left LAX. One just had back-up tapes, but two were essential to the score. They couldn't tell us WHICH two they had found in LAX. The boxes apparently never left LAX, and, thank goodness, ended up one by one (each on staggered flights!) in Munich at 4AM. We also had some other music coming via DHL during the course of our recording; so each afternoon was a nail-biter that something would arrive in time for the next day's session. Sometimes composers have package deals where they pay for the scoring. That's what I had for this one. We had one-half the scoring budget as UL1 I. Packages. UGH. NEVER again. As I sat there in the Munich airport I thought, "My God, if I can't record this score because of some fluke like lost music, I am totally liable. I won't be able to deliver a score." This freaked me out. But we had to go check out the studio nevertheless.

Not ever having gone to record in Munich (or Europe period) we had all joked that we'd probably show up and be recording in a barn or something. So, fresh from the airport, droopy-eyed and anxiety-ridden about missing music, we arrived at the address --- And facing us was what looked like a large old stable barn! How was I just not surprised? The contractor (Paul Talkington) cheerily greeted us. I was bit relieved when we entered the building to find a recording studio that looked like it would work! It was a little smaller than Sony's scoring stage and a little bigger than a stage I used for Halloween H20 in LA called Oh Henry. The walls were a ghastly blue and the booth wreaked of cigarettes. (You know those Europeans!) I had flashbacks of the smoky upholstery from my mom's Ford LTD when I was a kid.

Over-all we got a good result, although I wish I had more time to spend finessing some cues. But with our insanely short schedule, we had to move on to the next cue when one was acceptable. Damon (conductor) was hilarious at times on the podium sweating it out dealing with language barriers and this totally new scoring environment. He also had to deal with me talking deliriously from the control room sounding as if I had had a stroke because I never got used to the 9-hour time difference. On our first day I looked around behind me at Amanda (music editor) and there was this precious site of a blank stare with drool practically coming out the side of her mouth. She looked like I felt! Even more crazy, when we flew back to LAX we went straight to the valley (about a 45 minutes drive) to, believe it or not, ANOTHER recording session. We had to record choir so we could begin mixing the next day. We were not a pretty sight. I flew my recording engineer back to LA to mix the score, and he went through the same catatonic state in LA that we'd gone through in Germany.

Well, I'm sure I left out a lot of stuff, but that's it for now I guess. We couldn't afford a music mixer for our final dub, so I'm right down at the mixboard mixing the score at my own little station. It's hard to keep perspective having the music mixer hat on and also trying to assess all the other sound nuances to the mix. So I'm as schitzo as ever!

It's been a wild ride. I've been trying to read a lot of scripts and feel bad telling my agents "no" on them, but when you devote your entire life to a yearlong endeavor, it better A) be a hell of a great story, or B) change the world in magical ways!

Until then .... unemployment, here I come.

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