The Man Who Heard Voices by Michael Bamberger

Author:Michael Bamberger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2006-11-21T04:30:00+00:00

One day during preproduction, Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov came in for the day to see what their $68 million (the final budget) was buying. Night made certain to keep them away from Doyle, just in case the DP felt moved to pay them one of his patented compliments. Night, still getting to know the two executives, was being uncharacteristically cautious. There was one shot in the storyboards that was purely a Chris Doyle invention, involving the character Reggie, the guy who worked out only one half of his body, assuming an outrageous pose as he stares down a vicious scrunt. It was a comic moment in a scary scene. The possibility that Horn or Robinov would focus on that one shot among the hundreds in the movie seemed remote, but Night’s worry was real, so he had the shot omitted from the storyboard wall on the day of their visit.

In their relationship, Robinov was typically the creative executive and Horn the analyst, the businessman. But during the visit, Night could tell for the first time what was happening internally at Warner Bros. Robinov was allowing Horn to have creative responsibility on Night’s first movie for the studio. Night thought that took a lot of confidence, to allow your boss to do your job for you. He could not imagine Nina and Dick Cook having any similar kind of arrangement. It also underscored how Night had found his way to Warner Bros.—because Alan Horn called him that day in Paris after The Village had opened.

Night was more nervous than usual as he took Robinov and Horn and other Warner Bros. executives around the set, a construction site, really. When Night showed the group, about eight in all, the mechanical scrunt in action, he watched Alan Horn’s eyes closely. Night saw fear. As Horn was leaving, he said to Night, “You wowed us.” Night was relieved.

Yet he felt a certain emptiness. Originally, they were going to come for two days, with a visit to the farm on the first day. Night wanted them to see how he lived and worked. He felt that the better they knew him, the better the job they could do with his movie. But the two-day visit turned into a visit that lasted part of one day. They had other things going on in their lives. The tormenting picture of Nina Jacobson and Co. returned to his head, and Night wondered why Robinov had ceded (it seemed to Night) the creative onus to Horn. Was it because Horn and Night had a special bond? Or did Robinov, like Nina, have doubts about the script, too? Night knew these questions were only in his head, but that brought him no comfort.

Night was an odd sort of obsessive compulsive. He didn’t expect every day to go well, or even close to well. He would have been perfectly fine with getting, say, 89 percent of the tonal decisions right, even if it was a full point shy of his stated goal.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.