Fast Track

Friday was a big day for me… I delivered my novel MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE to my editor (and learned they’ve moved the pub date up to November) and emerged from a marathon casting  session in London with the remainder of our actors.  The cast is finally locked…and not a moment too soon. I flew back to Berlin that night,  got back to my hotel room a little after midnight, and collapsed into  bed.

Yesterday I had my first free day in weeks and I spent it outside, sight-seeing with our two of our four leads, Erin Cahill and Andrew Walker, who arrived in Berlin on Friday afternoon (our other two leads, Alexia Barlier and Joseph Beattie, arrive on Monday).  We walked all over the city. I had a great time. It felt so nice to be out in the  sun for a change,  instead of locked in my hotel room, my office, or an airplane. For the first time in a very long  time I didn’t  have  to worry about meeting any deadlines, finding actors for roles, making production changes for the budget, locating the right race cars, and all the other problems I’ve had.   It was a genuine day off.

I went to bed 1:30 in the morning and didn’t wake up today until 11. I feel like a new man…which is good, because I am going to need the energy going into the next week. My days are jam-packed with meetings and rehearsals…and I’ve already got to start thinking about my outline for MONK #6.

But today, none of that is going to be on my mind. Today I am getting out of my hotel room and exploring the city.

We are getting down to the wire now on  FAST TRACK…the parking lot at the production office (an abandoned chocolate factory) is filling up with great cars for the races and the U.S. cast members arrive in Berlin tomorrow for a week of make-up and  hair tests, wardrobe fittings, driver training with our stunt team, and rehearsals with me and the director. The British, French and German cast come in on Monday and Tuesday (though we are flying our French actress to Stuttgart on Friday with our costumer designer for wardrobe fittings at Hugo Boss). And there are still some roles left open, so I am off to London this afternoon for a marathon of casting sessions on Friday…which is also when I will  deliver my fifth MONK novel to my editor.

Yesterday I met with a possible composer…a young man with an obvious love of American soundtrack composers like Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, and Mike Post. I liked his work and am eager to hear his samples for a possible FAST TRACK score and theme. We’re also talking to some music labels about getting some songs for the pilot. In fact, I may be meeting with an up-and-coming band today before my flight.

The weather in Berlin the last few days has been schizophrenic…beautiful and sunny in the morning, and then pouring rain in the afternoons and nights. I hope that changes when production starts on the 30th…which kicks off with the main unit portion of our action sequences.

The big presentation at the network in Munich went very well. My department heads all did a great job presenting their parts of the FAST TRACK world and the network loved what they saw. Now it’s up to us to deliver on what we’ve promised. Immediately after the meeting, my line producer Heiko Schmidt and I took an Air Berlin flight to Paris. We ended up not being seated together. I got stuck in a very cramped middle seat. I tried working on my MONK book on the flight but I couldn’t get comfortable and I couldn’t focus. The guys on either side of me were ogling the centerfolds in their German editions of Playboy. I still haven’t gotten used to the stewardesses handing out Playboys to the passengers. Everywhere you look its boobs and crotches.

Paris was another adventure. We arrived in the late evening. Our hotel was a dump (don’t believe the pictures you see on the web)…I’ve never stayed someplace where you get a bottle opener attached to your room key. But it was only one night and the hotel was around-the-corner from our casting agent…so we decided to live with it. We went out to dinner and my French got a work-out. I even chatted with the couple at the next table. Afterwards, Heiko and I did th

Tomorrow I am off to Munich with my line producer and department heads to make a big presentation to the network on the look, feel, and cast of FAST TRACK. I am really looking forward to showing them everything we have in mind so they will be as energized and enthusiastic as we are.  I’m also eager to get the network approval on our American actors so we can get them on planes to Germany next week. I will also be meeting with the network’s marketing, public relations, and merchandising people to talk about those aspects of the show as well. Then it’s off to Paris on a late afternoon flight to make a  casting session on Thursday for one of our remaining, principal roles…and then I go to London on Thursday night for a casting session on Friday…and then it’s back to Berlin for one, final casting session on Saturday for the remaining, supporting parts. We start shooting on May 30th.

I’ve been here for a week now and I am still exhausted. The problem with the long hours and all this jetting around is that I can’t seem to get my jet lag under control…so I’ve given up. I’ve accepted that I will be going to bed at 10 and waking up at 5. The nice thing is that I am getting a lot of writing done between 5 and 8 am on the MONK book…

Worldscreen has a short piece about FAST TRACK up 0n their site today, mostly cribbed from the studio press release.

I am back in Los Angeles for three days of casting on FAST TRACK…and to get my life in order before returning to Berlin again next week for most of the summer (shooting starts May 23). So, naturally, I am hammered by jet-lag. I went to bed last night at 9 and woke up at 3 this morning…though I am not worrying much about my odd hours. In fact, I can probably keep these hours until I leave without causing any real problems in my life and it gives me time to work on my next MONK book without much distraction. Plus I can keep in touch with the production team in Germany.

Being a TV geek, I am busily downloading shows from my Tivo onto my iPod to watch on my flight to Germany and in my free time there (did I tell you that I got my iPod back?). While I am away, I’m going to miss the finales of HEROES, BOSTON LEGAL, LAW & ORDER SVU and THE SOPRANOS…but they will be waiting for me at home when I return in August.

I’m not an expert in fashion or style, so I don’t always have the words to express how I see the look of the characters  in FAST TRACK. So over the Easter Weekend, I spent about 150 euros on magazines, bought some glue and construction paper, and started cutting out pictures with my daughter of fashions and styles I liked. Together we made up "style boards"  for each of the characters.  I also bought some architecture and automotive books and magazines to create style boards for the look of the cars and the "world."  It was  a lot of fun for us both and, when we were done, I must have had fifty boards.  I brought the boards into a day-long concept meeting with the director, line producer, production designer, and costumer designer. As it turns out, I must have done a pretty good job beforehand of explaining how I see the movie because the boards and examples they brought in closely matched what my daughter and I had come up with over the weekend. Even so, we filled the walls of  my office with their boards and mine and spent hours picking and choosing and refining the looks until we all agreed on what we were going for and what our color palette would be. We also watched clips of American and German films to refine what the style, lighting, and look of our film/pilot will be and that we want to convey to our director of photography…once we find him.

Tomorrow, I begin two days of casting for the German actors and then return to L.A. for three more days of casting to find our American actors. And then I have to quickly prepare and organize my life for living in Europe for the next three months more-or-less as I oversee pre-production, production and post-production of the movie.

It’s the Easter holiday here in Germany, so I finally had a day to sleep-in, relax, and get settled. Since the moment I stepped off the plane last week, I have been on-the-go non-stop, going from one meeting to another and, in some cases, one corner of Germany to another. Today is the first time I’ve actually felt "grounded," if you know what I mean. And best of all, my family is arriving tonight to join me for a week. I’m staying on Friedrichstrasse, sort of the Rodeo Drive of Berlin, and I if I lean just a bit this way and that, I can see Checkpoint Charlie and the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz from my balcony.

The pre-production experience for me on FAST TRACK has been exciting, familiar and in many ways, brand new. It’s my job as the writer & executive producer to relay my vision of the characters, the look, the sound, and the "feel" of the pilot (and subsequent series, if we are lucky) to all the people working on the show…from the production designer to the stunt drivers.  That’s always a challenge but it’s even harder here, where the culture,  language and ways of making TV shows are different. Not only that, our points-of-reference (other TV shows and movies, for instance) are different, too. It’s a new experience for all of us on the show, but I’m working with some incredibly bright and creative people. I think they are beginning to see the show the way I do. They are also enthusiastically embracing a different approach to film-making, a "hybrid" of the American & German producing methods that we’ve created (I’ll go into that another time…there’s probably enough material there for a book!). It’s very exciting for me and, from what I can feel talking to them and just walking down the halls of the production office, it is for them, too.

Yesterday I spent five hours with our German casting director, looking at dozens and dozens of showreels to pick the actors we’d like to come in next week for auditions. The clips on the reels are all in German, so I am having to judge the actors based on emotions, expression, body language, charisma etc. I have to judge  if they are conveying character  through every tool BUT language, since I can’t understand a word they are saying.  I have to guess the context & story of the scene and try to judge how good…or bad…a job the actors are doing (although the reels are all in German, the actors we are inviting in all speak English).  And, of course, their credits mean nothing to me, too….they are all German TV shows and movies. It was another new experience…one of many that I have each day, which is what makes this project so special for me.