Film and Television

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.

Sorry I’ve been absent lately — I have been overwhelmed with preproduction work on FAST TRACK and jetting around Germany and haven’t had time for  blog posts. I’m still wrestling with jet-lag and  in my stupor managed to lose my beloved video iPod on a flight between Cologne and Berlin. I’m sure there’s a airplane janitor out there enjoying episodes of ROME, HEROES, MONK, and a hundred main title sequences….

My family is joining me here on Friday and I’m looking forward to some time off over the Easter Weekend…

I am off to Berlin again today for more pre-production work on FAST TRACK…and will be returning to L.A. in mid-April. Hopefully, by the end of this trip, I will be able to tell you who the newcomers will be who are starring in the pilot.

Greetings from Berlin…

Here’s the latest scoop from the production of FAST TRACK, the two-hour movie/series pilot that I wrote and am exec producing for ProSiebenSat1 and Action Concept.

I spent the day in meetings with our director, the line producer, the second unit director, stunt coordinator and the driving supervisor discussing how we are going  to do the races and chases in FAST TRACK. 

These are the professionals who have  been doing  the hit  German series ALARM FOR COBRA 11, so they really know their stuff when it comes to doing incredible car action. But what we are going to be doing in FAST TRACK is stylistically very different from COBRA 11…and, we hope, from what viewers have seen in the FAST AND THE FURIOUS movies (for one thing, we don’t have $60 million to spend!).

We want to  create a unique look that is entirely our own. It starts with character, character and more character…and then cool driving stuff.  So we got out a box of toy cars and began talking about how we are going to do it.

There we were, a bunch of grown men, sitting around a table playing with cars.

Vroom! Crash! Boom!

And in that moment, I was a kid again with my Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, dreaming of being a writer some day…

I’m such a lucky guy.

Soon the toy cars we’ll be playing with will be real ones!

I finally had a good night’s sleep last night…so, naturally, tomorrow I am leaving for L.A. so I can get hit with jet-lag going the opposite direction and attend casting sessions for two of our four lead roles.

Typepad recovered my earlier, lost post about the first few days of pre-production on FAST TRACK, so that saves me having to tell you all about that again. So here’s the latest news…

I love the prep period. That’s when the project finally feels real to me…figuratively and literally. Unlike writing a book, TV  is a collaboration. For example, the production designers are showing me sketches and concepts for the places that only existed before in my imagination…. how they will make those places real. But more  than that, these artists are bringing so much that’s new and
fresh, that comes  from their own talent and experience. I enjoy seeing
how my work has inspired them… it  makes me feel great. 

On Monday, I went to visit our production office for the first time (all my meetings so far have been in cafes and hotel rooms). It’s a building in  an  industrial  area of Berlin. I saw the two floors of empty offices and the adjoining buildings that will serve as the construction shop, car-tuning shop, etc. It’s a big complex…and within days, it will start  to fill up with people working on the movie. By the end of next week, it will be a bee-hive  of activity, everyone working towards a common goal — making what I wrote alone in my home-office into a movie.  But for the moment, it’s just the line producer,  his assistant, and me. I picked out a spot for myself and my assistant and tried to imagine what it’s going to look like in two weeks when it’s full of furniture, white boards, computers, printers, and shooting schedules. I felt both excitement and anxiety. There’s  so much work to do…and so many decisions to make.

I spent the day with my director, talking in detail about the pilot script and the hoped-for series…and about how I see the world and the characters and how he sees them. Then we met with the last candidate for production designer, played some Playstation racing games, and made some final hiring decisions.  That night, I reviewed more DVDs of actors, costume designers, etc. and prepared for my meeting today in Munich with the network.

The meeting went very, very well…we are amazingly in-synch about what the show is and will be…and about the people we’d like to hire to make it happen. But they are more than just a network, they are our production partner in this project so it’s a much closer working relationship, at least on a creative level, than you usually have in a "supplier and buyer" situation. I’m so lucky to have a clever and articulate network executive on the project whose creative contributions consistently make the show better. We decided on the production designer and costume designers  we wanted — and the network agreed — so  tomorrow we will close their deals and get them on-board.

Tomorrow I meet with the second unit director and stunt coordinators to have our initial concept discussions about the racing sequences…and then I return to L.A. for casting.

I have been having trouble sleeping. It’ s not just the jet-lag — I have  so much on my mind that it’s hard to "shut down." I know what I am about to say is a cliche, but….there’s just not enough hours in the day.

Oh, yesterday I also looked at the suite my family and I will be staying in when I return on the 30th and for the duration of production. It’s beautiful and perfectly located. The U.S. actors will also be staying at the same place and I think they will be very happy there. The location in Berlin can’t be beat. It’s going to be fun for my family and I hope an exciting experience for my daughter.

I apologize for rambling….I’ll try to report back again once more before I fly home.