7#endl l l l l l.llll llllxlmp mm*ml mmmmm-mmmmmm Box of Dreams Can a small, low-budget film put Knoxville on the movie-making map? by Coury Turczyn and Hillari Dowdle John Turturro is standing outside of Bambishome of the fabled donut dancewith his pants around his ankles and a man clutching at his waist. Its 12:20 a.m. on a chilly October night, and the man in question is stunt coordinator Tom Barringer, whos adjusting a stomach pad so that Turturro can safely get the stuffing pounded out of him by a character named Doob. They started rehearsing this fight scene about five hours ago, and so far theyve only completed a few takes. Therell be about seven more hours of filming before theyre done creating just a few minutes of Box of Moonlight, a low-budget, independent feature that will supposedly open the Knoxville floodgates to a torrent of Hollywood productions. Director Tom DiCillothe man responsible for assembling the 70 shivering technicians, actors and hangers-onviews the scene through a video monitor beside the camera equipment. He likes what he sees. Bambis glows resplendent beneath the flood lights, a vision of strident pink paint promising second-rate decadence. The Alcoa Highway strip club was rented for about $1,000a bargain, to be sure, but the presence of a bona fide, big-time film crew is something new for the club, just as it is for Knoxville. Immortality beckons. Padding in place, Turturro rejoins actors Sam Rockwell, Dermot Mulroney and Mike Stanleythe one who will soon have the honor of gut-punching Moonlights leading man. Turturro, co-star of Quiz Show, Unstrung Heroes and several Spike Lee films, stands rigidly on his mark, moving only to bend his neck or smooth his hair, gazing fixedly straight ahead. Known for his wound-up, nervous-guy performances, he has a reputation as a great character actor, someone whos really good in supporting roles. But here in Moonlight, hes the main attraction, the star. And a good measure of the movies future success or failure rests on his shoulders. Lets try one! commands the assistant director, Jim LeClair. A production assistant gets on the walkie-talkie, which is patched in to the sheriffs deputies out on Alcoa Highway: Okay guys, stop the traffic. A few minutes later, Alcoa is momentarily void of the sound of speeding cars. Then the crew pauses until a helicopter flies away. Matt, are we good? Yes? Quiet please! Lock it down! Rolling! The clapper snaps, and DiCillo calls Action! The camera focuses on Turturro. He gets an angry expression on his face. Snarling, he smashes his beer on the sidewalk. All right, thats it, God damn it! he yells, and lunges forward at the sneering Mulroney. Unfortunately, his progress is stopped by Stanleys fist. Oof! grunts Turturro, buckling over. Stanley continues to ram his fist forward, dragging Turturro off camera with the momentum, no doubt to do even more damage off-screen. CUT! DiCillo yells. Turturro gets up. A few people clap. The cameraman begins setting up another shot, this time at a different angle. The production assistant clicks on his walkie-talkie: Jim and Timlets release the traffic for a few minutes, okay? Jim and Tim acquiesce, and soon traffic is again whooshing by at dangerous speeds, though some drivers slow down to take a quick look. Thus the glamour of film making continues on through this very early morning of October 11which is also the last day of shooting. After occupying Knoxville for almost five monthshaving been grandly welcomed by the governor, eagerly assisted by local officials and feted by star-struck citizensthe movie production will soon be over. The actors and producers will jet back to New York and Los Angeles, the technicians and film equipment to Seattle; the lunch truck will head back to North Carolina. What theyll leave behind is a hope shared by local politicians, hoteliers and bar ownersthat Box of Moonlight wont be the last well see of movie makers, and their money, in Knoxville. The Big Idea Tom DiCillo is splayed against the built-in couch of his trailer like a worn rag doll, hands resting palms up, a tired yet determined expression on his face. Through the thin walls of the decidedly un-homey trailerhis very first after directing two filmscome the dull thuds of carpenters and the shouts of technicians, sounding like roustabouts in a circus. Last night was one of the toughest nights Ive ever had on any set, confesses DiCillo, who shot eight films (including Jim Jarmuschs trend-setting Stranger Than Paradise) as a cinematographer before becoming a director. Every instinct in my body told me to jump on this [unnamed] person and beat the shit out of them. Literally. I was prepared to get in there and rip their throat out. That was what I wanted to do. Instead, I had to smile and go back to work. It could have been a scene from his most recent, critically acclaimed film, Living In Oblivion, which follows the travails of a hapless director trying to shoot an independent, low-budget film. No matter how hard he tries to remain in control, the director finds himself battling insurmountable dilemmas: technical muffs, nervous breakdowns, clueless actors with egos running amuck. And throughout the miscues, no matter how frustrating or infuriating, all he can do is smileand try again. On Box of Moonlight, it was like being dropped into the Pacific Ocean in the midst of a typhoon with 50-foot waves, says DiCillo. And I knew that going in. But every single thing that I thought I had in reservemy knowledge of what I thought a director wasevaporated. I told myself, The only way Im getting through this is to just grit my teeth. And grit he has. For despite the personality conflicts, the 35-day shooting schedule (60 days would have been more appropriate), and the micro-tight $3.5 million budget, shooting Box of Moonlight in Knoxville has been the realization of a dream for DiCillo. Even though this is our last night of shooting, its still sort of sinking in right now that Ive been able to make this movie, he says. Its really quite unbelievable that Im here. The road to Knoxville began over four years ago, after DiCillo made his directoral debut with Johnny Suede, starring Brad Pitt. The offbeat little film about a pompadoured hipster and his quest for romance and rock n roll bombed at the box office, though it managed to win Grand Prize at the 1991 Locarno International Film Festival. DiCillo was in Japan shooting a film for two months when he began getting inklings of what his next script would be: What if his job were to be canceled early? What would he do with his extra time? Would he tell his wife, or what? From this germ of an idea came Box of Moonlight, a story about how one man tries to redefine his own understanding of himself. Electrician Al Fountain is an orderly sort whos all business. Working on a construction job in a small town for months on end, far from his wife and son in Chicago, he barely allows himself time to miss them. Its not until he realizes just how much his coworkers dislike him that he begins questioning who he has become. And when the job is canceled early, instead of returning home, he sets out on a trip to relocate a fragment of his childhood: Splatchee Lake. On this quest, he is befriended by his polar opposite, a free-spirited oddball played by Sam Rockwell. Soon, hes doing things he never thought hed do, and finding a different person inside. After writing it in about two months, DiCillo was sure this highly personal film would be his next project. But it was not to be. What followed was a tug of war between financing and castingsometimes having the star, other times having the money, but never both. In the meantime, he made Living in Oblivion as sort of a goofa funny compilation of his own frustrationsand it became an art house hit. Ironically, this enabled him to get financing for Box of Moonlight. And now here he is, in Knoxville, finishing up the last shot of his dream project, one hes pursued for almost five years, his tour de force. This is the most grueling, most antithetical process to finding art that you can imagine, he says. Art sort of happens completely by accident when youre making a movie. And if youre lucky, youre there at the right moment. Its been a very tense shoot. Just then, a voice from outside the trailer bellows in confirmation: ITLL BE A F***ING BLOODBATH, PAL! ILL TELL YOU RIGHT NOW! Bracing himself for his return to the directors chair, DiCillo stands up, stretching. Time to nail that fight sequence another 10 or 20 times. But when things start going together, when that little magical moment happens, its like a drug, he says. You cannot beat it. And back out he goes. Smiling. THE MONEY FINDERS Producer Marcus Viscidi fires up another Marlboro Light as he settles at a table inside Bambis, safely located near the front entrance so he can make a quick getaway if need be. He takes a puff, nervously eyeing the somewhat shabby decorwhich, to be fair, was never designed to withstand the rigors of full overhead lighting. Marcus is chain-smoking tonight, and with good reason. Hes already worked a 10-hour day, and it looks like hell be here for another six or seven. Hes running on adrenaline and nicotine. On this last night of filming, Box of Moonlight has remained on schedule and relatively on budgetnearly an anomaly, in the film business. But its still a make-or-break situation, and Marcus is clearly aiming for the former. Viscidis role as producer is a complicated one. Hes the guy who has to make everything work, to stay within the budget, to stay on the shooting schedule, to rent the equipment, to make sure locations are working, to find a cast and crew of nearly 70 and then see that they all play nice together. When shooting wraps, it will be the culmination not only of a long day, but of a years-long struggle to get the movie made. Viscidialong with co-producers Tom Bliss and Taylor McCrae, who flew in today to watch the final shoothas been working on the Box of Moonlight project since 1992. Tom [DiCillo] sent me the screenplay for Box of Moonlight in 1992, and I fell in love with it and agreed to produce it and work on raising the money for it, Viscidi recalls. It took us three years. Everybody who saw the script fell in love with it, but you have to have a cast to get the financing. And every time we put together the cast, one element of the financing would fall apart. And once we got the financing back, wed lose the actor we had associated with the role. At different times, Fred Ward was considered for the role of Al, as was Ed Harris. And several times it was John Turturro. There was a point where we felt so frustrated about it, Viscidi continues, that Tom went off and wrote this 20-page short script called Scene Six, Take One, which was the working title for Living in Oblivion. We decided to do it, and we got together $40,000, and we shot the first 22 minutes of the movie. Then, because of the success of that, we were able to raise the money to turn it into a full-length feature. Enter Tom Bliss, COO of Beacon Pictures, and Taylor McCrae, an executive at the rapidly disintegrating Savoy Pictures. We had seen 10 minutes of Living in Oblivion and fell in love with it, then we fell in love with the script for Box of Moonlight, says Bliss, whose full-time job prevented him from playing a hands-on role in the actual production of the film. After wed seen Living in Oblivion, we knew that we were dealing with a very talented director and a very talented writer. When Beacon Pictures passed on the script, I took the project to Lakeshore Pictures because I loved it so much. And Lakeshore agreed to finance the picture. The lovey-dovey attitude toward the script and DiCillo is shared by not only Viscidi and Bliss, but by the entire crew. Many say theyre working on the low-budget production out of love; Turturro, in fact, is working well below his Hollywood rate. It struck a chord in me, explains Bliss, the idea of people who are trapped in archetypes and are trying to express themselves outside the parameters theyre stuck in. Tom DiCillo has an original American voice ... I would put him in the same category as Woody Allen and Robert Altman in terms of American auteurs. Hes going to be producing a lot of important work over the next 50 years. Most films today are more like rides than movies, but this is a film that is about something, Bliss continues. I wouldnt say it will have a mass appealits not a big budget action film. But I think it will have a broad appeal. We think it will be wide enough to justify the investment. Viscidi is far more direct in his expectations for the film. I would be very happy to see this film do $20 million in terms of U.S. domestic box office, he says. Because if it does $20 million domestic, then you know that it will do at least that much foreign, and maybe a third of that in home video. Im not looking for this film to be a blockbuster. Im looking for a film that is critically very well received, but that gets a wider release than Living in Oblivion. But a lot depends on marketing, and I dont know how it will be marketed yet, he says, stubbing out one last butt before he rejoins his troops outside. But I can tell you that the Cannes Film Festival will be a big marketing tool, and that I definitely want to do. And that, he notes on his way out the door, is a whole other story. Location is Everything Gary Huckabay is a friendly, clean-cut guy, obviously well liked by everyone. That is good, since until the cameras start rolling hes basically in charge. Walkie-talkie in hand and cellular phone firmly pressed to one ear, Huckabay was the first crew member on location at Bambis tonight. In fact, hes been the first crew member on every location, as befits his titlehes location manager for Box of Moonlight Productions. A New Orleans dweller, Huckabay spends his time traveling the country, looking for locations for movieshis resume includes JFK, The Pelican Brief, Hard Target and Mad Love. And it is Huckabay that Knoxville has to thank, at least in part, for the fact that Box of Moonlight chose to film here. Marcus and Tom had been thinking about this film for a long time, Huckabay says. When we started scouting around, we had three states in mind: Utah, Washington, and Tennesseethe Knoxville area. Then we went scouting, trying to find locations, views, and interiors that are consistent with the script. Huckabay found what he was looking for in Knoxville. The script calls for not exactly a run-down look, but a seedy look, Huckabay says. We werent looking for that inner city glamour. We also needed a lot of countryside, and that was a big selling point for Knoxvilleit's beautiful, and the foliage changes late in the year here. Once the decision to shoot in Knoxville was made, Huckabay teamed up with the person he calls the most instrumental man on this project, local independent producer Jeff Talman, who served as assistant location manager on the film. Together, the two set off to find at least five different locations for every scene. We did a lot of work on Martin Mill Pike, and it looks like something you might see in Italyin fact, we called it the Italian Highway, says Huckabay. We shot in a tomato patch in Strawberry Plains and it was such a clear day that you could see the Smokies. The stuff we shot at Norris Lake looks unbelievable. And we shot at a swimming hole in Greenback that was a very tranquil Adam and Eve-like setting. It was unbelievable. Its probably the prettiest scene in the whole film. I know I said seedy before, but we really did shoot a lot of gorgeous countryside. Tom DiCillo, who made the final decision to shoot here, shares the sentiment: I just loved the rolling hills and the woods, and the green pastures. It seemed to me to evoke an America slightly primeval, before the Europeans came. We have a character who is dressed up in a Davy Crockett costume, who lives in a trailer with one whole side open to the woods. I wanted the woods to almost serve as a character. And I was able to do that here. Outside of problems with the weather and what Talman calls the obligatory run-ins with three or four assholes, the film crew had an easy row to hoe. From city administrators to county farmers, Knoxvillians have all bent over backwards to accommodate the film makers. Weve had a good experience here because a lot of this stuff is completely untapped, says Huckabay. It hasnt been shot yet, or used, or seen. And the people here have been exceptionally responsive and cooperativetheyre not jaded. In fact, Ive shot all over the country and this is probably the most receptive community Ive ever worked infrom the film commission to the production community, to the mayors office. We live in an area where people are not suspicious of honest smiles, Talman concludes. I mean, we would end up in a number of locations where wed want to park our vehicles and equipment, and people would say, Okay, we dont care about the money, but what wed like you to do is not to swear or drink on our property. I have complete respect for people who the first thing on their minds is not money, but something else. That something else, perhaps, is the chance to be immortalized on film for the world to see. Exactly what it will see will be designed by one person. The "KNOXVILLE" Look Its 1 a.m. and theres unrest among the cast of extras scattered in various stages of exhaustion around the bar inside Bambis. Theyre a motley crew, uniformly dressed to look like redneck rubes, resplendent in camouflage jackets, muscle tees, worn flannel and acid-washed denim. Theyre griping about the hours (theyve been here since 4 p.m. and are likely to be here until 6 a.m.), theyre griping about the repetition, theyre griping that their prop beer cans are repeatedly filled with Sharps. But, mostly, theyre griping about their outfits. Look at me, would you? says Jordan Nasser, who is busy zipping and unzipping his atrocious gray and black parachute pants to create what he hopes will be a harlequin effect. I look like I stepped out of a Boy George video. Nasser, who also sports an inadequately filled-out tank top and a formerly trendy painters cap worn backwards, has production designer Therese DePrez to thank for his new look. Along with Huckabay, DePreza strikingly tall New Yorker frequently decked out in Spandex pants and high-heeled sneakerswas one of the first of the crew to arrive in Knoxville. Her job, simply put, is to control the way everything in the movie will look. To do that, she has spent the last several months combing thrift stores, garage sales, and rummage sales, frequently drawing the attention of local bargain shoppers simply by the sheer volume of, well, crap that shes bought. Here, in Box of Moonlight, shes putting that crap to good use. I was going for a timeless look, she says. I didnt want to know what year we were in, I didnt want to know that we were in the South. But I really wanted to use a lot of plastics, a lot of colors, and a lot ofnot kitschybut very contemporary bad taste. If anything, the look is very 80s, when the whole plastic, corporate logo look started to come in. DePrez says she was seeking to create a white trash ambiance of a certain kind: We didnt want the movie white trash, like the Natural Born Killers kind of white trash. We wanted to be a lot more realistic than that. For the most part, DePrez was able to find everything she needed to create that look right here in Knoxville. She was even able to find her inspiration. One of the things we did in pre-production was go to a Smoky Mountain Wrestling match, and we took inspiration from that via wardrobe, haircuts, and graphics, she says, giggling at the memory. That was the apogee of our design right there. It just hit usthis was the look we were trying to capture. HOME MOVIES On August 23 the announcement was made. The television crews were there, a few newspaper reporters and photographersheck, even a radio reporter. The ragtag members of the Knoxville media had gathered right smack in the airy concourse of the Hyatt Regency to record the gory sight of politicians taking credit for everything they could think of. Gov. Don Sundquist began the chain of self-congratulation upon announcing Knoxvilles impending future as a film site. This announcement represents yet another milestone in Tennessees effort to become a major venue for entertainment production, Sundquist declared. Besides the natural excitement that surrounds a film production, this project will bring economic and tourist development to East Tennessee. I especially commend my friend, Mayor Victor Ashe, for having the foresight to establish a Film Commission in Knoxville two years ago and for supporting both the citys effort and the states in the recruitment of this important film project. Whether or not Mayor Ashes foresight two years ago actually led to landing the Box of Moonlight production is debatabletechnically speaking, Knoxvilles film commission is only an informal and unfunded group of interested local production types. But how important, really, will the movie be in breaking Knoxville out as a good place to shoot films? Meredith Zamskywho as line producer for Box of Moonlight was the key person making deals, hiring locals, and locating equipmenthas perhaps the best perspective on how Knoxvilles film community might develop. Its a beautiful area, and the people are very accommodating. We felt very welcome to be shooting in the community, she says. I think Knoxville can develop its film community. But I also think that there are a fairly limited amount of resources in the area in terms of equipment and people. If someone were to ask me how I loved working in the Knoxville area, I would have to tell them that the area is beautiful, and youll get great shots. However, you have to be prepared to bring a lot of your crew and equipment in. And its expensive to do that. Producer Viscidi agrees. Ill be brutally honest, he says. There are not enough people for a production to be based here without all these people coming in from the outside. You dont necessarily need a full crew here, but you do need a little more of a base. Bruce Adams, Vice President of Bandit Lights, was instrumental in working with Viscidi and DiCillo in the early stages of the film. Hes devoted the last five years of his life, he says, to helping our city develop its film community, and is the Knoxville film commission's point man. And he agrees with Viscidi. We have a very strong production community here, he says. We just dont have much depth. We might have everybody it takes to shoot a film herewe have plenty of top-notch grips and electricians, for example. But Box had trouble finding grips and electricians because everybody here is working. We have the basic infrastructure, but we need more depth, all the way acrossthe people, the equipment, and the ancillary services like honey wagons [portable toilets], animal trainers and stuntmen. Just how that kind of growth might be realized is a little cloudy. But one thing for sure is that further commitment and funds at the state and local levels are needed to take the Greater Knoxville Area Film Commission from concept to a reality. Our primary goal, says Adams, is to find funding in order to set up a permanent position for a film commissioner here in East Tennesseesomebody who would be actively calling producers and trying to attract films to this area. I see a slow but very steady growth in the industry in this area, Adams continues. Once we have a full-time film commissioner, well see more productions coming here. By more productions coming here, well see growth in our labor pool. Well have more people going into film production because they are exposed to it. And well have people coming here from other places, people who might say, Hey, East Tennessee is a great place to live and their production community is growing. I think we have every bit as much potential as Wilmington or Florida. Mark Levine, full-time location coordinator with the Tennessee Film Commission, sees it this way: Its that chicken and egg thing. You cant get the jobs until you get the crew, and you cant get the crew until you get the jobs. Theres no denying that we have some gaps to fill. But its turning around in East Tennessee. Levine has concrete evidence to back that statement up, though hes cagey about the details. I cant tell you too much because Ive seen productions walk away from the area because of the press, he says. But there are at least a half-dozen possible projects looking at East Tennessee right nowand I say possible because you never know for sure until the first frame of film rolls through the gate. I can say that Tri-Star has scouted the area recently, and Disney is interested in filming a couple of projects over that way. Adams thinks word of mouth is Knoxvilles best form of publicity, and he thinks that Box of Moonlight will generate plenty. I believe they found it very easy to do a movie here. I think they came in on budget, he says. I think that not only will they go back and spread the word, I think they already have. The movie industry is a very small industryeverybody knows everybody. 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