Cop and Cup!

Yesterday was the beginning and end of principal photography on COP & CUP, our 60-second buddy cop movie about a tough-as-nails detective who’s partnered with a crime-fighting beverage. This was the first guerilla shoot I’d directed since film school (I’m referring to 290, not that regrettable incident at the LA Zoo) and with it came all the bizarre strokes of luck and grueling twists of fate that come with run-and-gun filmmaking. Here’s the breakdown…

9AM – Christina, Jeff and I arrive in Santa Monica to start transforming my office into a police headquarters, circa 1980. This involves hanging a bulletin board with ‘Wanted’ posters tacked to it and scattering donuts across my desk. Seeing the surprisingly convincing results, we arrive to the unanimous conclusion that police work hasn’t really come that far in the last two decades.

9:30AM – Sean Dryke and Justin Ipock – both of THE SILVER BULLET fame – arrive on set. Fake mustaches are donned and donuts are eaten. Fake mustaches are removed, dusted of donut crumbs and crookedly reapplied. We hold a screening of the final, color-timed version of the spot to get things off on the right foot (Check back later this week!)

10:15AM – Trying to get Sean and Justin to use the “I could out-shout Al Pacino” method common to 80’s buddy cop flicks, I give the direction “Take it up to 11” for the first time in my life. Somewhere, Uta Hagen rolls in her grave.

11:30AM – Arriving at the next location – an outdoor sign for the Emergency Room at the Culver City Hospital – we sit and stare at the sprinkler system heavily watering both the sign and the 6×6 patch of grass on which it stands, making it impossible to shoot.

11:45AM – Still staring, we’re into my fifteenth assurance that the timer should switch the sprinklers off “in a minute or so”. Christina – realizing the burnt sienna shade of my front lawn belies a total ignorance of sprinkler systems – rightfully insists we move on to the next location.

12PM – Arriving at just one of Culver City’s bizarre surplus of creepy condemned car dealerships, we find a huge stash of giant cardboard boxes (a.k.a. cop movie gold). Putting years of Tetris expertise to work, we construct a rickety wall of cardboard and then film Sean’s car smashing through it. After shooting a quick scene and grabbing some shots of Sean sliding across the hood, we wrap the location and head back to the hospital.

12:45PM – Still going full blast, the sprinklers are in danger of either rusting the sign to pieces or flooding the entire city. We shoot regardless, resulting in what Jeff alternately refers to as “incredibly depressing” and “the single ugliest thing we’ve ever shot”. Shielding myself from the spray as I direct Sean to push Cup’s wheelchair through an enormous puddle, I quietly wonder if anyone will wonder why we decided to set the final scene in Waterworld.

1PM – Hospital security arrives in a golf cart and demands we leave the property. We move to a city sidewalk three feet to the left, safely out of his jurisdiction. Failing to see the hilarity in this, the security guard peels out, presumably to defend the other end of the parking lot.

1:30PM – When an ambulance rolls onto a dry section of the property, we do a mad scramble to use it as a backdrop and re-shoot everything we can. This works, if only as a chance for Avi to exhibit his skills as an editor.

2:45PM – Arriving for the next location – a mildly scary warehouse with an abandoned airplane fuselage in its parking lot – we discover that our perfect shootout location is jam-packed with ferris wheels, cotton candy and kids. As a friendly eco-buddy invites us to join in on the Earth Day carnival, I decide I might hate the environment.

3PM – Relocating to a building branded ‘The Diva Warehouse’, we’re unable to decide what – exactly – is manufactured inside. Luckily, whatever it is requires massive cargo trucks. Our shootout is staged underneath, resulting in more cop movie magic.

4PM – En route to the alley where we’re shooting a bomb being defused, I decide the shoot is officially back on track.

4:01PM – We arrive at the alley to see a cop car.  Although it was seemingly abandoned, it brought with it the promise of…well…cops. Wisely deciding that the last thing we want to do is be at the center of a bomb scare, we decide to wait out the 5-O and shoot footage for the title sequence.

4:15PM – We somehow end up locked behind the gates of a massive oil field located in Culver City, about a mile away from my house. Making the best of a truly bizarre situation, we improv an action sequence around an oil derrick before we’re finally escorted off the property.

5:00PM – Returning to the alley, we discover that the cop car is gone but a strange, grunting man is in his place. Doing our best to ignore the unique odors wafting through the alleyway, we quickly and quietly set up our prop time bomb and cup puppet.  In spite of a few close calls with the cops, we shoot the entire scene from beginning to end. Sean and the alley location are wrapped.

6:15PM – Jeff and I arrive in Beverly Hills, where we’re grabbing our martini shot – a quick establishing of the police station. This is pretty much the equivalent of going into the belly of the beast when you’re shooting without a permit, and it took us exactly 7.2 seconds to get busted. Luckily, my old student ID came in handy for something other than discount movie tickets and we were able to bluster a story about doing a student shoot. The officers were surprisingly cool, telling us to take our time and get what we need.

7PM – After grabbing a quick character shot of Cup, we arrive back at the apartment and review dailies. Next up…editing!