cinemax (which is owned by hbo) will air a period drama produced by steven soderbergh and starring clive owen. i mention this only because they were location scouting on my block and i saw them chatting up my landlord as i came in earlier. doubt we will end up a location though as this building is more inclined towards the middle ages though they might find some clothing in the basement thats appropriate to the turn of the 20th century.
50/50 chance they might use my front window to get camera coverage for a scene in a few weeks for which i will be modestly compensated. could be my ticket to the big time! soderbergh is not just producing it, he is directing the entire 10 episodes, or so said the location scout.
i hadnt heard back until this morning and the shoot is over the next two days so i just assumed i was out of the running. but i got an email this morning and, well, i guess its a decision soderbergh will make on the day of the shoot, or maybe, he will use both. but my paperwork is in and a check will be cut. now the only question is will i receive it. with my luck the sight lines will be ruined by the rigging from the guys repairing my building's facade. i told the locations guy that soderbergh should weigh my stolen bike into the equation even if it compromises his artistic vision. so they have been at work on the street turning the facades back in time to 1902 and a storefront on corner of broome and orchard into a saloon. there were some pix online but they didnt do it justice. ill see if i can find some others.
here are some good pix.
i should add id much prefer the buffet and billiards, stags head and (unseen) jewish deli to what we have in its place.
They should have shot this in the 70's while it was still period correct.
amazing how they bang this stuff out. all the signs are cut, painted and stenciled (and hung) on site. really beautiful work. probably a dozen or so in all. and got a dozen or so pushcarts under wraps down the street.
i really should have put craft services on my rider. got a big ol' buffet tent out my window on to allen street between the trucks with the actors trailers. out the window onto orchard st i see what looks to be a dead horse lying on the sidewalk while they dump a healthy amount of dirt into the street. id say it stretches about 50 yards in each direction at the intersection. have only seen one costumed fellow in a long coat and a top hat who looks to be a coachmen although he was down by a wagon that says ale on the side so maybe thats his rig. he is now out my back window eating a cereal out of a plastic bowl talking to another extra about the top soil they are laying down. that man is eating an omelette. more breakfast notes as they come.
the extras in costume are out in force around the buffet. did they have blueberry smoothies 100 years ago? difficult to distinguish the hipsters walking by from the mustachioed policemen. well, except for the silly looking hats.... on the hipsters.
stepped out to the deli to get a look streetside. many onlookers snapping iphone pix. the dead horse is a particular favorite. pushcarts being moved into place with fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables placed artfully atop them. also one for a bagel hawker very much like in this tiny photo.
heres someones photo on instagram.
bowery boogie has some new photos. funny, i watched these two posing for their pictures in front of the horse.
undead horses now on set and all hitched up. they are parading them up and down to practice maneuvers and i suspect to give the road an authentic look. also a woman just taped a bunch of notices to the "dead" horse informing passerby that it is in fact a prop and not a dead horse. perhaps so people would stop nudging it with their feet. 50 or more period extras now being placed along the street amid pushcarts.
finally spied what i think is soderbergh who doesnt look like he is at the helm of this mayhem especially with all the well clad gentlemen strutting about and he in khakis and a baseball hat with an oversized brim. they have been venting in smoke all day for atmosphere which in addition to the hazy has imparted a pleasant smoky aroma that mixes well with the chill in the air.
holy shit. i get the call. they want to use my apartment. i go downstairs to let them in and up trundle a half a dozen or so guys including soderbergh who i greet on the way up. they come in, someone trips over my speaker wire and within about a minute soderbergh says, "no good, the scaffolding," and out the door they go just as quickly and with it my check for $500. did i mention fuck me?
bummer. did they just want to shoot from your apartment?
yes. to be honest it was a foreseeable problem that could have been overcome with one conversation with the contractor (theyve been out here since friday getting the street ready) as the ropes for the scaffold they are using to paint my building (very slowly) could have been moved. but they didnt dawdle, they just moved on to the next option. there is only so much daylight after all.
out to get some dumplings to ease the pain and i run into my landlord. he told me they could have gone up to the roof and moved the scaffolding. i said they didnt have the time or the inclination at that late hour but at least he was sympathetic.
so they wrapped it up for the night. i saw the cabal that was in my apartment seated around a table in a coffee shop (which they owned for the day) discussing what they were going to spend my $500 on no doubt. as for me, off to the chinese grocery store with steaming dumplings already in hand to buy five off brand bottles of seltzer for three dollars and a mop head. good times.
oh, not nearly done as i suspected. setting up for interiors in the bar they built on the corner.
When they were shooting two lovers on my block in jc one of the union grip truck guys put up a big eagles flag off the back of his truck. My tenant went over and gave him some this is giants territory shit. Several Paltrow sightings too for my trouble. We also had a cash for using my window deal
fall through.
did the briefest of glimpses cast a pall(trow) over everything youve ever done with your life? because, if not, there is no comparison to what i experienced today. no comparison! a klieg light has opened my eyes and i may never sleep again. *yawn*
well, that rca cable is ruined! this production is a net loss for me. i am going to torrent the shit out of this. you hear that, soderbergh! screw you and the golden cinemax you rode in on!
been watching over soderberghs shoulder (from three stories up) as he peers endlessly (for the past 15 minutes) arm crossed into the entry hallway of the building across the street. apparently they cant get the interior lighting to his satisfaction. in the meantime 100 or so extras are still mulling around in the chill and ive taken the rare opportunity to scan the apartments across the way without feeling like a hapless voyeur. tonight i have hap! lots of young attractive blondes as it turns out. and in new york city no less!
soderbergh is still out there with a camera on his shoulder as they shoot from two different angles the same scene. i wonder if that is unusual or not. but he does have his personal camera caddy for the downtime between shots.
boom / you should be making a making of the movie movie.
i think im qualified to make the blog of the tv series and not much else. thanks tho. good pix.
Two or even three camera set-ups are not uncommon, but it's unusual for the director to shoot, Soderbergh is one of the few I know of who does. Kubrick also used shoot hand-held, often as the other cameras were rolling. Hand held shots in 2001 and Clockwork were his work.
thanks. i meant unusual for the director to shoot not that they would shoot with multiple cameras. whenever else ive seen directors out there they are in the makeshift kiosk watching on a monitor with headphones on more often than not.
i should add as far as i noticed they used no staged lighting. everything was natural light during the day and then period street lights (which they installed) and interior lighting at night.
The candid street shots with old and new are great. Red cones and wagons. Get out there with your cell phone camera.
good advice but then i would just be cribbing your aesthetic. ill admit to having never developed much of an eye nor had equipment to toy around with to really understand how best to get the most out of it. as it is the camera on my cell phone is less than rudimentary. and im generally uncomfortable invading peoples privacy (unless im comfortably above and at a distance) even if they are at that very moment being paid to be part of the scenery.
day #2 of shooting looks like a wash out. lots of rain in the forecast. not seeing any effort to dress the set. no extras mulling around. and yet the breakfast buffet is set up but only some crew members and cops are in attendance.
well, it looks like some shooting is still scheduled as they are throwing more dirt into the street and at least one trailer pulled up for actors that i can see. thing is, they had to clear a path in the street of the dirt after they wrapped last night to allow for cars to use the roads again. now with the rain coming down its difficult to get the new dirt to cover the road with the tractor as all the wet dirt either sticks to the treads or gets too muddy and exposes the street below. now they are just dumping dirt and it will have to be raked out by hand for the most part. at least one other neighborhood underwent this transformation for this mini-series and a poster on gothamist said the cleanup after the shoot was sub-optimal. i can imagine that happening. the sidewalks to say nothing of the streets are a mess.
man, they turn this shit around in a hurry. i cant even tell you one thing ive done in the last two hours but now the streets are prepped, the smoke machine is belching, the pushcarts are lining the street and the wagons are hitched and ready to roll. ok, now i remember at least some of my time was spent shaking some chipotle hot sauce onto a chicken salad sandwich id bought earlier at the deli. and i may have cleaned my toilet. the blue and foamy water in the bowl was the tipoff but the fresh scent really sold me on it.
looks like it'd be fun to just watch all day. some gothamist photos. maybe you can sneak in as an extra, you have any period clothes?
bill posted those yesterday. you know he is a man that demands credit, otherwise i would have just let it slide. they say levi's never go out of fashion but i doubt their cloaks were made from fleece.
well, i can tell you the umbrellas are not of the period. and just as they get rolling on a take which involves a number of choreographed coaches intersecting some moronic woman with a brightly colored umbrella and decidedly not in costume walks through the scene. someone grabs her umbrella and hides behind a pushcart but on the very off chance they use that take she will be quite an anomaly in the background.
some moron locked their pretty nice looking bike to one of the temporary old timey light fixtures which theyve just taken apart to remove it from the shot. not that i ever would but i imagined myself going down just as they got it off and pretending it was mine. as it is theyve just set it off to the side relatively unattended for anyone with the gumption to walk off with it.
The other night TCM had experimental films in the dead of night, including Ken Jacobs’ Orchard Street from 1955. That’s about half way back to the turn of the previous century, but seemed closer to then than now; the street life was downright seething. I’m pretty sure I saw Dave’s stoop. And awhile back they showed Hester Street, a black and white with an uncanny approximation of photos of the ca. 1900 era (and the uncanny Carol Kane.) Same director made Crossing Delancey, but that was in color.
they are striking the set. the circus has left town. last night the street cleaners were hard at work (havent had a chance to see their handiwork up close) and this morning the facades and props are being boxed up and loaded on trucks. so in a few hours if i gaze out the window for an uncomfortable amount of time im back to being the creepy guy across the street. bye-bye free money, i hardly knew ye.
In Chicago they had Maxwell st., aka Jew town. the '70's documentary and bonus footage record quite a crazy scene with the additional benefits of mixed ethenicity and slow change to allow the inclusion of real blues buskers and evangelical
foot stompers. Avbl on Netflix I had an uncle who went every weekend to look for additions to his wrist watch collection which sold for big bucks at Christies after he passed on.
somewhat less of a thrill.... adam sandler is shooting on the same corner today. cant be bothered to even try and catch an eyeful.
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cinemax (which is owned by hbo) will air a period drama produced by steven soderbergh and starring clive owen. i mention this only because they were location scouting on my block and i saw them chatting up my landlord as i came in earlier. doubt we will end up a location though as this building is more inclined towards the middle ages though they might find some clothing in the basement thats appropriate to the turn of the 20th century.
- dave 8-15-2013 1:03 am
50/50 chance they might use my front window to get camera coverage for a scene in a few weeks for which i will be modestly compensated. could be my ticket to the big time! soderbergh is not just producing it, he is directing the entire 10 episodes, or so said the location scout.
- dave 10-18-2013 12:27 am [add a comment]
i hadnt heard back until this morning and the shoot is over the next two days so i just assumed i was out of the running. but i got an email this morning and, well, i guess its a decision soderbergh will make on the day of the shoot, or maybe, he will use both. but my paperwork is in and a check will be cut. now the only question is will i receive it. with my luck the sight lines will be ruined by the rigging from the guys repairing my building's facade. i told the locations guy that soderbergh should weigh my stolen bike into the equation even if it compromises his artistic vision.
so they have been at work on the street turning the facades back in time to 1902 and a storefront on corner of broome and orchard into a saloon. there were some pix online but they didnt do it justice. ill see if i can find some others.
- dave 11-05-2013 4:26 pm [add a comment]
here are some good pix.
- dave 11-05-2013 4:29 pm [add a comment]
i should add id much prefer the buffet and billiards, stags head and (unseen) jewish deli to what we have in its place.
- dave 11-05-2013 4:34 pm [add a comment]
They should have shot this in the 70's while it was still period correct.
- bill 11-05-2013 4:37 pm [add a comment]
amazing how they bang this stuff out. all the signs are cut, painted and stenciled (and hung) on site. really beautiful work. probably a dozen or so in all.
and got a dozen or so pushcarts under wraps down the street.
- dave 11-05-2013 9:08 pm [add a comment]
i really should have put craft services on my rider. got a big ol' buffet tent out my window on to allen street between the trucks with the actors trailers. out the window onto orchard st i see what looks to be a dead horse lying on the sidewalk while they dump a healthy amount of dirt into the street. id say it stretches about 50 yards in each direction at the intersection. have only seen one costumed fellow in a long coat and a top hat who looks to be a coachmen although he was down by a wagon that says ale on the side so maybe thats his rig. he is now out my back window eating a cereal out of a plastic bowl talking to another extra about the top soil they are laying down. that man is eating an omelette. more breakfast notes as they come.
- dave 11-06-2013 1:44 pm [add a comment]
the extras in costume are out in force around the buffet. did they have blueberry smoothies 100 years ago? difficult to distinguish the hipsters walking by from the mustachioed policemen. well, except for the silly looking hats.... on the hipsters.
stepped out to the deli to get a look streetside. many onlookers snapping iphone pix. the dead horse is a particular favorite. pushcarts being moved into place with fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables placed artfully atop them. also one for a bagel hawker very much like in this tiny photo.
- dave 11-06-2013 2:33 pm [add a comment]
heres someones photo on instagram.
- dave 11-06-2013 2:37 pm [add a comment]
bowery boogie has some new photos. funny, i watched these two posing for their pictures in front of the horse.
- dave 11-06-2013 2:41 pm [add a comment]
undead horses now on set and all hitched up. they are parading them up and down to practice maneuvers and i suspect to give the road an authentic look.
also a woman just taped a bunch of notices to the "dead" horse informing passerby that it is in fact a prop and not a dead horse. perhaps so people would stop nudging it with their feet.
50 or more period extras now being placed along the street amid pushcarts.
- dave 11-06-2013 3:41 pm [add a comment]
finally spied what i think is soderbergh who doesnt look like he is at the helm of this mayhem especially with all the well clad gentlemen strutting about and he in khakis and a baseball hat with an oversized brim.
they have been venting in smoke all day for atmosphere which in addition to the hazy has imparted a pleasant smoky aroma that mixes well with the chill in the air.
- dave 11-06-2013 6:19 pm [add a comment]
cant say soderbergh is not hands on. he is sitting on a cart with hand held camera being pushed for a dolly shot.
- dave 11-06-2013 6:28 pm [add a comment]
holy shit. i get the call. they want to use my apartment. i go downstairs to let them in and up trundle a half a dozen or so guys including soderbergh who i greet on the way up. they come in, someone trips over my speaker wire and within about a minute soderbergh says, "no good, the scaffolding," and out the door they go just as quickly and with it my check for $500. did i mention fuck me?
- dave 11-06-2013 8:36 pm [add a comment]
bummer. did they just want to shoot from your apartment?
- linda 11-06-2013 8:49 pm [add a comment]
yes. to be honest it was a foreseeable problem that could have been overcome with one conversation with the contractor (theyve been out here since friday getting the street ready) as the ropes for the scaffold they are using to paint my building (very slowly) could have been moved. but they didnt dawdle, they just moved on to the next option. there is only so much daylight after all.
- dave 11-06-2013 9:06 pm [add a comment]
out to get some dumplings to ease the pain and i run into my landlord. he told me they could have gone up to the roof and moved the scaffolding. i said they didnt have the time or the inclination at that late hour but at least he was sympathetic.
so they wrapped it up for the night. i saw the cabal that was in my apartment seated around a table in a coffee shop (which they owned for the day) discussing what they were going to spend my $500 on no doubt. as for me, off to the chinese grocery store with steaming dumplings already in hand to buy five off brand bottles of seltzer for three dollars and a mop head. good times.
- dave 11-06-2013 10:28 pm [add a comment]
oh, not nearly done as i suspected. setting up for interiors in the bar they built on the corner.
- dave 11-06-2013 10:47 pm [add a comment]
When they were shooting two lovers on my block in jc one of the union grip truck guys put up a big eagles flag off the back of his truck. My tenant went over and gave him some this is giants territory shit. Several Paltrow sightings too for my trouble. We also had a cash for using my window deal fall through.
- bill 11-06-2013 11:44 pm [add a comment]
did the briefest of glimpses cast a pall(trow) over everything youve ever done with your life? because, if not, there is no comparison to what i experienced today. no comparison! a klieg light has opened my eyes and i may never sleep again.
*yawn*
- dave 11-07-2013 12:00 am [add a comment]
well, that rca cable is ruined! this production is a net loss for me. i am going to torrent the shit out of this. you hear that, soderbergh! screw you and the golden cinemax you rode in on!
- dave 11-07-2013 12:16 am [add a comment]
been watching over soderberghs shoulder (from three stories up) as he peers endlessly (for the past 15 minutes) arm crossed into the entry hallway of the building across the street. apparently they cant get the interior lighting to his satisfaction. in the meantime 100 or so extras are still mulling around in the chill and ive taken the rare opportunity to scan the apartments across the way without feeling like a hapless voyeur. tonight i have hap! lots of young attractive blondes as it turns out. and in new york city no less!
- dave 11-07-2013 1:12 am [add a comment]
soderbergh is still out there with a camera on his shoulder as they shoot from two different angles the same scene. i wonder if that is unusual or not. but he does have his personal camera caddy for the downtime between shots.
- dave 11-07-2013 1:22 am [add a comment]
boom / you should be making a making of the movie movie.
- bill 11-07-2013 1:29 am [add a comment]
i think im qualified to make the blog of the tv series and not much else. thanks tho. good pix.
- dave 11-07-2013 1:39 am [add a comment]
Two or even three camera set-ups are not uncommon, but it's unusual for the director to shoot, Soderbergh is one of the few I know of who does. Kubrick also used shoot hand-held, often as the other cameras were rolling. Hand held shots in 2001 and Clockwork were his work.
- steve 11-07-2013 2:33 am [add a comment]
thanks. i meant unusual for the director to shoot not that they would shoot with multiple cameras. whenever else ive seen directors out there they are in the makeshift kiosk watching on a monitor with headphones on more often than not.
- dave 11-07-2013 2:42 am [add a comment]
i should add as far as i noticed they used no staged lighting. everything was natural light during the day and then period street lights (which they installed) and interior lighting at night.
- dave 11-07-2013 2:50 am [add a comment]
The candid street shots with old and new are great. Red cones and wagons. Get out there with your cell phone camera.
- bill 11-07-2013 2:53 am [add a comment]
good advice but then i would just be cribbing your aesthetic. ill admit to having never developed much of an eye nor had equipment to toy around with to really understand how best to get the most out of it. as it is the camera on my cell phone is less than rudimentary. and im generally uncomfortable invading peoples privacy (unless im comfortably above and at a distance) even if they are at that very moment being paid to be part of the scenery.
- dave 11-07-2013 3:28 am [add a comment]
day #2 of shooting looks like a wash out. lots of rain in the forecast. not seeing any effort to dress the set. no extras mulling around. and yet the breakfast buffet is set up but only some crew members and cops are in attendance.
- dave 11-07-2013 3:36 pm [add a comment]
well, it looks like some shooting is still scheduled as they are throwing more dirt into the street and at least one trailer pulled up for actors that i can see. thing is, they had to clear a path in the street of the dirt after they wrapped last night to allow for cars to use the roads again. now with the rain coming down its difficult to get the new dirt to cover the road with the tractor as all the wet dirt either sticks to the treads or gets too muddy and exposes the street below. now they are just dumping dirt and it will have to be raked out by hand for the most part.
at least one other neighborhood underwent this transformation for this mini-series and a poster on gothamist said the cleanup after the shoot was sub-optimal. i can imagine that happening. the sidewalks to say nothing of the streets are a mess.
- dave 11-07-2013 4:51 pm [add a comment]
man, they turn this shit around in a hurry. i cant even tell you one thing ive done in the last two hours but now the streets are prepped, the smoke machine is belching, the pushcarts are lining the street and the wagons are hitched and ready to roll.
ok, now i remember at least some of my time was spent shaking some chipotle hot sauce onto a chicken salad sandwich id bought earlier at the deli. and i may have cleaned my toilet. the blue and foamy water in the bowl was the tipoff but the fresh scent really sold me on it.
- dave 11-07-2013 6:35 pm [add a comment]
looks like it'd be fun to just watch all day. some gothamist photos. maybe you can sneak in as an extra, you have any period clothes?
- linda 11-07-2013 7:13 pm [add a comment]
bill posted those yesterday. you know he is a man that demands credit, otherwise i would have just let it slide.
they say levi's never go out of fashion but i doubt their cloaks were made from fleece.
- dave 11-07-2013 7:33 pm [add a comment]
well, i can tell you the umbrellas are not of the period.
and just as they get rolling on a take which involves a number of choreographed coaches intersecting some moronic woman with a brightly colored umbrella and decidedly not in costume walks through the scene. someone grabs her umbrella and hides behind a pushcart but on the very off chance they use that take she will be quite an anomaly in the background.
- dave 11-07-2013 7:50 pm [add a comment]
some moron locked their pretty nice looking bike to one of the temporary old timey light fixtures which theyve just taken apart to remove it from the shot. not that i ever would but i imagined myself going down just as they got it off and pretending it was mine.
as it is theyve just set it off to the side relatively unattended for anyone with the gumption to walk off with it.
- dave 11-07-2013 7:20 pm [add a comment]
The other night TCM had experimental films in the dead of night, including Ken Jacobs’ Orchard Street from 1955. That’s about half way back to the turn of the previous century, but seemed closer to then than now; the street life was downright seething. I’m pretty sure I saw Dave’s stoop. And awhile back they showed Hester Street, a black and white with an uncanny approximation of photos of the ca. 1900 era (and the uncanny Carol Kane.) Same director made Crossing Delancey, but that was in color.
- alex 11-08-2013 1:28 am [add a comment]
yeah, the foot traffic on some of those streets is hard to fathom.
- dave 11-08-2013 3:43 pm [add a comment]
they are striking the set. the circus has left town. last night the street cleaners were hard at work (havent had a chance to see their handiwork up close) and this morning the facades and props are being boxed up and loaded on trucks. so in a few hours if i gaze out the window for an uncomfortable amount of time im back to being the creepy guy across the street. bye-bye free money, i hardly knew ye.
- dave 11-08-2013 3:49 pm [add a comment]
In Chicago they had Maxwell st., aka Jew town. the '70's documentary and bonus footage record quite a crazy scene with the additional benefits of mixed ethenicity and slow change to allow the inclusion of real blues buskers and evangelical foot stompers. Avbl on Netflix I had an uncle who went every weekend to look for additions to his wrist watch collection which sold for big bucks at Christies after he passed on.
- bill 11-08-2013 4:01 pm [add a comment]
somewhat less of a thrill.... adam sandler is shooting on the same corner today. cant be bothered to even try and catch an eyeful.
- dave 11-20-2013 3:41 pm [add a comment]