More Lacy. As in Street Production Center.

We have a crisis. (Can crises still be crises when they become a regular feature of your schedule? Is that oxymoronic, or are we approaching a state of Zen in which the perpetually ludicrous simply becomes a koan designed to shake us out of our established thought patterns and into a higher level of consciousness? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.) We have lost our Script Supervisor, Mitch. This is a problem. The Script Supervisor is an important job, and Mitch was good at it -- it was his job to keep track of the timing of each take, actor continuity (Actor A touches his glasses with his left hand on this word...), how far into each scene each take progresses, what lens was used, what roll of film stock and sound tape was used for each take. It is about details, knowing which ones to look for, and how to keep all of them going in your head at the same time. They ask me to do it. I am torn to the core of my soul. Here is a chance for me to be useful on the set -- Mark asked me to fill in for the simple and cogent reason that nobody knows the script as well as I do. The unique talent that I bring to this production can be put to use, and I will have a purpose again.

On the other hand, I'm scared shitless. What if I screw up? What if I write something down wrong, or don't write down something I should have? But I put my fears behind me and bear down to do the job. Thus are heroes made (meanwhile, I'm counting the seconds until my replacement arrives. There is a Script Supervising school in town -- where else but in Los Angeles, eh? -- and Mark has put in a call to them asking if they have a student who would like the experience and who can handle it. They do, but it will take her some time to get prepared and get to the studio. The second hand creeps up the watch face like an octopalegic spider...)

Other than that things are running swimmingly. We're in the police precinct room, the old Cagney and Lacey set, and almost everything -- filing cabinets, desks, etc. -- is on hidden wheels so that it can be whipped around the set with the greatest of ease. Everything except for a 4 ton antique photocopier machine, which takes four of us to scoot a foot and a half. Three of us are almost laid up with hernias.

But there is some nice work being done, some good shots, some good acting. Bill Douglas is excellent as Rigby, and Brian even settles down and has some very good scenes. He mostly seems to go off the deep end in scenes with Eric -- either because Eric is underplaying things (which is a good thing, in my book) or because he feels threatened by Eric for some reason. I don't give a damn about his psychological state, I just want him to act the part the way it is written.

And then we hit a snag.

Brian thus far has been occasionally rearranging some lines, minor stuff, but he gets to an important scene and tells Parris (who calls me over) that a particular speech doesn't work. He doesn't have closure on it, he says.

Here are the lines: "I used to admire this guy. I ... I wanted to know the things he knew, I wanted to write the words that he wrote. Reading his stuff was like...hearing angels singing just around the corner. You never quite saw heaven, but you could hear its echoes. But they're just some words, written by some guy." (This is the way Parks talks. Trust me, it works in context.)

That doesn't come to any emotional fruition for Brian. Why, I'm not sure, because he can't explain the problem. It just doesn't feel finished. I ask him to explain further -- what would you suggest? says I, batting my eyelashes. Something like this, says Brian. "...written by some guy. God damn it, I did everything I could to help this guy and he just pushed me away. Why won't he let me help him" etc etc. etc.

It is all I can do to keep my lunch down, and lunch was actually pretty good that day. I try to be reasonable. Okay, I say, I see your problem. You're thinking the climax needs to come somewhere after "...some guy..." The way I intended it, the climax is the angel metaphor, and the some guy is the emotional denouement, the splash of cold water in your own face. Can you read it that way?"

Nope, doesn't work. He wants to add this other stuff.

"Well, Parks doesn't talk like that, for starters, plus the character is all about emotional control and repression, and here he is sounding like he's in some encounter group and preparing for a group hug with Rigby. So you can't have that, I won't let you say those lines." I say this, not in those exact words (but close) in a pleasant, non-confrontational way. I want Brian to be up, into his part, and not fighting with the writer. That does nobody any good. But he's insistent. Fortunately for me, I have Lee on my side -- Lee, who also almost chokes when he hears what Brian wanted to say at this point. Definitely not, he says. You can work with him, if you want to, but you also have my authority to tell him "Say the lines that are written there."

But I want Brian to be happy, so I add a line. The line is "...some guy, and the angels all flew away a long time ago." The line works okay, it satisfies me, and Brian thinks I'm fucking brilliant. How he went from what he was insisting he needed to say, to thinking this was exactly right, eludes me to this day. When Bigfoot and Nessie get together over tea, I suspect they discuss this conundrum.

Karen, the new script supervisor, arrives. Karen is a little bundle of energy. Karen is a bundle of energy the way Uranium 235 is a bundle of energy -- she comes in wired and taut almost to the snapping point, and things progress from there. She has no idea what she's doing (I shudder to imagine post production, given that I know how many mistakes she made and just really weird shit she did) and is in way, way over her head, but everyone gives her a pat on the back, because at least she is in there trying, and it is indicative to me of the kind of people I was working with, that they would do this for this poor floundering creature. I was also proud of myself because apparently, through blind luck, I did a good job, and Rob actually asked me to keep an eye on Karen.

Poor Rob had to play the bad guy, a self-appointed role but one that needed playing. He rode Karen constantly -- not harshly, just constantly, checking her work, informing her of her mistakes, getting tough when he needed to, etc. Mark was set up to be "good cop" and he'd talk nice to her and congratulate her on her hard work, etc. Pure manipulation, but it kept Karen on the set through the end of the picture, which was the point. But we all missed Mitch.

My life as an extra: We had the most empty precinct house in the 20th century -- we just couldn't get our hands on any extras, so crew members, passers-by, etc. were slapped into cop uniforms or harangued into playing criminals being interviewed, etc., in the precinct room. It was planned that I would actually have a walk on part later in the filming ("Paul the Weenie" -- one of Sam's co-workers at the bookstore. He has one line. I felt like Alfred Hitchcock.), so I couldn't ever be in focus, but for one scene (from all its various angles, etc.) I and several other crew members were corralled back to the admitting desk, which could be seen through glass doors far off in the background. Completely out of focus. At most you might see vaguely humanoid shapes moving in the distance. But that kind of detail is necessary, so I put on my actor's hat and went back.

The scene took several hours to film (well, at least a couple). There's a reason extra's actually make okay money for a day's shoot. It's long, time consuming, boring work. I had my blocking all figured out (I had a whole character scenario built in my head, I knew my motivation) and at one point went over to a "phone" to make a call -- there weren't actually prop phones in the little cubicles, but you could never tell that from the distance. I leaned into the cubicle, excitedly and in character -- unfortunately, although there were no prop phones in the cubicle, the big screw that held the prop phone was still there. I drove it into my forehead right between the eyes. It left no mark, but I was a little wobbly for a few minutes. I decided then and there that I would stick with writing.

It's hard to be a bit player. It's a thankless job, and you get no credit and less glory, but if you weren't there there'd be no realism at all. A young woman, Rhonda, is playing the Coronor's Assistant. She is there to tell the audience that Ellen Monroe's death was not a suicide, she was murdered. She has two short lines, and then some brief technobabble about hematomas on the wrists indicating bruising. "All the signs were there. The cut on the left wrist made by a knife held in the right hand, the right one made by a knife held in the left hand." Etc. No problem. The blocking is easy, the shot is set. Camera rolls. She blows the line. Gets the rights and lefts tangled up. No big deal. Take two. She blows the line again. Should be an easy line, and we just wasted two takes, several minutes, and several hundred feet of film. These things happen. Go again. She blows it again. Trouble is, now she's flustered. This shouldn't be a big deal, it isn't a big deal, but know her concentration is shot, her head is gone. Seven takes. Seven takes to get the line right, to get the shot. This is just the way it goes sometimes, it has happened to other people, and it will happen to other people in the future. But I felt so bad for Rhonda I wanted to cry. She was a professional, thanked everyone for their patience, shook hands all around. Then practically bolted for the door.

And then we were done at Lacy. Like that, it was over. We had several long days, but they'd gone quickly. We'd had a couple of crises, but weathered them. Bill Douglas got a standing ovation from the crew on his last day of filming (he wasn't in any further scenes) -- the kind of actor crews like to work with. Knew his stuff, came in and did it, and got it right. We didn't get some scenes we needed, but they will be picked up later; such is filmmaking on a low budget. I'd survived my brief stint as an actual crew member, and so did the film. And the first week was done.

Five days down, five days to go.

Hollyweird indeed.