The Anonymous Matchstick Man Speaks Up

ALERT WE'VE MOVED!!! ALERT

2010-01-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, so, six years or so... doesn't really... matter... right? Right.

So we've moved, back to the homeland, back to where it all began:

www.ericgarcia.com

It's a site/blog/whatever now, but it does the trick. I'll be leaving this post at the top of this blog as a redirect, for all eternity or until the Internet gets tired of being bossed around and becomes sentient, killing us all for amusement.

Once more, with feeling:

www.ericgarcia.com

Hope to see you there.

New Casting Info and an apology...

2004-04-23T20:34:00.000-07:00

So those last few days in Canada were a bit more hectic than I'd imagined, and I ended up returning to the hotel in Toronto with only enough time to fall asleep before waking up the next morning and getting back out to set. At some point, I'll go through the days bit by bit, but suffice it to say that the shoot was great, and that everyone involved, I think, had a blast.

SciFi saw fit to release the following information a few days ago, and I'm happy to say it made a big splash in papers all across the country (and internationally, in fact, which I always dig):

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - A pair of Oscar winners, Faye Dunaway and Isaac Hayes, have signed on to the Sci Fi Channel movie/back-door pilot "Anonymous Rex."

The pair will make cameos in the movie, based on Eric Garcia's award-winning novels where dinosaurs have continued to exist to the present day, evolved down to human size and live among us by means of elaborate disguises.

Dunaway will play Shin, the head of a secretive dinosaur governing council. Hayes will also play a member of the tribunal. "Anonymous Rex" stars Sam Trammell ("Going to California") as dino private eye Vincent Rubio and Daniel Baldwin ("Homicide") as his partner, Ernie Watson. Stephanie Lemelin ("The Mullets") is also part of the cast.

Garcia's novels tip their hat to hard-boiled detective fiction, and Sci Fi says "Anonymous Rex" will do the same to "film noir gold standards 'Chinatown' and 'Blade Runner,'" so who better to have in the cast than Dunaway, who earned one of her three Academy Award nominations for "Chinatown." She won a best actress Oscar two years later for "Network."

More recently, she's made guest appearances on "Alias" and co-starred in "The Thomas Crown Affair." She stars in CBS' adaptation of "Back When We Were Grownups" later this year.

Hayes' "Theme from 'Shaft'" won the best original song Oscar in 1972. These days, he's best known for providing the voice of Chef on "South Park." Other acting credits include the 2000 "Shaft" remake, "Escape from New York" and "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka."

So there we go. I'd known about the Isaac Hayes thing for some time, but the Dunaway signing was basically last-minute, and I was just as surprised as anyone. It's the only casting decision in which I had no say ('cause I wasn't around for it), but obviously I'm thrilled. The dailies are smashing, darlings...

We Must Beat Them With Newspapers! It's the only way!

2004-03-31T21:30:00.000-08:00

So there's this old Dilbert cartoon in which Dogbert is explaining that in any given meeting, everyone in the room will try and turn the discussion and solution for the problem at hand to the very thing that they specialize in. So there's the guy saying that the problem can be solved "using Ronget's Theorem, which I did a paper on in grad school," and then the next guy saying, "No, no, it can be solved by utilizing more bandwith compression, which is my field of expertise..."

And then Dogbert, being a dog, mind you, stands up and yells, "We must beat them with newspapers! It's the only way!"

That's sorta how I felt on set today.

Everyone on this production has a very different job from everyone else, yet we're all working toward the same end goal. Yet everyone is so focused on their job, so totally convinced that their job is THE most important job in the entire production, that to do anything any way other than the way they do it is the utmost of ludicrosity.

We must beat them with newspapers.

Now, that said, all of these people *are* quite good at their jobs, and we couldn't go forward without all of them working in delicate little harmony with one another.

Today was an especially difficult day in terms of logistics, mainly because they were working with so many extras. At least 60 or 70 of them, all dressed in tuxes and ballgowns, milling around at a party, trying to look like they were talking without actually being allowed to talk, having to move out of the way at precise times in order to let the Steadicam operator through...

What was great fun was to hang out with the extras during and after lunch. Now, none of them knew who I was or what my role was on the project; as far as they knew, I was just another set P.A. or grip or whatever, and I did nothing to dissuade them of that opinion. I just wanted to hear them talk about Rex, and see what they thought it was --

See, extras and background folk are a weird breed. Most of them want to act professionally, so they take the gigs to pay the bills, get some work on their resume, and so on, but they're treated as more or less cattle on a set. They're not told about the project as a whole, and they never receive scripts; if they even see a call sheet, they feel like they've been included.

So there they are, mingling at this dinner party where they've got drinks with big leafy herbs sticking out of them, listening to a speech by this odd woman who's talking about evolution and Progress and being hatched from an egg, etc.

Most of the extras seemed to get there were dinosaurs involved; some thought we were shooting some weird reptile-porn film.

The weirdest thing I heard was that someone had become convinced that we were shooting a spinoff of Threat Matrix, and that Progress was a terrorist cell.

Like I said, they get some weird ideas.

Dailies are looking smashing, just some beautiful compositions and colors, all thanks to Bert, our cinematographer, and Julian, our director, and the actors are really getting into their roles.

In short, Day Three went well. No Indian food or Frantics shows, but a good day overall.

I am beginning to tire a bit of life on set, which is so sad considering I just haven't been there that long, but I get antsy when I can't work for a few days. Still, it's not much longer; I can hack it...

I think...

Must... write... more... books... and... scripts... must... contain... myself... a few... days... longer...

Great White North, Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

2004-03-31T08:07:00.000-08:00

It's all about timing.

Yeah, sure, timing helps in film, but that's not what I'm talking about.

See, Monday night, we didn't get off set until around 10:45 or so, which meant that by the time I got back to the hotel and ready to eat dinner, it was like 11:15. Not much is open in Toronto at 11:15 on a Monday night, so I was left to wandering the downtown core by myself, poking my nose into very closed restaurants.

And just as I was about to give up and go get food from the 24-hour take-out deli, I turned down a side street just because it seemed to feel right --

And hit upon an Indian restauarant that was still open because 10-15 folks inside were throwing a birthday party. They agreed to feed me, too, and for those of you who know me, you know that Indian food is #1 on my list of happy Eric foods. It was the perfect capper to a good day.

Timing.

Nothing beats yesterday for timing, though. The day's shoot was good -- we were filming in a gorgeous loft in Bedford, this incredible artists' space that they've turned into Circe's house, replete with a herbarium and ground-herb wet bar. Mostly Vincent/Circe stuff yesterday -- actually, *all* Vincent/Circe stuff yesterday, with a sexy-nudie-sex-sex scene thrown in, during which they closed the set. As Exec. Producer, I actually could have stayed on set had I wanted, but I respect the actresses' request to close it off (damn! I really have to get rid of that whole respect thing if I want to make it in Hollywood), so since the set was closed at around 8:00 PM or so, I decided to call it a day.

So I come back to the hotel, fiddle around on the computer, and decide to check out the Second City schedule. The Second City theatre is literally next door to our hotel, so I figured what the heck, I'll see if there's a show --

Oh, there was a show.

A Frantics show.

Those of you who know Canadian sketch comedy will know what I'm talking about. Those of you who listened to Dr. Demento growing up will know what I'm talking about, too. I'm talking about Boot To The Head. Bill From Bala. All that amazing comedy --

And their show was starting 6 minutes from when I checked the schedule. EEEEEEEK!

Once again, another great day in Toronto.

Timing, baby.

More tomorrow...

Tired... oh so very tired...

2004-03-29T21:44:00.000-08:00

But not too tired to blog, eh?

Yes, I've picked up the "eh?" thing here in Canada, more by choice than by true osmosis, though.

12:51 AM here on Toronto time, and we wrapped the day about 2 hours ago; I've just gotten back to the hotel.

So, on Day 6 of the shoot, we covered a crazy dinosaur nightclub/rave, an appearance by one of Raal's henchmen in Progress, a nasty claw-induced/throat-slashing death scene, a little sequence with Raal himself, and some very nice camera work. There was a bunch of Ernie time, and a bunch of Gabrielle.

Gabrielle, by the way, is a new character created just for the show; she's Ernie's daughter, and is played by Stephanie Lemelin, a wonderful actress who's just about perfect for the part. I hung with her and her family quite a bit today (her father is Reggie Lemelin, star goalie for Boston for many an NHL season), and had just a blast.

Oh, did I mention I have my own trailer?

Yes, that's right. TRAILER. That makes me official Hollywood Trailer Trash, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Except I guess, in this case, that I'm Toronto Trailer Trash. Close enough.

I'll try and get some photos of the cast and set up on the website when I get back from Canada, just so everyone can see the actors we've got, and the great job that the set/props/makeup/etc. department is doing.

It was trippy walking into this nightclub scene and seeing, instead of a wall of alcohol bottles behind the bar, beakers and glasses filled with cilantro, rosemary, etc. All told, they've got nearly 500 people working on this project in some capacity or another, and the care and creativity from every single one of them is evident in every shot.

More good news from tomorrow's set, I hope (10:00 AM call, thank God), when we begin to shoot the Progressives' party, and the first meeting between Vincent and Circe...

Access Galore!

2004-03-27T11:35:00.000-08:00

I've just gotten great news from my lovely hotel in Toronto that they have broadband Internet access in every room (and WiFi hotspots in every single common area in the hotel -- keen!), ensuring that I'll be able to post daily updates (so long as I'm not *too* bushed) from the Anonymous Rex TV set. Word from Joe Menosky, our wonderful EP, is that the first week of shooting was gangbusters, the actors are stellar and easy to work with, and the dailies look great.

Dear God, we've got Citizen Kane on our hands. Prep those Emmys and Cable Ace Awards and Golden Globes and Hugos and... um... well, the other ones, too.

I love how easy it is to be optimistic at this stage of the game.

In any case, next blog will be dispatches from Canada. Onwards!

Goin' Back to CA-nada

2004-03-20T23:58:00.000-08:00

About a week from tomorrow, I'll be heading out to Toronto to check out some of the filming of the Anonymous Rex pilot. There's still a lot of work to be done before then, but everyone's working incredibly hard to put this thing together.

Still, I've been embroiled in TV and the TV world as of late, both with Rex and some other projects I've been working on, and as such, I've had time to immerse myself in a few new experiences.

So, without further adieu...

TELEVISION PHRASES THAT SOUND DIRTY BUT REALLY AREN'T:

"The best grips are in Vancouver."

"If we push too hard on the breakage, we're going to have a mess on our hands."

"I'm taking the 9:45 to Toronto" (come on, if you say it with a leer, it could sound sooo dirty)

"Let's massage that first bit and see if we can't make it tighter."

I'm hoping I'll have Internet access at the hotel in Toronto so I can post some daily blogs for the week or so that I'm up there; if not, I'll post reports once I return.

In the meantime, I need to buy a warm coat.

A *really* warm coat. My little Matchstick Men crew windbreaker ain't gonna cut it in the frigid northland.

Crap.

Gettin' Hot and Sweaty!

2004-03-15T15:24:00.000-08:00

Even my daughter's in on the act.

She's three -- well, three-and-three-quarters, as she'll have you know -- and almost needless to say, she's a bit of a chip off the old block. Picture a much smaller, much cuter version of me, with a bit of my wife thrown in for that whole female-element, and there you go.

First, I let her act as "delivery gal" at my most recent signing down at Mysteries To Die For in Thousand Oaks, Cali. I give out little plastic dinosaur figurines in plastic eggs to people who ask good questions or who propose new titles for the Rex series, and Bailey was incredibly excited to be the egg-hander-outer. Did a stellar job, through and through, and even asked a question herself during the Q&A period (to wit: "How you get those dinosaurs on the TV?" Answer: CGI effects! Now she'll probably spend the next two months quizzing me on what CGI effects are, but that's my own bed and now I have to lie in it).

Then, she's at a park today with her little friend Victoria, and it's steaming here in California right now, so Bailey gets very hot and needs to rest.

My wife asks her how she's doing, and Bailey says, "I'm hot."

My wife repeats (as we often do, just to make sure we understand exactly what she's saying), "You're hot?"

"Yes," says Bailey, "I'm hot and sweaty."

Beat. Beat. You know what's coming. She smiles and says:

"I'm Hot and Sweaty Rex."

Brainwashing! Yes!

Our Long National Nightmare is Over...

2004-03-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

Well, the *casting* nightmare is over, at least.

And it really wasn't a nightmare, technically, but it sounds nice and dramatic, and I'm nothing if not for melodrama.

We have a Vincent. We have an Ernie. Means we'll finally, truly, have a show.

Vincent will be played by Sam Trammell, most recently the lead on the Showtime series Going to California. He's got this cool Sam Rockwell vibe to him, and he was far and away everyone's favorite choice for the part. There's something genuinely cool about him that I think everyone's really going to gravitate toward.

And Ernie will be played by Daniel Baldwin, most famous for his role on NBC's Homicide. Yes, folks, we've got a Baldwin brother, and a rockin' one at that. He's got a great feel for the material, and really seems to get the project, both the comedy and the serious elements, so hooray!

We got to see the two of them test together, and the vibe was electric, which is exactly what you want when you're pairing up two actors who have to spent a good 50% of each show playing off each other. You can really believe, watching these two, that they're old friends, and that Baldwin has Trammell under his wing -- er, his talon.

Now it's just a matter of nailing down the smaller parts -- and I've got some info along those lines that I'd love to blog soon, and will as soon as the contracts and signed, sealed, and delivered.

As for that Time Out New York piece, it seems that it came out great -- photo and all. I still have yet to see it, but all my NYC contacts tell me it's wonderful, and that I look appropriately ominous and fun in the big ol' picture.

I also hope to continue blogging when we start shooting Rex on the 22nd. If I'm up in Toronto for the shoot, I'll make sure to give a rundown every day or so, documenting the creation of the show as it happens.

Oh, come on, *someone's* gotta find that interesting. Anyone? ANYONE?

Say Cheese-y!

2004-02-21T10:37:00.000-08:00

Actually, the photo shoot wasn't so bad.

Photographer: Good guy. Knows what he's doing.

Subject: Generally willing to pose in a variety of odd and/or uncomfortable ways: Lying down in the damp, tall grass, pose dorkily in his living room, pretend he's having a picture taken for his Green Card.

All in all, three hours of sitting around waiting for the lighting setups to be right, and fifteen minutes of actual shooting.

Hey, it's just like being a producer on a film set. 90% bullshitting and eating Craft Services, 10% actual shooting time.

I guess I could get used to this.

So long as I don't have to keep lying down in the grass. There's dog poop down there. Ew.

Beware... Beware...

2004-02-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

In three hours, a photographer from Time Out New York will arrive at my house with his cameras, his lights, and possibly a stylist, and proceed to burn rolls and rolls of film until they've got a pretty lil' picture of me to go with the magazine profile.

Help.

I've been on photo shoots before, had my pictures in magazines and newspapers, so that's not the source of my nervousness.

It's just...

This photopgraher, who seems perfectly nice, though perhaps a bit spacey, on the phone, has some interesting ideas on how to shoot me:

In our discussions, blades of grass have come up more than once.

As has the parking lot of a Wal-Mart.

And the counter at a Mexican restaurant.

Help.

No matter what happens, I will repeat this mantra ad infinitum:

I don't do nudes. I don't do nudes. I don't do nudes.

Failing that:

I was young, I needed the money. I was young, I needed the money. I was young, I needed the money.

And you would be...?

2004-02-19T16:17:00.000-08:00

Casting was cancelled today.

Why? Easy:

Not enough actors.

Can you believe it? Here in L.A., you can take a rock -- wait, forget a rock, make it a delicately constructed origami swan, the kind that wouldn't fly more than two feet even with a Nolan Ryan pitch behind it -- throw it in the air, and hit an actor dead-center between the delicately plucked eyebrows. But casting was cancelled today because, and I repeat:

Not enough actors.

Technically, it's because a lot of the actors who were supposed to show called to reschedule (which is better than just not showing up for their appointment, which happens a staggering amount of the time), but the end result was that we only had 7 or so appointments, which isn't anywhere close to enough to bother with a whole casting session, so the whole thing was cancelled, and I drove into L.A. just to turn around again.

Actually, that's not quite true. I did do an interview in Santa Monica with Time Out New York, a hip entertainment mag based in -- wait for it -- New York that's doing a profile on me. The reporter was this very cool, very smart, cute girl named Mimi, which is my favorite type of reporter: cool, smart, and cute, named after a character from Rent. Anyway, we blabbed for a good two hours, so the L.A. trip was worth it, but I was expecting another day sitting on that casting couch. Even after all my angst with yesterday's post (was that angst? Could a teenager somewhere help me out with that?) I feel like I'm almost getting used to it.

The thing that *really* amazes me is that some of the actors that I've suggested we bring in for auditions have passed on the project (Hollywod Speak: Pass means "no, thanks, not interested) EVEN BEFORE READING THE SCRIPT. Based solely on the fact that's it's basic cable and the general premise of the show (which we can all agree is, on the face of it, patently ridiculous) either they or their managers/agents/etc. have decided that they don't want to do it.

And that's fine -- it's their career, their day-to-day, their choice. Aside from the basic cable/weird show issue, we're filming in Canada, and that can certainly ruin anyone's well-planned lifestyle, so I can understand Passes, especially from some of these bigger names we've come up with.

But there are two actors I've suggested, both of whom would be great for their respective parts, neither of whom has done anything of mention recently, and without even looking at the material, they chose not to come in and meet with us.

My first reaction was annoyance: How could they not want this part? This is a great part! This is a great series! What the hell else are they doing with their time?

My second reaction was a high-and-mighty snobbery: Well, jeez, it's totally their loss. They have no idea what they're turning down, so fuck 'em if they don't even want to take a look at it.

My third reaction was acceptance and a semblance of reality: There are a bunch of actors out there, some of whom would love these parts, and we'll find someone who fits it perfectly.

And then I realized that, despite my post yesterday about finding myself on the "buying" end of the table instead of the "selling" one, I'm doing the same thing I always did, just at a different level.

I'm still convincing people to love my work. In this case, I'm trying to convince them to love it enough to act in it, but it's all the same thing. I buy, I sell, I play both sides of the fence depending on which side the other guy happens to be on at the time.

Now that I'm starting to get the hang of that, I think it's going to be even more fun.

Or I'll explode trying to figure it all out.

Either way, it should be entertaining.

Strange Days Indeed

2004-02-18T14:41:00.000-08:00

We're casting for the Anonymous Rex television show these days.

It's weird.

No, not the show, although that quite assuredly is, as the Italians would say, molto weird.

The casting process is weird, especially from the point of view of a writer who's never sat on the buying end of the table before.

Most of my dealings with the entertainment industry are as a salesman, or at least as one who produces a piece of work to be sold by others. I'm usually the one hawking my wares, hoping that people like what I've done and, by extension, like me.

Now I'm in the driver's seat.

Well, *one* of the driver's seats, and an admittedly small one, at that. I don't have final say over anybody, and what I can do is pretty much recommend or disagree with the other producers and executives. I guess if I were *really* down on someone, I'd make sure to yell really loudly and probably get my way, but the only actor I've felt that strongly about was roundly dissed by everyone else, as well, so there was no need to be too vociferous about it.

Still, it's weird.

The casting room is small, maybe fifteen feet square, and there's usually four or five of us in there. It's me, the executive from the studio, the showrunner, the casting director, and his assistant, who runs the video camera that tapes all these actors as they run through their lines.

I've been sitting on this sofa (technically, I guess, a "casting couch," which means I should probably wash my pants thoroughly, though our great casting agent seems very forthright and unlikely to engage in such shenanigans) smack dab in front of the door, so when actors come in, I'm the first person they see. This isn't by design or anything -- it's just where I took a seat the first time I came in, and now we've got a sort of "Same Seats!" third-grade mentality going in the room, which is peachy by me. I'd rather sit on a sofa for three hours straight than some desk chair.

Sometimes we sit around and bullshit with the actor for a while, especially if:

A) We know the person

B) We recognize one of his/her film or TV roles from his resume on the back of his/her headshot

C) He/she is relatively famous, and we just wanna say hey and shoot the breeze

Eventually, the actor gets around to reading his "sides" -- the parts from the script that he's been sent to prepare/memorize/use as a coaster (you'd be suprised how many professional actors are poorly prepared for these things).

Jason, our casting director, reads opposite the actor, and his delivery is the same every single time -- relatively dry, uninflected, giving nobody a better chance than anybody else. If you wanna show you can act, you're gonna have to do it across from this dry hunk of wood. He's perfect at it, and it makes me laugh nearly every time, though I've pretty much learned to hold it in.

The weird part starts around now, when the actor starts doing his lines (I'm sticking to male gender here, by the way, partially because it's easier, and partially because we've got a lot more guys coming through for the Vincent and Ernie roles than we do for the role of Gabrielle, a new part created for the TV show -- she's Ernie's late-teens/early-20's daughter):

Three or four lines in, I've probably made up my mind on half of these guys. Some of them, it takes a little more, and a few I haven't decided how I feel even after they're all done. But I sit and I watch and -- here's the weird part, as promised -- I judge.

I know, I know, we do it every day. Everyone does it. But I've never had to do it before when someone else's job has been on the line, especially in a field that's not technically mine. If I want to remain in TV, I'd better *make* it my field, but for now, I'm still learning. And there I am, wondering if this guy can carry the comedy, or if that guy's too wink-wink, or if this girl could lose that gravel in her voice, or if that other guy could just grow about six inches, and just like that I'm the dude on the other end of the table, thinking, "Thanks, but no thanks," only we don't say that. Out here, we make sure everyone leaves happy.

At the end of everybody's piece -- everybody's -- we say the same thing:

"Good job! That was great! Thanks!" Doesn't matter if we mean it or not. Most times, it seems we don't. But that's the way it works, and I think the actors know that. I hope the actors know that. It's not personal -- I understand that now -- but on some level, it is. It's a personal decision based on two minutes of lines that they didn't even write themselves, and their basic physical appearance and charisma in the room.

Not personal, but personal.

"That was good. Really good. Thanks for coming in!"

These shouldn't be my lines, should they? That's what I'm supposed to *hear*, not what I'm supposed to *say*.

See, like I said. It's weird.

Oh Yeah? Oh Yeah? Wanna take it outside?

2004-02-18T13:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I'm blogging. What's it to ya?

Let me make it perfectly clear why I have begun to blog:

I'm not blogging 'cause of peer pressure. I saw the videos in junior high school. I know that peer pressure is... um... bad. 'Cause your peers can push you into a bathroom and make you smoke dope and then you get all googly-eyed and wind up on PCP, perched on a tenth-floor fire escape convinced that you're Superman, only to end up like an early-Letterman watermelon on the pavement below.

So that's not why I'm blogging.

And I'm not blogging because I need a creative outlet. If you're reading this, you've probably already availed yourself of any number of my creative outlets. Thanks! For those who are concerned that the blogging will take time away from my books or films or TV shows, don't worry -- I procrastinate enough as it is; I'll just shift some of that web-surfing time over to this little blogspot.

That's the plan, at least.

So that's not why I'm blogging.

And I'm not blogging for revenge --

Or for love --

Or for acceptance --

Or out of boredom --

I'm blogging because
>message exceeds length<