Monday, October 20, 2008

Interruption! A Bit of Catch-up . . . .

After my last post, there were a couple of questions, so I'm interrupting the chronological sequence of the Oahu report to stand here at my laptop and clarify a bit about the tape Michael showed us at K-Mart.

When Larry and golf had picked out their golf balls and found Michael in the electronics section, showing the Frank Sinatra tape, they were really surprised. golf told me later that she had no idea Michael had even brought the tape along (she was sitting in the back seat in the car, so she didn't see that he was holding it). Michael had actually taken the tape to the restaurant in the hope that it had a VCR, but it didn't, so he took it along when he led Larry and golf to K-Mart. He said he was lucky there was that combination TV/VCR/DVD where he could play it -- and I think he was probably very brave to try it in the first place! The tape could have or been defective after not being played for 20 years and could possibly have jammed and gotten stuck in the player! But it didn't -- whew!! -- so they were able to view it safely and see an example the kind of "home movies" Michael has.

And they certainly enjoyed seeing it! (golf didn't notice any customers paying any attention to them or the video that was showing, but then with three people grouped around the TV watching it, there wasn't much room for anyone else to see anything!)

The tape showed, basically, some "behind the scenes" shots of the crew and the actors setting up different scenes. The ones with Frank Sinatra showed him setting up with lighting and sets to do the scene where he punches the mirror with his fist. He was chatting with the crew and helping get things set up. There were a couple of test shots where he was working on getting the movement correct and then he does the punch and shakes his fist in pain from "hitting" the mirror. It seemed rather chaotic and crowded, but I guess that's what it looks like on a real filming set (as I don't personally know anything about this, unfortunately). Then there were some videos of the setting up for the still picture of TS and FS for the cover of TV Guide -- you remember that cover picture, don't you? In Michael's video, Tom and Frank were moving around in different positions for different shots, one right, one left, one high, one low, etc. So it left the impression that the guys posed for a lot of shots and then one was later chosen to be the cover picture. At one point in their moving around to try different angles, it looked as though Tom, who was sitting at a higher level than Frank right then, leaned over and kissed Frank on the top of his head! What a disarmingly sincere way to show his admiration and respect!

In addition, there were some scenes with Carol Burnett where she was in the set for Magnum's guesthouse apartment. She was moving around and chatting with people, then she got up in what looked like a tall director's chair and sat there, while, we guess, they were checking the lighting on what she was wearing and so on.
That's about it for this post. More later.

No comments: