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E.J. assists Mere in the Director’s chair.
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Being the first one to admit her lack of techy skills, Mere was happy that her crash course in Film 101 was well worth it. “For example, the first scene is a really long panning shot. I wanted it to pan down from a window over to a lantern, down past the TV, over to a coffee table, up over the couch on to some feet and there you find Chen, who’s one of the characters, on the floor doing sit-ups.” She confessed, “Now basically the only action in this scene is, ‘Chen does sit ups’, ‘his girlfriend brings him tea’.” Mere laughs at the irony of the shot as she explains, “That’s the entire scene and it took me a page because I was describing this long oner-shot and the minute I gave it to potential DP’s [Directors of Photography] and other technical people they looked at it and they’re like, ‘You know, you won’t be able to get this shot. You know that right?’ And I was thinking, ‘Oh shit.’ I felt like I had kind of screwed myself, you know, had basically had bigger eyes than my stomach, had written something that was impossible. I’m a determined girl, but I’m also a technical retard. So when they said, ‘you can’t do it’, I felt like it was something mechanical. Like it was physically impossible to do it. But Matt Mania, who was my DP the first three days and Jamie Barber who was my DP the last two days, they both said, ‘You know what? No, we can do it.’ And I was just like, ‘I love you guys! I love you so much.’ They said I could do it and I’ll be damned if we didn’t get the shot.”
“Jamie Barber is the new DP at Roswell. He was also, at the time, flying up to Portland where William Friedkin is making his new movie, [The Hunted] and he sent a friend of his to step in. And Matt Mania, his ideas for shots were flawless. He had such creative, innovative, interesting ways of shooting things that I would say, ‘Okay Matt what if we took the camera down and we’d show . . .’ And he’d say, ‘Okay, but what if we did this?’ and it was infinitely cooler than anything I could come up with.” It’s also a credit to Mere’s open mindedness. She was not so focused with what she wanted to create that she was able to maneuver around other ideas and incorporate them, making the whole process more interesting for her. “Well totally, absolutely! My mother didn’t raise no fool! If people know better than you, you listen to them,” she professed. “So if he said, ‘I’ve got this great idea for a shot’, I’m not going to say, ‘Oh, I don’t care.’ I’d be like, ‘Oh please tell me, please help me! Please don’t make me look like a loser.’ Yeah, my DP’s were just the best! And I learned so much from them.”
The cast and crew of The Enforcers rivals that of Cleopatra!
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With Mere learning so much, especially in the directorial side, I wondered if that would seep over into her writing for this upcoming season or at least make that easier. “Oh yes! She admitted. “And you want to know one specific example? The first shot I was like, ‘Okay, so we start at the top of the building and then we pan down to find Dante walking across the street.’ Michael Stecher, was our camera op for a lot of the time and he’s like, ‘We can’t do it.’ I said, ‘What? I mean, it’s just a simple pan down.’ He’s like, ‘We can’t do it.’ I said, ‘Why!?’ And he goes, ‘Because there’s no such thing as a ‘pan-down’. You can tilt-down, you can arm-down, you can boom-down. But you pan left and right.’ So for the rest of my life I will never, ever write the words ‘pan-down’. But seriously when he’s like ‘we can’t do that’ I was sitting there going, ‘Oh God it’s the first day and I’m already not speaking English’. And he was like you writers do that all the time in your scripts. Stuff like that, technical stuff that I had no idea about just because I’ve never done it before. I felt like it was a crash course in the actual mechanics of making movies and I was so lucky to have such good teachers.” Again she was happy to share all the credit. “Like I said, this isn’t so much my movie as it is everybody who worked on it. And I was floored by their generosity, just absolutely stunned. The whole thing about Hollywood being full of assholes? Very true! Extremely true in some cases. But there are also really good people and thanks to Elisabeth I happened on a really whole lot of them.”
This being her first project some writers, not knowing if they’ll get another chance, trend to put all their ideas into one basket, but Mere hasn’t been sitting on all her eggs. “It’s funny you should say that.” She confided, “Actually I, just last night as a matter of fact, came up with the idea for my second screenplay. It’s called Tell It Like It Is. And it’s kind of a romantic comedy but of course skewed in that special Mere Smith way which means lots of sex and violence. So I feel like you can say that you’re putting all your ideas in one basket but it’s like you haven’t had all your ideas yet until you croak. And when you croak, then okay, that’s all your ideas. But until then, if you don’t keep coming up with new stuff then you’re pretty much just useless.” As to when the pubic will be able to see The Enforcers and when . . . “One of the conditions that SAG lays on you when you sign up for a signatory status is,” Mere explained, “if you’re shooting it for an experimental film which means that it’s extremely low budget, you’re not paying your actors anything. Basically if you make any money on the film what-so-ever you have to pay your actors exactly what they were due and we’re talking 10’s of thousands of dollars. So I can’t make any money off of this, which means I can’t sell it at festivals, I can’t do anything with it.” But ‘can’t be seen’ is not something Buffy and Angel fans take sitting down and the odds that The Enforcers may find its way onto viewing screen in similar fashion to the prohibited Graduation Day 2 only makes Mere give a chuckle and express that she would love fans to eventually see the film. Congratulations on writing and directing and adding two more feathers in your cap Mere! “Thanks! It's less feathers probably, kind of -- more chicken bones.”
Andy Hallett
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ur summer film spotlight closes out with Andy Hallett. Best regarded by Angel fans as ‘the green guy’ when he first appeared on the series, he now has a full-fledged dedicated following of his own. Broadening his career experience with two of the most talented woman of Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he takes part in not one but two independent film projects over hiatus that ranged from a gay, lovelorn nightclub singer to a sleazy hotel owner, swindling money from the Mob. Mere Smith and Amber Benson had nothing but great things to say about this enthusiastic, wonderful young actor to which he could only modestly reply, “Well that’s nice, they’re all awesome!” And he means it. If one thing comes across while talking with Andy it’s his sincere and honest approach to his work and the relationship he values with his co-creators.
Andrew Alcott Hallett was born on August 4th, 1975 in the small Cape Cod town of Osterville. Despite his character’s outgoing persona, Andy was very shy growing up. After moving to Los Angeles he held numerous jobs, even landing a few non-speaking roles in a few commercials. Then Joss Whedon saw Andy sing in a Universal City Blues revue called BB King's and conceived the part of The Host. Months later Joss offered Andy his first acting position as Lorne, ironically his agent waited to sign him until after his first episode Judgment. With his amazing popularity taking him higher and further he was eager to stretch his wings this summer with two fun and challenging projects. We first begin with Mere Smith’s, The Enforcers. The gangster set comedy places Andy in his most unique roll to date yet definitely his most enjoyable. Having to stretch his acting abilities with new and interesting characters gave him added insight, which carries onto other projects. Don’t be too surprised if our Karaoke owning demon develops a little more depth this season on Angel.
Andy and Amber, a light moment on the set of Chance.
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Working with Mere and Amber outside of Angel can only lead to fun, fun, fun. “Oh my dear! It was great,” Andy enthused right off the bat. “You know, because my experience in any film or television is very, very limited as you know. So I’ve got Angel, Enforcers and Chance. And you know what I do on Angel so I don’t need to explain that. So going to do Enforcers was something totally different because I play this grease-ball who owes this sleazy motel. I had to grow out my 5-o’clock shadow, grow it out for a few day and then they even enhanced it a little bit and wear a little wife-beater t-shirt. And really just become a total sleazebag.” Andy goes on to explain one scene, “And then I was hiding money in the walls of my hotel from the Mafia and then the guys came in to find it and they roughed me up a little bit. It was really fun. It was the only time I’ve ever been like roughed up and kicked around so it was a lot different from being The Host because, you know The Host is like usually in full control . . .” Not a coward but don’t touch me! “Ahhhh! Yeah, exactly. ‘Okay, for the last time, ‘Not a coward!’ ”
Here’s a scene from the script of The Enforcers featuring Andy and the boys.
Wallace [Andy Hallett] is described as: mid-fifties, fat, sweaty. Exactly what you’d expect. Wallace holds Dante [Gerard Crawford] and Chen [Gin Young] at gunpoint.
WALLACE
Get my money out of your pocket.
Slowly Chen withdraws the roll he took, holds it up.
WALLACE
Toss it on the desk.
Chen does. Waits. Wallace is really enjoying himself now.
WALLACE (cont.)
Now maybe you can answer me a
question. Say you’re a couple
of cops -
In the hallway, Scully [James Marsters] silently walks towards the rear office, drawing his gun as he hears Wallace talking . . .
WALLACE (O.S.)
If two dumbass scabs tried to
come in here and shake me down -
WALLACE
-- where do you s’pose I’d be
standing when I shot’em? Here,
you think? No . . .
He moves back around, behind his desk.
WALLACE
Prob’ly back here, right? You come
in, say, "Gimme all your money,”
I pull my gun, and -
He takes aim at Dante, smiling.
WALLACE
Go with me on this one.
Aww! You didn’t think we were gonna spoil it for you, did you?? Sorry gang, we’re as evil as Joss sometimes!
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