Once Upon A Time There Was A Song...

I came in sort of last minute on this film project about two months ago.  A young filmmaker working on an ambitious project for her final thesis had lost her gospel singer and was going into production in 4 days.  Miguel came home telling me of the tale and asking if I'd be interested.  The first question was: Does she know what I look like?  Not to be crude.  I have no wavering thoughts of whether I sing from the soul but (as I've been told quite often) I don't look like I sound.  Sometimes that works in my favor...Sometimes not so much.  I was at one point a member of  a pretty well respected gospel choir but you never know.  Anyway, we met the next day.  She wanted me to sing this Lauryn Hill song...Post Mis-education.

I Gotta Find Peace of Mind.  And no joke...I did.  It's a bitch of  a song.  It was recorded live on  Miss Hill's MTV unplugged show.  I think half of it was written on the fly cause it's basically all  over the place but I'm always up for a challenge...Well, most of the time.  

Here's the timeline: Saturday I spoke with director  on the phone.  Sunday we met in Central Park for about 10 minutes to work it all out. Monday we recorded the track.  Tuesday we shot...Or was it Wednesday.  Let me just say this director was fighting against every possible case of Murphy's Law imaginable.  The weather never behaved, she lost her set designer, her first singer and her location but she never lost her cool.  A good sign.  We shot the scenes.  I've never worked with playback...A video's on my list of to do's for 2009.  We shot in Greenpoint, Brooklyn overlooking the Manhattan skyline.  It was all gray and moody and gorgeous.  When we got there there was another shoot going on...Wouldn't you know. It was a photo shoot for a band I didn't recognize but they too had a permit so we waited.  Cue comment about director maintaining her cool again.  We shot into the night.  I was expecting to be there till at least 3am...I was wrapped by 1ish (not bad).  I got a call to do a few reshoots the following Sunday.  Gotta love digital!  And saw the film last week.  Now as a filmmaker myself I am accustomed to being in the drivers seat.  Meaning I often get to have some say in what gets left in the "that shot makes my ass look fat" trash bin on the desktop of the computer that houses Final Cut.  But in this case my  job was to showed up, say my lines and don't bump into the furniture.  Well, really my job was to get myself to Greenpoint, sing my song and don't fall into the east river.  The rest was out of my hands and in quite a few others. 

I got lucky.  The crew was tight and on it.  Enthusiastic and supportive.  The Polish food for craft service was delish and the film was beautiful.  I did, in truth, ask beforehand if she was talented and was assured she was but again when you're there to be a part of a story the nature of film is you don't always know what story is until later.  This story...Woohoo...Was very touching.  About a man dealing with his childhood as a man is one to do, without mercy.  And about a boy having a childhood in a world most men couldn't deal with.  My song (Lauryn's song but me singing) opened the film and it was lovely.  The lyrics are this: 

He says it's impossible, but I know it's possible, he says it's  improbable but I know it's tangeable.  He says it's not grabable but I know it's have-able.  Cause anything is possible.  Oh anything is possible. Cause anything is possible.

I think that's right.  Anything is possible!  

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you imagined." that's Thoreau but same principle.

The screening was last week.  It was wonderful! I'm going to get a copy and put it up on my website so check back for it.  Cheers to Alliah Fafin and her lovely film Once Upon A Time There Was a Boy!!!!!  

Incidently, after the screening a gentleman came up to me and said.

"Was that YOU singing?"  :-) I told you.  It happens every time.

I'm going to have a cookie now...