Do you ever cry at the movies? C'mon...admit it. Don't you love a film that can make you laugh and make you cry and make you feel emotions you normally keep hidden from most people? My family always ribs me about getting weepy every single time I watch "Field Of Dreams" or "Rudy". I don't care though. At least they know I have deep feelings that I'm not afraid to show every once in a while. It's a good thing! But the last thing I ever expected was to choke up watching two of my lead actors deliver a powerful on-camera performance of Doug Frasure's love theme for "Beautiful Noise" called 'Lonely Hearts'.
Let me set the scene for you: Jay & Danielle sit at a piano in "Noah's House", surrounded by our entire Crew, and sing and act to the playback of 'Lonely Hearts'. We shoot the scene from several wide angles and then move in tight for the closeups. Keep in mind that only the actors and I have ever heard the song before. After the first two takes the Crew was moved to tears; and by the time the closeups started I was having an impossible time checking my emotions. Then right before Jay's last closeup, I whispered in his ear that if he wanted to take it to another level to not be afraid to dig deep inside and let it all hang out. I'd have his back. He didn't need coaxing. On his last take he mentally put himself into a state of mind where the lyrics just washed over and through him. When I saw the look on his face on my monitor when he started to break down at the end of the song I just lost it. And so did most of the crew. Thank God our camera team of John Goodbrad and Shawn McCarty kept control of their emotions long enough to keep the killer shot steady and in focus. You could cut the emotion with a knife when the last note played out and Jay openly wept in Danielle's arms. I immediately ran over and hugged my friend and held on until we both gained our composure. Full grown men crying in front of everyone. Jeez...
Melodramatic? Maybe. But believe me, it was as real as it gets - and if that's the reaction we got when we knew what was coming, I can only imagine what's gonna happen when anyone with a heart sees this movie...
Danielle was another story altogether. She's 18 going on 35 and you will absolutely fall in love with her the moment she comes on screen. She's got her character "Dez" figured out to the nth degree and takes great care to prepare herself emotionally for each scene. She's a dream to direct and is completely in sync with what I'm looking for from her. I trust her instincts completely and I think she trusts mine pretty well. So after Jay's powerhouse performance, it was time for Danielle's closeups. By the third take she had it nailed, singing the song (live over the playback) as if her life depended on it. She gave me the exact amount of emotion the scene called for. But I still knew she had something left in the tank, so I whispered to her that I thought she too could reach another depth in her performance. Unlike Jay, who went for it without discussion, Danielle sat for a moment and thought it through. Just how much more should her character show at that point in the film? Her wheels were turning for a few moments, but then she agreed to give it a go. And then she let it rip like an Academy Award winner. After her closeup, where she literally bared her soul, all of us were speechless. Applause filled the room, tears were shed and quickly dried, and we walked away from the mornings' work knowing that we were all in on something amazing making a little indie musical-drama called "Beautiful Noise".
Steve
