My friends Carl & Jen got engaged today. Carl set up this full-on surprise-staged production. Both of their parents came to town (also a surprise), and we, their family and friends, gathered at The Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood for the event. As a filmmaker, I suspect Carl wanted to have this surprise proposal at a film-able location. Also, he hid the surprise by claiming Jen and he were invited to a film festival screening of a short film they worked on. Anyway, the last time I stepped foot in The Silent Movie Theatre, prior to this afternoon, was six years ago while working on an documentary.
Picture it...
This is one of my first documentary film jobs in Los Angeles. Prior to this job, I'd done a very buttoned-up documentary television series on NBC about the court system in San Diego. I'd also worked on a few other random documentaries, and on MTV's Music Video Awards. But nothing prepared me for this one day of shooting in The Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles.
I'm working as a camera assistant on this documentary called
Inside Deep Throat. Basically it's a
documentary about
Deep Throat, a pornography that was hugely controversial and subsequently popular (ban something and it usually grows in intrigue and popularity), and became the namesake of the secret informant of
Watergate. The documentary is about the Ins and Outs of what was going on in and around
Deep Throat in 1972...From the synopsis,
"It was banned in 25 states. The government didn't want you to see it. Deep Throat was more than just a titillating curiosity, it was the sexually explicit film that ignited a social and political firestorm. Inside Deep Throat examines the politics and the payoff, the porn stars and persecution of the cultural phenomenon that remains just as highly controversial today..." (click here for more)
But what's important for my story here is
what we were filming at The Silent Movie Theatre some six years ago.
Like many documentaries, our crew for this shoot was very small. (In comparison, commercial shoots usually have a minimum of 40 crew members working on them.) There might've been
six of us including the two co-directors, the Director of Photography, another producer-type, myself, and an assistant or two they called in from the office because they needed more bodies. Here's why they needed bodies...
(Keep in mind this is the first location of the day for us, with a call time of around 7am. Which in documentaries usually means we'll be shooting by 8am, 9 at the latest.)
The filmmakers wanted to re-create the original 1972 viewing audiences
. Which means they were replaying the film on the big screen of The Silent Movie Theatre. After setting up the camera and lights, my presence was required as part of the audience. I was positioned next to one of the directors, who was supposed to look like my date to the movie, so at some point he puts his arm around me. Which wasn't so terrible because he was a very nice guy and was fully appropriate... though not as full as other things. All totaled, I believe we sat through one and a half viewings of this film. Full-screen, full-sex, full-70s-
BUSH.
Now let me disclaim here that I think people should tend to their nether-regions however suits them best. Whether full, trimmed, landing-stripped or non-existent, I think it falls under some constitutional freedom (maybe an addendum to the first amendment?) that we have the right to express ourselves through how we landscape and present our body's most expensive and sought-after real-estate. But seeing 70s, full-bush in all it's glory in different positions in a hokey and over-lit porno film at 8am on a Tuesday was a little much for this newbie-documentarian Los Angeleno.
Somehow, I never found reason to step into The Silent Movie Theatre again.
Until today.
It was actually quite lovely. Jen was aptly surprised by the whole charade. She said YES. (Whew!) I think they both shed a few tears, as did a good portion of the audience (myself included - geesh I'm a softie). And afterward, we all got to celebrate their engagement and impending nuptials. All-in-all, it was a lovely afternoon and I was glad to be a part of it... Unlike my first trip to The Silent Movie Theatre.
Actually, that's not totally true. I was glad to be a part of
Inside Deep Throat. It was a very interesting documentary to work on. Especially since we interviewed Gore Vidal, Hugh Hefner, and Bill Maher, just to name a few. But I will never forget the way I saw this movie, nor The Silent Movie Theatre for providing the venue for our doc. By the way, The Silent Movie Theatre is not so silent anymore. They've added sound to their theatre so we also got to hear the hokey 70s porn music after which all porn music is now modeled.
Thanks, Carl & Jen, today was better...by a large....
landing strip.
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