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A Look Back with Director Benjamin Karl:
Ingenuity is one of the most important tools every director must have. In “Exits...” we had a scene where Tim was supposed to walk in to a several hour old dinner setting and blow out some candles. The candles were hardly giving off any light, so to accent them we gave each a candle a tiny spot from above. It was great. The candles looked terrific. But we didn’t have a practical way of turning off the spots when he blew them out. Jeff Miller was the only one who could turn them off, but it would have required him jumping in front of the camera. We ended up placing Jeff under the dinner table with the surge protector and the plugs for the lights so he could just unplug them at the proper time. The problem now was getting Tim to blow hard and loud enough for Jeff to hear and pull the plugs in time with the candles! Of course, it took many takes before we got it just right. I fear I will never forget my advice to Tim; “Blow hard, blow loud ... Blow!” It was late.
Working with Tim Mckernan was an absolute pleasure. Tim and I had done theatre before and I knew he was exactly what I wanted for “Exits...” One of his particular talents that I needed for film is his ability to cry on command. Unfortunately we were low on film so the pressure was on for Tim to hit the tears right on the mark. In practice we had no problems, but once the camera started rolling his eyes would start to well up but the tears just wouldn’t drop. Of course the instant I’d stop the camera they’d fall. Every time! It worked out alright though, I think the final cut came off very convincing.
Every film you work on invariably has a dozen or so things go wrong. Sometimes it works out in your favor, though. One of the most important scenes for me was the mirror shot with Sarahann and the rose. We spent a good chunk of time setting it up. The vanity had to be constructed, the lighting had to be perfect and we only had one rose so we had to get it in just one or two takes. We shot it and it was BEAUTIFUL! But any filmmaker knows that you’re not out of the woods yet ... and when your film gets to the lab, the woods are pretty damned thick. In this case they didn’t bother to open the film in complete darkness and almost completely ruined the shot. After salvaging what I could, I changed my aproach and used quick flashes of the usable footage interwoven with others to show Tim’s jumbled thoughts as the reality of his situation came crashing down on him. It worked out fantastic, perhaps better than the original concept. There are days, though, when I think to myself “ ... but it was such a beautiful shot.“
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