My last day of shooting on the film. Because shooting went so late yesterday there is a mandatory 12 hour break and so we start late the next morning. Today we begin by shooting the witnesses that precede the final climax we filmed yesterday. Then we move on to shoot the first day of the hearing. On the political note, when I told the named actor who is playing today's expert I was a lawyer not an actor and that I had been a DA. He said, "Good, because if you had been defense attorney, I would have issues with you." (For MY opinion on defense lawyers click here.) So there is more ideological balance in the cast than I first thought, though the wearing one's politics on one's sleeve is a constant.

I thought I would say a bit more about technical advising. I am not formally a technical adviser for the film, though the cast and crew are using me as one. Still, the director seems to view me as potential fly in the ointment (but see below). I have been pretty passive about even scrutinizing the legalities of the hearing. I made my efforts to clean up these thing when advising on the script a few weeks ago. What remains I figure is just going in regardless of what I say. And I mentioned in my previous post the many constraints that make objecting to anything so futile ex ante that one just doesn't bother.

But what has been a surprise to me is how much Eric and Marina, who are playing the lawyers, really care about the realism of what they are doing. Marina tends to clean up her dialog with her Law & Order training. Eric approaches me frequently to ask about his lines and I either reassure him or offer him an alternative that he then decides whether to use.

Yesterday, I was walking on the set and Eric was in conference with the director. He turned to me and said, "speak of the Devil, we were just saying we need to talk with you." His problem was with a ridiculous objection he was supposed to make. He said even a neophite would see how silly it was and he was right. I had removed that from the script in my rewrite, but it was part of a pretty major restructuring of the hearing I was proposing and, although my revisions were initially accepted, eventually it was decided to stick with the original structure. When that was restored, also restored were many of the smaller errors I had edited from the script that the movie people would never realize had been changed or why.

The problem was that, at this point in the hearing as it was now structured, there was no credible objection beyond the prejudicial impact outweighing the probative value of the evidence, and that was too big a mouthful for that highly charged moment in the action. So finally, I suggested he just object loudly without stating a basis and the judge would just over rule it, as had already happened numerous times in the film. [ASIDE: The director just interrupted my blogging to ask me a question about an objection and ruling we are filming today because he found it unrealistic. I proposed a possible solution. It seems he also sees me as a potential resource. More on this below.]

So the solution to the legally stupid objection and stupid judicial ruling yesterday was simply to cut the basis of the objection and the ruling. [While I am typing here, the director and producer are discussing the cost overruns caused by yesterday's overtime.]

But then Eric raised another issue. The legal business culminates in a violent outburst in the courtroom. Eric wanted a reason to be located away from the fight or he would just be seen standing by. Yesterday, Marina had wanted to get away from the fight so she would not have to be on the set for hours as they reshot the fight over and over from every angle. So Eric suggests he ask to approach the bench and I offered the dialog for the judge to tell all attorneys to approach, which would get us all out of the action. [BTW, no one ever tells me what to do, though I am in the scene too, so I just improvise. I assume this mainly means I am not in the shot.]

When we were set to go we blocked the action a couple times. It then occurred to me that there was a big problem. Since we were all at the bench we now needed a legal discussion and ruling before the disputed evidence could be introduced. That just returned us to where we began and added the need for another scene at the bench to be written and filmed. This time I decided to be proactive so I went to the director who by now was on the bench telling the judge about the changes we had made. I could not speak with him from below because of a dolly track the camera was using so I had to go all the way onto the bench myself. I tried to explain the problem and the director said, we'd think about it later. I said fine. A while later, when we were blocking again he looked at me and said, "Oh, I see the problem." There was just no way to get on with the action. So we quickly decided to go back to our original simple solution, and then after Marina and I have our confrontation and she rises to present the evidence we all just move out of range of where the fight was going to happen. Problem solved, but it took quite a while.

This morning's question concerned another unrealistic ruling by the judge that bothered the director. The judge responds to the objection that says she does not see the relevance of the issue raised by the lawyer and then comments on the evidence. The problem was that the issue was clearly relevant and the judge should not be offering her characterization of the evidence. He asked me if I could think of an alternative. The shortest not completely accurate, but still plausible, answer is "That's for your argument, counsel."

Just before finishing this post, we filmed an action scene from yesterday's climax in which I am finally out of my chair and ducking when a shot is fired. I have no idea if I am in frame or focus, but at least I am on my feet and moving. I may be a back-suited blur behind the shooter in the background that only I will recognize.