The next day was the first day of the shoot. I noticed, no scripts. So I inquired to Rob if I could read the script and he says, "Sure." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out 3 crumpled pages of essentially notes (Joe arrives at Jane's house with a gift. It's a cel phone. She thinks he stole it, etc.) It finally dawned on me that they aren't using scripts. It's just like the way they rehearsed the backstory. They're making the whole film that way.--Hyers talks about watching writer/director Rob Nilsson (ON THE EDGE) work.

     One more fun note. Lee told me once about editing, and how the editor often gets a list of changes he must make and that editors might look at that list and think "oh, God, every one of these changes will make the movie worse!" Then the editor has to sigh, take a deep breath and set about making the movie worse. I loved that description. It gave me the answer to how a nobody needs to work with a somebody. I looked Lee in the eyes and said, "Lee, I have just one rule that must be obeyed. Whatever you do. What ever I ask for. Don't ever do anything that will make my movie worse." And I was prepared to live up to that. In the end we agreed on everything and he made lots of changes at my request, but he never did or was made to do anything that he felt made the movie worse. If he felt that way, we talked and either he changed my mind, I changed his, or we found a new solution. That's the way to work!

     Tell us about working with Tom Bower.

     Tom is incredible. When I think of Tom, I think of an Actor, but that's not the way we started. I first worked with him as a Producer, as he was a Co-Producer on BGS. Most of our talks were about who we could get and how we could get them. He had a shockingly complete grasp of the screenplay and had lots of ideas. I had trouble keeping up with Tom because he knows everybody. I have trouble tracking actor names and movies. I spend more energy focused on "reality" to base my films on (and the reality of getting things going) and just can't keep track of all the references.

     Tom knows who was in what and goes to every festival and can spot up-and-comers and imagine the way they'll affect the material, not to mention the working relationships. So we felt our way to who was right for the film and who would be right for me. We're a real "team's team" and didn't want any "islands" to join. High-maintenance relationships can be very tricky on a low budget. I saw him work his magic at the readings and in establishing the connections. As I said, lots of actors said they were "only here because Tom said it was a worthy project and a group worth taking a chance on." I really realized what a leap of faith an actor is making when they sign on to a group of new filmmakers.

     Tom's advice was great. Then like the rest of the producer unit, he hit a point where he said, "Dean, it's time for you to decide now. It doesn't matter what I think now. You've got all the right information and you've heard what we think. Now what do you think?" I went away and made all my final calls alone. In fact, after meeting, auditioning (John Ashton and Victor Rivers and Tom Bower didn't need to audition, of course) and then pouring over the tapes, I made all my calls in under 15 seconds. I had boiled it down to 3 potential Dillon's, two potential Hillarys, etc., etc. I did the smartest thing a director could do. I went away from the tapes and thought about something else ­ for a week. Then I decided I'd pop the tapes back in and make a decision in under 2 minutes per actor. I saw five seconds of Scott Cooper and said, "That's Dillon." Then I saw 10 seconds of Carolyn Hauck and said, "That's Marla." I never looked back.

     Then was Tom as an Actor. He was great. So easy. Always willing to collaborate, always with a take of his own. Tom was a real "team-player-actor" and I saw how he helped the other actors. Mainly, the thing you can control on the set is an overall attitude where people are all working for the film and the group, or you have everybody out for themselves. We had lots of hugs and support. Tom was part of that. Everyone looked to see what Tom's attitude toward the set was. Tom helped convey an attitude that things were under control. He was very trusting and that helped the other actors trust as well. Tom also knew a lot about Unions and what would fly with actors who have had the "Hollywood treatment" and what wouldn't. So when Tom wasn't acting, he was out working the team, helping the producers and the agents work through the details and helping to facilitate the things that keep people happy.

     When it was all done (by done, I mean in the can), Tom helped us to navigate and connect through the Film Market and to festivals. Tom helped us with Denver. I hope to put the same team back together again with even more horsepower.

     How did Rob Nilsson help out? How did you get him involved?

     What I didn't tell you is that just before casting I had an opportunity to see Rob direct a film. I went down to San Francisco and watched Rob's nine-at-night group make SCHEME and some of STROKE (www.robnilsson.com). I was blown away by what I saw. They were rehearsing the night before the shoot when I arrived. They had actors, camera, etc. They were going through a scene. Eventually, I noticed that there wasn't any paper around... no scripts. I asked an actor, "what scene are we rehearsing?" The reply I got was, "Oh, we're not doing a scene from the movie ­ this is the night before." I thought, "Okay." I realized that they were "rehearsing" the backstory of the film, you know, to make it real to the actors. Cool.

     The next day was the first day of the shoot. I noticed, no scripts. So I inquired to Rob if I could read the script and he says, "Sure." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out 3 crumpled pages of essentially notes (Joe arrives at Jane's house with a gift. It's a cell phone. She thinks he stole it, etc.) It finally dawned on me that they aren't using scripts. It's just like the way they rehearsed the backstory. They're making the whole film that way.

     So I watched Rob direct in this amazing way. I'd never even thought of making a film that way. It was really neat and had so much reality mixed in. It often looked real because it was real. That's Rob's way. Don't focus on someone else's art to make your art. Focus on reality and see what it does. So at the end of the shooting week, I asked Rob what I could do to prepare. (After all, I was coming out of nine years of "corporate" environment, where you get sued if you touch a woman in a business meeting and I was going to a place where I had to tell actors to take off their clothes and "slap" each other!) And Rob says, "Dean (kind of like Alec Guinness would say, "Luke, you must come with me to Alderan..."), you should start an acting workshop and find out what real people do."

     I was really nervous about this. Setting up an acting workshop? I've never done this improv thing. I'm not planning on making Bill's that way. Then I thought. If it makes me nervous, it's exactly what I should do to "retool" from the advertising world back to drama. So the moment I got home, I started an acting workshop and would set about creating genuine experiences of joy, rage and despair with anybody who would come. In no time flat, I had a group of 15 actors coming twice a week and working for 5 hours a night. My workshop partner, Pete Machalek and I would do improvisations that would "parallel" Bill's Gun Shop scenes. We would "improv" closer and closer to the actual script and then hand over the script and do that too. In the process, I studied what real people do and practiced directing the scenes. The workshop was me running my five miles a day before the big marathon. The movie was the marathon. Good I did my five miles per day. I was so prepared it was a blast to make the movie. I had an answer for every question and a process to get there if I didn't have the answer.

     Interestingly, the workshop still exists (see www.newplaygroundpictures.com). I've continued running my five miles a day, directing actors and scenes every week so that when I get to the next film, I'm not picking up where I left off... but I'm growing and improving and I'll be better. All that and more is thanks to Rob, who's waiting in the wings to write our next film.

     The soundtrack is excellent, tell us about working with Peter Himmelman?

     I don't know if "he was fabulous" is getting old in this article, but he was. It was about the easiest thing. A lot like working with Lee Percy. We got quickly on the same page in terms of essence and then I stepped away. Well, no, that's not quite true. Peter wanted me to give him detailed notes and I went through the whole movie, scene by scene, telling him what I wanted to accomplish, what I thought needed to be strengthened or what needed to be minimized. I tried to stay ahead of him, but it took a long time to write all that down. I'm pretty good at articulating what's important from the essence standpoint and it's not too hard to write down the timecode. But it was a lot of thought. Peter said he was able to see into my head from my notes. As always, I focused on essence and let him do his thing. If I'm going to tell him what notes to use, then I don't need Peter Himmelman then, do I? Again, Ann Luster was a big part of getting Peter and setting the stage so that everything would run smoothly. It's not enough to be a good director, you have to "be produced" in a way that makes everyone happy. And that means you take on all the burden of setting things up and make it easy for them. Ann does that for everybody.

     I went down to his studio once so I could work with him at making changes. Ann Luster and I went together and it was an absolute blast! Peter is a scream. Very funny. Very light. Very intuitive. We whipped things into shape in a couple of hours and I walked out with exactly what I wanted. Peter would listen and say, "Oh, you mean..." and blamo, out would come a new amazing sound. We just worked until it was right and that wasn't much work. Again, the key is Ann got Peter excited about the project and I set him free to do what he got into the business for in the first place. If you articulate your vision and your goals, and then set someone free to be part of the creating, you get great results like what we got with Peter's soundtrack. Now, I can't imagine why I'd ever want to go anywhere else. Incidentally, I often envy musicians, because unlike a filmmaker who has to go and raise a million bucks to even do their craft, a musician can't be stopped. Take away their band and they'll play solo. Pull the plug on the amp and they'll take their acoustic guitar to a campfire. Take away their money and they'll play on the street with a hat for small change. It's so easy to stop a filmmaker.

     Peter showed up at a screening we had in LA and then I went to see him in concert. I look forward to collaborating with him again. As it turns out, I had some of his children's albums on CD at home and had been playing them for my kids and never made the connection until I was down at his studio.

     "Bill's Gun Shop" was shot on High Definition Video, were you pleased with the result? Would you recommend the medium to other filmmakers? How did the costs compare to shooting on DV or on film? Was the savings as compared to film worth it?

     I love HiDef. I love it because I like to shoot like video, blowing all the tape I want on not feeling the money flying through the gate. I love the look of film, but that's pretty easy to get. HiDef put on film is film. End of story. HiDef "Filmlooked" looks darn good enough. It's really not about medium to me. it's about acting. It's about story. It's about performance. It's about having something to say. If you think about it. I tell stories at dinner and have people at the edge of their seats. I am the medium in that case and you don't find me apologizing for production quality. People complained when they introduced color. People complained when they introduced sound. People complain. I just focus on story and performance and HiDef has some great efficiencies. It's not really cost, but it can be cost. For me, the real difference is that in directing, I'd never say, "Cut." I just said, "hold the roll..." and tweaked performance and did it again. Nearly every take was a full master. I learned that when I say, "cut" everybody swoops in and touches up and tweaks and whatever. If I don't say, "cut" they all stay put and I got 3 takes for every one take marked on the books. My script supervisor's notes are funny. You have "take one" and a note that there are three takes in there. Then you have "take two" and a note that there are three takes in there too. Plus I'd run camera "wild" when we were in between takes to capture stuff that we might need... and we did. Nightmare in post in that there was so much footage to sift through. Dream in post because there was so much coverage. Lee commented on that.

Life is polarized. Everything is a nightmare and a dream. It's my job to find my way to the dream.

     You know that scene in your film when Dillon is having dinner with his family? The scene reminded me of the family dinner in "Saturday Night Fever." Remember the scene when Tony complains about his hair being bumped. Its a damned classic scene. Dillon in "Bill's" is going through a maturation process isn't he? Do you think he has kicked his habit in the end?

I'm going to answer this question, but first I have to say that my opinion is irrelevant because I don't go along with each copy of the film. It's what you think... or what the combination of my film and your reaction to it lead you to think, given your opinions and experiences.

     So the first answer is that if you talk about the film to anyone and what it means to you, that's what's most important. If you disagree with my opinion, you're right because I don't get to express my opinion. My film is my opinion. What you think is you're reaction to my opinion. Get it?

     My answer? I can't really say for sure what Dillon does, because we stopped writing the character when the film stopped. But I can tell you where I ended up when I did what Dillon does. And I had matured and kicked the habit. More accurately, the events in my life triggered a powerful rite-of-passage and I'm damn lucky nobody died. Almost instantly, my direction was shifted, like a train track when someone switched the track and sent me off in a new direction. Like a train, you can't do a 180º. You're still heading "forward" in the general direction and with the same momentum that you had, but you veer off. So, since I know how I veered off after the events in my life, I believe that the events in the movie derailed Dillon's path and sent him off on another set of tracks. Dillon probably veered. You see the intensity in his eyes in the mirror and you see the gears turning in his mind. It's hard to imagine that something didn't change.

     By the way, I think you really know how to read a movie. I appreciate your "Saturday Night Fever" connection. I like how it's gotten you thinking about the end. I am "less traditionally American" in my take on how a movie should end. I think American audiences are used to a very large, wooden "meaning mallet" which hits them on the head at the end of most movies and sends their brains launching upward out of their heads to ring a bell at the top of a long pole. If the bell doesn't ring, people don't think they understood the movie. If you ask them any questions about the movie, they clearly did get it. They just want you to tell them that they got it. The few Europeans that were in my screening audiences commented that they found the ending "very refreshing" coming from an American. They appreciated its non-traditional nature and it felt right to them. I hope the film is enjoyed somewhere with subtitles as well as domestically. Wish us luck and we'll find our way.

     After seeing "Bill's Gun Shop," Dean, your path is clear and luck is not really necessary, but break a leg anyway.  Our readers should check out the "Bill's Gun Shop" website at http://www.billsgunshop.com

Jonathan W. Hickman