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Editor's Note: This fall, Jan Keefe, special assistant to the chief financial officer, was assigned the glamorous (and dubious) task of serving as college liaison to the DreamWorks SKG studio film crew while it filmed on location in various spots in the Pioneer Valley for the new Neil Jordan film In Dreams. Smith College was one of those locations. What follows is Jan's personal account of the day--actually, it was a morning--the cameras rolled at Smith.
After a long morning, Jan Keefe (right) takes a break
in the botanic gardens. She is joined on the bench by Rob Nicholson, Smith's
greenhouse supervisor, and Laura Berning, assistant location manager for
DreamWorks (center). Monday, October 20, 1997: It's 5:30 a.m. when the alarm jolts me from a fitful sleep. I throw on some clothes and stick my head out the door to check for rain. If the weather is bad, filming will again be postponed. It's only 30 degrees, but clear. I sigh with relief. This won't be a repeat of October 7, when after nine changes in plans, DreamWorks stood us up at the altar only an hour before they were scheduled to arrive. When I protested, the location manager replied, "That's the film business. You just need to be more flexible!" So we've rescheduled for today. In a new psychological thriller-directed by Neil Jordan, best known for The Crying Game, and produced by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks film company-Smith's greenhouse and gardens are standing in as the grounds of "Clivedon Gardens," an exclusive private hospital where the main character, a psychologically troubled artist played by Annette Bening, is hospitalized after having premonitions and nightmares of her daughter's disappearance. Coordinating the invasion of a film company of 100 and a caravan of 15 vehicles to shoot on-campus during a fall class day at a college like Smith takes incredible teamwork and advance planning. In all, 15 people in five departments had important roles to play. In preparation, I had arranged to have Hopkins lot and College Lane closed for the day to allow the crew to park its huge fleet of tractor-trailer trucks and campers across from the Lyman Plant House. "Warn the students in Chapin, Park, Haven and Hopkins that they won't be sleeping in that day," I told student affairs staff, knowing that the beep of trucks backing up would trigger widespread complaints and letters to the Sophian. Classes scheduled to meet in the Plant House were postponed or moved, Davis ballroom was booked for the crew's catered lunch, and notices about the filming and road closings were placed on computer news. I rush to the greenhouse at 7 a.m. and see from all the activity that we're on. The trailer trucks are pulling in. The canteen is being set up. The production assistants and crew, bundled up in parkas, hats and boots, are scurrying around with lights, camera and sound equipment. Director Jordan, a short man in a full-length black coat and wool cap pulled over his ears, busily consults with his many assistants. I seek out the location manager and Rob Nicholson, Smith's greenhouse supervisor, who is assisting the crew. It's so cold that we can see our own breath. In preparation for the filming, Smith gardeners had meticulously groomed the grass and flower beds the week before. Rob and I watch in dismay as the set designers dump baskets of dead leaves everywhere. Then we wait. The day's filming is delayed until we can no longer see our breath when we speak. Finally, when the cameras are placed and the set is ready, the stars appear. Bening, wearing a down coat over her hospital gown and bathrobe, is chauffeured the 100 feet down College Lane from her trailer. Dennis Boutsikaris ("St. Elsewhere"), who plays her doctor, is called from the catering van where he's swigging a large cup of hot coffee. The long-suffering stand-ins, who have been shivering on the bench while the crew fiddled with the cameras and mikes, wander off, happily diving into the coats they had stashed in the bushes. Jordan goes into action, coaching the actors as they run through the scene. Young production assistants armed with walkie-talkies position the extras and clear the filming area, politely keeping students seeking Bening's autograph and other passersby from wandering into the scene. When everything is finally ready, I hear "ready on the set" and "action." The cameras roll. The Bening character is sitting alone on a bench in the flower garden, sketching. Her doctor sits beside her and begins to chastise her: she needs to pull herself together and get on with her life. Bening begins to weep quietly, then slowly bends over, face in hands, and sobs. Everything that's happened, she blurts out, is her fault. The two-minute scene ends in silence, the two huddled together, her head resting on his shoulder. Two takes are aborted when a noisy flock of crows caw and quarrel raucously in the trees above the fountain. Filming stops while the crew yells loudly to scare them away. Shooting has just resumed for a third time when the sound man shakes his head and holds up his arms: the siren from a fire engine racing down West Street is covering the dialogue. Jordan walks in circles, frustrated. Since Bening is crying on cue through most of the scene, a makeup woman rushes in after each take to touch up her face. I count five run-throughs before Jordan is satisfied. The last take is completed by 12:45 p.m. The actors are whisked away and the crew rushes in to break down the set. Canopies and screens, cameras and sound equipment are quickly wheeled out and loaded into the huge tractor-trailers. The yards and yards of cable that snaked around the gardens are rolled up as Rob Nicholson and I walk around, checking for damage. By 1:30 p.m. the botanic garden is once again quiet, the morning's activity only a dream. Rob turns to me and sighs in disappointment. He remarks that at the request of the set designer, he had climbed up on the plant house roof to laboriously scrub the whitewash off the glass. But not once had the camera been pointed at the plant house. "That's the film business," I tell him. "You just need to be more flexible." |
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