Working with the director of VOLUNTEERS

It’s Friday question day. Only one today but it required a long answer. What's your question???

From Brian Doan:

I was reading Nicholas Meyer's new memoir on a plane this weekend, and he has very kind things to say about the script you and David Isaacs wrote for VOLUNTEERS, how much he loved working on the film, and how he remains proud of the movie, even if it wasn't the big hit everyone wanted it to be.

Just wondering if you have memories of working with Meyer on the film, or stories you might want to share?

We had a lovely experience working with Nick. Best of all, he really did respect the script and only changed it minimally.

Once a film director comes on board the only input and involvement the writer has is what the director graciously allows. All too often the writer will turn in his last draft and the next thing he sees is the finished product a year later – often with horrifying results.

Nick welcomed our involvement from day one. We got to weigh-in on screen tests. We were encouraged to spend time with Tom Hanks to share our vision of the character.

We were invited to Mexico to watch some of the filming but had to decline because we were busy rewriting JEWEL OF THE NILE at the time. Still, we were permitted to watch the dailies that were sent back to LA.

Once the film went into post production we were invited to editing sessions.

Nick always heard us out. He didn’t always follow our suggestions but that’s more than fair.

Our only real disagreement, and I’ve talked about this elsewhere in the blog, was the moment where he had characters break the fourth wall to read a subtitle. We felt it destroyed the reality of the picture and sapped it of any suspense. He argued that it got one of the biggest laughs in the film. How could we take out one of the biggest laughs? He won that battle.

We won another. There’s a scene where the Peace Corps advisor gives volunteer Beth a gift – a Burmese prince (you can watch it below). The joke is that the little statuette had a huge penis. These actually exist, by the way. I have a collection... no, just kidding.

We’re watching the scene on the moviola (a very small screen) and notice that he cuts to a close-up of the statue. We said, that’s not going to play well on the big screen. The penis will be too big. He argued that if we stayed in the master the joke might not be apparent. We said, fine, we’ll see how it works in the test screening. I'm happy to be wrong if it means a moment works.

So we have the big test screening for several hundred people and that close-up of the penis fills the giant screen. And every woman in the audience gasped and shrieked. David and I bolted for the lobby where we laughed so hard we missed the next ten minutes of the film. Needless to say, it came out.

But how’s this for graciousness? That test screening cut was well over two-hours. The goal was to get it down to 90 or 95 minutes. Nick felt he was too close to it and actually let us take a pass and offer cuts. Many of our suggestions he took. Trust me, that's almost unheard of.

Are there things about VOLUNTEERS I wish were different? Sure. Performances, moments, certain scenes and choices. But there are also things that Nick added to the film that were big improvements over what we had intended.

So all in all, a hugely positive experience. Nicholas Meyer is one of the brightest people I ever met and it was a joy just to be in his company, much less collaborate with him.

I’m also envious that he got his memoir published.

Here’s a ten minute segment of VOLUNTEERS that features the Burmese prince scene. It’s about 5 minutes in. This segment also features the famous “Time” joke.