\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t $\"Fb-Button\"$ \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>

SPOTLIGHT: ON THE NEW JERSEY<\/b> SET OF FILMING \u201cWHO\u2019S JENNA\u2026..?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 AND A CONVERSATION WITH DIRECTOR TOM BALDINGER\u00a0\u00a0 bY Calvin Schwartz\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0September 9^{th<\/sup> 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n}

<\/p>\n

$\"The$ <\/a>
The cast (serious) in the comedy scene of ‘Who’s Jenna …?<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Hooray for social media, networking and circles of commonality. For the last several years, Laura Madsen, publicist and innovative writer\/blogger at\u00a0 http:\/\/www.theladyinredblog.com\/<\/a>\u00a0 and I have travelled in similar circles of commonality( as I call it). Our energies and passions emanate from Jersey<\/i> life and the arts. If you\u2019ve read my musings over the past few years, I\u2019ve postulated that Jersey<\/u> has become the pop culture capital of America and Laura is always at the epicenter. For verification of the postulate, just look at \u2018The Soprano\u2019s\u2019, \u2018Boardwalk Empire\u2019, \u201cJersey Boy\u2019s\u2019, \u2018Jersey Shore\u2019, \u2018Jersey Housewives\u2019, \u2018Garden State\u2019, and \u2018Jersey Girl\u2019.\u00a0 Laura and I never had the opportunity for the sharing of notes and synchronicities; we never met formally.<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, Laura contacted me via Facebook and asked if I\u2019d like to cover the filming of a feature film, \u201cWho\u2019s Jenna\u2026..?\u201d which is a comedy \u00a0written by award winning producer, director Tom Baldinger from 624 Productions, LLC, a New Jersey based company. Laura hinted that the film title had something to do with an adult film star but that\u2019s all she said. My response to her was immediate and decisive; \u201cI\u2019d love to hang around the set and do some absorbing and interviewing for NJ Discover.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
$\"with$ <\/a>
with publicist and writer\/blogger Laura Madsen in front of film equipment truck in paved parking lot<\/p><\/div>\n
$\"Director$ <\/a>
Director Tom Baldinger checking last take<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
The next decision for me was where to surface for the best absorption opportunity. The filming was taking place at the Lakewood Country Club for an on-location golf scene or the following day at Verve Restaurant in Somerville.\u00a0 I surmised that it\u2019s best not to hang around a hot golf course as Jersey was in a heat wave, so I opted for the cool basement confines of Verve for the shooting of a dinner scene. And I\u2019d get a chance to hang a bit with actor Garry Pastore; I\u2019ve been a fan for years.<\/p>\n
Time constraints of being on set and getting a few minutes to chat (at the break) with director Tom Baldinger made me formulate a direction I wanted to take with this coverage. I\u2019m quick to admit that my experience of being on sets is somewhat limited although I was on set back in the 90\u2019s with Meryl Streep, William Hurt and Renee Zellweger and wound up in the Christmas scene in \u2018One True Thing.\u2019 My focus for \u201cWho\u2019s Jenna\u2026.?\u201d \u00a0was the art of detail and precision in the film making process.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
$\"In$ <\/a>
In between takes with a cup of Dunkin Coffee.<\/p><\/div>\n
$\"actors$ <\/a>
actors Garry Pastore & Michael Tota in focus<\/p><\/div>\n
Laura\u2019s phone messaging last \u00a0Wednesday morning got me to Verve\u2019s rear parking lot(on foot), through a rear kitchen door, down a steep stairway, through a narrow hallway to a basement dining room, filled with tables and patrons (all actors). \u00a0I never asked if this was an active part of the restaurant or just the basement set for a very funny scene. Seated at a large table, with cameras aimed, were actors Garry Pastore, Lenny Venito, Vic Dibitetto (also a very funny comedian whom I saw recently at Count Basie Theater at a Frank Sinatra Birthday Party), and Bill Sorvino, playing the lead role of Jonathan Burke. Next, Laura introduced me to the film director, Tom Baldinger; first and lasting impressions were that of an affable, intense, creative, focused force in the universe. It\u2019s funny how fast you can \u201csize\u201d people. Waiters started bringing steaming plates of pasta, meat balls, chicken and foot long sausage in front of the seated actors; it was 10 AM. \u00a0Someone yelled, \u201cGet the Dunkin Donuts coffee cup off the table.\u201d Actor Michael Tota introduced himself. He and I have been part of central Jersey concentric circles; we never met live, but knew of each other.<\/p>\n
Readers can go to the film website for more plot\/story information. http:\/\/www.624-productions.com\/#!whos-jenna\/c6h0n<\/a><\/p>\n
The basement area was relatively small; an additional eight tables or so had \u2018diners\u2019 (actors) to make for a perfectly realistic restaurant set; the table next had a woman and\u00a0a young girl in the scene being filmed. \u00a0The small room size and 90 degree outdoor heat made the set challenging.\u00a0 I watched the crew fill the four actors\u2019 wine glasses half-way with grape juice. \u00a0The wine glasses would be an interesting focus for me; the exact level of the juice in the glass was maintained for the next 94 minutes (multiple takes) that I watched from the rear side behind the cameras where Laura and I were positioned. As they were ready to shoot the scene, I heard \u201cQuiet on the set.\u201d\u00a0 I smiled. This was real.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
$\"the$ <\/a>
the camera ready<\/p><\/div>\n
$\"the$ <\/a>
in between takes.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t give much away but the scene was hysterically funny as the four actors ate (pretended to eat as the sausage maintained its great length throughout), drank, conversed and laughed. I love watching eyes of the actors moving from person to person; just that small detail embraced me. Watching my friend Garry Pastore talk\/act\/move his eyes\/laugh and then greet Michael Tota\u2019s character when he walked over was \u00a0perfectly real. There was a poignant albeit funny story going on. \u00a0Director Tom Baldinger meticulously instructed Michael Tota how to grab himself while talking and then look at Vic Dibitetto\u2019s character. It had to be the same grab in every take. The repartee with Lenny, Bill and Garry was priceless. I\u2019d love to use their words the next time I go to my primary care physician and see how it\u2019s received. I savored every minute of absorption.<\/p>\n
Something else I noticed; about the crew; a special esprit de corps. They were a well-oiled machine, anticipating, performing, and functioning like the offensive backfield of a local college football team. They loved what they were doing and with whom; their director. I like to observe those elements. The body heat generated in the basement\u2019s close quarters moved me to Main Street in Somerville for an hour until I caught up with director Tom Baldinger just before lunch.<\/p>\n
I told Tom that I have a relatively undiscerning eye when it comes to matters of film making but I\u2019m a HUGE movie fan going to back to 1939 vintage. Tom was engaging and thrilled to be chatting. Once I flipped on my reporter\u2019s recorder, he started. \u201cFor me it\u2019s very important that what\u2019s said-dialogue is not just dialogue-there\u2019s a purpose to why people say certain things. That\u2019s why when I write my scripts, I try to be very careful with the words that are said. I try to make sure that the voices are separate from each other-that the characters are separate.\u00a0 There is a voice in each one of them. When you are on set, everything has to have a place because I\u2019ve seen tons of movies-big budget films; sometimes the detail is not there. For me there are a lot of people watching movies who will not like a movie because there is something wrong-a missing detail-or if dialogue doesn\u2019t match up correctly-or characters not really synching together. That\u2019s very important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
$\"action.$ <\/a>
action. cast & crew and director in discussion.<\/p><\/div>\n
$\"interviewing$ <\/a>
interviewing Director Tom Baldinger.<\/p><\/div>\n
I mentioned, \u201cTranslates down to your crew. I was watching them measure grape juice in a glass to make sure it was exact level.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s all about continuity. How many times have you seen a movie where the glass is half-full and in the next shot- it\u2019s the same conversation- the glass is either empty or not there. I was watching a movie last night-\u2018Mission Impossible 3\u2019 and saw where all the extras were and I have to give a lot of credit to J.J. Abrams. A lot of time you\u2019ll see movies with extras. They are in the shot then they are not there. My crew; I have to be honest with you. The meticulous and tight atmosphere really comes from them because I think they see me as a visionary. I\u2019ve built this and I\u2019m not trying to sound egotistical but I\u2019ve built this company and in some ways they look at me as their leader and so they are on the ride. They want-they feel this is going to be successful. They want to be on the same boat. I\u2019ve always set goals and reached my goals. I think that\u2019s why everybody on this crew wants to do everything perfectly because they want to take this next step into this industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking it further I added, \u201cI\u2019ve watched a melding of you all there.\u201d Tom said, \u201cYes.\u201d \u201cI was so impressed with the detail. When Michael comes over to Garry at the table, you tell him exactly what to grab and do.\u201d\u00a0 Tom added, \u201cYes, when we shoot the reverse, we need to see him grab himself and that action-when we\u2019re in post, you see Vic\u2019s reaction. It makes my editor\u2019s job so much easier. And when you are sitting around the post, you are not saying we forgot that or look at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The night before I heard interesting news about Apple and the film business; \u201cYour work as an Indie film maker has an interesting future. Apple announced yesterday it may give money to Indies.\u201d \u201cI hope so. I heard a little about that. I work on Wall Street and I\u2019ve been out of work mode for the last week or two. My father who actually works for Bloomberg said you have to check this out. When I get a moment, I\u2019ll read about it; very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought Apple wants to do what Netflix is doing. Tom was quick to comment. \u201cThat is where the market seems to be going; where the industry is going and I\u2019m going to quote a famous actor hearing him talk about Indie films. Alec Baldwin was on Howard Stern show a few weeks ago. He was talking about how film has changed over past 20 or 30 years; that now big budget movies are all technical, special effects, CGI. Not that the big budget films don\u2019t get into the story or content but they are more Marvel and super heroes. I love those movies and I\u2019m there with the popcorn, but the Indie industry-that\u2019s where you get down into characters, stories and dialogues and really get into it. What the Indie film industry has done-it has born the writer-director and sometimes that\u2019s good-sometimes bad because studios say we only have $250,000 to spend. We can\u2019t spend another $100,000 for a director, so let\u2019s make the writer the director. That\u2019s a bad choice but when you have a good script and a good writer who can be a director, studios need to take that into consideration. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime-all that stuff; it\u2019s really starting to blow up. Quite frankly, \u2018House of Cards;\u2019 I said to my wife last year that they don\u2019t have to win an Emmy; just being nominated, Netflix was doing cartwheels down the hallway because they knew all of a sudden they got something and now everybody else is trying to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
$\"with$ <\/a>
with Tom before lunch and my trip on Route 287<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
I asked Tom about quality. \u201cQuality is better. I mean we\u2019re shooting with a red camera where some of those shows you see with bigger name people are shooting with the same equipment. We\u2019re trying to bring high quality products with lower budgets and eventually, hopefully somebody like Apple will say I like your product and I want to put more money into it and give us an opportunity to do even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom smiled, took a deep inhalation and was ready to go on talking. It was I who suggested that he eat lunch but that down the road a spell, he should come on NJ Discover Live Radio\/TV show with the cast and Laura Madsen and continue our chat. After a firm hand-shake cementing the deal and a photo-op of course, I was on the road again, heading to Yurcak Field on Rutgers campus with NJ Discover broadcasting the television coverage of the Skye Blue FC Professional Women\u2019s Soccer match against Kansas City. A bunch of questions suddenly popped into consciousness on Route 287 to ask Tom and the cast. It would wait until October 5^{th<\/sup> for NJ Discover\u2019s Live Show with them. We move fast here in Central Jersey.<\/p>\n}
<\/p>\n
IMDB \u201cWho\u2019s Jenna\u2026..\u201d\u00a0 http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt4317858\/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
NJDiscover \u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.njdiscover.com\/wp1\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
Calvin\u2019s Blog:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WATCH FOR OCTOBER 5^{th<\/sup> NJDISCOVER LIVE RADIO\/TV SHOW\u00a0 also featured on Long Branch Cablevision Channel 20 with Director, Cast of \u201cWho\u2019s Jenna\u2026\u2026\u2026..?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n}
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t $\"Fb-Button\"$ \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>
<\/fb:like><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SPOTLIGHT: ON THE NEW JERSEY SET OF FILMING \u201cWHO\u2019S JENNA\u2026..?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 AND A CONVERSATION WITH DIRECTOR TOM BALDINGER\u00a0\u00a0 bY Calvin Schwartz\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0September 9th 2015 The cast (serious) in the comedy scene of ‘Who’s Jenna …? Hooray for social media, networking and circles of commonality. For the last several years, Laura Madsen, publicist and innovative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[369,370,378,55,375,374,371,377,376,9,372,380,373,379],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3357"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3372,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357\/revisions\/3372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}