My worlds are colliding this week. On Friday I’m going to Washington DC to shoot for both Covert Affairs and Fair Game. After Fair Game’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, I had Mike Tronick (my editor on Mr and Mrs Smith) come in and do a bit of re-editing and he cut in a few shots of DC that I need to now go shoot. It’s pretty normal for a director to make tweaks after a film goes to Cannes and as you know by now, I’m always looking for opportunities to make my films better. Mike’s a good choice for editor for Fair Game because, not only is he a brilliant editor (he also helped my friend Jon Favreau when they were having issues with the first Iron Man movie) but also there are many similarities between Mr & Mrs. Smith and Fair Game. To many people, the secret world of assassins and the secret world of the CIA feel the same, plus both movies center around a husband and wife relationship.

I’m also going to be filming Piper Perabo in DC. Covert Affairs shoots in Toronto and we have effects units who go to Washington DC, New York, and foreign cities to put those locations into the show, and use visual effects to place Piper in those environments. But because the CIA’s based in Washington DC we thought it’d add another layer of texture to the show to get footage of Piper in Washington DC. So I’m shooting one piece for each episode of Covert Affairs. Piper’s coming to New York Thursday night and Friday morning we’ll train down together and a crew will wait for us there. We’ll be traveling with the hair and makeup and wardrobe people because it’s likely that I’ll start filming Piper on Amtrak just to have it. We don’t know that we need that particular thing, but it’ll be handy to have it in our library, if ever in a future episode we need her training to New York from Washington.

Ever since Swingers, I’ve been a fan of picking up footage in a real location without a big crew or fuss. In Fair Game I shot in the Boston airport for Sean Penn’s character, Joe Wilson, arrival. In Jumper, I shot Rachel Bilson on an international flight from New York to Rome. I pretended we were on our honeymoon and asked the Stewardess “Do you mind if I shoot some footage of us?” She said, “Sure” and then I whipped out this huge movie camera. It was an overnight flight so we shot it with night lighting on the airplane, and then I said, “You know, before we land in Rome, let’s do the scene again with daylight and see which one’s going to look better.” After shooting the footage I promptly went to sleep, because I sleep really well on airplanes. The next morning I set a record for myself for shortest time between waking and calling “Action” ever when I suddenly shot awake with the Captain’s “Prepare for landing and turn off all electronics” announcement. I realized I slept through the morning shot and I jumped awake, grabbed the camera, shook Rachel awake saying “We gotta shoot right now.” Luckily the flight attendants were down the aisle dealing with some other people and we got the shot. That morning shot was actually the scene that ended up in the final cut of Jumper.

I don’t have anything nearly as outrageous planned for Piper, we’re going to place her around the city in shots that would be more difficult to do with visual effects and for Fair Game, I’m going to get more shots of the White House. The call sheet documents my worlds colliding by stating at the top: Covert Affairs and Fair Game.

I’ve not been shy about what a big fan I am of Piper but I haven’t actually gotten a chance to direct her yet. I was scheduled to direct the first episode after the pilot but then Fair Game got into Cannes so I couldn’t fit it into my schedule. My work so far on the series has been as Executive Producer, overseeing the series as a whole but Piper and I have such a great relationship, it’ll be fun to take it to the next level and actually direct her.

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• Doug Liman Blog: Holding With Tradition, I’m Sailing the Hudson After the Covert Affairs Premiere Party
• Doug Liman Blog: Flying to Canada To Protect The Action in Covert Affairs
• Doug Liman Blog: In Covert Affairs, “Emotionally Resonant” and “Action-Packed” Are Not Mutually Exclusive
• Doug Liman Blog: Scouting Niagra the Night Before Covert Affairs Premiere
• Doug Liman Blog: A Covert Affairs Unsung Hero, Jamie Barber
• Doug Liman Blog: On The Set of Covert Affairs