Another welcome surprise this morning. Instead of just driving straight back to NY on Monday morning with the picture car, I get to drive Janet Zucker, the producer, and Doug down to Virginia where Naomi is going to do some training for her role. Naomi is playing Valerie Plame, who was a C.I.A. non-official cover [...]

Santa Suits and Dodging Motorbikes The next morning, we are up bright and early to shoot outside the White House, which is undeniably cool. Distracted by shooting behind-the-scenes footage, I leave my little camera accessories bag behind on Pennsylvania Avenue (right in front of the White House) as we shift farther up the street for [...]

From: “Doug Liman” doug@xxxxxxxx Date: June 17, 2009 10:30:38 AM EDT To: buttheads@xxxxxxxx Subject: Back safe and sound Details to follow. Will leave you with this tidbit… After stopping at a location that our six machine gun toting guards told us was one of the worst places we could go in baghdad and that we [...]

Perhaps the most famously cited line in acclaimed screenwriter William Goldman’s book about the movie business, Adventures in the Screen Trade, is that “nobody knows anything.” This is a reference to Goldman’s conviction that, prior to a movie’s release, nobody can really know how successful it will be. In the spirit of those terrible icebreaker-type [...]

Craig MacNee I head to work on Friday morning under the impression that I am merely going to be driving the picture car (a Jeep Cherokee) down to Washington, D.C., then getting the train back up to New York the same day. However, when I arrive at the production office, Doug asks me whether I [...]

Today we are shooting with a greatly reduced unit. It’s similar in size to those of the student films I’ve worked on. Which is pretty insane when you consider I’m working with the director whose last films were Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Jumper. Getting by with such a small crew is made possible, in [...]

20:15 Pick up a 15-passenger van. Dawns on me that this means that I’m potentially responsible for 15 passengers. Suddenly feel like I’m a new father driving to the hospital to pick up a vanload of tiny premature babies who will be surrounded by 16th-century Ming Vases. 20:20 Compose myself and realize I’m actually more [...]

Fair Game is a political drama, directed by Doug Liman (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity) that reveals the controversial story of Valerie Plame Wilson (Naomi Watts), whose CIA cover was leaked to journalists by Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby during the Bush administration after her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson [...]