Diggers

[inuvik]

I read this in the paper today:

New on DVD on Tuesday, July 3

Diggers This week the DVD store is brimming with little movies you've likely never heard of. This indie drama set in a small New England town in the mid-'70s stars Paul Rudd, Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) Ron Eldard, Sarah Paulson and Maura Tierney. The story--working stiffs face extinction of way of life, in this case, clam digging--is familiar, but merits attention, mainly due to the solid cast.

Now, as we all know, it is already out! All I can think of is maybe they mean wide release to video stores and retail outlets. I remember a few people saying Blockbuster etc. didn't have it. Now they probably will, in their "Festival" Collection (indies and foreign films).

[Deleted]

inuvik said:

I read this in the paper today:

New on DVD on Tuesday, July 3

Diggers This week the DVD store is brimming with little movies you've likely never heard of. This indie drama set in a small New England town in the mid-'70s stars Paul Rudd, Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) Ron Eldard, Sarah Paulson and Maura Tierney. The story--working stiffs face extinction of way of life, in this case, clam digging--is familiar, but merits attention, mainly due to the solid cast.

Now, as we all now, it is already out! All I can think of is maybe they mean wide release to video stores and retail outlets. I remember a few people saying Blockbuster etc. didn't have it. Now they probably will, in their "Festival" Collection (indies and foreign films).

May I also add that Long Island, New York is not a "small New England town..." give me a break!

[bjobsessed]

Guess what I finally saw for rent tonight a million years after it was released?

[inuvik]

bjobsessed said:

Guess what I finally saw for rent tonight a million years after it was released?

I guess that is what the article meant then! A wide release, not just available for order online.

[bjobsessed]

inuvik said:

bjobsessed said:

Guess what I finally saw for rent tonight a million years after it was released?

I guess that is what the article meant then! A wide release, not just available for order online.

I totally missed that article post!

[Chris]

I came across this article today from the New York Observer which I don't think has been posted before?

—Leon Neyfakh Among the Diggers

“It’s kind of like Breaking Away … but with clams,” laughed Paul Rudd. He was sweating profusely on the set of Diggers, a coming-of-age film about clammers set in the 70’s in Long Island. It was roughly 95 degrees out, without a single cloud to block the punishing sun in East Moriches, Long Island, a still-wanker-free stretch of Hamptons-adjacent shoreline known best as the memorial site of the nearby 1996 T.W.A. crash.

The crew, in a dizzying array of straw hats, sunglasses and miniscule clothing, sweated silently while a beleaguered bit player, a Dachshund named Nola, slept fitfully on the one available canvas chair. Everyone’s stoicism was understandable. In front of the cameras was the heartbreaking sight of two of the film’s stars, Mr. Rudd and Ron Eldard (ER, House of Sand and Fog), decked out in thigh-high rubber waders, lumberjack shirts and wool hats; in movie-land time, it was autumn. “These guys must be dying,” whispered a P.A.

Indeed, moments later, the gentlemen would walk under a black tent set up for the camera monitors and unsnap the top of their waders, pointing themselves at the fan just so. “They’re all angels—Paul particularly,” said a producer. “They never complain.”

“It’s not true suffering. This is still better than being a coal miner,” said Ron Eldard later. The actor was sitting in the local elementary school, which was being used as a makeshift catering hall, wardrobe and all-around air-conditioned haven. “This is one of those movies where you can sit in an air-conditioned school auditorium and you’ve moved up, you know?”

The budget for Diggers—under $2 million—is quite small by Hollywood standards. Scheduled for just a month’s worth of filming, the film is being done on high-definition digital video, courtesy of Mark Cuban’s HDNet films. It’s slated for a 2006 double release—in theaters and on Mr. Cuban’s HDNet Movies Channel simultaneously. This is a strategy that greatly benefited the company’s last film, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which grossed over $4 million.

“You can work on big Hollywood movies and you can just see the waste of money,” said Mr. Eldard. “You’re just sitting around and you think, ‘Wow, that’s about $150,000 that just went by this hour, and what did we do?’ Listen, don’t get me wrong—I’ll take 20 million if you offer it to me. And let me say that again: I’m all for 20 million,” he smiled. “But if you just live on that diet alone, it strangles the other movies—the ones that can be made for five or 10 or 15 million.”

The producers have packed Diggers with a group of obviously like-minded actors; Mr. Rudd and Mr. Eldard are joined by Maura Tierney, Josh Hamilton and Lauren Ambrose, a.k.a. Six Feet Under’s Claire. The cast, who portray a close-knit group of friends in a small town whose clam-digging economy is threatened by big industry, had a head start on camaraderie.

“I knew Paul from doing [Neil LaBute’s] Bash, I knew Maura [Tierney] from ER, and Josh I’ve known from just being around the New York actor scene,” said Mr. Eldard. Mr. Rudd and Mr. Marino had been friends since co-starring in Wet Hot American Summer. “We really are working for nothing on this one. There’s no fighting over whose trailer is bigger, because there are no trailers,” said Mr. Eldard.

The actor, who’ll next be seen in this fall’s Freedomland, directed by Revolution Studios head Joe Roth (“Joe Roth directed the shit out of it”), was drawn to the project by the story. “It’s about how great this script is,” he said. “It’s lean, it’s sweet and based on the world Ken knew. It has a great heart without being too soft.”

“It is kind of a love letter to my dad, my mom and the world I grew up in,” said screenwriter Ken Marino, back out in the heat, waiting patiently as makeup was applied around his hearty moustache and fake dirt rubbed into his shirt. “This backdrop of a clam-digging community in the 70’s was when change was coming down [in the industry], and I thought it was a good time to place the story.”

Mr. Marino, whom audiences might recognize as a member of the sketch-comedy group The State, said: “This is the first time I’ve written more of a personal story. My dad was a clamdigger; my grandfather and uncle were, too. It was something I knew.”

Originally, David Wain, another Wet Hot American Summer and State alum, was slated to direct. But when Mr. Wain’s new comedy troupe, Stella, got picked up by Comedy Central, the producers came to Katherine Dieckmann. Ms. Dieckmann—who started her career as a journalist, made her way to film via music videos for R.E.M., Aimee Mann and Wilco, and made her first feature film, A Good Baby, in 2000—only stepped into her Diggers role in April.

“Ken and I got together, and we hit it off sensibility-wise,” said Ms. Dieckmann, pale skin shielded by a floral wrap. “I love this kind of multi-character movie. It’s like this movie is not only set in the 70’s—it takes it approach from the 70’s as well.” The crew was breaking down equipment for the next scene, set on a paved driveway ending at the water’s edge, and Ms. Dieckmann watched carefully from a picnic bench outside the Silly Lily fishing station.

The setting looked, at first glance, like a brilliant 70’s invention from the prop department—an illusion broken only by the www.sillylily.com sign out front. “Isn’t this place amazing?” asked Ms. Dieckmann, waving back to locals wandering by. “We really lucked out: This is one of the last functioning bait shacks. This is almost like a perfectly preserved ghost town of what life used to be like out here.”

Everyone took a brief lunch break in the school auditorium (which, with its wood paneling and inspirational posters, also seemed like piece of production whimsy), where the principle actors ate their make-your-own tacos together and clustered at the end of the bleacher seats. The men seemed to be out-joking one another while Ms. Ambrose laughed appreciatively. They all enjoyed their tacos.

After lunch, neither the heat nor the glare of the sun had abated. Ms. Ambrose, who needed to be shielded constantly between takes by a giant umbrella to protect her almost-opalescent skin, ducked under cover with her onscreen love interest, Mr. Rudd.

“I knew very little about clams when we started, but I knew I didn’t care for them,” joked Mr. Rudd.

“You took a digging lesson,” Ms. Ambrose reminded.

“I did! I went clamdigging. There is something very Zen about getting out in a boat, putting a rake in the water—the whole thing,” he said.

The small-town fishing community, Mr. Rudd said, is one that isn’t heard about so much anymore. “There really is something great about getting on a boat, forming a bond with these guys and then going to the bar after the day is done.” Someone cue up the Boss! “It is very Bruce Springsteen,” agreed Mr. Rudd, a native of New Jersey.

The day’s work was due to go until late in the evening, a circumstance that was probably beneficial only to Ms. Ambrose’s skin. But no one seemed to mind much. Spirits ran high, the crew still greatly entertained by the day’s previous activities, which included a very naked Josh Hamilton. “He finally just gave up and got rid of the sock,” giggled a P.A. (The set was, unfortunately, closed.) Hopes were high that Diggers would find festival success. “The reason you do this movie, or a lot of movies, is because it’s a great script,” said Mr. Rudd. “And maybe you’ll catch lightning in a bottle and find yourself with a great movie

- Chris