One Day on the Set of God Bless America

If you think movies are fun to watch, how about watching on location as they shoot a film scene by scene. That's even more intriguing.

In early February in Taiwan, a cold front has gripped the north for several days, but Pingtung in the south hasn't been affected at all. Our airplane lands at the Pingtung airport, and as the door opens, our heavy coats are no longer of service.

The director Wu Nien-chen is shooting the final scenes of his film God Bless America, and he has come to Chiuju Rural Township. We turn onto a small winding road behind the fruit and vegetable market alongside the provincial highway. Fields of sugarcane stretch out as far as the eye can see on both sides of the road, but where are all the people? Where are they going to shoot the film?

A place seldom visited by man

We continue along the small dirt lane and finally see a group of people. To one side are parked a couple of film equipment vans used for filming on location, and also an array of jeeps and tanks supplied by the Ministry of Defense, parked in one long, impressive line. The dozens of workers and actors combined with the soldiers make for quite a congregation.

A closer look pricks one's interest even more. The extras include whites, blacks and orientals, and a mishmash of languages are being spoken: Mandarin, Taiwanese and English with a variety of accents. Things seem strangely out of time and place. There are farmers' T-shirts, soldiers' uniforms, and over to one side even beautiful bar girls in miniskirts and qipaos. Without prior explanation, people wouldn't have a clue to what era was being filmed.

This morning they are shooting scenes of villagers, wearing T-shirts and bamboo-leaved hats and carrying hoes and wooden bats, confronting American soldiers on a narrow road. Misunderstanding leads to conflict.

Wu Nien-chen, the little director, is making commands. Speaking into a megaphone, he says, "Quiet on the set. Please don't speak and don't laugh."

"Camera, action!"

American soldiers holding rifles are facing the farmers on a narrow road, not permitting them to pass. The villagers are all a-jumble, shouting and yelling. Not understanding what the villagers are saying, an American soldier says, "What?" The villagers, misunderstanding in turn, respond by saying, "Wha your grandfather! Wha your family for three generations!"

Onlaughers

Members of the crew, extras, and quite a few locals who have heard that a film was going to be shot here today, look on. When the onlookers hear the film's dialogue, there are always a few who can't help laughing. Some ask, "What are they acting? Why aren't there any movie stars?" Earlier arrivals fill them in on the details.

The villagers continue to press forward, until the American soldiers fire, scaring the villagers out of their wits. The director shouts, "Cut!" and as he walks toward the actors he says to the bystanders, "Please don't laugh."

The leading lady of God Bless America is the singer Chiang Shu-na, and the leading man is Lin Cheng-sheng, who played a gangster in the movie Tropical Fish. For several days there haven't been any scenes in which they appear. Ah Tsung, a scrawny boy who has a big part, is here though. On his winter vacation, he has come with the crew from the main location at Hengchun for these scenes at Chiuju. Not in any of this morning's scenes, he plays barefoot with other kids in the mud of the sugarcane fields.

Drivers, kill your engines

Members of the crew are posted on the road far off in either direction to ask approaching motorcyclists to turn off their engines. They are using live sound, and engine noise would get taped as well.

After a long shot of the face-off, they shoot close-ups of the villagers and Americans. Yet because of people's laughter, or motorcycle engine noise, or villagers' curses that aren't loud enough, or soldiers' guns that don't fire their blanks, they shoot take after take. In this frustrating way, the morning passes.

By 12:30, when the sun is directly overhead, everyone is tired, and the car bringing boxed lunches from Pingtung appears on the road in the distance. In a field where the sugar cane has just been cut it's difficult to find any place in the shade, so people just sit down wherever they are and start eating.

When a few old local men hear the beautiful young women with pulled-up hair and heavy make-up speaking fluent Mandarin, they exclaim in surprise, "So you're not foreign workers!" The women are students at a local vocational college, who are quite unrecognizable under all that make-up.

Tired troops moving the crowd

At a little past 1:00, they shoot a few more takes of the Americans firing their guns, and then they film the villagers fleeing with their family possessions. Each change of camera angle involves a lot of hassle. This time, a member of the crew asks, "Will the parked cars get in this shot?"

The equipment vans, jeeps, and tanks parked far off must all be removed from the camera's vision. It's a big operation.

The camera and sound men take their equipment to the middle of the sugarcane field for the scene. Off to the side the bystanders also move their parked motorcycles for fear that they will get in the way.

First there's a shot of the army vehicles rolling by, and then of the villagers fleeing with all of their possessions. A long row of families, including both children and old folk, are walking along the road, leading cows and goats, hauling their ancestral tablets in oxen-pulled carts. At an intersection the villagers face-off again with the soldiers in their tanks and jeeps, and neither side seems willing to budge!

At five in the afternoon the light begins to dim, and after shooting the scene of the villagers fleeing from the shelling of the big guns, the day of work comes to a close.

Make-up artists help the students playing the bar girls get their make up off, and the extras playing the villagers change into their own clothes and collect their day's pay, leaving one after another. The sun sets, and the wind picks up. It's time to go home.

60,000 kilos of cabbage

Two days later at 6:00 am, the crew arrives at the location of the shoot with 60,000 kilos of cabbage, putting every last head from every last basket out on a field. The soldiers help too, and after three hours one whole field is covered. Their backs are covered with sweat from the early morning exercise. Someone asks Taiwan Sugar Corporation to let water out in the irrigation channel, and everyone splashes in the water and washes off the mud!

Farmers get up early, and when they pass by and see the field covered with vegetables, they are taken aback and wonder what's the point of having so many cabbages. "What will they do with all of them when they finish shooting?" First it's said that locals can take them home afterwards, but then it's discovered that they've already been promised to Taiwan Sugar for compost--sorry!

A woman wants to go to the bathroom, and a crewmember calls out loudly: "All aboard the van to the bathroom." The nearest toilet is in the fruit and vegetable market on the provincial highway. It's not very convenient for women.

Then 11-year-old Ah Tsung says, "I want to go too," and members of the crew just laugh and point at the field: "There's your bathroom!"

Help from Heaven

The scene to be filmed is of a grandmother looking out upon the field of vegetables, as army vehicles and artillery roll by kicking up dust on the road. The camera focuses on a squad of soldiers out in the field. Here the megaphone won't be of any use, and over the walkie-talkie the director tells the armored column to start moving, but they wait and wait and there's still no movement. It turns out that one of the vehicles is having engine problems. Wu looks frustrated and bored: "This is how I have wasted my life! Does anyone have any betel nuts?" The response: "Someone's gone to buy some."

After they've taken the long shot, it's time to shoot the scene where the grandma is yawning while protecting the vegetable garden, and her grandson Ah Tsung brings her rice porridge.

"Ah Tsung, go roll around in the field." A T-shirt that's too clean doesn't look suitable for a country child. First they try a scene with children, and the director goes through it with them, half-explaining and half-acting, telling them how to walk and where to look.

"Wu Nien-chen explains, "You give the rice to your grandmother and shout, 'Grandma, grandma, eat!' Your grandmother tells you to look at the field, and you walk over there. Do you get it?"

This scene sounds very simple, with just three children and their grandmother. Yet Heaven isn't cooperating. If there aren't planes landing and taking off at a nearby air-force base, then there's sound coming over the base's loudspeaker system. This simple scene of carrying a bamboo basket to Grandma requires 14 takes. By then it's noon.

The crew lights some incense and prays to the Lord of Heaven for things to go more smoothly.

Yet even with the noise interference, they've got to keep on shooting, hoping that they can deal with the sound later. Everyone is hungry and tired, and after resting a bit, they eat their boxed lunches. They've got a busy afternoon ahead of them.

In a little while it will be time to shoot a scene with children. The child stars are ready and waiting.

Two big and heavy microphones, used to get the sound on tape, are held off to the side of the action.

A reporter asks this group of women playing bar girls, "Would you like to be photographed with the director?" They reply, "Would it be OK?" The director of course jumps at the chance to be photo graphed with these beauties.

The sun is setting, and it's time to call it a day.