EPIC EXTRAVAGANZAS

Aug. 18, 2003

I am playing outside with my 5-year-old son, Coltrane. The phone rings, with that strange, long international delay. I have been out of work since April, and as much as I have grown accustomed to being home, we are more than a little broke.

“Hello ... Gary?” I recognize the voice over the static.

“Ueli, how are you, where are you, what movie are you working on?”

Ueli Steiger is a good friend and a talented cinematographer. We worked together on “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” where I served as first assistant director.

“We are in Kazakhstan, and our first A.D. has taken ill. Do you want to come?” Ueli asks.

They are about to start filming “The Nomad,” an 18th century love story about warring nomadic tribes. It is being directed by Ivan Passer and stars Jay Hernandez, Kuno Becker, Mark Dacascos and Jason Scott Lee. Oddly, it is being financed by the president of Kazakhstan.

“Trula, do I want to go to Kazakhstan?” I ask my wife, handing her the phone.

“Yes, he wants to go to Kazakhstan,” she tells Ueli.

The connection soon goes dead. Nothing in my 20 years as a first A.D. will prepare me for what lies ahead.

Aug. 19

I call “Nomad’s” American producer, Ram Bergman. He assures me he will do his best to pay me, even though he does not control the finances. This is enough for me to agree to get on the plane.

Aug. 21

The news is worrisome even before I leave for the airport.

“They have officially run out of money,” Ueli tells me in an e-mail. “They are now scrambling to get interim funds. Money will come, I am sure of it.”

Aug. 23

35,000 feet -- somewhere over Russia

I have spent the last 20 minutes trying to get past “The Nomad” screenplay’s first page. There are huge stunts, battle scenes, explosions, hundreds of men on horseback. There are entire cities to be built and destroyed. It’s a $20-million epic that would cost more than $100 million in the States.

Aug. 25

Kazakh Film Studio, Almaty

The small production office is in chaos. We have gathered all the department heads for a production meeting, and the office is filled with nearly 50 people. More than 15 nationalities are represented, and young translators whisper in Italian, English, Kazakh and Russian. I learn that we also have two directors: Passer is the director I was told I would be working with, but we also have a Kazakh director named Talgat Temenov. He speaks very little English.

Our leader is Rustam Ibragimbekov. He is our producer and has written the screenplay. Rustam is a bear of a man with a huge smile, powerful in many ways. His “Burnt by the Sun” won the Academy Award for best foreign film in 1994. Our line producer is Pavel Douvidzon, who appears to be very kind.

The first thing I notice is that everyone has clean, white scripts. At this point, traditionally, all the department heads have marked up their scripts and are working primarily from their notes. I am astounded to learn that the script is completely new.

In fact Rustam and Ivan have not even met during preproduction and have been working from different screenplays. This for a film that was scheduled to begin principal photography more than eight weeks ago. They have pushed the start date back four times.

After 45 minutes, we have proceeded no further than Page 2. One scene calls for a trained vulture.

“How do we get trained vultures?” I ask.

“We go to the dump, kill an animal, and then we wait and film it,” says animal wrangler Darkhan Kozhakkan.

Ueli replies, “But we need the vulture over the set.”

“Well, then why don’t you build the battle scene set at the dump?” Darkhan answers.

After another 45 minutes, I stand up and suggest we postpone the production meeting until everyone has had a chance to read the new script. I later inform Rustam and Pavel that we must delay another two weeks, because the movie is not ready. They are crestfallen.

Aug. 26

Uzhet

I arrive at the set for the first time. Our Yugoslavian production designer, Kreka Kljakovic, and Italian set decorator Domenico Sica have created magic like I have never seen before. Hundreds of yurts are laid out in a valley nearly three football fields in length. A beautiful river bisects the middle, and there are cows, horses, camels and hundreds of workers putting on the finishing touches.

Aug. 27

President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev visits. The president decided a few years ago that there was no better way to export Kazakhstan to the world than through movies, revitalizing an industry and a studio that had not made a film in 10 years.

We put on a fantastic show for him, including Kazakh cowboys riding bareback while on fire, a fact that horse stunt coordinator Usen Kudaibergen forgot to share with our wardrobe department. Costume designers Marit Allen and Michael O’Connor have been on this film for nearly a year, sweating over materials constantly hung up in customs. Their costumes are amazing, the detailing unsurpassed. Now half a dozen of their outfits are engulfed in flames.

I learn today that everyone lives in fear of Usen. They say he was just released from an Uzbekistan prison, and that he worked as a scout for Osama bin Laden. His face is scarred, and his band of stuntmen cower as he shouts, spits and kicks dirt at them. I am going to stay on his good side.

Aug. 30

This picture is beyond huge, and those in charge refuse to see it. We have locations that make “Lawrence of Arabia” look like an after-school special, a crew of more than 500, and a transportation department that cannot back up a truck. In fact, we barely have trucks. When I mentioned that the tires on the camera truck (the only truck in the country with a lift gate, we are told) were so bare that I could not find the tread, they told me not to worry. “In our country we only fix things after they are broken.”

The producers have begged me to get the movie started. The only catch is that the costumes and props they need for the opening scenes are locked in customs, and no one will pay the fees to release them.

Aug. 31

Today is Kazakh Independence Day, and President Nazarbayev invited 20 of us to witness his 18-mile bareback horse race. After nearly 12 miles, the lead horse collapses and dies from heat exhaustion. The Americans are appalled, but the Kazakhs are philosophical. At the president’s yurt, guests are given horse milk so sour the sensation is like electrodes going off in my mouth, and horse meat. It is unclear if it’s the lead horse.

Sept. 8

We began principal photography today. The joy and jubilation were like electricity in the air. Maybe it will all work out. The cast was fantastic, the set magnificent. There were nearly 800 people in front of the lens, and it felt like another 800 among the crew.

Sept. 12

Our extras get paid daily the equivalent of $8, and each day we have as many as 1,000 of them dressed in period clothing. I arrived on set this morning and it was strangely empty. A moment later, our translators Lalita and Kirill came running down the hill.

“Gary, Gary, come quick. The local extras have surrounded the assistant directors and they are very, very angry. They say they are going to kill your second assistant director, Fletch, if they don’t get paid.”

“Get the army, but make sure that their guns are not loaded,” I say.

We hop in a jeep and race up the hill to see that nearly 100 of the background players are trying to corner Fletch. After not getting paid all week, the local townspeople have threatened to beat him up, then burn down the set. Fortunately, we have the army on set. They serve as our security force, set up base camp and cook the food for the extras. With their Kalashnikov rifles, they settle the rebellion down.

Sept. 22

All of the foreign crew gathered together and voted to go on strike five days from now. Many if not all of the crew members had not been paid in over two weeks. The crew felt very ambivalent about striking. They did not want to let Ivan down, they do not want to see the movie shut down. This crew believes in this film.

Sept. 27

We are celebrating the Jewish new year by going on strike. The government went to outside investors and requested that they begin financing the film. We did receive $1 million at the end of the day on Friday, but unfortunately that money has to go to Los Angeles and then be wired to bank accounts in the United States, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Serbia. You get the picture. The amazing thing is that because the crew threatened to strike on Monday and then went on strike on Friday, they helped raise the money needed for the film. In my experience, this is the first time that the crew has aided in raising the financing for the movie.

Sept. 30

Talgat, the Kazakh director, has made films here before and is feared by all the locals. He comes up with great ideas, usually right as we are about to say “Action!” The other day, after we had done our rehearsal and were about to shoot, Talgat decided that the scene needed dancing girls. So we found dancing girls and got them dressed. Then he decided the scene needed women fanning the king with large ostrich-feather fans. Of course the props department (we have Mickey Woolfson, the prop man from “Saving Private Ryan”) had this as well, and wine and grapes and berries. Then Talgat decided the scene needed musicians to play a serenade. Out of 500 extras, we found five who could bang out a tune on 1700s instruments. We even got a shot off by 1 p.m.

Oct. 3

I cannot express what a small miracle it is that we are about on schedule. Nothing is ready when it is planned to be. The costume department comes begging every day not to shoot scenes. Its costumes are not ready because of a lack of money for buttons, for leather, for items locked up in customs or because manufacturers have kept items because they were not paid for their work. The props department had swords made for a sword fight, but the studio took the bids out to three metal shops, and of course they went with the cheapest ones. The swords were made out of aluminum, so when they were struck, they bent in half. I am amazed at how Ivan remains above the fray. His patience is inspirational.

Oct. 7

The editorial department has been here nearly six weeks and their equipment has been stuck first in customs in England and now in this country in Almaty. They have had nothing to do but harvest marijuana, which grows wild all around our sets, and make Pot-a-tini, a great drink if you let the marijuana ferment for a week in a bottle of vodka.

Our extras have their own drug of choice that they buy for 200 tenge (about $1.50). It is some sort of narcotic that they put under their upper lips in the morning. It acts as a stimulant; they are very eager to work from 8 a.m. until noon. Then after lunch it is a game to find them. It looks like Jonestown, with hundreds of people lying face down on the ground, crashed out. My staff and the 20 extras wranglers have to collect and then chase them back onto the set.

Another challenge is that half of the actors speak only English and the other half speak only Kazakh. One actor says his line in a foreign language, and the other answers in his foreign language. Every scene will have to be dubbed, or subtitled. All the same, I cannot express how much fun we are having. Dailies look incredible.

Oct. 11

This evening we experienced an incredible display of graciousness from the extras. They stopped Ivan’s van and insisted upon inviting us all for a banquet they had organized for their last day of shooting in Galdhan’s Camp. The table was set for 40 people with vodka, cognac, wine, lamb, horse meat, beet salad and, of course, watermelon. After each toast your vodka glass was refilled, and if you did not drink, you were prodded and pushed to drink some more. I believe that the Kazakhs invented Jewish mothers. It makes all the insanity worthwhile.

Oct. 13

Ushkonyr

We started this week without food or water. The caterers had not been paid in a month and, since we had now moved to our mountain location at 6,000 feet, they decided not to show up. Everyone, including our line producer, Pavel, knew that they would not be here, but like all problems in Kazakhstan no one did anything until they did not show up.

Oct. 14

We had our first snowstorm this week. We were doing a scene with a cabinet minister’s grandson, a precocious 3-year-old who did very well even with the cold. Rumor has it that his grandfather is more than pleased, which could be good news for us since we will again run out of money in two weeks.

Oct. 16

We shot the ram fight today. Usen’s riders were not happy with the prop ram built by the art department, so instead they went out and killed one of our real rams. The goal is to grab the ram and try to get him across a line before 50 mad men on horseback stop you. I was terrified for Jay and Kuno riding in the middle of it all. Luckily the only one who got hurt was the ram.

Oct. 19

It sounds obvious, but the first thing you need when you make a movie is a script. You can have all the money in the world, all the actors, costumes, sets, crew, but if you don’t have a script you will never have anything to work from. Guess what we don’t have. Every weekend Ivan, Rustam, Talgat, our script supervisor, our dialogue coach and a team of translators sit in our hotel and pound out the scenes for the week. The incredible part is that we keep on shooting, and the film keeps on looking great. It will be a wonder to see what turns out. I have taken to calling this film “Kazakh’s Gate.”

Oct. 27

Kapchagay

We have moved to Kapchagay. It’s 1 1/2 hours of harrowing driving each way to our set. I say a small prayer before I get into the van of our driver Myranbek. Ann Passer, Ivan’s wife, is there every morning at 6 to see us off. She is an incredible woman -- with great strength and the soul of an angel. I hope I have half of her and Ivan’s youth and vitality when I reach their age.

Nov. 3

We are starting to get as crazy as the Russians, Azerbaijanis and Kazakhs in charge. People’s tempers are acting up.

Each morning as I arrive on set I get a litany of who is not there. Sean Clayton, the second assistant director, reports that a stuntman quit because he has not been paid, and he also took the 20 horses needed for the shot. The all-terrain vehicle that took five months to get so the camera could follow the horses is here, but we have no money to buy gas. Three of the grips are not here because the driver forgot to pick them up. Our lead actor’s horse died last night from exposure to the cold; they had no money to buy blankets to cover the poor animal.

I am doing OK; I just miss my family.

Nov. 9

Regent Ankara Hotel bar

Ivan, Rustam, Ram (who just arrived from the States), Pavel, production manager Vladimir Zhelezhyakov and I had a summit this evening to discuss shutting down the film. This was the first time that all of us gathered in one place to discuss the official possibility of a work stoppage. We covered all of the obvious reasons: the weather, the lack of a script, the safety concerns of driving a crew on rough roads in inclement weather. Ivan explained that this is a film set in the springtime, and we should see the beauty and splendor of Kazakhstan, not the gray and the cold. At the end of the meeting, we all agreed to stop shooting the movie on Nov. 21.

Nov. 12

Kapchagay

Along with the third A.D., Scott Rorie, I arrived on set this morning in darkness to the sight of one of our main sets engulfed in flames, visible from kilometers away. We thought that it was a fire built to keep the security men warm. Apparently, two of the security men were sleeping in the house of the main character, Gaughkar, and thinking the movie fireplace actually worked, they started a fire to keep warm. The straw and clay house burned to the ground in five minutes. No one really seemed to notice, or care, except that the smoke from the smoldering flames might affect our shot.

Nov. 13

The end came with a whimper, not a bang. We have been fighting the weather, lack of daylight, drunken drivers, drivers who would not show up for weeks (and yet held the keys to the trucks). Finally a line in the sand was drawn. We were about to shoot a complicated visual effects battle scene. Only a couple of problems: 1) There was no scene written. 2) The visual effects supervisor had just arrived.

Our first supervisor had returned to his expecting wife in L.A. Our producers had yet to secure a deal with another supervisor. A second supervisor didn’t arrive from Los Angeles until today, which was too late. Ivan announced that he would not shoot the scene until it was written, and we agreed to take Friday and Saturday off and attempt the scene on Sunday or Monday. Rustam let it be known that if we do not work on Friday, then the movie will be shut down.

Pavel pleaded with me on the phone not to wrap. But we had nothing to shoot, the sun was setting, and the crew and the extras were getting cold. Pavel, Vlad, Ivan and I decided to meet on the side of the road. A lonely car appears from the opposite direction. Out of nowhere arrives one of our extras from five weeks ago, carrying a case of vodka. Today is his birthday and we must join him in a toast. Suddenly, one of our dilapidated buses stops, filled with our local Kazakh crew wondering what they should do, where they should go. So many people pour out of the old bus it looks like a Fellini circus act out in the middle of the steppe.

Nov. 14

Friday comes and goes, and like all deadlines on this film, there is no result. Pavel asks me to invite all the department heads to the 5 p.m. dailies screening so they can discuss the wrap.

About 100 people are now cramped in the small screening room. The dailies run, and then the light comes up. Rustam runs out of the room with his interpreter, leaving Pavel alone. All eyes turn to Pavel.

“Pavel, are we shooting tomorrow?” someone asks.

“No,” he says.

“Are we wrapping?”

“No.”

“What are we doing?”

“I cannot say.”

Ivan is then handed an official letter from Serik Zhubandykov, the head of Kazakh Film Studio. It states that since Ivan contacted the directors’ guild complaining of safety violations, as well as breaches in his contract, that the film would now be shut down by the studio. Apparently the insurance was going to be pulled by the U.S. company.

We all know the truth is that they are out of money.

Nov. 15

I have learned that in Kazakhstan words do not mean anything when they come from the authorities. I tell them the drivers say they are not coming to work since they have not been paid. The producers say the drivers are just drunks and liars. I tell them the extras are not coming back since they have not been paid. They say that they are peasants and don’t deserve to be paid.

Nov. 17

Almaty

I left at 4 a.m., which felt like sneaking away under the cloak of darkness. It was exhilarating to be in a part of the world that works so differently, to work on a film where all the rules you learned no longer apply. I had to learn a new way of looking at filmmaking.

Oct. 22, 2004

“Nomad” wrapped principal photography on Oct. 2, 2004, nearly one year after we shut down. They hired a new director, Sergei Bodrov, and a new cinematographer, Dan Laustsen. The script was simplified, yet retained its epic scale. I give a lot of credit to the producers and the Kazakhs for completing “Nomad.” I wish them well, and look forward to seeing it at the Cannes Film Festival this spring. Miracles do happen.

Before his work in Kazakhstan, Gary Marcus produced “CQ” and co-produced “The Virgin Suicides” and “Incident at Loch Ness.” He was first assistant director on “Leaving Las Vegas,” “The Rainmaker” and “Miller’s Crossing.”