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I've always wondered how movies with real financing get made. So I convinced Tamra Davis to let me hang out with her while she got ready for her new film, Skipped Parts. Tamra has made the films Gun Crazy, CB4, Billy Madison, and the upcoming Best Men. But besides Gun Crazy, all of her previous films were projects where she was hired on as a director. Skipped Parts, however, is a film Tamra developed, meaning she wanted to direct the project and took it around with a producer to get it made. Tamra's excitement and commitment to the film are obvious. She's working on a film that she connects with on all levels — something a director is not always able to do. The story is about a messed-up Southern woman and her bastard son. The woman is a disgrace to her rich father, and she moves to Wyoming to get away from him. She throws her son, Sam, into a new school situation where he must deal with Maurey, the town's tough and popular girl. Both of the kids are 13. After the initial "I hate you" encounter, Maurey and Sam get together, try to have sex, but can't figure it out. The mother comes home drunk and explains to the kids how to have sex. It's not a Disney picture. Janeane Garofalo is slated to play the mother; they are still casting for the two kids. Once the kids are cast, Samuel Goldwyn will commit the money for a start date and Tamra can start location scouting. | |
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Tamra has been around the Hollywood scene since she was 14. She watched Francis Ford Coppola, John Huston, and Federico Fellini direct before she was 18. Because she was this little blond girl who wanted to be an actress, no one minded her hanging around. But as people were doting on her blond hair and blue eyes, she was secretly thinking, "Just you wait, I'm going to be a director!" She got her start doing music videos, including Tone Loc's huge crossover "Wild Thing" and "Bust a Move" (which practically created the Yo! MTV Raps programming), Etta James, Sonic Youth, Beavis and Butthead (with Cher!), NWA, MC Lyte, Depeche Mode, Lou Reed, Luscious Jackson, Bette Midler, and New Kids on the Block (where her suggestion to invite girls up to their hotel room set off the scandalous hotel-carpet-fire incident). |
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Tamra is casting for the kids in Skipped Parts when I arrive. She and her sister Kim just returned from auditioning kids in New York. (Tamra got Kim a job as casting director on Gun Crazy, her first film. Kim now runs a successful business providing casting for music videos and corporate commercials, including Nike and Pepsi.) Tamra goes over to Kim's house to organize a "selects" reel for Goldwyn, so they can check out the kids. Kim's daughter, Lucy, tears through the living room as Kim and Tamra go through head shots. "Is this a boy or a girl?" Tamra asks at one. "Ooh, this girl was on the Power Rangers!" she exclaims at another. She's got the Power Ranger power gloves and the backpack. |  |
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Tamra just finished a video with the Hanson Brothers, a group of three brothers aged 11, 13, and 16. They're all cute as a button and the video is charming — they take taxis and jump on the moon. Tamra took the job because she wanted to practice working with young kids. The record company warned her that the boys were picky and difficult, but after working with Tamra, they don't want anyone but her to do their videos. She tells me she let them come up with ideas and have a lot of say in the video — she wanted them to ride bikes, but the Hanson Brothers thought it would make them look too young so they compromised with some killer shots of the kids rollerblading. Tamra talks about the responsibility of working with kids. It's weird to work with young boys you would have had a crush on as a little girl. |
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The subject matter of Skipped Parts is really adult, though you don't see anything exploitative in the film. When Tamra and Kim were casting in New York, one third of their auditions were canceled due to a phone tree campaign by a child actor's mother who had read the script. In Kim's living room, Tamra plays some of the tapes from New York, and suddenly kids who have been in Disney films and some of the coolest independent films are bringing the script to life. They are so charming and open. "You can tell immediately which kids can act," Tamra says. Kim mentions the overalls tip. "Any time a kid is wearing overalls it means that they're trying to look younger than they are, and it's almost always a disaster." | |
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After organizing which L.A. kids will be called back in the next few days, Tamra meets her producer, Sharon Orek, and her Director of Photography, Bill Pope, for lunch. Sharon has produced numerous short films and music videos (including Madonna's "Like a Prayer") and is the president of O Pictures. Skipped Parts is her first feature film. I ask her how it's going. "It's the nicest experience I've ever had. It's been pure fun." Working with the studio has been great for her. "They make lists of shit for you," she says, amazed. Bill shot the films Clueless, Gridlock'd, and Bound. Bill and Sharon also happen to be married. Later Tamra confides, "Bill is getting so hot right now, I'm really lucky to have him on my film." He is also a genuinely nice guy — Tamra surrounds herself with good, honest, intelligent, witty women and the men who love them. You forget that you're in L.A., home to the some of the world's biggest sleazebags — many of them key players in the film industry. |
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A few days later, Tamra starts the day by watching a home education physics tape while she rides her exercycle. She reads the accompanying workbook while she does yoga. Then she bakes a coconut birthday cake for Sharon before her meeting with Kim at the O Pictures offices to do call back auditions. She applies the icing too fast and the back of the two layer cake falls apart. But Tamra gathers some edible flowers from her garden and turns the troubled spot into a classy garnish. Look out Martha Stewart!
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At the office, Kim is confirming appointments on the phone. At one point she says, "Okay. Genius!" in the EXACT same manner as Tamra. It's almost spooky — they definitely are sisters. There's no energy wasted on personal dynamics when they work together — everything comes naturally. The kids who come in are nervous about their audition, but they're relaxed about relating to Tamra and Kim. "You want some coffee?" Tamra asks the first girl. "No," she replies shyly. Tamra explains the film very casually, as if she were talking to an old friend. When Tamra describes the sex in the film, the girl's eyes light up. When Tamra explains, "You get pregnant in the movie," the girl's eyes pop out and she smiles really wide. "It's all about how important it is to have a family," says Tamra. "Even if it's a crazy family," adds Kim. It sounds like they're speaking from experience. |
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After the girl reads, Kim shows off her goose bumps. "Kim gets chills when she likes someone," Tamra says. The next girl comes in and Tamra explains the technology of the mini video monitor to the girl. "It's got a wireless hook up so I can carry it around the set." She just talks to the kids like she would talk to a friend. The girl reads her lines and she is so effective that Tamra breaks into a huge smile. After she's done Tamra exclaims, "The subdued approach! Okay, superstar actress, pull him in!" referring to the flirty nature of the scene. Tamra wants to do another take and her directing techniques are so firm and clear that by the second take the girl's confidence has kicked in. She's wearing the character of Maurey with ease. Tamra and Kim really like her and ask the girl to let them know what her mom thinks of the script.
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Later on, they read a girl I've seen on Roseanne, a "Little Jeff Bridges" who delivers a personal handshake to everyone in the room, a tall gangly girl who's only 13 but looks way older and reads all her lines without a script (after she leaves Kim says, "She was fucking good!"), a 14 year old girl who dresses like she's 20, complete with a plunging neckline that shows off her cleavage (!), a really short boy (4"9") who's got a photographic memory and has charmed everyone in the room by saying, "Every time I get a kissing scene it gets cut the day before!" (his reading is amazing), and a boy who's so cute you can feel the swooning in the air. His bangs are too long and when Tamra suggests he wears one of Kim's bobby pins, he turns bright red. Kim wets down his hair and we all laugh. He's the only boy in the room, but everyone is comfortable and at ease. In fact, all the kids are comfortable with a row of five women sitting facing them, like it's the most natural thing in the world. It's easy to imagine that when they grow up, these kids will have no trouble working for a woman boss. |
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