F U N N Y F A C T S
4
Ming the Merciless
The "charlotte sometimes" end crawl includes a
credit for Ming Zezza as Assistant Editor. The six-year-old daughter
of Visionbox VP Lulu Zezza, Ming Zezza spent many a summer day at the
office where Eric Byler was editing the film. When interactive games
like "Little Mermaid" failed to amuse her, Ming would sit
next to Byler and watch him edit. Often, when Byler watched the same
sequence over and over again making minuscule changes, Ming would become
exasperated. She'd sigh out loud to subtly make her point, and if necessary
resort to shouting: "Come on already! You're driving me crazy!
Just leave it! It's fine! It's fine!!!" Byler, ever the perfectionist,
says he would never have finished the film without Ming's periodic encouragement.
Thus the credit: Assistant Editor.
More on Ming
Ming has seen the completed film with her mother present on several
occasions. At one screening, Byler asked Ming to summarize the film
for the small group of audience members. Ming replied: "There are
two boys and two girls. One of the boys has lots of hair. One of the
boys has no hair. Both of the girls like the boy with lots of hair.
And nobody likes the boy with no hair."
Laputa: Castle In
The Sky
Like the finished film, Byler's screenplay for "charlotte sometimes"
depicted Michael and Lori watching Japanese anime in one of the film's
opening scenes. Without mentioning Miyazaki's classic "Laputa:
Castle in the Sky," the screenplay implied one of its inspirations:
"On the television, a boy and a girl sail through clouds in a giant
kite, searching for a magical island in the sky." Rough cuts of
the film included "Laputa," but when Byler contacted Ghibli
Studios in Japan to ask for permission to use this clip, he was flatly
denied. So, Byler recorded the voices of production designer Robert
Shinso and actress Kelly Miyashiro and crafted a 15-second short to
be used instead. Neither Miyashiro nor Shinso were confident in their
Japanese language skills, but they translated Byler’s simple dialogue
(i.e. “What should we do?” ”Jump! Ready?” ”Yes!”)
and performed it in less than an hour. Byler and Sound Designer Bradley
L. North added sound effects including a missle and an explosion to
go with music by composer Michael Brook. The visuals are from a short
called "Sprial" courtesy of Mondo Media.
Looks Good In Leather
Recording artist Cody ChesnuTT visited
the set of "charlotte sometimes" during production and performed
a scene with actors Kimberly-Rose and Michael Krawic. Writer/director
Eric Byler intended the scene to depict the interwoven lives of the
main characters, the supporting characters, and the leather-clad one
himself. The scene was edited out of the film, but it is included in
the Bonus Features on the DVD. Later, during
post-production, ChesnuTT donated his time to play guitar accompaniment
for the opening title sequence of the film. Byler and Sound Designer
Bradley L. North wanted to fade out the vocals of "My Women, My
Guitar." But ChesnuTT could not locate the original tracks. So,
composer Michael Brook hosted a brief recording session in which ChesnuTT
played along with the original recording.
More songs from
Cody ChesnuTT
"Up In The Treehouse" was licensed for use as the second music
cue of the film. But a guitar song by Michael Brook was a late replacement.
Another song from ChesnuTT's acclaimed debut album The Headphone Masterpiece
nearly made the cut. "Six Seconds" was replaced during the
editing process with another of ChesnuTT's ballads: "Five On A
Joy Ride." The Masterpiece songs that DID make the film are "My
Women, My Guitar," "Upstarts In A Blowout," and "Boy
Life in America."
