"Beyond Your Wildest Dreams"

There is an expression;

"Beyond your wildest dreams".

It is an overused phrase to describe an experience that is extraordinary; something that you would never even hope, or imagine, or dream could possibly happen – especially to you.

I have had those experiences. Those ‘beyond your wildest dreams’ experiences. And I still look at them in awe and amazement, as if they happened to someone else. But they didn’t. They happened to me. And to honor that minute, that hour, that day, of ‘beyond your wildest dreams’, I get to tell the story.

Janice called me late, her voice ricocheting off the extremes of hushed, ‘too good to be true’ superstition and the exhilarated giddiness of ‘willing it to happen through the power of positive thinking’. If you know Janice well, you have heard this in her voice, as her eyes light bright with promise and expectation.

“We are getting scripts tomorrow from Austin Kelly to shoot Ray Charles singing the song ‘Georgia On My Mind’. Isn’t that unbelievable?”

Janice Burstein was my business partner and Co-owner of our Production Company, Black Box Pictures. We had opened shop with a big job in hand, and our office in the beginning was a booth at The White House Diner on Peachtree Street in Buckhead, with extra tips going to the waitress who let us camp out there for hours over breakfast. We had been lucky; constant work in Chicago, L.A., and Toronto – but we rarely got hired in our own hometown. I could misquote some scripture for that one, but I am not going to. Janice was, and always will be my biggest fan.

So imagine 10 minutes across the phone lines (yes, there were those things back then) of her describing how we would start my reel out with Ray singing ‘Georgia’ – and how completely perfect it would be because of course I would get the job, and me on the other end, in my darkened office saying, “It will never happen.” They will award the job to George – the most beloved Director in town who had a long list of celebrities he had worked with. Warm and energizing, he was considered an actor’s director – and I just shot pretty pictures.

And since I thought firmly that ‘it will never happen’, I went with my heart on the conference call with the Agency Creatives, and disagreed with what they envisioned. The scenario for shooting Ray would be a sound studio, they said. “No!” I insisted. ”Have you ever been inside a sound studio? They’re ugly – with baffling on the walls and ceiling. Ray needs to be in a beautiful room – something rich and wood paneled with light streaming in. Something that looks like the South, something beautiful.” I hung up the phone knowing my ideas were not warmly received - you know from that silence on the other end of the line. That was okay. You lose a lot of jobs in this business.

But that is not how the story ended. I got the job. I was surprised. George did not. He was surprised. (We talked about it years later when his company Synergy repped me for a happy while.) Charlene Fisch brought me over 30 locations before we found the perfect, beautiful, wood-paneled room with cathedral ceilings and windows to match, hidden away, and far enough off Briarcliff to distance us from the traffic noise. The mansion was vacant, and had gone through some rough times; evidenced by decaying rooms, boarded up windows and the pool from Great Gatsby days hidden in the woods with trees growing through the crumbling concrete.

But the wood paneled room would be perfect, once its floors were waxed and polished. The house had been built for the Candler family (perfect Georgia roots), and the room was designed to be their music room. Perfect acoustics. The perfect room for a legend from Georgia to sit at a grand piano and sing the song he had made famous.

The day before the shoot, we met with Ray Charles’ Manager, Tony Gumina. He came to see the room, and to prepare us to work with Ray. He was wonderful; he told us stories of musicians we think of as super stars – known by only their first name, standing in line behind each other simply to shake his hand and say hello. He explained the set etiquette for working with him, he described how brilliant he was musically, and slowly I realized I needed direction.

“What should I call him – how should I address him?”

“Mr. Charles.” He replied, with a smile.

I got it. Total respect.

The next day vibrated with the undercurrent of excitement. Everyone was polished; the crew in ‘nice’ clothes instead of the usual well-worn tee shirts, the room was perfectly lit, two cameras in place to play our game of beat the clock. We had 3 commercials to shoot in 6 hours, and throw in a series of radio spots for extra measure. They arrived, Braille scripts in hand, wardrobe steamed and waiting on the rack, our makeup artist, Patrice Coleman, standing at the ready. They called me in to meet him.

He was seated on a sofa, as introductions were made. Childhood memories kicked in. My great-aunt Helen, dark hair in a French twist, dark glasses covering her eyes, gold rings and bracelets adorning her hands. Sitting beside me at Gram’s kitchen table, drinking coffee, one finger at the rim of the cup to judge where the liquid was.

I went to Mr. Charles and kneeled down, and took his hand in mine. I knew he needed to touch me in order to see me. From that point on, when I was in the room with him, or he was on set with me, I kept one hand on him.

And we started our day.

The first script, with Dakota Fanning, was a dream. She was young and smart and the lines came out of her mouth as if they were her own. The second spot, with young Sterling Blackmon, started rocky. (Whose idea was it to have 4 year olds do dialogue spots with Ray Charles, anyway? thank you,…. for a lovely challenge!) As Mr. Charles listened to me ‘encourage’ our little guy to ‘look at Mr. Charles when you are speaking to him’, he turned to me and said, “You know what? He isn’t looking at me because I’m not looking at him. Let me turn toward him and see if that will work.” And it did.

Before we broke for lunch, we wanted to run through a practice of ‘Georgia On My Mind’. I was sitting beside Mr. Charles on the piano bench and asked him to play 30 seconds of the song.

“Well, which 30 seconds do you want me to play?”

“Uhhhh…” was my response.

And he just started playing, and singing,

“Georgia, my Georgia,

the whole day through,

Just an old sweet song,

keeps my Georgia on my mind.”

He sang the whole entire song from beginning to end, rocking and leaning into me as he sang. I was speechless. The crew looked on mesmerized, cameras on us, but not rolling (thanks, Phil!) And then out of the silence, one voice spoke out, Susan Boyles, Script;

“I’ve got it! The beginning is exactly 30 seconds when we add the closing line, ‘Now, that’s some sweet music.’” Break for lunch.

Tony came to me to recap the morning and he had a message; “Mr. Charles would like you to call him Ray.” Success. “Thank you. But I think I will continue to call him Mr. Charles. I think it sets the right tone for the day. But please tell him thank you.”

The afternoon continued, Mr. Charles stayed 30 minutes beyond the allotted time to get those radio spots in – recorded right there at the piano with me still sitting beside him.

His manager called after they arrived at the airport to say Mr. Charles was happy with the day. He said we were ‘cool cats’ and that I was now ‘one of his favorite directors along with Pytka’. Now if you have ever heard the legendary stories of Pytka, you will understand just how amusing I found this comparison.

There were lovely letters back and forth and I had the honor of working with Mr. Charles again. But nothing could ever touch the magic of sitting beside him on the piano bench and hearing him sing ‘Georgia’.

And so I decided, though we directors are always being judged on our most current work, that I would pull out the evidence of an amazing day – and post it on my website. I want to show work that has been important for me - because we are more than what happened last week – our experience over the years influences what we can do tomorrow.

One more interesting little story connected with Ray Charles… A few years later, bidding a job, I was on a conference call with my Executive Producer and an agency, which shall forever remain un-named. The Agency Producer pointed out that I didn’t have a lot of dialogue on my reel.

“Well, there’s dialogue on two of the six spots,” I responded, “and one of them is with Ray Charles and a 4 year old.” Unspoken; if I can direct a Legend and a preschooler who cannot read yet in a touching dialogue scene, then I can probably handle your 15 seconds of a talking head selling shampoo.

“Oh,” she replied. “I didn’t know if you directed that spot.”

“No, honey, all of us down here are just barefoot idiots and don’t see anything wrong with claiming someone else’s work as our own!” But of course, I didn’t say that.

At the time, I was incredulous. Now, I am just amused – because, you know what? I can hardly believe I directed those spots either. It was one of those unbelievable things that one would never dare to even dream about. I guess you could say it was beyond my wildest dreams.