CineMontage

Q3 2021

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41 F A L L Q 3 I S S U E F E A T U R E The second mission would come in the form of a gift, not only of income but of sanity — a job in a faraway land and living a day in the future, New Zealand. The last time I was in the Southern Hemisphere on location was for "Red Planet" in Aus- tralia during Y2K. It seems it would take a worldwide crisis to bring me back to that side of the world. When Joseph Gordon-Levitt asked me to come back to my shutdown show, "Mr. Corman," to be reborn on location in New Zealand, I didn't believe it at first. I put the opportunity in the back of my head as a remote possibility, but as with everything in this business, until you're on a show, you're not on a show. At the time of Joe's proposal, New Zealand had a small outbreak and the borders were closed for a couple of weeks. There was a question as to whether the virus and the country's regulations would allow our show to happen. Call from my agent. Emails. Visa. Time to pack and get my American life in order to be on hold for seven months. I filled my suitcases in a hurry. Said my masked socially distant goodbyes. Donned a face shield and my production-provided K-95 mask and I was off like an astronaut for passage into another land, braving the always-possible COVID-19 exposure. LAX. Ghost town. The traffic void. I had never seen the international terminal so deserted. I checked into my adventure and my next mission. Capturing the moment with a selfie post, the hashtag #TalesOfPandemicTravel was born. I had apprehension and tremendous survivor's guilt as I hit the post button on my phone — a feeling I termed USAPTSD — but to my surprise, the post was met with a flurry of positive response. So I forged ahead, boarding the plane, reluctantly taking off my mask to eat, grateful for the business class pod which left me feeling a little safer being able to cocoon away from COVID. Upon landing, one more mask removal at immigration in freaking New Zealand! I was whisked away to an undisclosed location for managed isolation. My bus ride ended up at the Grand Mercure in Auckland. During a military check-in two meters apart from my fellow passengers, I was assigned a border detention num- ber, hotel room 918, my dystopian-novel I.D., a bag of required fresh paper masks and a menu for seven days of room-ser- vice choices. Then into the lobby, where the courteous hotel staff brought my bags up for my 14-day detention. The brilliance of utilizing hotels for managed isolation is not lost on me. The location turned a mandatory existence into the blank canvas of a hotel room. You can "paint" a hotel room to be whatever you want it to be. I decided to treat it like a spa retreat, a place to recover from "USA P TSD." Room service. Laundry Services. Health checkups each morning (not only body temperature but mental health check, as well). Hotel WiFi. Tele- vision. Fishbowl view of the COVID-free, mask-free, lucky inhabitants of Auck- land. I retained my lockdown coping habits of meditation and journal writing to complete the rehab environs. But the dystopia was still present. A communique slipped under the door informed us of a COVID case amongst my fellow inmates and stated that we were to remain in our rooms until the positive person could be transferred to a quarantine facility. We were allowed an hour of outside exercise every other day behind two rows of fencing on Queens Wharf. The COVID-free could watch us in our people-zoo-prison as we walked our laps of contained circles. From my room, I watched the Dodgers win the World Series and saw the other HEADS UP: "I retained my lockdown coping habits." P H O T O : S H A R I D A N S O T E L O

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