by Darrell Hope
Photos by P.V. Caruso/New Line SMPSP
©2001 New Line Cinema

Director John Herzfeld at work

Pop Artist Andy Warhol once said, "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." With that adage in mind, director John Herzfeld, who won the DGA Award for his movie for television Don King: Only in America and whose previous feature, 2 Days in the Valley, was a stylish crime drama about 48 hours in the lives of disparate Los Angelinos, has granted equal time to the gritty streets of New York.

Drawing from his own interest in the fascinating world of arson investigators, Herzfeld has crafted a taut thriller that deals with murder, arson, media spun out of control, and the hidden costs of fame, in the appropriately titled 15 Minutes.

The film stars Robert De Niro as Eddie Flemming, a decorated N.Y. homicide cop who has become more famous than the cases he works. On the site of an arson fire that ultimately reveals a grisly double homicide, he meets fire marshal Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns), an up-and-coming arson investigator who is fascinated by Eddie's larger-than-life flair. The two team up and find themselves hunting down two eastern European immigrants who are cutting a sensational path of murder and arson in hopes of later parlaying their acts of crime into fortune and fame. 15 Minutes also features Kelsey Grammer as a hotshot TV news reporter friend of Eddie's, whose coverage of the investigation helps stoke the fires of media frenzy.

15 Minutes was also written and produced by Herzfeld, who drew from his own past experiences in its creation.

"Twelve years ago I heard about arson investigators, guys who would walk around in the sludge and garbage after a fire had been knocked down and somehow determine what happened," said Herzfeld. "They can tell you not only how a fire started, but also if it's deliberate, and if so, what kind of person started it. They even have names for fires like a 'Hero Fire,' a 'Squabble Fire' or a 'Gay Fire.'

"So I was doing a ride-along in New York with Louis Garcia who then was one of the many fire marshals/arson investigators in New York. He got paged to go to the South Bronx. We went to this abandoned building that was pretty much burnt down and there were two bodies on a torched mattress, all charred. It was a sight I'll never forget. They were really burnt and they were in a strange position, head-to-toe instead of side-by-side.

"Garcia starts looking at them and then he stuck his gloved finger in their mouths, felt around and said, 'See this John? These people were dead before the fire. I don't even think they died here. I think they were brought here, then the fire was started in an attempt to make this look like they died here.' I asked how he knew that and he said, 'There's no soot in their mouths which means they weren't gasping for air.'"

That initial experience was so impressed on Herzfeld's psyche, that he later re-created it in 15 Minutes.

"It turned out the bodies were positioned that way to humiliate the victims," Herzfeld recalls. "It was something from the 'old world' of eastern Europe and I used some of that in 15 Minutes. It was the beginning of a double homicide case. I watched as the homicide cops came and immediately there was a certain friction because they were at odds with the arson investigators when it came to determining the who, what and how of the crime. I realized these guys were like detectives for the fire department, but nobody knows what they do. Arson investigators are the most misunderstood and under-appreciated heroes in our cities. I thought, 'There's been hundreds of cop movies, but what a great movie it would be to do a story about one of them.'"

With his story firmly in place Herzfeld needed actors to bring his characters to life.

Robert De Niro (left) and Edward Burns (right) with Herzfeld

"When I finished it, I thought of Robert De Niro, but only like every other director on the planet who'd think, 'Who would be great to play a hardened New York homicide investigator who's got a great sense of humor and knows how to play the media?' It was my long shot and hope above hope," he explained. "And while we were pursuing Bob, I had seen Ed Burns in The Brothers McMullen and I thought, 'Gee, this guy's got a lot of salt-of-the-earth presence,' which is what I was looking for in the Jordy character. Then we got Kelsey Grammer and everybody else started to fall into place, especially the bad guys, who I wanted to be complete unknowns with no baggage so when they come to this country as nobodies, hoping to be somebodies, they literally are nobodies because you've never seen them before. Karel Roden is a Czech actor who'd never acted in English before and Oleg Taktarov was an Ultimate Fight champion that I'd seen on television. I'd watched this guy fight nonstop for 54 minutes and I remembered him. After his first reading I knew he was the guy."

In the film Taktarov's character films all the duo's crimes with a camcorder, in hopes of turning it into a movie once they're notorious. To prepare the fighter-turned-actor for the role of a criminally minded man who dreams of being a director, Herzfeld put Taktarov through a mini film school.

"His character idolizes directors and wants to be a filmmaker. He even says that it was because of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, that he wanted to come to America. So I gave him ten films I wanted him to watch and asked him to write essays on why he liked or didn't like the movies. I also gave him film glossaries and told him I wanted him to learn everything there is about film and had him practice with the video camera because he operated some of his own shots in the movie when we cut between film and his video point of view. He became very proficient with the camera."

The film was shot both in New York City and on sets in Los Angeles over a period of 57 days.

Herzfeld depends on one constant through all the different films he has directed: extremely diligent preparation in the pre-production phase, and rehearsal with not only his actors, but his crew as well.

A scene from 15 minutes

"I storyboarded the action stuff, but what I did on the movie was rehearse every single scene on the locations where we were going to shoot them. If a car was going to be parked on the corner of 60th and Madison, we went to 60th and Madison and parked the car and rehearsed it with the DP, the script supervisor, the AD, the actors, the production designer and myself. Knowing we were really going to have to crank, I wanted to know what problems I might have, know where the light was and talk through with the DP the camera moves I wanted. Also I think it helps the actors because then they become familiar with their environment, so if something doesn't work you can fix it right there and then.

"For example, when we built Bob's apartment, we put the tape on the floor and I realized it was too big. I had this fight scene there and I wanted it a little more claustrophobic and, as importantly, Bob wanted to do a lot of his own stunts. He's gaffer taped in the chair for the first 60 percent of the scene and then has to go down pretty hard in the chair. I realized he was going to hurt himself on the floor, so even though it's a wooden floor in the movie, we made it out of rubber so he wouldn't break his head. But I rehearse everything so when you get there you know what you're doing. For me pre-production is extremely important."

Herzfeld can track that attitude back to his very first directing assignment on an Afterschool Special. He recalls going down to the school where they were going to be filming the next day and visualizing a scene where [actor] Scott Baio was going to walk and talk alongside another actor.

"I took a bunch of Popsicle sticks and stuck them in the ground along the way where I saw the scene happening. When we got there the next day for the first scene, the DP goes, 'OK, where do you want to put the camera?' I said, 'See that Popsicle stick right there? I want to move from there, to there, to there, to there.' The next scene was going to be in the classroom and I had my Popsicle stick lying out on the floor and I had written storyboards right on the blackboard. For me, everything is preparation. Knowing what you want to do when you get there is so important. Even if you throw it out completely and start all over, at least you have a basis from which to begin. I had storyboards on 15 Minutes for long sequences that I never used. But I had something in my head to begin with."

A native of New Jersey, Herzfeld was especially pleased to be shooting 15 Minutes in New York. The most problematic shoot of the entire picture was the climax in Battery Park.

"I had one of the most horrendous surprises anyone could have. They told us we could only shoot on the weekends because it's very busy during the week," he explained. Then two days before we're about to start we get a surprise. The ferryboats that dock there to take people to the Statue of Liberty, that we thought were going to be gone, were going to be there.

"I said, 'What do you mean they're going to be there? They can't be in the shot.' They said, 'They'll move over and we'll try to dock on the other side of the dock.' But it was only 20 yards. I said, 'How many people are going to be there?' They said, 'We take about 45,000 per weekend.' I said, 'Excuse me? How often do they go?' 'Oh, we load a boat every 10 to 15 Minutes.'

"It really presented a challenge. As soon as a boat went out, we'd have to wait, and then wait again as another would come in. Then it started drizzling and we were fighting the light back and forth. Unbelievably, we get through Saturday, jumping around and turning the camera back and forth to avoid people and ferries. Then on Sunday, we get there and the location supervisor says, 'We've got another little adjustment here today. There's a wedding right in that restaurant there.' It was literally yards away.

"I said, 'What's the problem, the wedding's inside right?' And he tells me, 'Yeah, but the reception is out on the deck with a band.' Literally, right after lunch, the band starts playing rock and roll and it kills the sound. So once again, as soon as the band took a break, we are filming as fast as we can.

"Add to that the fact that's it's one of the hottest days on record in New York, 105 degrees, and then a cloud comes in and the DP doesn't want to shoot. Well, of course he didn't want to shoot, but I'm thinking, I've got New Line on me and it's my job to say, 'You've got to shoot. This isn't David Lean here saying, "Let's wait for the sun.'" But it worked out."

Herzfeld says his DGA team was pivotal to getting through days like the one just described. "My first AD is Jamie Frietag, with whom I did Don King: Only in America. He's great and I have complete faith in him because he's very strong, very organized and one of the best I've worked with. I also had a great production manager in Kim Kurumada, a really sharp line producer in David Blocker, and some very good people working on the team and they gave me some really good support."

And even though his tight schedule didn't afford him the luxury of a David Lean-like attitude of waiting for the right light, Herzfeld admits that New Line Cinema was accommodating as well. "As long as I stayed on budget and on schedule, New Line was very supportive creatively and financially, so it was a really good experience. I had fantastic partners in Bob Shaye and Mike DeLuca. The film is not an easy picture to categorize. I set out to make a thriller with social commentary, satire and provocative humor. It deals with a constellation of issues and New Line let me make the movie I wanted to make."

That support came in handy considering the current highly politicized attitude toward violence in the media. And Herzfeld tackles that issue head on in 15 Minutes.

"In order to illuminate the issues I wanted to explore, I had to go for the jugular where violence is concerned. If I homogenized or sanitized the violence, how could I make my point Š which is: is the media simply responding to the public's appetite for violence, or are they encouraging it?"

Still, Herzfeld considers himself lucky. So far in his career, he's never yet had a problem where he had to turn to the DGA for assistance. However, that doesn't diminish his strong support for the Guild and his total accord with their positions on violence in the media and other creative issues like the possessory credit. "I think the possessory credit is very important. Steven Spielberg has worked with many, many writers, but his films are Steven Spielberg films. Martin Scorsese has his stamp on films, as did Kubrick, Hitchcock, David Lean, as does Robert Zemeckis. I choose to take the possessory credit for this picture. I know some directors don't but I think it should be up to the director and whoever is negotiating their contract. I don't think you can legislate the relationship between the writer and the director. Some movies have many writers who work on a script, so I don't know what the Writers Guild has in mind. Is it to be a John Doe film of a ... and then you list six writers? I'm also a writer, but I think it's very problematic for the Writers Guild to try and eliminate this credit and I don't think it's fair.

"I do believe that writers deserve more respect and access to the set when the director wants them there. But when a director has a good relationship with the writer, he wants them there. But if there's a bad matchup or for some reason it's not clicking, there's one person who has to be responsible for the film and it's the director."

Herzfeld is pleased that he has a strong Guild to support him. "If there were no DGA, I think the studios would just smash over directors."

Herzfeld is also one of the growing number of directors who weave back and forth between feature film projects and television. A member of the DGA's Television Film Directors Committee, he strongly supports their stance that these directors deserve a lot more credit than Hollywood gives them.

"I think it's short-sighted, narrow-minded and downright stupid not to recognize the directors of movies for television," said Herzfeld. "If you direct a movie for television, or an independent film, or a big-budget film, you just don't wake up with a different director's head on. Directing is directing. And I think oftentimes the directors who've done great jobs with movies for television are overlooked for features and producers will grab someone from videos or commercials that hasn't yet done a movie that traces the arc of characters. I think that's a real mistake.

"I don't think directors of movies for television get their due. A very specific example is the Golden Globe Awards. They have no award for best director or writer of a movie made for television. When Don King was nominated for best actor and best picture, there was no category for directing or writing. I think that's absurd. These movies don't direct themselves. There are so many enormously talented people who go back and forth between features and movies for television. Mike Nichols just directed something for HBO, as did Norman Jewison. If you interviewed either one of them, I don't think they would say, 'Today, I'm a TV director.' Directing is directing and that's all there is to it. Certainly the economics are different, and yes the screen is smaller, but you don't become a different talent."

Herzfeld can trace his fascination with films and the directors who make them back to his childhood when he saw Kubrick's Spartacus for the first time. "I thought, 'Oh my God, who made that!" He confesses that the film still inspires him to this day. "When I have to really get up for a day, I'll put on the theme from Spartacus and it really gets me going."

In the future Herzfeld can see himself branching out into whatever areas directing finds itself, including productions for the internet. "I don't know what the next movie is. After Don King I got offered a lot of sports movies, but I wanted to do something different. I'd like to work in every medium. I just want to be part of it all. I love directing. For me, I live on the set. That's where I come alive."

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