In June of 2007, with the script for BOTTLE SHOCK still something of a work-in-progress, and Alan Rickman committed to play Steven Spurrier, we got a hitch put on the back of our old family car and rented a U-Haul trailer, loaded it up and headed north to Sonoma where this movie was either going to come together or fall apart. With us came our son, Jesse (6), our daughter Maya (4) and our mutt Tilly (12ish) along with bicycles, sketch pads, dolls, painting supplies, Lego’s, and all the computer and editorial equipment from our home production office.
In Sonoma, we rented a small country house a mile and a half from the town square and were surrounded by chickens and cows and roosters and horses, ostriches and goats and peacocks, snakes and sheep and great golden fields that unfurled like a tidal sigh before oceanic sunsets. There was a rooster who crowed religiously at 4:00 in the morning and each one of us will independently swear to you that what he crowed was literally and phonetically “***-a-doodle-doo.”
Our old dog Tilly was vitaminized by a newfound interest in sheep and spent many an hour perusing the perimeter of the property looking for a way to join the great roaming curiosities next door. Interestingly, when Tilly was able to break out, the sheep, though ambivalent, did not actually reject her.
We arrived in Sonoma with a lot of work ahead of us and no plan for the kids. But as we pulled into the town square, we saw a sign for the Sonoma Academy of Dance and Arts Summer Programs for kids. I called the number on the sign and spoke to a young woman named Sarah Duran who runs the camp. She explained the camp is for 7 to 11 year olds and I told her I had a 4- and a 6-years-old. She said she’d take them.
Each week of the summer the Sonoma Academy of Dance and Arts transforms itself. It is one week a dance camp, one week a cartooning camp. There is a week of film production, of comedy, and one of radio broadcasting. I signed Jesse and Maya up for everything Sarah offered. And they loved it. But I will never forget the week of fashion design. I dropped the kids off early Monday morning to a wholly transformed premises. Fabrics were draped everywhere. Sewing machines stood at the ready. There was a lot of pink, a lot of glitter, a lot of lace, 45 girls and my ashen son, Jesse. But to his credit, Jesse made the best of it and provided the grand finale of the week’s culminating fashion show in a magenta lined black satin magician’s cape he had sewn himself.
With the kids at camp, Randy and I set up an office in an old warehouse that had been a production line for wine bottle labels. The office was a block from the greatest sandwich and specialty food shop on the planet earth: The Fig Pantry. At The Fig (as we fondly referred to it), they make the most exquisite fig sandwich compote with which they generously lather their sandwiches and the result is divine.
We set about exploring the wine country in every possible way, searching out locations, studying the terrain, and learning about wine. We learned about tasting and analyzing and describing wine and we learned about the history of the region and the development of a vineyard.
Pre-production had officially started. We worked on the script. We bought office supplies. We struggled with the local phone reception. Sets were designed. We scouted the vineyards. We struggled with the local internet reception. We interviewed crew and auditioned local actors. We searched the area for vehicles from the seventies and moreover, French vehicles from the seventies. Lumber was purchased and sets started to go up. We struggled to decipher the small town politics and we fell in love with this land of the grape.