June 24, 2004:
Clay Griffith & our favorite sign
Kirsten shows up and we begin rehearsals in the lobby of the hotel. We play a lot of music on this movie, even more than usual. What makes this one different is, I've always known that "Elizabethtown" was almost a musical, with a lot of space for the music to play. I've even cast the two actors who love music the most, and soak it up. It's a funny thing, some actors are built for music, and some aren't. Music lovers or musicians always seem to fare the best in movies I've written or directed Ð don't know how it turned out that way, but here we are, and the two leads come packing i-Pods filled with great stuff. Often our rehearsals start late because we're playing each other songs.

Kentucky is infectious too, and Dunst finds the same thing that Orlando does... the city of Louisville is not quite the south, not quite the north, not quite a huge city, and not quite a small town. It's a young adult of a city, and you'll feel its character in the movie. "I love it here," is what I'm hearing from everybody. That sure beats, "What'd you brings us all HERE for???"

Tonight, the night before Fairenheit 9/11 opens, a local theatre lets us see a preview. It's a powerful perspective setting experience. Somber, we all go off in different directions with a lot to think about.

June 21, 2004:
My KY porch - Journal writing central.
Because we're trying to make the movie on a smaller, super-charged schedule, almost every waking minute is spent in meetings and preparation. Consequently, I arrive at the airport in my new regular state - exhaustion. I run into John Toll, our esteemed cinematographer, almost immediately. Though he's been working at the same pitch, he's energized. He's ready to go. A master of landscapes, whether it's a range of mountains or a close-up of an actor's face, Toll is crackling with anticipation. It's our third movie together, but in my heart I know this is the one we're both most suited to make together.

Orlando almost misses the plane. The airport is crowded, and the plane is overbooked and fans cause a stir. He doesn't travel with an entourage, or a bodyguard, though this situation may have to change. Working recently in Spain, there had been near riots. They sneak him on anyway, just before the plane starts to taxi. We sit together and rehearse the whole way. Midway through, the stewardess approaches us to point out that a tour group has recognized him - they are clogging the aisles of the plane, holding cameras. Bloom smiles and waves to them. Privately, I worry about the many scenes we have on the streets of Kentucky.

We talk about "The Apartment" and the magic of Jack Lemmon's performance. Orlando can already do a pretty mean Lemmon impression. A couple hours later, he's watching the movie on DVD in the car where he's being taken from Cincinnati airport. One of the tires blows out and the car narrowly misses colliding with a truck in the next lane.
Orlando stranded by the side of the road.
He's stranded by the side of the road for a half hour, with his dog, waiting for Nancy and me to pick him up. The driver changes the flat just as we arrive. Ever cheerful, psyched to be in the near-South for the first time, Bloom bounds back into his car and we caravan to the Kentucky hotel where we're staying.

Walking the streets, entering the hotel and all over Kentucky, there would be no riots... no security problems... just a lot of supportive people who are glad we're here. Bloom buckles down and begins the next phase of work. Like Dunst, he's a hard worker, an uber-professional.

June 8, 2004:
1st production meeting, Louisville (note no eye contact)
I love the crew. Many of them have also hung in a while, and made themselves available to work on "Elizabethtown" in spite of offers from other movies. Some of them are repeaters from our previous movies, many are new. The art of keeping a crew together and committed throughout is sometimes a tough one. It's like being the head of a family. Sometimes fights break out, tempers flair, people need an arbitrator.
I love this actor... and his shirt
The politics of running a family like this is very very different from the politics of writing a script. Writing is solitary. You sit alone in a room and fight only battles within yourself. I'm slowly but surely moving out of the writing room Ð into the wide open area of being a head of this family. Fun and complex.

June 6, 2004:
Tomorrow morning rehearsal begins. Man, this movie has been a tough one to get going... but if the words of my now-retired assistant director, the great Jerry Ziesmer (check out his book sometime) are true Ð "the tough ones are the good ones" Ð then "Elizabethtown" has a shot at being blessed. It's been a long road, between finding the right cast and the right crew, but we're now close to being there. Funny that the script happened quickly, my fastest one ever, over the summer of 2002. I was traveling on a bus with my wife Nancy, who was touring with her band Heart. I woke up one early morning as the bus was traveling through Kentucky, 30 miles past Lexington. I hadn't seen these electric blue hillsides since traveling back there for my dad's funeral, just after "Say Anything" had been released. I dropped off the Heart tour, got a rental car, got lost in Kentucky, and wrote the whole story for the script in a burst. "The roads here are hopelessly and gloriously confusing," became one of the first lines written for the story, and it came to characterize Claire, the soul of the movie in many ways Ð a flight attendant who knows the ins and outs of cities all over the country. She falls for a guy in turmoil, Drew Baylor, who has barely traveled at all. From that relationship, the love story of the movie grew. Tomorrow, it all officially starts to come to life. Usually I'm nervous the day before rehearsals, tonight Ð strangely calm. I've got a lot of music picked out and I'm going to play it during a walk-through of all the set and location photos. Figure that's a good way to get started.