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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 19, 1985)
— 2 — 693-4783 if ■ Director Steve Feke talks with actress Georgia Engel about a scene. from Gennie p. 1 The two quickly leap from their pint- sized directors' chairs to run around a nearby clump of bushes. Gennie's exuberance is testing her mother's patience. Sally James, who was calmly working on a cross word puzzle, is now trying to coax her daughter back to her chair in time for the next scene. Robert Pine leans over and guides her with the words "Listen to your mother, Gennie," and she reluc tantly sits in her chair. It's 9:15 a.m. and time for the first scene. A frenzied production assistant rushes to the cleared area where the parents of the child actors are qui etly watching the production activity and pulls Gennie and Joshua to the set. A contagion of yells fill the air as five production assistants yell "Pic ture Up!" and prepare the cast for filming. The crew has hired five Dallas po lice officers to contain the gawking neighbors who are now inching their way closer to the movie set. The officers block all neighbor hood traffic so the only noise that can be heard is the locust's buzzing overhead. In this scene, Gennie runs into the arms of "Papa" as he pulls a 1952 Plymouth into the driveway.lt sounds simple, but it takes the crew a total of 75 minutes to perfect this scene. First, Gennie's hat flies off her head as she runs toward Papa. Then, the camera angle is not quite right and director Steve Feke will not be satisfied until another scene is shot. Next, an airplane flies overhead and the production crew stops ev erything until it is out of earshot. The cast and crew cope with the 95-degree heat and the many ini ruptions as they manage to ahead of schedule. To add to the confusion, a: alarm system goes off across street and the production assis run to quiet the noise. Feke immediately moves hist to another set to begin filming scene without sound until the i lem has been solved. The children, restless from I a softball scene six times, retreat the shade. They've put in a eight hours of work and are ready call it a day. They end the afternoon's fil by pulling their directors' chairs: gether and reciting tongue twiste Martin Jurow says he is pie with the chemistry between thee and the crew of "Papa Was a] cher." "This is a charming, loveablef with a great deal of humor that! prove, as Terms of EndeanneJ did, that we can find an audien) beyond the 12 to 17-year-old bracket," Jurow says. He says he's anxious to see I the G-rated family film does note "A film does not need to haves violence and crude language to j successful," he says. 'Til Tuesday: Mann controls band By MARY CAMPBELL Associated Press When 'Til Tuesday was being formed, vocalist and bassist Aimee Mann says she wanted to make it clear she wanted to be the leader. Mann, 23, says she wanted that point to be okay with each member — "speak now or forever hold your peace." "We discussed how we would split publishing and what we wanted to do strategy wise," she says. "I recently came across a typed list of strategy policies we'd made up," she says. "Robert (gui tarist Robert Holmes) and I would sit around for hours, planning. We knew we wanted to make a tape. We'd borrow money from so and so and get such and such a studio and get this person to pro duce it." 'Til Tuesday may have needed lists of strategies for success, but now the band is too busy to make them. A recent tour with Tom Petty immediately followed one with Hall and Oates. The band's first album, on Epic Records, "Voices Carry," was No. 14 on the best-selling charts of July 7. The single, "Voices Carry," was No. 10 on the same date. Both are climbing. The single's video is getting heavy airplay on MTV. The "Voices Carry" video's last scene is of an audience, supposedly at Carnegie Hall. "A radio station in Boston, WBCN, put out this call that we needed a bunch of people," Mann says. "It was in an out-of-the-way place, Dorches ter, on a rainy night. It required older people and evening dress. We made it look like there was a lot more people than there was." The next video, for "Looking over my Shoul der," was shot after the Tom Petty tour in a con vent in New York City. "In the video," Mann says, "it (the convent) will be a mansion." Three of the four members of 'Til Tuesday went to the Berklee School of Music in Boston, although they didn't know each other there. Mann, whose family includes a brother, half brother, half sister "and a bunch of step brothers and sisters," went to Berklee from Richmond, Va. She says of her time at the music school, "I wasn't really interested in jazz. I went to Berklee because all the other music schools were classi cally based and I thought I could learn some ba sic stuff about music. It didn't have auditions. I couldn't play anything. I had a boyfriend who was an electric bass player. I fooled around with his bass. I just thought I might have an aptitude for it. "Berklee was good. It got me out of Richmond. It taught me a lot about music, gave me the basis so '"Voices Carry' was about a guy I was going out with who had another girlfriend at the same time, "— Aimee Mann, vocalist and bassist for 'Til Tuesday I could set off on my own and write songs and play in a band." She and a fellow student, a guitarist who also liked new wave and punk, formed the Young Snakes, a band that stayed together two years. "Then it started to feel the music we were doing was too inaccessible for my taste," Mann says. "I 'didn't feel like I was writing about anything I cared about. I wanted to write love songs. That wasn't considered cool by the underground. "I wrote a couple of things with A1 Jorgenson of the Ministry. I learned a lot from him about get ting chord changes, melody and beat down quickly. We had been hatching out every little de tail. It was nerve wracking. In the end it didn't seem to get us better songs. "So I started writing songs and putting word around to friends that I was looking for musicians to play on a tape with me. I would make a 10] and get a record deal." Mann explains how 'Til Tuesday got togethe "I met Robert Holmes. We wanted towrite| gether, we were getting along so well, (drummer Michael Hausman) was interested! what we were doing. We talked him intoquitt the band he was in. He was living withmeatl time. We broke up about a year ago. He'sstilj the band. "We tried to think of keyboard players we kn| around town. I called up Joey Pesce, whojoine They had day jobs, Hausman in a dot! store, Pesce in a bank. Holmes in apartm| painting and Mann in a record store. Theypla nights, whenever they could. They gave IanTl lor, who produced the Ministry album, aneitf track tape of four songs. Taylor produced! demonstration record which recently hired m| agers took to record labels. "We were making this demo at the same I we were participating in a battle of bands 1 held in Boston, which we won," Mann "There were 24 bands competing. They oifej $2,000, a free video, a small amount of ment, studio time and an interview on which was a big thrill. "We got the offer from Epic about a montl terwards. It took six months to negotiate,! months to find a producer, two months to re the album, two months to get it out and months to get to the top 10. It was the first i I've ever recorded — first everything." Mann writes the lyrics for their songs. "Voices Carry' was about a guy I was gj out with who had another girlfriend at the: time," Mann says. "It's a situation I often find| self in. He can't make up his mind if he wa break up with her or not. I was getting si(j keeping everything quiet." Next, 'Til Tuesday will tour for seven weeksl Rick Springfield, make a video for a third si| headline a tour and start a second album. The name 'Til Tuesday isn't significant, says. The group just wanted a phrase with < of the week in it.