This prop came about as part of my employment on the film “Ambition”. This film was made in 1992. It was the first film written by Lou Diamond Phillips. This was my first industry job out of high school, and was pretty great. During production, I became friends with the prop master, Frank Silva. Frank played “Killer Bob” on the David Lynch show “Twin Peaks”. Sadly, I recently learned that Frank passed away in 1995 from a heart attack.
Frank was a great guy, and a real pleasure to work with. During the production of the movie, the director had asked the prop department to put together a journal that could be shown on camera. The same scene played out years later in the movie “Seven”. Basically, there’s a whole bookcase filled with these little journals, and the protagonist opens one up, flips through it, and starts reading. We needed a prop for that shot where he flips through it.
Somehow, I was there when word came down that this prop was needed, and Frank was saying that there was no way he was going to have time to do it. I volunteered. I spent the next three weeks writing in it every day, at every spare moment.
I filled the book! When it got to the set, the director didn’t like the fact that I had added little drawings to a few pages, and also said a few rude things on some of the pages. Someone told me that he was disappointed and said “We can’t use this!!!”. Turns out, he did end up using it, but not for close ups. They had the actor who portrayed Albert, Clancy Brown, write one page in a fresh journal in his own handwriting. So, on screen, you see a brief shot of Lou picking up a journal and flipping through it, simply to establish that it is FILLED with text, and then they cut to a close up of the page written by Clancy.
I was very proud to see this prop used in the film, and was even happier when Frank returned it to me for my collection.
Check out IMDB's entry for this film.