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Saturday
morning, 6:30am
Up.
Shower I think. Run to Dunkin Donuts. Purchase 3 10-cup boxes
of coffee, 2 dozen donuts. Giant, buy creamer/sugar. Pack
up the car with equipment and other breakfast/snack food.
Drive to our meet-up location at the old Cidera offices. Set
up, prepare cinnamon coffee birthday cake with candles for
Doug (Wilson). Everyone arrives.
8am
After a smattering of people grabbing food and a great rendition
of Happy Birthday by Paul and Sean
(I think, guys?), we got down to business and read the script
through. Everyone seemed pleased. Doug Humphrey (to be hereafter
known as Uncle Doug), of DIGEX/Skycache/Cidera fame, and his
wife Lisa, were our executive producers, and arrived with
guns (i got to hold a 9mm again - sex and power - gah) and
rubber ducks, and their daughter Juniper Jet, all of which
we used in the movie. I ran off contact list copies. We start
walking a half mile to our first location.
9:30am
We arrive at Location One, Uncle Doug's house. Shot the
3rd scene in the movie, the Girl (Juniper) playing with her
rubber ducks in her kiddie pool outside. When the rubber duck
would not cooperate and stay in the correct end of the pool,
we had to call in our official Duck Fluffer, Matt,
to wrangle it. It was a rough beginning to the day, and we
learned the ups and downs of working with a 2-year-old. At
one point she was bribed with money thrown into the pool.
It worked. We got our shots. Her mother at one point told
us she had already called neighbor friends with small children
and had them on call to serve as stunt kids if Juniper just
wasn't up to it.
Our story relied on still pictures being taken during the
action and then almost immediately needing to be available
to be used as props in the same scene. Uncle Doug stepped
in and took and printed our pictures for us at his office
throughout the filming, and snapped a great one of Juniper
complete with her Uncle Sam rubber duck.
11:30am
Onward to Location Two, Uncle Doug's Warehouse, just down
the street, for our Photography Studio scene. Problem one,
we did not have a photography studio, so we created one from
scratch. When we were prepping for this weekend I asked everyone
to email me a list of any unusual props they might own. Doug
Wilson had said he just happened to own a free-standing dark
room door, collecting dust in his basement. While we were
filming Juniper, Doug and Chris Ellison grabbed the door from
his house and brought it up to the warehouse. That, along
with some professional photography lighting and tripods stored
in yet another room of the warehouse, D. Humphrey's camera,
and some other props, formed our studio.
Later, and Peter, Kim, and Paul even
added lettering to the building's glass door to make it complete.
Doug Wilson and Paul lit the scene
masterfully, and Brett got to wield
the 9mm for the first time. I got to hold it again. It was
nice.
The darkroom door and its super spinning action provided lots
of fun in between setup and shots. Somewhere in that time
period a white feather boa was introduced to the remaining
cast and crew outside, and there is lots of footage and stills
of fluffy goodness.
2pm? Time starts blurring, there was food in there somewhere
too, and me running to my house to get old photos, I think.
Meanwhile, Mr. Humphrey had been bravely cleaning up half
of a chaotic filled-to-the-brim with dangerous chemicals/materials
mad scientist lab in the warehouse to use for the 4th scene,
the Forensics Lab.
Constantia outfits Matt with lab coat and
goggles. We wait for required props. I perch a boombox on
the counter, so later we can dub in music playing from it.
We figure out our camera angles, where to put the monitor,
and finally rehearse with Brett
and Matt. Matt delivers his lines and mannerisms
just like I had seen in my head when I wrote it. Brett plays
off him perfectly. It was absolutely hilarious, I love this
scene, and after seeing it a bazillion times since, I still
laugh out loud on Matt's first line every time.
?-6pm
Setup for the big final scenes in the upper loft part
of the warehouse. Brett has posted
some behind the scenes pics on his
website, where you can see the before and after of what
we did to it. Dozens of props, candles, a ton of cobwebs,
moving around computer monitors and other equipment, moving
furniture, adding piping, starting to figure out lighting,
adding all the photos, lining them up with their respective
props. It was a huge effort, but so worth it.
6pm-7:30pm
Had to wait for darkness, so we had a dinner break.
Doug Wilson and Paul worked on the lighting
of the warehouse scenes through it with some pick-up spicy
Popeye's chicken.
7:30pm
Third location, my landlord's Victorian house for scenes
one and two, using their kitchen and livingroom. Lesson one
of many learned in this whole process, don't write any scenes
absolutely requiring day or night shots, you need all the
time you can save. Lesson two was to not yell "cut" too early
;p
Anyway, Kim and Peter finally got
to show their stuff along with Brett. Kim was a more than
patient actress with the chilly surroundings and sleeveless
wardrobe, and Peter looked great in his blue checked pajamas.
They did a great job and were troopers for having to wait
all day to get in front of the camera.
In the cement basement, Jackson and I managed to avoid getting
splintered with glass destroying a couple of dishes for our
plate falling to the floor and breaking sound effect. There
were some nuns. Wooden nuns. Nuns made us happy.
9:30pm??
Back to the warehouse. The loft area looked AMAZING lit
up at night. Kudos to Doug W. and Paul and Ellison for the
lighting, and everyone for working so hard to set up the rest
of it. It was all just so surreal. It was Giger-esque, it
was spooky, it was creepy, it was just plain odd. And ridiculously
BUSY.
Got another still picture shot and sent off with Mr. Humphrey
to be printed. Got our Brett final warehouse shots playing
with his gun :) Things started to fall apart mentally. Sleep-dep
was kicking in for all of us, and there was tension. But we
had to finish. We got our story concluding warehouse money
shots somewhere around 1am. I tell someone to go outside and
throw red lighting up in our "studio" doorway, so we can get
the last few shots of Brett going in. They do, and it looks
incredible.
1am?-1:50pm
Tim and Brett accomplish his wandering through the warehouse
bit, and then shot some of the best looking footage outside
the studio. Filming wrapped just before 2am.
2am
Minimally pack up and head home. Tim and Jackson edited
until about 5am. I got to bed around 3:30am, scheduled to
get up between 7 and 8.
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