Production Diary: Day One

So my film day begins with a humorous anecdote. At 4:45pm, fifteen minutes before I'm supposed to leave to start filming, I get an e-mail from Angry Filmmaker - an independent film maker who used to be a Hollywood sound guy. The title of the e-mail is, "Your Screenplay Sucks!" Wow! Here I am about to start shooting my film and some film guy in Portland is weighing in on my screenplay, and how the heck did he get it anyway?!

Well, it turns out that the e-mail subject line was also the title of a new script writing book this guy was reviewing. One had nothing to do with each other.

Anyway, at 5:15pm I pulled up in front of Lakeside with a truck full of half of the equipment and we began to unload the stuff - tripods, cameras, paint tarps, sound gear, costumes, food... everything. I thought we were invading a small country.

The second I walked in the door, I immediately was pulled in at least three directions. First, I inspected the food and began cooking the veggies (they were the easiest). Then I was asked to help out with costuming a couple of the actors. Soon they had their robes on and they looked really good and perfectly patient-ish. But I had to run back to check on the veggies. Then my cameraman showed up and wanted to start playing with the "toys". So I showed him where all the goodies were kept and he started unwrapping tripods and cameras and cords and asking me where we were going to shoot and what and... The veggies were really steaming by now.

The rest of the cast arrived and started the whole process all over again, only more so. One of them was my main actress, Audrey, who looked stunning already. But then she brought her own makeup guy and wardrobe lady (both dear friends) and I suddenly had to advise on makeup selections and wardrobe choices and cook the fajita steak and chicken and get the tables set up and do a white balance adjustment on the camera and...

I won't lie and say I loved every minute of it. I was too busy to notice most of the time. As I finally put the food on the table and we all sat down to nibble, I was able to watch as my co-director, Andrew, began the painstaking process of refining the actors' performances to match his vision of the script. He'd give them some direction, let them read the line, then fine-tune their delivery. Over and over again, each actor bouncing off the other, and the performances building and crescendoing until the "tune-up" was complete and the actors were ready to go. Except for the make-up and the set up.

We had to completely "redecorate" the Lakeside Church social hall, which mostly consisted of removing church related items and reorganizing some furniture. The scenes we shot were narrowly focused however so we didn't have to decorate the entire space the entire time. We were basically shooting two scenes on the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. The first scene was basically when the two main characters, Gabriel and Monica, finally fall in love. And the second scene took place after they had broken up. A third scene where they finally get back together was canceled because we ran out of time.

We didn't start filming until nearly 9pm. My friend, Mort, from City College was the cameraman and my Dad ran the sound recorder while I hefted the boom pole over my head and placed that microphone right on target. The first scene went by pretty well, but we had sound issues from the fish tank (it's filter was slightly out of whack and we were getting a grating mechanical sound throughout). We did about five takes of that scene until we were happy with it, and then about 10pm, we took a break and started to set up for the next shot.

By the time we were ready to film the second shot, energy was starting to fade. We did a few takes before we finally petered out. So we took another short break, and then continued until we had the scene. At that point, we called it a night and started packing everything up and putting everything back the way we'd found it.

By the time I dropped off the last person on the crew and then drove myself home, it was about 12:45am. My legs were killing me and my arms were grumbling about killing me. But the strangest indictment of all came from my stomach which was growling with its disapproval. Apparently, I hadn't eaten enough dinner.

Anyway, the first day's shooting went well and tonight I'll sync up the footage and the sound and see how it all matches up. I have a feeling we got one good scene out of the night's work and that we'll probably have to go back and re-do the first scene because of the sound issues. But I'll worry about that later.

We'll begin Saturday with a showing of the Dailies.

With any luck, and some time, I'm going to see about getting some sort of video online for you all to watch by Monday. If not that then I'll at least try and get some production photos.

Have a great weekend.