I was mildly ribbing one of the actors last night for bringing the wrong wardrobe to the shoot. This after having overcome obstacles like broken cameras, questionable sound recording, etc... This is what it is to be a producer. I told the actor that we'd just reschedule that scene for a later day and squeeze it in to an already tight schedule. (Originally we didn't have three extra days next week, which means that we'd have to be finishing our shooting schedule tomorrow! We're not even at 50% yet!) It reminded me of Francis Ford Coppola's troubles on Apocalypse Now. Of course, I was being facetious, since his shoot took something like two years to complete and he had to deal with typhoons, military coup's, and a lead actor who nearly died of a heart attack. I'll take my car troubles, scheduling conflicts, and wardrobe obstacles any day of the week. But ultimately, its all the same thing - a series of fences to jump on the way to the winner's circle. Its just that the scale changes from one film to the next.
That having been said, last night was absolutely delightful - the kind of film night that makes you think that maybe you've overlooked something because everything is going so smoothly. Not only did we get almost all of our shots done on a busy schedule, but we actually finished early. Either we're getting the hang of this filming thing or we just had an easy night of it.
It probably helped that Andrew and I were having a good time last night hearing some of our favorite bits of dialog come to life on screen. We shot two of the group therapy sequences where we gave Andrew's character his best lines and also where we really amped up the George Lucas "really bad dialog" love scene stuff - I'll save the actual lines for you to see in the film. Needless to say, they're quite awful and, as a result, really hilarious.
But my favorite parts of last night were a bit of physical improvisation. We're finally moving into the area of physical comedy (it's been mostly sitting or angst so far) and we were able to add a bit of that silliness to a couple of scenes. In one scene, we just had a character enter the scene really intensely. And in another, we had one character use another as a shield. It was quite awesome. I'm definitely going to have to rethink some of my comedy writing the next time I do a silly movie to include more physical humor.
The film is getting into its stride now. I ran the camera last night for the first time (and I kind of liked it!) and Tom and my Dad ran the sound (it was his 72nd birthday yesterday, so I owe him big time!) We also added Kurt to our cast as Guido and I think he'll fit right in.
Well, folks, while everyone else enjoys a day off to recuperate, I've got a ton of prep to do for tomorrow and Saturday. I just rented the lights for the shoot tomorrow and Saturday and I still have a BBQ to plan for a week from Sunday. Later I have to not only rehearse my lines for Thursday, but also do two days worth of dailies for viewing on Thursday. Looks like another long night.
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