Jim was able to procure us a police cruiser, by the generosity of the Georgetown Police Department, for a twenty-minute timeframe on Friday night. Gladly, it was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, so many of us got out of work early, and were able to convene at Jim's house to fully prepare for our twenty minute window.
I arrived first (well, technically Jim did), and then Maura & Stacey were not far behind. Mark was next. Guess who was far behind? Any guesses? No? Hmmm...well, I don't want to name names, so we'll keep it a mystery.
Jim acted out my horrific yet perfect storyboards (see picture above) to a tee, and then we began preparing the equipment under a tent. Because it was kind of drizzling out, Maura and Stacey set up a 2nd tent too, to house the lights for our third set-up if need be. Mark got the lights and other equipment set-up. We were all working! When I say "all," I'm not including Rajah, of course, because he totally wasn't there yet.
So once our D.P. arrived, and the darkness began setting in, we had about an hour to light Jim's car (as the police cruiser stand-in), and then we would swap the cars as soon as it arrived. There was an awful lot of stress about extension cords--I definitely remember that. When the officer (also named Jim) got there, we busted through the next twenty minutes with lightning-like precision.
The first shot was Mitch walking to the house, with the officer at the door and cruiser in the foreground. Then I didn't like the way that looked so I brought Officer Jim down to the cruiser area, and it worked. The neighbors were beginning to wonder what the deal was with the flashing police lights. We were done with shot 1 and ready for shot 2. That one was a drive-by shot from Jim's P.O.V. of the police car in front of the house. Two dudes in a car alone, one of them had a camera: Jim drove and Rajah shot. Meanwhile, I knocked down a light (the one that we're always replacing) and everyone just shook their heads. We ran over to set up shot 3, which was Mitch getting out of the front of the cruiser to walk into his house. Our amazing crew (i.e. Maura, Stacey, Mark, and Rajah) VERY quickly moved all the lights over to this location, and we shot about five takes of it. All of that happened in about 20 minutes, and we were done with the cruiser. It also felt like a shoot ten times that length, just because how hard and quick you have to work to accomplish it all in that short amount of time. Kudos to the crewdos. Yeah, I'm sorry I said that too.
Then we were able to take our time with the rest of the night. Rajah had the great idea to set up a blue gel on one of the lights and have Mark turn it and wave in front of it, so as it hit Jim's face in the driver seat, it would look like he was driving past the police car. It totally worked, even though Mark had his doubts and I had even bigger doubts, but I was smart and said nothing and then promised I would take credit for the idea later. But it was all Rajah, and he knows it. It looked awesome. I was in the backseat for all of this, as I was when we backed up and shot footage of Jim turning on the radio. Man, that Jim really knows how to turn on a radio! Nobody could do it like him.
Lastly, we did a shot of Jim walking from one house to another. Stacey & Rajah both had strong visual ideas about how to shoot this, and I can't remember what we went with or how well we accomplished it because, frankly, I was lying on the pavement in the middle of the cul-de-sac just enjoying a little R&R at the time. I do know that I did not break any more lights the entire rest of the shoot, which is really saying something.
Then Stacey jumped on my back, Jim jumped on her back, and we all rode off into the sunset.
Day 34 and The Joneses keeps plugging along. I thought we weren't going to have much crew for the day, given that Frank and Rajah were MIA for the weekend, and I hadn't gotten an RSVP from Mike, but indeed we had Maura (on camera), Max (on sound), Michael (on slate), the return of Mark, and the even more momentous return of Lou "The Bert" Ottaviani. And his crazy crutches. We far outnumbered the cast, which was solely Stacey & Tony for the day. The location was very generously loaned to us by Cheryl Curtin & Stanley Cruwys (Stacey's dad), and they did a wonderful job clearing out his office area to make it Paul's home office for the day.
The first thing we did was take a breakfast break, because it's one of the most important meals of the day. We all met in Arlington and had delicious scrobbled eggs (I think that's what the waitress called them) and other hard-to-decipher dishes. It was a good start to the day, and then we were ready for a nap.
We made our way to the location and spent a good chunk of time filling the office with the appropriate amount of photography gear--largely brought by Maura--with tripods, albums, slides, camera, mattes, printers, a light table, and photos placed very specifically by Stacey & Maura so that the room would look like the appropriate mix of organized chaos. It looked really amazing. I especially liked the photos hanging across one wall in front of the long light: the effect was really authentic. We also spent a good amount of time prepping the first shot so we could do a dramatic pan from some antique cameras on the mantle to Paul at his desk. Maura and I wanted to make Rajah proud, and I believe we did. We even white balanced! I know, I was as impressed as you are.
So we began the first scene which had a recent rewrite to it that Stacey & I came up with, making the scene nine times better than it had been a week before. I actually can list the nine reasons the new lines are better than the two we replaced, but nobody in the world is that bored to hear them. Although that didn't stop me from telling many, many people. What can I say? Smart rewrites are very exciting to me. What was even funnier was we were able to work in the name Katarzyna (yes, from America's Next Top Model) which was just "playing with danger" given that Stacey & Tony get the sillies everytime they act in a scene together, and having her name was just blooper-bait. Indeed, they did laugh through a couple takes, but overall the two of them were simply excellent. It's the very first scene in the movie with just Paul & Suzanne at home, so it was extremely important (I know, I know, I say that about every scene) that the dynamic of their relationship be established perfectly, and these two were just so on that day. Suzanne has to be bitchy and Paul has to give it right back to her, but it all has to have a real love behind it--and Stacey and Tony nailed it. When they weren't laughing.
We did have an eyeline problem in that first scene. Rajah's always talking about eyelines, and I'm of a mind that it's not that big a deal as long as you stick with the 180 rule, but my God he was right. It was just weird how off everything looked until we made a drastic repositioning of Stacey on the other side of the camera, and then it all worked great. Also, that forced us to set her up with the stone fireplace as her backdrop (or "wood stones," as I kept weirdly calling them), which looked equally terrific. Anyway, the scene was awesome, although all of a sudden it was like 3:00. So I started moving a bit quicker.
A quick wardrobe change for the actors and we set up for the second scene which is the second half of the montage part where Mitch has posted Suzanne's picture on a dating web site. This part was the moment when Paul discovers it, shows it to Suzanne, and instead of her getting angry about it, she just uploads a sexier picture of herself. I find that funny just because it's very much in character--I think/hope we pulled it off. I can never tell with these non-dialogue, ten-second, largely visual moments how well they'll come off since so much of the joke is in the editing. But we did enjoy watching all of the online men wanting to IM my wife.
Then it was time for a field trip, so we drove to a playground, walked across the weird spongy blacktop, and set up for the "Space Invaders" interview segment with Paul & Suzanne very not candidly explaining to the camera what they want out of their room renovation. Aside from some wind problems (which Michael did his best to block), the bit was so much fun to shoot. Paul was sitting on a slide, Suzanne standing next to him--dressed for business--it was funny to look at and even better when they said their lines. This part always killed in rehearsal because Tony has a knack for doing the "bad acting" that the lines called for, and Stacey was right there with him. Then we added at the end the funny business of having him being cued offcamera to slide down the slide, which worked out so well. On the last take, we also tried having Paul mouthing out a few of Suzanne's words as she said them, making it look very scripted, and I loved it. The whole thing took about 15 minutes to shoot, we were in and out. And we then took photos by signs for no apparent reason.
Tony took off then, we stopped by the local Starbucks and Trader Joe's, and headed back for the last two scenes. The first of these was a shot of the empty office, with just the light table glowing. Stacey liked the idea of having a screensaver appear on Paul's laptop that showed lots of pictures of them, so she and Maura worked on setting that up. I started getting a little pouty because I think I wanted to knock that scene out quicker, and everyone's energy was beginning to run low. We got the screensaver up and running and I did a few quick shots with and without it going in the scene. Basically we did ten different mini-versions of the scene and we'll see which works best in editing.
We rearranged (very methodically and anal-retentively) for the final scene, which sees Suzanne on the floor of the office. It was a very simple bit that I probably also made more complicated than it needed to be. I think it came off very well, and again we overshot it so we can have lots of choices later. And again, the energy was fading on the group. We finished up and headed out. We needed margaritas, so we went to a Mexican restaurant in Arlington that only served wine and beer, then traveled to Somerville and Michael introduced us to an excellent Mexican restaurant. And, yes, please do not worry--they had margaritas.
It was a very fruitful day, and our 12-shooting-days-remaining countdown has officially begun! It is very exciting/sad for us.
I was not sure when I woke up on Day 33 that the shoot would actually happen. It rained much of the day before, and the forecast was for more of the same. But as the day began, the sky cleared up and it looked like we'd be G2G.
The day started off in Saugus, with Max, Frank, Maura, Stacey and me gathering and preparing: we took a quick two-minute drive to our location--the town center of Saugus--to block out exactly how/where we would shoot the missing poster scene. The local police and town officials knew we'd be shooting and we were told we'd only need a police detail if we disrupted traffic, which I knew we wouldn't unless I wore one of my low-cut T-shirts (which I had to foresake for the production). Sorry, Saugus traffic, maybe next time. My crew helped me block out the scene very well, and we returned to our house.
Next, R & J showed up (Gossip Girl is playing on our TiVo right now...my apologies...XOXO). Johanna gave us some of her coffee liqueur swag, which was sticky and terrific; and we all decided was a great stimulant/depressant for the rest of the day. Leila arrived, we all got in a few cars and drove to the center of town.
The scene went very smoothly, though there were some technical issues to overcome. Much of the scene plays out as Suzanne, Renee and then Jennifer walk from one tree to another to post a missing sign, and so Rajah thought it best to try the shot handheld. We were probably a very funny sight for the town of Saugus, because it was the three girls walking forward on the sidewalk in front of town hall, and in front of them was five of us walking backwards as one big moving blob--Rajah with the camera, Max or me spotting him, Frank holding the mic, and Maura wrangling the cord. This worked out a lot better than you'd think, although we kept asking the actresses to not stop too soon, but just keep walking into us. BTW, no actresses were hurt during the making of this scene.
So the good news was that Leila, Stacey, and Johanna did a great job in this scene, and needed very little direction to get where they needed to be. My only fear and frustration with it was that the sound was not terribly great--between the traffic sounds and the very loud wind, even our fuzzy mic hat couldn't wipe out all the bad elements. We did attract some very curious passers-by who watched us and hopefully didn't take the missing posters as legitimate. Oh, well. They ain't gonna find her, I bet. We also (yes, on Stacey's suggestion) did one take from way across the street in super wide shot just to give us an editing safety net in case we need to dub/overlay lines of dialogue because of the wind, versus the horrors of dubbing lines later on. Also we did a LOT of takes, and thankfully Johanna, Leila and Stacey were very patient with the number of times we did everything, just in case some takes were blown (literally).
Then we all went to the bathroom at the nearby gas station, which was not as exciting as it sounds, but very much a relief after all that coffee booze. We finished up and Johanna, Leila and Max took off. The rest of us came back to our house, called our good ol' pal Jim Shalkoski, Jr. and let him know that we were headed his way.
Georgetown was awesome as usual. Jim Jim Jim had made up a collection of mailers to give to his neighbors for our upcoming yard sale shoot, which I signed after it made it past Stacey's grammatical tweaks. Meanwhile, Maura transcribed a recipe she liked, Frank did crazy voices, and Rajah and I did our dueling Daniel Plainview impressions about every object we saw in the room. ("If you have a pen, and I have a pen...I take your pen. I take this pen alllllllllllllllll the way across the room. And I write with this pen. I write it all up!" etc. etc.)
We had three shots to do. The first was Mitch & Suzanne returning from Victor's house, walking down the street side-by-side, silently, Mitch pulling along his suitcase. When they reach the Dixon house, Suzanne quickly breaks away and Mitch keeps going. Rajah set up the perfect shot, the actors did a brilliant first take...I absolutely loved it. It made me laugh: it was so subtle but so great. One of the only times we did something once and I realized we'd never nail it better than that. So of course we moved the camera around nine more times to try different angles and positions because we're crazy like that. The Shalkoskis (bless their hearts) kept moving to watch the scene and--since this was our first Mark-less shoot ever--somebody needed to accidentally be in the shot no matter where we moved the camera and they filled that void. They were great about moving each time, and Maura was extremely conscious of Mark's pleadings for us to slate each scene, which she did faithfully.
Then we drove to the swamp in the Dagobah system because Rajah was inspired to shoot Mitch & Suzanne walking past it. It really was a very cool area to see, and we'll see in editing if it looks right for a suburban area. But we enjoyed shooting it.
We also needed a shot of Mitch leaving his house for Victor's place, and had the very fortuitous vantage point of the Shalkoski attic which overlooks the "Foster house." Rajah and I went up into the attic and shot it three times, and it looks great (I snuck a peek at the footage yesterday). Then Rajah and I set up the camera down the street for the last shot of the day: Mitch walking down a suburban street towards Victor's house. Jim and Frank were gathering up the mailers, and Rajah and I began to panic because curious neighbors were beginning to approach to ostensibly ask what the hell we were doing on the sidewalk in front of their house. Jim & Frank approached from one side, while the neighbor came closer and closer. Maura and Stacey watched from my car in sheer terror of how this would all turn out--either that or they were looking through the pictures of the day.
So Jim and I talked for about a minute with the neighbor who was ridiculously nice and accomodating, and we were ready to do the scene. In the meantime, another neighbor was mowing in the background and four young girls were running around with a dog on a leash. We asked if they wanted to be in the movie, and they excitedly agreed. Again, we had a one-take wonder. Mitch totes his suitcase past a neighbor mowing, the four girls walk their dog straight across the street in front of him, with a loose dog travelling with them: it was perfect suburbia caught in a twenty-second shot. We didn't need a second take. I was overjoyed. Stacey also came up with a great shot that she fine-tuned with Rajah so much that I'm afraid they lost a lot of daylight by the time they could shoot it as well as it was envisioned, but it still looked really good. Meanwhile, I killed time with Jim while Frank schmoozed with the entire block. It was a lot of fun, and a great day all in all.
And, following Rajah's wishes, I will now call this Day 33 1/3.
I'll be honest--I wasn't that excited at the outset of Day 32. I'm not sure why. I was tired from the night before, and I think there was no small part of me that felt a little discouraged that we were about to shoot a scene that should have been done months ago, in a different location, the way that it was written. The fact is that the change of location came about only out of necessity and, while I thought it was a fun idea to move it from the Foster Kitchen to Mitch's office, it's still a bit frustrating when you have to do it a certain way because of other factors.
So here's what the scene was. Mitch comes home and finds food spread out all over the kitchen; Ally looking a little crazy. She reveals that all the healthy foods have been replaced by their junkier counterparts, and that over the course of weeks she has gained weight because of it. It's an important part of the competition between neighbors, and a funny scene to boot (especially because of an absurd Mitch line that--had it not existed--I might have lobbied to cut the scene altogether). Anyway we were about to shoot the scene in February, maybe a half hour away from starting, when our location was pulled out from under us. And so I said, "well perhaps it could work at Mitch's office, and make Ally look even crazier if she's brought in all this food and spread it across his desk."
Then two more things to debate. One, Jim's idea to have Ally walk in on Mitch talking with his young attractive intern, which would plant seeds of distrust in her mind. I thought it was too much, but Stacey liked the idea, so we figured it was worth trying. The second thing was do we shoot entirely in his office, or just open in his office and then move to the office cafeteria? Given that we had no extras, I thought the office made the most sense, but Rajah and Stacey both thought it better to move to a different location. I give you all this backstory to point out that: a) I think the scene worked even better in my new version at his office, because it gets us out of the houses a bit; b) Jim & Stacey were right adding the intern role--it does work towards character development very subtly, but it's there; c) of course Rajah & Stacey were right that the cafeteria was more dynamic, and in fact the wall against which we shot--as Stacey swore it would--looks awesome on film. Lemons to lemonade, and how refreshing it all was!
I was quickly surprised and very happy with how the shoot went, and I owe a lot of it to my team. Stacey & I came with Rajah and Maura, and we met up with Mark, Max, and our cast of Jim, Amy, and Val (playing the intern that we kinda named Rebecca afterwards). We set up and lit the cafeteria so it was good to go by the time the cast arrived (which may be a Bjort first!), and then shot the office part first.
We walked into the office which was even more bare than the last time we shot in it--no computer this time--although there was a blue water bottle on the desk with a Post-It on it that said "Poison Water Bottle." This would have struck me as more funny if I didn't know the story: bottles had been given out to employees, but then determined that they may be made of some mildly toxic material, so they cautiously recalled them. Either way, it's pretty funny to see that written on a Post-It on a water bottle.
We very quickly grabbed some office-y documents, put Jim & Val in their positions, and started shooting. It went great, I was really pleased with how naturally the scene played, and we brought Amy in to stand in the doorway and watch as Val exits. It was one line, very small movements and reactions--but it came off very very well. We even were able to block that dreaded thermostat with Amy's head (you're welcome, Rajah)! Kudos to all three performers who took a twenty-second scene and loaded it with subtle importance.
Then me and the Funshine Gang (as I named Stacey & Maura) walked out on the deck off the cafeteria and looked out on Boston on this rainy day. I believe Rajah had dreams of shooting the next Batman movie up there, and while I asked Max to write it that night, I don't believe he did write the next Batman movie that night. Meanwhile, Stacey read a book that was written by a doctor and his mother, which was goofily titled as such on the cover. We made fun of him and his mom a lot. Also there were lots of weird phrases that came up, such as "Max, please don't bleed in me today": Rajah's warning for Max to not repeat the basketball-related bloodshed he had endured the previous week. And my deck exclamation to the raining heavens, "Why you gotta drizzle all up in my piece?" which really did not sound very good at all. Oh, and there was a secret passageway in the cafeteria that I discovered and then entertained everybody by utilizing over and over again!
As you can see we were working very hard. Then everybody took food from the fridge, which you are on the honor system to pay for, but the cashbox wasn't there to leave money, so we threw the honor system out the window.
Oh, yes, back to the shooting. It was terrific. Simple shots, and great performances by Jim and Amy. I was smiling from ear to ear as I watched on the monitor, which is always a good sign. Of course the highlights were getting to hear Mitch say, "Abre los ojos, Ally!" our absurd line, and Ally constantly shoving a hot dog into Mitch's mouth. We went through a whole pack of hot dogs, and it was probably more fun than it should have been to terrorize Jim that way. By the last hot dog I got a take where he wasn't smiling as it was forced into his mouth. Again, silly, I know, but I liked it a lot. And Amy had hot dog juice to deal with after every take. Absolute pros these two.
In the end, we had a lot of fun, finished ahead of schedule, and I think the scene is going to be a memorable part of the movie. Also we didn't get kicked out which is always a nice change of pace!
It was dismal, rainy, cold and a Friday night. We were all tired from our work weeks, and I had forgotten how low the energy level is on our Friday night shoots. But it's real low. Add to that cold and rain, and you've got a recipe for disaster.
But the show must go on, and we had the advantage of yet again being hosted by the awesome Shalkoskis. Also I had Stacey, Mark, Maura, Rajah, Tony & Jim--Bjort MVPs--so what could go wrong? Well it did start raining, but we said, "bring it on!" Actually I think I said, "please God stop," but you get the point.
So we started with a dinner break--always good to start with--of pizza, beer, and not one but two kinds of Doritos. Jim spares no expense when we're at his house. He, Stacey, and Maura warmed themselves by the fire in the garage which was really a space heater next to a few pieces of wood wrapped in red strands of Valentine's Day decorations (unlit). What a bunch of weirdos. We were lucky, season-wise, that the scene is supposed to be taking place in early February and New England being as it is, we were able to see our breath outside, even though it was May.
Rajah and I planned out the most aesthetically pleasing areas to shoot but nobody liked them because of the non-February foliage that would be in every shot. Maura suggested we shoot by the fence, which ended up making perfect sense to show the neighborly rivalry. The scene is all about Mitch feeling threatened by the decorations Paul is putting up, so he brags about all of his elaborate Valentine's plans.
We set up a tent to house the camera and monitor, had a Tota (yay, Tota!!!) up on the deck under an umbrella, and got really good lighting. Maura and Stacey worked on the set decoration and made the fence extremely festive and red. While we went over Jim's script, it was dark enough that we needed to use Maura's glow-in-the-dark flashlight thing, which illuminated especially Jim's highlighted lines in an awesome glowing blue. And we felt like CSIs. Of course, usually when CSIs look under a blue light and see things glow, it's either blood or...something else. Which is how we decided we must be looking at the "shooting" script. Thank you, folks, I'm here all week.
So the actual shoot was great and seemingly effortless. Tony & Jim were really funny in the scene, and I really got the rivalry from their performances. It's amazing how much of the movie we've done by now and actually a lot of the competition scenes are those that we have left to do (given that it's a big part of the plot).
The boys did great, as always, and I think we all had a good time even though we were getting a little wet and the mic cords got muddy, and we had to move the light closer for tight shots so Mark and Maura traded off holding an umbrella over the light, and we had our fair share of bloopers, and Rajah was taking photos of himself lit by the Tota for an hour and a half, and Maura spent a good amount of time trying to take a decent picture of me which is a near impossible task, and Stacey was bummed out because she didn't feel like she was doing enough, and I decided not to slate which bothered Mark, and Tony had an exhausting day doing all of his many careers. So basically Jim had a good time. But he always does.
Seriously the shoot went very well, and my thanks to the cast, the crew, and the Shalkoskis for another awesome night.
Just look at those charming faces and sporty outfits. On one side we have Paul and Suzanne Dixon, on the other Mitch and Ally Foster. But hang on a second...Mitch thinks they should swap partners (for the game, you dirty-minded people) and have Ally & Paul face off against Mitch & Suzanne in a "friendly" game of tennis. What ensues is black comedy gold, with the nice team (Ally & Paul) sharing stories of work and politely working together, while the alpha-dogs (Mitch & Suzanne) sell out their own spouses' weaknesses in order to destroy them in the game. That's how the scene is written, and that was how these wonderful actors performed it all day long. And I do mean all day.
Day 30...yes, our production is starting to show its age...was a long and crazily productive one. We had always planned to shoot it outdoors, until Stacey wisely suggested that we aim for an indoor court. The good people at the Winchester Indoor Lawn Tennis Club were more than generous in accomodating our schedule not once but (after our first cancellation) twice, and gave us our own court for an entire day. We arrived at 8 AM and didn't leave until about 5:30 PM, and we milked every moment we were there for the best shots, the most coverage, and some top-notch skills on display from the cast and crew. Not so much tennis skills, but nobody's perfect.
So to begin with, Rajah arrived on time (!) because he was following me and my silly GPS, which changed its mind at the last second, but we still made it. Maura was waiting for us, and Mark, Max, and then Mike were soon to follow. Frank arrived next, and then the cast began showing up. In the meantime, I had some catch up work to do because I wasn't allowed to do my shot list the night before (I blame Professor Wrongberry, Tabitha Whitesnake, and Edward Zeppelin for that). But I'm a guy who thinks on his feet. Some of the time. What I wanted to do most was break the whole tennis sequence (a good 5 pages in total) into smaller "chunks." So I decided to call them chunks, and everybody seemed to really like that. It was very psychologically rewarding every time we got to erase a chunk off the big board, and I only wish I had employed chunkology much earlier in the production. Big thanks to Maura for initially maintaining the board and helping me set up the equipment early on while everybody else played tennis.
We started the first chunk in the room outside the court, and we very smartly opened the adjoining door to make an aesthetically pleasing waiting area. Tony--great job bouncing a ball! Amy--superb work putting on those shoes! Stacey--your lacing work was outstanding! OK, it was a nicely framed shot that didn't call for too much action. Then we shot the part with Mitch pacing angrily as he watched the previous players VERY slowly departing the court. It was supposed to be two senior citizens, but we didn't have any of them. So Max made his big Joneses debut. It...was...hilarious! His only direction was to gather up the balls slowly, and he did so well--I felt like if I were Mitch I would want to run onto the court and punch him, which is exactly what we were going for. Max, you did us proud! And Jim and Tony had a great bit while waiting to use the court.
A quick sidenote about the acting overall for the day. It was just perfect. Huge, huge kudos to Amy, Tony, Stacey & Jim for knowing exactly how to play these scenes, doing so effortlessly and with very minimal direction all day, and for the very tiring task of actually playing tennis for hours and hours on end. As Stacey and others know I tend to micromanage the acting on scenes where there are a lot of jokes, because I want everyone of them to have the best delivery possible. But, as I said, these guys were at the top of their game that day, and the highest compliment I can pay is that I really felt charmed the whole day by getting to watch the exploits of Suzanne, Mitch, Paul and Ally. I think they had a lot of fun too, which always helps.
For our first court shot, (Chunk 2 or 3, I believe) we set up the crane. It looked super-awesome and I'm so glad that Mike, Rajah, Max & Frank were able to manipulate the crane in such a great way. It'll make for a perfect establishing shot. Then we moved onto the succession of scenes which, I won't go into too much detail, because this is almost one of those unnecessary blogs. The day was definitely eventful, but most of what I would write about is going to be so obvious in the scenes in the film. But here are some other things I remember for the day...
I pushed Rajah around on the tennis ball cart to get a pseudo-tracking shot. We looked silly.
Stacey & Jim got the giggles but I was in a sour mood at the time, so I did not giggle back.
We saw a dead bird skeleton trapped in wiring in the ceiling outside. It was pretty grisly. Yet everytime someone came outside, we had to point it out. My favorite reaction was Frank's who went..."Awwwwwww...(beat)...Ewwwwwwww." It was genius. He went instantaneously from, like, an audience member of "Full House" to a witness to a crime scene. Just thinking about it now makes me laugh. R.I.P. bird skeleton.
I made Amy bump into Tony a thousand times, at first for authenticity of a collision, and after awhile it was just funny to watch him get all bruised up.
We broke out the crane again at the end, but...I don't know if it worked. The naysayers may have been right.
I had a disagreement with some members of the crew over our shooting order, because I wanted to do it chronologically, which meant constantly switching from one side of the court to the other. I know that's not the biggest time-saver, but we weren't using lights, and I argued that the five minutes it took us to keep moving the camera to the other side of the net was no big deal compared with the advantages of getting performances that felt more real and sequential. I hope the actors felt the same, but even if they didn't I stand behind my choice.
Whoever thought of putting the monitor on one of the tennis ball carts is also a genius.
There was a lot of the usual Joneses goings-on: Amy playing Vortex, Jim & Stacey taking photos of themselves, Frank apologizing for everything...
We were concerned when we first arrived about audio, because the heater/air conditioner was very loud. Then it got exponentially louder. But we asked John Koslowski (our awesome host at WILTC) about it and he turned it off immediately. Then the only sound concern we had was every half hour a loud buzzer went off. It was very funny before we started the very first take on the court because I shouted "Action!" and the buzzer sounded immediately. Boy, did we laugh. I may have only snickered.
It was a day where we put lots of silly things on our head. Don't ask.
I miss the Tota. OK, not actually. But I miss saying "Tota."
There was a late lunch break. Apparently this cast and crew expect to eat now during our ten-hour shoots. Man, they've got nerve.
The prop racket got Stacey's hands all dirty. The crane weights got Amy's hands all dirty. But Tony's hands remained clean as a whistle (like Irish Springs).
OK, that's all I can remember today. It was a totally productive and fun day. Awesome crew, awesome cast. Nobody yelled at anyone. Great shots, great sound, great acting, great continuity, great photos. And one great director who is right this moment looking at the time and realizing that we'll be shooting again in another 24 hours. Uh oh. Gotta go, nerds.
