New England Film Movement Blog for Chris Tyrrell

The Joneses Day 45: All Good Things...

Bjort Productions

After a hiatus of about a month, The Joneses cast and crew reassembled for our final major shoot at the River Merrimac Bar & Grille in Newburyport. The end for us was truly bittersweet, and I can honestly say making this movie has been the most challenging and rewarding experience of my life. I k [...]

The Joneses Movie Poster

Bjort Productions

We are pleased to unveil the new movie poster for The Joneses.

The Joneses Day 44

Bjort Productions

Warning: by the end of this blog, Tony Wright will be wrapped from "The Joneses" production. Please prepare yourself emotionally, as we did.

So this was the conclusion of the shoot we started Sunday, and I have to give big thanks to Mark, Maura, Jim, Tony, Stacey, Rajah & me [...]

The Joneses Day 43

Bjort Productions

Day 43 began with us knowing that it was the day to wrap Tony. But the fates would not allow it.

Rajah Jones (archaeologist/cinematographist) brought his street surf board, which we all enjoyed. Stacey & I did an enormous amount of prep the night before with our hooker-y Valen [...]

The Joneses Day 42

Bjort Productions

Day 42 was another plagued day, I'll admit it, way before it even started. The shoot was originally supposed to happen in January, but our location wasn't ready so we moved on to other shoots. By the time it was going to be OK to shoot it in February, the location fell thro [...]

The Joneses Day 41

Bjort Productions

The wonderful people at the Naked Fish again opened their cumin-flavored doors to us so that we could reshoot the scene we had shot in the first few days of production (back when we were all tweens). We had many, many reasons to reshoot: I had the camera on a bad setting the first time, some of the reference [...]

The Joneses Day 40

Bjort Productions

Day 40 was brought to us by the extremely helpful Town of Saugus, who had previously allowed us to shoot in the town center. The Town Manager, Andrew Bisignani, as well as the chief of police, James McKay, were very generous in giving us access to our choice of rooms in the Saugus Police Station and mad [...]

The Joneses Day 39

Bjort Productions

Our Day 39 happened on a hot and humid Tuesday afternoon, and I have to again give huge thanks to Lou's friend Sue for hooking us up with a terrific (and wonderfully air-conditioned) location. It was our second and final night in the basement, and we were moving like a well-oiled machine. There w [...]

The Joneses Day 38

Bjort Productions

Our Day 38 was by far one of our smoothest shoots to date. We were very lucky to be allowed to shoot at Hunt's camera store in Melrose, which aside from being a very easy commute for us, is also a perfect location. I had procrastinated contacting them for, like, ever. Twice I had [...]

The Joneses Day 37

Bjort Productions

Day 37. A night of so many top secret plot twists, that what the hell can I actually blog about? We made Amy eat lamb shanks. The end.

OK, I probably can say more than that. But forgive the vagueness--so much of the night (like the Finale day on the Cape) would reveal too [...]

The Joneses Day 36

Bjort Productions

Overall, Day 36 was the most memorable day of shooting ever. My sincerest thanks to EVERYONE who was a part of it, and who helped made that day so special for The Joneses and for the birthday boy (aka Smitty). So, in no particular order, my huge thanks to: Stacey, Jim, Maura, Mark, Rajah, Lou, Max, M [...]

The Joneses Publicity

Bjort Productions

Though I haven't written the blog for the monumental yard sale date yet, we did get a great write-up in the Georgetown paper on our production:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/georgetown/fun/entertainment/x784972969/Keeping-up-with-The-Joneses

Thank you again to all who made it such a w [...]

The Joneses Day 35

Bjort Productions

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 [...]

The Joneses Day 34

Bjort Productions

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 [...]

The Joneses Day 33

Bjort Productions

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 an [...]

The Joneses Day 32

Bjort Productions

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 diffe [...]

The Joneses Day 31

Bjort Productions

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 [...]

The Joneses Day 30

Bjort Productions

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 & Suzann [...]

The Joneses Day 29

Bjort Productions

Day 29 was our most relaxed day ever. It was a very good day to be part of "The Joneses" and we owe so much of it to one Jim Shalkoski, Jr. and--more importantly--the Shalkoski family who hosted us on that beautiful Saturday. We arrived and two huge blue tents had been set up, an [...]

The Joneses Day 28

Bjort Productions

Day 28 was the brainchild of that crazy Jim Shalkoski, Jr. who called us the day we arrived back from the Cape, bleary-eyed and 3 days past a good night's rest and suggested that we still shoot something that weekend. "The nerve of Jim Shalkoski, Jr.!" I thought to m [...]