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10 Days into the production of The Joneses, and we are stronger than ever! We have a tight cast, and a crew who are beginning to feel like a family to us, so perhaps I'll reserve this blog to pick them apart like I would real family members.

First and foremost, there is the head of the family which is, as everybody knows, Stacey. She is the heart of The Joneses, and often the brain. She acts, she directs, she makes the props, she cooks and cleans for us, she manages the money, she...oh my God...what the hell do I do? Anyway, as everybody from Naughty or Nice can attest, Stacey is the constant creative force that keeps everything together and is usually the unsung heroine, so allow me to do some sunging. If you saw the hamburger cake, you know this girl can create. If you saw her as Suzanne, you know she's got the chops. And if you saw her shoot the kitchen scene that night...well, I rest my case. She is the mother to all things Joneses.

Then we have the absentee father for that Saturday--Rajah--who for reasons beyond his control could not be there for the shoot. But all of us wanted to impress absentee Dad so we tried like hell to put a little green in every shot, set up each frame like a picture, and mess with lighting for like an hour longer than we should be. We did a great job given we were down our very important D.P., and we miss him and hope to see him soon. We also hope he brings us presents!

Saturday also found us with a Godmother (Maura) and Godfather (Mike) who handily stepped in in Rajah's absence and helped create wonderful shots and fabulous lighting for the whole surprise party shoot. I am indebted to them, and they did themselves and the movie very proud that day.

Then there's Uncle Frank and Uncle Tom. On The Joneses, Frank is the one who keeps us smiling when we need to, just as Tom did on Naughty or Nice. Saturday we had both uncles on the set, which was great. If they could only keep their damn mouths shut for two seconds, maybe we could even shoot a movie. I kid because I love.

The oldest brother, ironically enough, is Lou "Loubert" "Koko B. Ware" Ottaviani, who is in real life as young as dirt. I don't know where we'd be without him. He brought us a thousand sandwiches, shrimp, peppers, brownies, salads, wings, etc. etc. from the very good people at Kelly's, who we will be shamelessly sponsoring throughout this movie in exchange for their generosity. They made many of us very happy and supplied some awesome food for the scenes as well. Big brother Lou is the rock that keeps everything going. He's in charge of making things happen and he does it effortlessly week in and week out. Koko and his Kokonauts as Mark has named it are making each weekend a huge success.

Speaking of Mark, I think he's the younger brother of our family (also ironic in that his previous role for us was literally as "older brother" Jared). He is also a crucial member of the family and keeps tabs on what everybody is doing, logs everything that goes down and takes pictures for all of us to enjoy, and has been committed to this project for years. I may be stretching to make this family analogy work, but I also can see that like the youngest he has that desire to perform, and his role as Todd has also been a highlight these last few weeks. Plus, he's spoiled rotten.

For our Saturday shoot we also had the new kids--Kevin Tocci, Kim, and Max, who have been with us for a couple shoots now and have been immeasurably helpful. Plus they're the new kids so we get to make them do lots of stuff for us, which is excellent.

It's hard to put the actors in a family context, because they're more like our friends who come and visit every week, in different arrangements. And this Saturday we had Jim, Stacey, Mark, Leila, Kevin, Michael, Lucy, Paul, Monty, and Robyn all giving wonderful performances in the entire surprise party sequence. We started the night with a huge group shot, with some of our great extras from last week returning and once again delivering the goods! It was a great scene and so much fun to shoot.

We then shot our big scene in a wide shot, and because of some time concerns quickly adapted the schedule to do close-ups and two-shots of the terrific surprise party discussion scene. There were too many great performances to single any one out, and because it was split up we'll really only know it's full power once it's all cut together. Suffice to say it was really great all around. And there was an awful lot of laughing coming from and because of Mark & Leila, who are 100% professional until the cameras start rolling. They were really great.

And the cake scene...I can't describe it. It's too good. Lucy, Robyn and Jim: brilliant. The shots: amazing. The props: the best. And we did it as one take, no cuts. It got funnier every single take we did. And poor Lucy, who cracked us up EVERY time, had to deliver every line over and over again, as we witnessed her character's slow descent into insanity. This scene is going to KILL in the movie.

Anyway, I hope I didn't leave anyone out. There are many members of the Bjort family now and we are blessed to have them as part of our lives and even more blessed to have them as part of our movie. Day 10 was awesome, as was everyone that made it happen.

Oh, yeah. And I'm the funny uncle because I'm terribly funny. What? That's not what "funny uncle" means? Well, what does it--? Oh, really. Hmm. Well, I guess I'm still the funny uncle. P.S. sorry everybody for all that inappropriate touching.