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It was Friday, the 13th day of shooting. We should have known.

It was supposed to be an easy night. 3 scenes, 1 actor: Mitch typing on laptop; Mitch watching TV; Mitch picking up the phone. Even for Jim, those things are relatively easy. However, it was the night where pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

I must admit we started pretty slowly and very laidback, because we wanted it to be that kind of night. Arrival time was supposed to be 6:00, but we probably didn't get focused and finished eating, etc. until about 7:30 or so.

The laptop scene called for Mitch to be posting Suzanne's information and photo on an online dating service (we were given the choice of BlackSingles.com, ChristianMingle.com, and AmericanSingles.com by the people at Spark.net who were allowing us to promote them). We chose AmericanSingles.com, which somebody pointed out would also be a great web site promoting cheese. During the week I posted Stacey's picture on the singles site--something I'd imagine not many husbands get a chance to do.

I thought I was being pretty smart before arriving, given that we don't have wireless internet service on set, by loading up all the web pages on my laptop. What wasn't quite so clever was allowing the laptop battery to die on the way to Canton, so when it was time to shoot, I couldn't start up my computer. So I restarted. And of course all the pages were lost.

Even with the help of some very technical smarties--Mark, Jim, and Stacey--we weren't able to come up with a way to get those pages back. I'd like to point out at this point that Lou was dressed like Bob Kraft, and surprisingly that didn't help with our dilemma. Stacey suggested a solution that we ignored (a cute lil' thing I like to do), which pretty much became the actual solution after about 45 minutes. It involved saving things on Rajah's jump drive. But before we settled on that, Mark & Jim searched the house and discerned that the internet service runs through the plumbing or something. Maura called in her resident expert too. Meanwhile what were Frank, Lou, Rajah and me doing?

Well, it turns out that Rajah forgot the piece that connects the camera to the tripod. I've done that once before on a shoot, and it's always sucky. Thankfully Rajah got all crafty and made an intricate rope system out of folded over duct tape, a spoon (I'm not kidding) and probably a third item which was equally funny. All I know is when I emerged from Crisis #1 (the laptop) to check on Crisis #2 (the tripod), I found a very, very Ghetto Camera that nevertheless was fully functioning. And we were ready to shoot!

Wait. Then there was the Foster family photo that we wanted on the wall, that Maura worked at affixing with blue tape very diligently and pressed against the wall, allowing us about 3 minutes of shoot time before it started sliding onto the couch. She and Stacey worked on a two-tape system: taping duct tape to the blue tape, and that expanded our window of time before the picture fell to about 5 minutes. Between each take we had to fix our fake photo, in its fake hanging frame, hanging over Mitch's fake online laptop (Shiba brand!), all shot in front of our fake camera tripod. It was one of our saddest moments. Watching Jim write up Suzanne's fake profile was actually very entertaining, and the scene (now that it was about 10:30) was finally done! Lou had already been asleep for about an hour and a half at this point.

Next we moved onto the scene where Mitch watches the kidnapping footage on the TV. That one actually went off without a hitch, except the duct-tape tripod broke, and the house started dripping somewhere, and a thunderstorm began. But Jim was terrific in the scene, and Frank captured the awesome sounds of the rain pouring down with one lightning flash in a take that I hope we can use. Stacey then came up with the final shot for Mitch walking to his chair, and she and Rajah worked tirelessly to try a really creative shot using soft focus--and for some reason the area they were trying to set up was the one place that everyone of us wanted to stand while doing nothing. So they yelled at us every single time. Then Jim dropped his pants on the first take, which was completely uncalled for.

Lastly, we shot a scene with Jim picking up the phone in the foyer which looks really cool, although we had a hell of a time not getting the lights in the thousand mirrors in the room, until I decided to half-open the mirrored closet which created an even cooler effect. Nothing broke while we were shooting that scene. I think Lou--tired from his napping--decided to go home and sleep at this point.

So at like 1 in the morning we finished the shoot that should have taken like two hours tops. Frank went home, and Maura, Mark, Jim, Rajah, Stacey & I sat around and talked through "The Joneses" end scene, continuing a conversation initiated by Jim & Mark at the Beanywood event we attended earlier in the week. By 3 AM or so we had come up with the COOLEST and CREEPIEST new ending for this movie that is loved by all, except Mark, and was suggested by Stacey 45 minutes earlier, but I think I ignored it. Anyway, Stacey and I are completely invigorated by this new ending, and so indebted to Mark (and Jim, if I must) for initiating the conversation. It is going to be so excellent.

Anyway, we called it a night, knowing that thankfully our jinxed evening was over, and we had nothing but good things to look forward to for the next day... ;)