Judgment Day.  It was our last day of shooting on our whirlwind tour, and I know many of us were running on fumes.  The final six--Jim, Stacey, me, Mark, Rajah, and Maura had survived and had one last day to get everything we missed and everything that was left.  Green pages were being crossed out, folded in half, thrown out.  Everyone was afraid to put down a drink or a clipboard (OK, Mark's never been afraid of that) for fear of Maura or me shouting at them, "Live set!  Live set!"

The day started earlier than most as Maura headed out to get black posterboard to (gulp) block out the light in the bedroom.  As I said before, this was a critically smart choice on our part, because it was going to allow us to shoot in the bedroom all day, and wrap up the finale at night.  If we finished early, I promised we could all go to the beach and for ice cream.  Thank God we didn't finish early, because I did NOT want to see these people enjoy themselves.

Stacey, Jim, Rajah and I blocked the sex scene (unlike the last few months where I've been blocking it out of my mind).  The nuances you have to think about, and the beats you have to hit are very important and I think we did an excellent job coming up with every necessary part to the scene.  Maura returned with the posterboard and she made the daylight go away.  We were ready to start shooting!

We started light with some of the remaining bedroom shots that we still needed to get.  I can't remember how many we did, but what does stand out in my mind is the extremely important shot we got of Stacey at the vanity that was so perfect, take after take, that it gave me chills.  Mark & Maura felt the same.  Rajah was able to see why I was doing this particular shot a certain way, and it felt like everything was coming together perfectly.  It was hauntingly awesome.

Then we shot one of the last sections of the finale, with Mitch & Suzanne's confrontation in the bedroom.  Some last minute rewrites we did to Mitch's final order of business in the room made so much sense, so much dramatic purpose, that it amazes me we hadn't thought of it before.  I can't go into too many of the details, but there was always a revelation that happened in the final final scene that seemed terrible to all of us, and bumping it up one scene and switching to one simple line of dialogue...it just made everything fit completely.  Jim's delivery of that line and Stacey's response to it worked so very well.  But we found it wasn't 100% there yet, so we had them start the scene several pages earlier down in the kitchen to work themselves up to the emotions they'd need to be at by the time they entered the bedroom.  I cannot tell you how much of a difference that made.  It was kinda crazy from a production standpoint with Mark, Maura, Rajah and me waiting in the empty bedroom with the camera rolling, hearing this argument downstairs being performed for nobody, but when they burst into the room it was magic!  When I think of moments of brilliance from our week, I think back to those last two lines as performed by Jim & Stacey in the bedroom and know that they are the equivalent of an emotional suckerpunch.  I can't wait for everybody to see the entire finale!!!

Now that I'm getting my chronology straight, that was actually the first scene we did in the morning, and then we moved onto a bunch of shots by the vanity (detailed somewhat above).  I actually had an inspired moment or two of how to schedule our shot order to minimize movement of camera and lights (it's about time!) so we banged out a bunch of highly important shots with Mitch & Suzanne.  And then we were set up for the final frame of the sex scene, which is oddly anti-climactic--pun completely intended--to begin with, but there you go.

So how do I describe the sex scene without giving too much away, giving way too many compliments or not enough, putting forth details that ultimately seem either salacious, awesome or creepy--given who I am and who the stars are, etc. etc.?  Ultimately, I don't know.  I'm having blogging problems here.  Perhaps I'll just stick to very technical and minimal descriptions and know that the scene will speak for itself in a great way.

Rajah (thankfully) was there to shoot it.  It was all handheld.  As I said before, we blocked every part of it, and then shot it section by section.  It was apparently very exhausting for the actors doing take after take, and I can believe it.  I believe we all compartmentalized as necessary, so that everybody could give their all to the scene, and I am so very proud of the scene and think it will work amazingly well.  The actors did a phenomenal job, and Rajah had so much creative input that it helped a lot.  It was very important to all of us that this scene play a certain way--with violence and chaos as compared to the intimacy of the other sex scene we shot.  Seeing it all played out, I can guarantee we got wonderful footage, a very believable and important scene done, and everyone was at the top of their game.

Two moments of extreme comedy during the scene occurred when we were taken out of the illusion that this was all part of Mitch and Suzanne's story.  One was when Rajah, standing on the bed, said "Jimmy, reach into your pants again!"  After we all stopped laughing, we reminded him that it was Mitch, not Jimmy.  It was really funny.  Also in one of the last takes, I had to move very close to the bed in order to not be in the shot, and Jim's leg hit mine when he tumbled into the bed.  My thought at the time, "I wonder if this takes Jim out of the moment at all that he just kicked my leg."  And apparently he felt the same.  In the end we got a very exciting scene and, again, without giving up too much I'll say that I'm indebted to everyone for keeping focus, for Rajah's excellent coverage, and for the performances that gave this scene every ounce of truth it needed.

There.  I blogged it.

So then we all took some sort of break, and got ready for our final scenes of the night, of the week, of the marathon shoot.  I'm not going to lie, when we started back up again, I felt like we were missing some of the energy we had had before.  We were all tired from the week, tired from the day, and knew that these were our last few hours to finish everything.  We didn't have too much left to shoot, thankfully, but I know that to me at least it felt like my last semester at college, when I was ready to just phone everything in and get the damn degree already.  But we, as a group, pulled it together and just took a little more time on everything to make sure we got it right.

First we did the scene by the cursed front door and stairs which leads up to the sex scene we had just shot.  It did not go very well at all.  I was unhappy with everything, and could not get a shot in that stupid foyer that made sense to me.  The lighting was tricky, the angles were weird, and it just wasn't coming together how I had hoped.  Plus I kept making Maura and Mark move out of every shot we tried to do.  At one point I remember sitting on the stairs trying to hold the boom and the camera, staying out of the light above me, inches from Stacey & Jim doing the scene and I think that's when it kind of reached its silliest point.  After that, Rajah took the camera back, we broke up the short scene into three different parts, and I think got it all right finally!  Also we had to change the first two lines of dialogue because it was making the whole scene feel false, and once we made that change, it came out great.

Finally the finale!  Wow, I can say even less about this than I can the sex scene!  I really don't want to give away any details.  It was slightly complicated, so we covered the dialogue first, I made some slight directing choices so we could have two different ways in which Mitch & Suzanne said their lines, and then we moved onto the very last parts where we had a lot of fun shooting it--even using the crane!!!--and I think the results of the entire finale will be tremendous.  God, I hope so.

Then we all sat down with our celebratory drinks and listened to the Jimmy & Rajah song again.  It was about 2:00 in the morning (although only 10:30 in Joneses Savings Time, according to the kitchen clock which we purposely kept about four hours earlier to make us feel less stressed).  We took pictures with the crazy hands prop.  And eventually we went to bed.

It's hard to sum up the whole week other than saying that it was one of the most memorable if not the most memorable of my life.  It was so fun, so productive, so exhausting, so everything it needed to be.  Stressful.  Exciting.  I've never been on that much adrenaline for that length of time.  And man, what a letdown that it was over and we never got to really enjoy ourselves having downtime.  But the truth is we did enjoy ourselves all week.

I've got to thank the people who drove a long way--Kevin, Michael, and Leila--to be there for one of the most fun shoots we've had, and doing a great job themselves.  To Mike, who was a huge asset for four days and was crucial to the sound and cinematography of the first half of the shoot.  Lou, who despite his very injured ACL not only came at my pleading, but stayed much longer than I even asked.  Amy, who brought us food and her husband, and who knocked out great performances for the entire first half of the week.  Tony, who got a chance to play Paul at length, did an amazing job, and who we really missed after he left as one of our favorite roommates.  Jimmy & Rajah--the clown princes of our week--who came and went, came and went several times, were with us at the very end, and were absolutely brilliant in their work and so much fun to be around.  To Stacey, who never fails to wow me with the depths she gives to her character, giving brilliant performances, and making the entire week possible by planning out every detail with me for weeks leading up to it.  So when I say "I" in every part of this blog, of course it really means both Stacey & me.

And then a final shout out to Maura and Mark.  On behalf of Stacey & me, I just cannot emphasize enough how much help, support, and everything we got from them for the entire week.  Without them, there would have been no week, and without them we would lose our sanity.  As the Bjort family grows, it is so wonderful to have them as key members, and I know the four of us have (since the week ended) crashed out of exhaustion and then looked back so nostalgically at everything we did, and all the fun we had--it's been really hard to get into "normal" life.  But we're shooting again tomorrow...so our rest and emptiness can be short-lived!

Drink of the night:  Tequila with pineapple wedges

Food of the night:  I have absolutely no idea.

Catchphrase of the night:  "Jimmy, reach into your pants again."

Music of the night:  All the greatest hits from the week.  The French songs.  "Hot Tranny Banana," "Key Lime Cheesecake Pike" "Boobiesonmyface.com," "Jimmy & Rajah," "2 Dudes In a Bathroom (Alone)"

Bedtime:  4:00 AM

P.S. the next morning we did a quick cleaning, exiting, loading of the cars, throwing out of the garbage, Maura's car hit a minor snag, and then we all went out for a breakfast in which Rajah desperately tried to come up with new and better verses for "2 Dudes in a Bathroom."  A surreal morning to end the week.