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.