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, Michael, Tony, Amy, Frank, Jane, Ken, Kevin, Leila, the Shalkoskis, Craig, Tony's mom, Marsha, our friends from Cataldo Ambulance, Kelly's Roast Beef, the town of Georgetown, Jim's pals, Sally Applegate, and every wonderful extra who gave up some of their Sunday to be a part of this amazing day!  I'm sorry if I forgot anyone--it was a true group effort and I appreciate every one of you.

So to sum up the day is hard because it was so long and eventful.  We had food catered by Kelly's, which was excellent!  We had much of the cast and crew bring boxes of stuff to make the yard sale authentic, which it totally was--although big props on props to me, Stacey, Jim, and Maura who brought boatloads (or carloads) of stuff to make it look perfect.  Stacey had Jim bring out a cake to surprise me for a mini-birthday celebration (and it really was the most memorable birthday I've ever had; I can't wait until I turn 22!).  There were hilarious performances, terrific dramatic moments, so much fun and sunburn, and that was all before the excellent nighttime shoot with the Cataldo Ambulance that Dan was able to arrange for us.  We had Sally from the Georgetown Record covering the film, and what a good day to be there for it.  And throughout the day, we had extras from the neighborhood and beyond that relaxed in the backyard under the Shalkoski tents and were always available for whatever scenes we were shooting.  It was incredible.

The day began with me and Rajah pulling up in my packed car and found that Mark, Max, and Jim were already posting signs (at 8 AM) of where everybody could park.  Maura and Stacey followed soon after and everyone got to work setting up the many tables, designing the layout on the lawn, Max was pricing everything (at dirt cheap prices), and Lou surprised us by showing up earlier than expected, with no sleep--which is of course something he takes care of on the shoot.  Everything was off to a great start.  While everyone busted out quick work in the design of it, under Maura's & Stacey's leadership, since the three of us had planned it extensively that week, Rajah and I began doing trial runs of Chunk 1, which was the tracking shot of the whole yard sale.  We were shooting it through the sunroof of the Mini, and got the right speed and everything.  What was kind of comical as we did this dry run was that a whole bunch of our actors (I won't say who but one of them is an R.N., the other was wearing a shirt that said "Frank the Tank" and a third was Kevin Cirone) kept regrouping in the middle of the street that we were driving down!  But none of them were killed during our practice and that made me happy.

CHUNK 2: In classic production fashion, we soon realized that many of the extras wouldn't be showing up until noon, so of course we would skip over Chunk 1 and start with Chunk 2.  People, don't you understand there's a method behind the Chunk chronology?!  Ah, well.  That meant leading off with Kevin & Tony, the stars of Chunk 2.  Their scene was super hilarious.  Kevin could barely keep a straight face when he had to say, "How dare you, sir," which I think is one of the reasons why I wrote that line--I like watching him try to not smile.  It's an awesome scene--Stacey and I just realized a few weeks ago that Victor should be at the yard sale since he gets all their leftovers, and he and Tony had an absolute perfect rapport as Victor with his hurt feelings and Paul who didn't want to hear anything about it.  For that first scene, Rajah also broke out his big white screen thingie that blocked out the sun perfectly.  Max and Frank got some serious arm muscles/fatigue holding it up, but it worked very well.

CHUNK 3:  Ally picks out a jacket and discusses it with Suzanne.  Not a lot of meat to the scene, quite honestly, but a great establishing one and a great job done by Stacey & Amy.  We started with a cool close-up on the garment rack (yay, I didn't call it a coatrack for once!), with the clothes being pulled over to reveal Ally's face looking through it.  We did this scene relatively quickly, because my leading ladies knew what they were doing, save for a bit of a dyslexic twist Amy preferred on the "Cash for Crap" line.  Kevin loaned his considerable height to be screen-holder #2.

CHUNK 4:  Ken Flott gets his big break!  We rehearsed this also newly written scene between Ken & Kevin, in which Mr. Franklin (who is a professional yard sale customer) mistakes Victor for somebody that works at the yard sale and proceeds to ask him about many different items.  The joke is that Victor dissuades him from buying almost everything.  We ran through it a few times to see if we could punch up any of the jokes.  Ken added a bit about a crockpot, to which Kevin added that it was "not for sale," both of which were exactly what it needed.  Really really funny.  We also didn't know how to end it, so we came up with Victor answering Mr. Franklin's query on the electronics table with "...bit of a gamble," to which Mr. Franklin responds "I like to take chances," and then Kevin (uncharacteristically trying to have the last line :) ) came up with the dramatic pause before saying, "You're alright."  This scene is terrific--the performances were so funny, and they both made me laugh a lot.  Rajah tried to do an old Western showdown shot, which might have been nice, but potentially would have been over-the-top anyway, so I wasn't mad at the fact that he couldn't get it.  It was a good idea.  As it is, the scene will work more than fine.

CHUNK 1:  This was Rajah's and my tracking shot, establishing the yard sale sign and balloons, and then driving along the street to see the front yard revealed with all its tables and customers.  We had some funny business that I hope you see with Jim's friend choosing between an axe and a table full of figurines, and Marsha eyeing a motorcycle helmet.  Rajah and I did the shot at a few different car speeds and zoomed in at different levels, and from what we saw when we looked at the takes, it looked great.  The extras were KEY in this scene, and I'm really glad they were there.

So we had blown through our first four chunks, which Rajah and I (but mostly Rajah) decided should have another form of measurement.  4 chunks = 1 load.  You can write your own joke now.  Meanwhile we broke for Kelly's lunch and the aforementioned surprise birthday cake, which was really sweet on the part of my awesome wife, with help from my arch nemesis, Jim.  It was great taking some time (albeit only about 10 minutes) to talk to everybody who was waiting so patiently in the backyard tent area.  I really think and hope most everyone had a great time that day.

CHUNKS 5-8:  For the reader's (and writer's!) sake, I will begin mashing chunks together.  If you're eating while you're reading this, my apologies for saying "mashing chunks."  What's important is the next section was all the big screen debut of Jane Reardon, R.N., and Frank Tarara (who followers of this blog know has been a member of our crew since the beginning).  Frank was given the part of Ben long ago, and we asked him to be part of the crew; Jane (who is friends with Frank in real life, unbeknownst to us when we cast them as girlfriend and boyfriend) has been in California for most of the shoot, and was dying to be back in time for the yard sale scene.  So this was a momentous day for both of them, and they had rehearsed their parts as the yard sale customers (Danielle & Ben) who recognize Paul & Suzanne from "Space Invaders," get excited, insult Suzanne, meet Mitch & Ally, get even more excited, and insist on taking pictures with them.  I must say, humbly, it's a really funny part of the script, but I'm not exaggerating to say that Frank & Jane blew us away.  Take after take, hilarious.  The first time we heard Ben's name shouted a second time by Jane, we were all in stitches, and each repeated take was just as funny.  Also, Frank added some really funny business about Ben trying to quickly solve a Rubik's cube so he didn't have to buy it, which I thought was great.  And as perfectly over-the-top as Jane is as Danielle, Frank also was wonderfully subtle as the guy whose girlfriend has a big mouth.

These chunks began with Stacey & Tony doing their awesomeness by discussing the yard sale and Suzanne's reluctance to even be having it, with a great response by Paul.  When Danielle & Ben come over the rapport between the four of them is just comic genius.  Huge props again to Jane & Frank for being so funny, Tony for being a great straight man with Jane, and Stacey for providing the right dose of outrage that sends them running across the street.

CHUNKS 9-12:  The sun was finally waning, which was good in that we didn't have to cover the actors with the screen anymore, as we approached the magic hour, but we also knew we still have a huge amount (or a load) to shoot before it would be just too dark.  The lighting ended up being perfect for the next, very important section, but we really had to hustle.  I believe I may have blown my air raid whistle more than once, as fatigue began to set in.

So basically the climax of this sequence occurs when Suzanne & Paul hear Danielle's screams from across the street and find that Mitch & Ally have set up a yard sale table of their own.  Which featured the Ultimate Sweater Machine--who would not pay top dollar for that?  Paul & Suzanne storm over to Mitch & Ally and confront them.  I've always loved this part too because I completely understand where both Ally/Mitch and Paul/Suzanne are coming from in the fight.  Also, we had more hilarity from Danielle & Ben meeting these "celebrities" and taking pictures with them.  Kudos to everybody, I hear from Michael who was working sound that some of the offscreen dialogue between Jim, Frank, and Jane was really hilarious.  The funny parts are also so important because this scene has SO much tension in it, and was my favorite dramatic part of the day.  I loved seeing the four leads get to rip into each other, and I can't emphasize enough how when Stacey & Tony entered the frame and played that anger so honestly, I couldn't stop smiling from ear-to-ear.  Though I already knew it, this was why the entire yard sale sequence existed, and I was so excited that their performances were even better than the script.  Seeing the two of them there seething at Mitch & Ally, I could just feel how completely pissed they were, and this scene did so much to bolster the relationship between Paul & Suzanne, and gave Mitch & Ally a chance to be "the good couple."  So good.  Just wait until you see it.

The last part of the chunk was really pretty rushed.  We had dismissed most of the extras for the day, because they had been there for so many hours, and we needed to show a huge gathering of customers around Paul & Suzanne (now wearing their Space Invaders outfits--which it was the first time seeing those and I absolutely love them--thank you Lou & Stacey).  Filling in as extras were the Shalkoskis (hooray!), Leila, Michael, Maura, Jim's pals, Max, Frank, and I'm probably forgetting someone, but we were able to arrange them so that it looked like a big group.  Stacey & Tony did another great job, sticking it to the neighbors, and it was even a lot of fun getting the murmuring sounds of the crowd.  We then shot the scene prior to it with Amy & Ken having an exchange about his yard sale purchase conquest that was really funny, and added to Ally's outrage and Mr. Franklin's utter sliminess.  Unless that was just Ken's utter sliminess.  He's very method, so it's hard to tell.

Whew.  That's it for the chunks.  I hope all of this makes sense and, I must confess, it's taken so long to chronicle all of this that we've even had a whole other shoot in the meantime, it's been eight days since the yard sale scene, so my memory is spottier and I'm probably leaving out too many important moments, especially the funny ones behind the scenes.  But because I don't want to be writing this particular day's blog still when we've wrapped the whole production (and also I think the photo section for this day fills in a lot of the blanks), I will begin my wrapping up soon.

Epilogue Chunks:  We took a good half-hour break (and finished cleaning up the yard) and then Rajah, Mark, Lou, Max & I began lighting for the great ambulance scene.  We were SO lucky to have Dan from Cataldo Ambulance generously donate the ambulance for two hours and he and his partner brought a level of expertise we could never have faked.  The lighting and the overhead shot that Rajah came up with: absolutely brilliant.  My jaw dropped when I saw it--one of the best shots in the film and I can't believe we got it.  I asked tons of questions about what would be the natural actions for taking someone away in the ambulance, and our Cataldo friends took us through the motions exactly.  Of course we had the issue of the stretcher being so new that it didn't want to collapse very easily, but Tony was the only one to feel the brunt of that jerkiness.  Sorry, Tony.  Hope you enjoyed all that extra oxygen!

So we shot quickly and thoroughly, and my God the footage impresses me.  We had a nighttime audience of the Shalkoskis, Sally from the paper, neighbors, etc. as the ambulance lights lit up the driveway and we shot the scene with Paul being carted away while Suzanne, Mitch, Ally, Todd, Renee, Victor, and Andy all watch in sadness and shock.  Stacey really wanted to do a shot that mirrored Rajah's inside-the-hearse shot, which was a very smart move, and the shot Rajah got from inside totally captures Suzanne's fear and her tender side, and the tension from the rest of the group over this unfortunate turn of events.  Though we had wrapped several of these actors before, it made it so much more authentic that everyone was there that night, and after it we did officially wrap Andy, Victor, and Renee (so sad!)

Many went home, some of us were too wired to leave, so Jim, Max, Rajah, Mark, Maura, Kevin, Stacey & I stood around for another hour and made weird jokes and had celebratory beers.  We earned it.  Everyone earned it that day--really our most memorable shoot.  Again, if your name is listed anywhere above, I thank you so much for making it so terrific.  And if your name isn't listed, but you were there...my bad.  Maybe you should have been more memorable.