Day 37.  A night of so many top secret plot twists, that what the hell can I actually blog about?  We made Amy eat lamb shanks.  The end.

OK, I probably can say more than that.  But forgive the vagueness--so much of the night (like the Finale day on the Cape) would reveal too much.  I can say that the location was secured by Lou a long time ago, and we are so thankful to have been able to use the space.  It was absolutely perfect.  We couldn't have one custom designed better. 

Our preproduction for this night was intense and I have to give huge thanks to Stacey for storyboarding so much better than I do, helping me organize the schedule, and taking on the huge headache of capturing footage and burning onto a DVD.  That's our own personal hell, and of course by "our," I mean Stacey's, because I always find something much more pressing to do when it's time to physically transfer footage onto a DVD (I'm pretty sure the kitchen table needed an awful lot of wiping that night).  In addition, Maura was a huge help for the shoot, stepping in when Rajah was not going to be able to make it, and she and I went through all of Stacey's storyboards and came up with the best ways to shoot what we intended.  In the end, Rajah did make himself available for the shoot, which was great because we were able to get really dramatic visuals for crucially visual scenes for the beginning, climax, and end of the movie--which was absolutely a team effort by Stacey and Maura's initial lighting set-up, and Rajah's perfectionist tweaking and shots so that our collaborative vision was totally achieved.  Hey, did you know I'm a perfectionist too?  It's in the paper, so it's true (much to the surprise of everyone I work with everywhere).

Since I seem to be structuring this blog more along the "starting with the shout-outs" method, I also need to really thank Lou for this bulls-eye of a location, and to Mark for running through all of it in advance with Maura, Stacey, and me.  We were super prepared, and I think it's why things went so smoothly.  Jim rearranged his schedule at the last minute to be available for the shoot and Amy went through our punishing night of shanks and other things like a trooper.  Basically everyone is great.

Maura, Mark, Stacey & I met in the morning for breakfast at a series of closed-down restaurants.  It was funny for the first few, and then kinda annoying by the time we got to #5.  But there we were at Friendly's, talking storyboards and script rewrites, though our comedy-of-errors breakfast trip took so long that we were now working off the lunch menu.  After we finished, the four of us had some time to kill before Lou arrived in town, so we found a field by a schoolyard and soaked up the sun.  I soaked up the shade.  It was a relaxing and probably therapeutic way to start the shoot.

We met the Bert and got to the location.  It was perfect.  Stacey & Maura immediately began monkeying with the lights, Lou & I worked on connecting the DVD player and other nonsense, Mark set up equipment...we worked like lightning.  By the time, Amy arrived, we were essentially G2G.  We began with the aforementioned "lamb shank" scene, which went great.  Rajah arrived and we moved onto a series of shots that were actually envisioned way back in April on the Cape when Tony, Stacey, & Maura came up with a new and improved way to start off the movie.  Jim & Mark also came up with some good ideas with how to start--ultimately we opted for the other way, because it will really grab the viewer.  All ideas in brainstorming are valid, except my version that was in the script which was terrible like I am.  We were able to get rid of the completely unnecessary voiceover--rule #1 in basic screenwriting, as it is.

The opening shots are absolutely terrific.  Again, the execution is due to some really great work by Rajah, Maura, and Stacey, and no small amount of patience on Amy's part.  They are so important to the movie because they need to convey one thing in the opening, and yet make sense in a completely different context for the climax of the film.  We definitely nailed it.

For the whole night we ended up shooting a lot more efficiently (and getting a lot more coverage) than I think I intended, because with each different set-up it made sense to shoot moments from each scene from that vantage point.  We got the DVD running, and moved onto some great revealing shots, the always-favorite Suzanne moment, and a bunch of other stuff I just can't say.  We tried doing a dolly shot with the wheelchair, but it didn't work.  Rajah insisted doing a dutch angle (we should drink every time he suggests a dutch angle) and a very slow zoom (drink every time I tell him we're not going to be zooming).  However, he did the zoom, and I must say it looked pretty good.  For safety, Stacey tried a 1-2-3 series of widening shots, and I gave a handheld version a try as well.  Mark also had a really good idea about dollying in, zooming out that he wasn't happy with, but I'm glad overall we tried for this important scene a variety of dramatic ways to do it.

Oh, the cake!  I forgot about the cake.  It had been around for months--in Amy's house, Tom's dad's house, Maura's house, our house, and now at its final resting place.  There was some really funky mold going on in it.

We then finished up with a series of very dramatic shots that would be used in a very important sequence, in which I had Amy run the gamut of expressions.  She did an excellent job, and I know it's going to cut together really well with the other important shots in that series.  Again, we had a total success.

Then we made Amy & Jim move a couch several times because it was fun to watch them lift heavy things...oh, and it was part of the script.  I'm really not that sadistic (lamb shanks and hot dogs aside).  After that, Stacey had the brilliant suggestion to shoot some fun moments for the Space Invaders show that could be used as part of the "finishing touches" shots they always have on those shows.  Having Mitch & Ally rack up balls on a pool table then high five, place pillows and a blanket (say it like Jim) on a couch and then collapse on it very cheesily, place a Giggle sign up on the wall, etc. etc. it was the perfect way to end the night.  It was fun, the two of them had a great time doing it, and it's going to be even more fun editing that stuff into the final film.

So we called it a night as we tiptoed out and drove off into the moonlight which was, incidentally, not green at all.