Click here forpictures!

Day 8 was our best day ever, and that goes for both films.  And it's in competition with a lot of great, great days, mind you.  But it was just so good.  How good?  It was that kind of good that makes every day between that shoot and the next seem like a painful eternity.  Instead of nervously watching the days fly by and feeling unprepared for the subsequent weekend, our Day 7 and Day 8 shoots were so good that I just want to get back to the location and start that camera a-going!  You know, after Rajah lights things for approximately 17 hours.

To start with, here are the stats on Saturday:

• Crew time: 8:30 AM.  Tom, Stacey, Lou, Mike, Max (a new awesome addition to the family) and I were there.  Bleary-eyed, yes.  But we had Dunkin' Donuts munchkins (from a quaint little coffee shop near our house)  and the drive to succeed.  It was an assortment of Munchkins.  Stacey likes jelly munchkins though she doesn't like jelly donuts.  Mike likes custard munchkins, which I'm pretty sure is made up.  I complained that my first munchkin was a bit dry.  Stacey guessed it might be plain-flavored (which of course is not a flavor, but the absence of one).  But you know what?  It wasn't plain.  It was powdered.  So to everyone who saw my black pants that day, I hope that answers some questions re: my blow habit.
• Arrivals:  Mark came all gussied up in black, Maura came with her camera, Mike started playing around with lavs--and Rajah helped troubleshoot--Stacey, Lou, and Max began making macaroni n' cheese, meatballs, buffalo wings, etc. etc.    Frank came at some point and probably apologized for something.  And I immediately starting shouting orders like the dictator that I am (a dictator that greatly resembled Mr. Pink that day).
• Cast time:  10:00 AM.  Our cast started trickling in, all wearing black for the big Wake scenes we were shooting.  We had Jim (Mitch), Stacey (Suzanne), Kevin (Victor), Mark (Todd), Leila (Renee), Johanna (Jennifer), Alex (Mr. Garrity), Lucy (Gail), Paul (Bill), Robyn (Julie), Michael (Andy), Sari (Dina), and apparently George Clooney (Smitty Jones) is making a cameo in the film too.  It was a top-notch acting day.  The toppest of notches!  I can't say enough about how good it was, and certainly not in this already expanding bulleted item.

In fact, I'm breaking the bullet form because it's too hard to manage for our best day ever.  Did I mention that it was?  Everything just went perfectly--beyond perfect--and everyone and everything: the cast, the crew, the extras, the location, the props, the food, the equipment, etc. was fun, performed perfectly, and helped us get terrific footage.

Lou did a great job getting us a very good selection of extras who served us very well throughout the day, and helped make the whole wake sequence believable.  We started the say with a big wide shot from up on the balcony that looked so great, and everyone except Kevin Cirone was terrific in it.  From there, Kevin & Jim got to perform the intro to the wake sequence which is a tricky, tricky one to pull off because it's one line that is a huge punchline in the script, and a huge downer in what it reveals.  But it came off flawlessly!

Then we moved to the kitchen where Stacey and Lucy had their kitchen scene, and Lucy nailed Gail's complete insensitivity and narcissism hilariously.  Meanwhile, Sari as Dina was so focused rearranging...a fruit that I cannot for the life of me think of.  Persimmon?  Yes, let's go with that.  And Robyn and our two extra special extras, Jim & Alex, improvised a discussion in the background that had us all entertained.

The third scene was the last shoot for Alex C. as Mr. Garrity in his tour-de-force as a schmuck royale, joined by Kevin & Johanna.  The scene was fantastic, and the timing these guys had together was so, so good!  Then Paul got to punch out Alex in the background which was just excellent, especially after Lou pointed out a minor detail with Alex putting his arm on Paul's shoulder which made all the difference in the world.

Next we moved on to the food layout with Mark, Leila, Michael, and George Clooney performing in the scene that has one of the best visual jokes of the film (a certain awesome surprise that was initially designed by Stacey, created terrifically by Amy, and everyone on the set thought was amazing), and the one joke that makes me laugh no matter how many times I hear it.  I don't want to ruin either--suffice to say that this scene has three lines and between the great acting by Mark & Leila, the great cameos by Guy Who Likes Meatballs and Guy Who Likes Pretzels, and the fantastic tracking shot of the food, donated by cast and crew alike, and the super surprise at the end of the tracking shot...it was as perfect a moment as one can get.

Or at least that's what I thought until we got ready for the next scene.  Now to catch you up to speed a little, at this point it was about 4:00 in the afternoon and many of us hit a wall.  Those of us that were working Friday night too, were probably even doubly exhausted.  Stacey, Jim and I went downstairs to the set and they rehearsed their dramatic scene, which I've seen them practice before, but this time it was just tremendous.  I brought Rajah quickly over and showed him the scene as they performed it again, and he got excited about where we could put the camera, and how great the scene was going to be.  Then we set up the shot and it got even more ridiculously exciting because Rajah came up with some lighting and shots that were by far the most creative and cool-looking we've had to date.  And then they actually performed the scene and it was even more magical than before.  At least three or four of us teared up, and some wondered why we would even do additional takes--it was that good.  My favorite scene I've ever been a part of, and I look forward to topping it with even better ones in the future (though they've got their work cut out for them).  Then everyone's stomachs started a grumbling chorus which I've found tends to always happen during the most dramatic scenes ever.

I've probably left out dozens and dozens of things about Saturday's shoot, and I really could have paragraphs about each actor's excellent performance that day, each crew member's hard work and creative contributions, and even a list of everything that just clicked for us that made Saturday so special.  If you were there that day, I thank you for making it beyond perfect, and I cannot wait for the next two weeks of shoots--our surprise party scenes this Saturday, and the dinner party scene the following weekend.  They are going to be even more excellent, if that's possible.

Ugh.  I don't think I had one joke in this blog.  I'll end on one.  My original blog title was going to be Strawberry Shortcake Is Making a #2.  If you flip through the pictures, you'll see why.  That's all I got.