Day 5...A VERY Long, Good Day

Day 5: We had a beautiful, very long day, culminating in the Burning of Papers...I shall not tell you which papers for fear of SPOILERS :) Our male lead worked...and worked ...and worked in every scene. It must have been quite exhausting, but he never ever showed it, or complained. He is not only absolutely brilliant, a thinker, and a very hard and uncomplaining worker, he is also a mensch. Our lovely, smart, warm-hearted, and funny female lead absolutely shone in her scenes. I may need to just write that every day, because she is such a godsend to this movie... Some of the pictured crew are Camera Department folk. The grinning woman is Alisa Tyrrill, our D.P. The guy with the lens cap in his mouth is Ryan Brown, 1st A.C. - he who designed our monitor Mints Display. The Bearded Wonder is Mike Astle, our Gaffer. And in the back is Niall James, the Tall and Mighty Key Grip. The MoVi operator had to chase after our male lead up and down stairs at the end of the day...and did it brilliantly. The pretty lady with the lovely Astle child in her lap is Nancy Leonardi, our Lead Hair of Awesomeness. Our little indie feature, like every indie feature, lives and dies on the creative abilities of the entire cast and crew. Every day, we have hundreds of small questions, problems, and processes to be answered, solved and created. We put in months (and in Larry's and my case, 5 years or so...) of planning. But, sometimes, when humans plan, the angels laugh. A day you are supposed to shoot a garden party, the sky opens up with rain. Or, weather strands an actor in Boston due to flooding and flight delays and you must recast on the night before the scene will be filmed (thank God we got a great actor due to quick thinking by our incredible casting directors!)! We all have to stay on our toes. We have to be opportunistic problem-solvers, always on the look-out for solutions. Additionally, we all have to look out for ways to be efficient, economical, and elegant with our resources - cause we’re a little indie film. This morning, our excellent sound guy, Bob Marts, came to me with a great suggestion. Let me give you some context: we have some voice-overs that we need to record while our fabulous stars are in Seattle filming. But, every day we are on set filming, so of course there’s no time to go into a recording studio. A problem in need of a solution. Well, Bob solved it. Turns out, the crawlspace of the house that we are using for a scene also has marvelous acoustics. (Thank you insulation!) So, four of us, Carli Plute, our Boom Operator, Script Supervisor Andy Spletzer, our female lead, and I, trooped down to the crawlspace and jammed into our impromptu recording studio, and knocking out several crucial different voice-overs in a very few minutes. Efficient, economical, and elegant. Go Bob! And then there is Vicky Berglund-Davenport, our utterly brilliant Locations Manager. A genius at this incredibly-hard job. When you don’t have a big studio budget to build a sound stage to order, production relies on Locations to discover and secure just the right space to place the story. It was a special challenge to find all of our locations within a few miles of each other. The location that proved the toughest nut to crack was the home that would be the setting for the Marlow family in 1962. After many many....mannnnyyy weeks of scouting, and after trying out over ten different houses, Vicky found just the right spot. How does she do it? “I look at the outsides of houses and try to imagine the inside based on the outside. Then, I get some help from the Office of Film and Music, contact the resident, and ask.” Finding one house that fulfilled all the needs of our story was an epic search. But, our 1962 house has been found! I love the floors, the colors, the little bedroom that will house our young lead. The kitchen retains exactly the period look we need. The garden, ragged and overgrown, helps to tell the story of this family beset with larger concerns that pruning and weeding. We had been sweating bullets on this one, so today we are all filled with relief! And when we feel joy on set, we do have a 30-second Dance Party. 1962 has been saved, people! Get your groove on!