Day 6, Hot on the Mat and a Jib Shot!

We were in the crawlspace again this morning - this time for an actual scene, not only voice-over recording. The crawlspace in our 1993-era house is a well-insulated 4’ by 10’ room, beautifully dressed by the Art Department to contain the detritus of our lead character, Charles’, entire lifetime. We dive deep into the Jungian mysteries of Charles' subconcious with this visual metaphor of the memories and feelings that he has squirreled away in the closet of his mind. In the scene, the utterly astonishing Ashley Zukerman, our Charles, does a deep soulful dive into the character’s past. AND, he manages to do it crammed into a small hot box with a big camera, a boom mic, our D.P., and our boom operator, Taylor Delph. Talk about talent! The glorious Kevin Alejandro arrived on set today for his ONE scene. I always love working with Kevin, whom discerning Geeks and Neil Gaiman fans know as Detective Dan Espinoza on "Lucifer". Kevin stars in our movie, "West of Redemption", which, to Larry's and my joy, will be coming out very soon! Kevin is a wonderful actor, which I why I was over the moon that he was willing to come up from LA for just ONE DAY to be in this movie. In "West of Redemption" he plays a tortured, soulful, returning veteran. But, today, he played a hunky Aikido master who delivers one of the key messages our lead characters need to hear. And we all had much fun! A Sound Moment: at 5pm today, the sound gremlins attacked. In the space of one two-minute shot, the intense summer heat fried a crew member's cell phone, and it called one of her contacts, on speaker, during a take. How often does that happen? As soon as she managed to turn it off, a neighborhood dog began howling. (A very large neighborhood dog, by the sound of it.) Not to be out-done, ALL the other neighborhood dogs began howling in response. There was a plane, a helicopter, and briefly, a garbage truck, as well, adding to the symphony. Thankfully, the shot was an insert of hands. No lines, just hands writing. Someone was watching out for us today for sure. And...we shot the end of the movie today. We still have four weeks of filming, but, today, we got to the end. It’s unusual to shoot the end first, but it’s really great for us. We are editing as we go on this one, and having shot the end, we know where we are headed. It will help guide all our choices. Today we also got to do our one, glorious, jib shot. If you ever watch the movie, you will know which one it is *grin* Hotness!! Our brilliant, stunning, and huge-hearted female lead Sarah Shahi rehearsing a stunt on the mat with Alex Terzieff, our Stunt Coordinator. (Everyone loves Alex, he is the best of the best, and we feel very very grateful to have him with us:) And a shot of me directing Kieran Walton, our "Cody" and Ashley Zukerman, our astonishing male lead, and Randy Suhr, our First A.D. Alex Terzieff, and Yours Truly, and Kevin Alejandro, in a gi, learning his stunt on the mat. And Shawn Shelton, Special Effects Makeup Supervisor, and Carol Roscoe, the star of our movie "The Dark Horse", and, unbelievably, my assistant on this one. I am so very lucky. And Carlos...what can I say, it was hot...