So I’m looking at the forecast, again and again and again.

Our 40% chance of rain, jump to 60% and now sits at 70% for Saturday.  And 40% for Sunday.

Not feeling very witty at the moment.  Just hoping that low pressure system stalls out or shifts, even if only for a couple of hours.

There’s an hourly breakdown of chance of precipitation:

6 am   60%
7 am  70%
8 am  70%
9 am 50%
10 am 40%
11 am 40%
12 pm 40%

and that’s as far as they go hourly…  Maybe we’ll luck out and after noon the chance will drop to 30 or 20%.

So the question at this exact moment is, do we go and try and shoot, maybe squeeze a take in during a lull, knowing full well that it will be a lot of sitting around, and waiting for the weather to be right?  Do we just scrub the shooting day?  I am hating every minute of this.  And knowing we had perfect weather last weekend only makes this worse.

The rational side of me says, “If it rains, take the weekend and go get prepped for segment 3. It’s just one weekend…”  The emotional side of me screams “Screw that.  Get segment 2 done.”

Update
Something may actually go right.  The chances of rain have dropped back to 40% for Saturday…YAY!

Scene
Int: A small office desk in the middle of the night.

So I’m sitting going through the footage, finishing up the rough cut of Spring.  I wanted to get it ready to show the crew on Halloween.  Karen is asleep on the floor behind me.  She tries to stay awake and occasionally tries to answer a question.  The answers make no damn sense.  She’s sleep talking.  I keep asking questions, mostly for my own amusement.  “Should I use this take… or this one.  What do you think?”, I ask.  “Someone needs to drive the truck.” , she answers.  I wonder what she thinks I asked…

After about 4 hours, I decided to set spring aside, and take a look at some of the Summer footage, and as one thing lead to another, starting syncing up sound and video, which of course lead to me starting to edit the first scenes together.  And it all just looks so damn right.  Maybe Summer isn’t cursed.

It was apparently exactly what I needed to do.  It’s one thing to shoot and record a scene.  It’s all pieces.  Imagine trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, and you have to make each piece, and that’s about as close as you can get to it.  Sure you have a script and a storyboard, but those are just blue prints and once you get on location, they get downgraded from blueprints to guidelines.  There’s an organic process that goes on in between. It doesn’t actually become something until you start cutting it together.  And seeing where we are with it, and how it all flows together I’m in a much better mood.  I glance at the clock and  it’s 3:20.  Maybe it’s time for bed.

The forecast is still calling for a 40% chance of thunderstorms this Saturday.  But that’s a 60% chance for dry(ish) weather.  Still watching the forecast intensely, and hoping that I have more footage to edit together after this weekend.

Fingers crossed.

I’m not happy about having to stand in even colder water, but hey, I’m in waders.  Most of the crew just go in their shorts or jeans, and they tend to get right in.  And I’m pretty sure the next vacation anyone on the crew takes will be in a desert, where it’s hot and dry.  I hear Death Valley is nice this time of year.

I’ll be back to editing Spring together tonight.  I really want to watch it all the way through and check the pacing.  Then it will be round two, where it’s snip a few frames here and there, followed by a third round I’m sure.  But those few frames here and there matter.   There’s two pickup shots that need to be done for Spring, but those can be shot anytime.  By my math it’s roughly 1.5 hours of editing time for about one minute of screen time, and yeah, it’s about as much fun as dental work. But,  Trinka is just so damn fun to watch on screen.  I’m delighted to have gotten to work with her on this.

Sorry this is such an incoherent mess, my brain is having trouble staying on a single track today.

Scene
Int: A dimly lit office with no windows.

So the last major bit of filming for segment two was supposed to happen last weekend, when it was 77 degrees and sunshiny.  Now we’re planning on getting a lot done on this Saturday, and so far it’s not looking like this Saturday isn’t going to cooperate.  The forecast (at the moment) is calling for a forty percent chance of thunderstorms this Saturday, and Sunday.  So I’m anxiously checking the weather every few hours, and hoping something pushes the rain off at least one day.  Hell, I’ll settle for the rain being pushed off til Saturday night.

So don’t forget to go to http://www.weather.com and vote in the poll for “No Fucking Rain” this weekend:

If everything goes right this weekend we’ll only have one last scene to shoot.  If it doesn’t… well… I really don’t want to think about it.  Next weekend is Halloween, and then we’re in November.

On a lighter note, this marks the one year anniversary of beginning this project.  October of last year was when the first draft of the script was completed.  Granted we had 17 drafts of the script, but October of 2009 was the first.  The final draft was completed on April 4 of this year.  And another bit of  news, the Library of Congress sent us our official copyright this week for the screenplay.  So we’re all squared away with the paperwork.  Funny thing is, when you first apply for your copyright, you’re very excited.  Seven months later, when it arrives, you just open the mail and think “Wow, that took a long time.”  But we’re officially on file with the Library of Congress.

I know it’s not much of an update, but for right now all we can do is watch and wait.

Scene
Int: An office. Two people stare at a phone waiting for it to ring.

So they’ll be no filming done this weekend.  Two cast members had others things scheduled, but we knew that, and had  planned on shooting around that.  No biggie.  Then a third injured himself.  Scratched his eyeball.  We were waiting to see if he would be able to shoot.  We hoped he would.  There’s no swelling.  It looks bloodshot, but we can shoot the other side of his face and hide it, but the pain is unbearable.  And Karen knows how bad it can be.  A few years back, she got a paper cut on her cornea.  Actually sheered a small piece off.  If your done wincing over the thought of a paper cut on your eye… on with the show…

So next weekend is do or die weekend.  I have a knot in my stomach at the moment.  And to add insult to injury, I wound up missing a life-long friends birthday party because I had to wait for that phone call.

So now it’s 10:30… the party is nearly over.  Now, I get to sit and stew.

As I start to piece this all together, realizing that the finish line is in site, the delays just feel that much more intense.  It all boils down to getting everything but the very last scene done next weekend.  It’s either that or it’s time to make some real hard decisions.

Did I mention summer is fucking cursed?

At this moment, if we were on set, Nichole would just look at me, smile and excitedly say “Jaws!”

Deep breath.

Get everybody calmed down.

Don’t look at the clock, or the calendar for that matter.

Looks like we’ll take the weekend and start prepping to shoot Segment 3…

Scene
Ext: The Welkenford Access area, a scenic area along the Bourbeous river

So last week was all about prep work, and making all of our problems go away logistically, which involved a lot of effort, and a lot of shouting matches, and a lot of serious discussion.  I’m glad the cast isn’t privy to some of the behind the scenes stuff, because there really is a lot more drama behind the camera than in front of it.  So after some serious discussions and some hard decisions, and some very, very, very late nights (some ending past 4:00 am) we finally got all of our shit together to proceed.

Sunday rolls around, and while we had some folks show up late, and some extras that didn’t show at all (hey, it happens, and it’s not like I’m known for punctuality, so I ain’t throwing any stones), but we finally got moving again.  After the way the shooting day ended everyone seemed a bit deflated (more on that below).  But coming back to the house, and getting everything unpacked at around 1:00 am, we started pulling footage… and what we got was sublime.  There’s one scene we didn’t get to film all of, and one scene that will require a reshoot but 75% of what we shot was looking damn fine.  We are officially past the half way part.

And then there’s the trooper of the day.  A tiny girl of 19 named Chelsea.  Who showed up to be an extra (again!), and sat in makeup for an hour, so that she could stand in a freezing cold river,  go completely under water,  for one shot of her looking up directly into the camera.  The very definition of dedication.  I’m still amazed that she did it, not once, not twice, but five times.

So we set up for the first night shot, which was just two characters, and the performance was absolutely brilliant, until the fucking light died… GRRRRRR.  Issue #1 to deal with this week… reliable portable lighting…

We decided to skip to the next scene.  Which would be the last group scene with everyone in it.

Apparently there’s not much to do in Sullivan MO, because we’ve now run into drunks while shooting three separate occasions.  And I don’t mean guys going down to the river to enjoy a beer.  I mean sloppy, piss your pants, barely able to stand up drunk.  The first shooting day in Sullivan we ran into the first three, and they didn’t cause any problems… just wanted to see what we were up to.  I thought it was just a fluke.  This past Sunday, we ran into one drunk guy driving his jeep.  Though I’ll grant he was okay and didn’t cause any trouble, but I wouldn’t have asked him for a ride. He stuck around to see what we were up to, and wished us well when he left.

Then, of course, there was the hoosier in his piece of shit duelly who threw a hissy fit because we didn’t get a car moved fast enough for his liking.  He apparently is the kind of douche nozzle who thought it would be fun to go get a few of his inbred friends to come back, and then proceed to blare shitkicker music, and generally be a total fucktard by making absolutely sure we weren’t going to get any more shooting done.  T went over and had a brief discussion, they agreed to be quiet, which lead to Mike yelling “Quiet on the set.”, and they got quiet, then decided to start throwing rocks in the water…

We had three people in makeup, and were ready to shoot a blood bath of a scene.  But there was no shooting the lead in… So, we called it a day.

As soon as we started packing up, he left, but not before his buddy had a chance to spray some of the cast and I with gravel from his super bitchin’ Ford pickup truck.

Ah… the glamour of movie making….

I’m sure he spent today patting himself on the back, and joking with his friends about how cool he is, and how he went down to the river and fucked up the shooting of a movie.

But the footage we did get was all worth it (I hope the cast agrees when they get to see it all put together).  There are some great moments in there and it all looks great.  We have a replacement second camera person in Maria who has a great eye.  And we’re nearly back on schedule, but more importantly we have all of our big issues solved behind the camera, so while I knew this portion of the film was going to be a logistics nightmare, we can relax a little bit knowing that all of those issues have been addressed.  Now it’s just a matter of getting the rest in the can.

So for everything that went wrong, there was a lot that went right, and we’re slowly but surely getting this thing wrapped up.  All in all, a good bad day.  Or a bad good day… either way… I guess what really amazes me is to think this was only our fourth shooting day for this segment, though I’m sure the cast and crew feel like it’s been an eternity.

Scene
Int: The same kitchen

Yes everything was a mess last weekend, but I’ve hit my second wind.  Okay, it’s more like my seventh, but who’s counting.  Sorry about the lack of posts this week, but we’ve been using the time wisely, and prepping for a long shooting day.  It’s time to make up lost ground.

The upshot to having a bad filming day is you get an opportunity to redo the things you weren’t happy with…

That being said, we took the opportunity, and redid Oscar.  Don’t ask.

Anyways… here’s Oscar 2.0

and away we go…

Scene
Ext: A large VERY WINDY private lake.

Easily the most frustrating weekend since we’ve began.  As Karen (the trooper) put it “The summer cast had there ‘Walk to the Barn’ scene”.

Everything that could go wrong did.  We had to scrub Saturday, because, while the sun would peak out from time to time, the damn wind refused to let up, making every bit of audio absolutely useless.  It was like trying to shoot in a wind tunnel with a truck driving through.

Sunday looked beautiful.  It was nice and sunshiny, though cool.  Alright who the fuck am I kidding, it was down right cold.  The thermometer may have said 62, but the wind and the water made it feel like -20.  Just a fucking miserable day.

Then there was the seemingly constant airplanes.

I should have kept a running tally on how many times we were just getting ready to shoot, and just as we were about to roll, what sounded like the scream of a Messerschmidt had everybody relax into a slump.

And then just as the wind calmed down,and the water was smooth,  and the air traffic slowed, the gun fire had stopped, the extras were in makeup, and we had everybody, and everything across the lake, and the sun was setting beautifully in the distance …THE BAND started playing.  And you thought the fucking turkey was out of nowhere…

So, I did the only thing I could do.  I looked at the extras in zombie makeup, with the sun in perfect position, and I yelled action.  And each and every one of them delivered, in spades.  So no matter what happens, we have that scene in the can.  I like it so much, it may wind up being on our final poster.

And while we intended on shooting the one night scene for this segment this weekend, by the time the sun went down, I just couldn’t do it.  I’m standing on a muddy bank, looking at the cast that are all dressed in summer clothing, and the only thought that went through my mind was, “Fuck this, I’m done.  There’s no way I’m going to do this to these people.”  I was good and pissed at our seeming lack of progress, and I’m sure all of them were thinking the same thing: “Are we done yet?”

For anybody who thinks acting is an easy gig, try acting like you’re warm.

To my cast.  Thank you, thank  you thank you for all your hard work and I’m sorry.   this weekend was just shit.  And James, thanks for the directing juice.

I still have to go back and get the trailer and the truck…and we’ve lost Kelly til the end of October.

But the forecast for this weekend says its supposed to be partly sunny and 80 degrees.  Time to get back up, dust myself off and start swinging again…

Scene
Int: A dimly lit office, in the middle of the night.

First things first… Holy shit, that was fast.  We hit 500 readers 3 days ago and I thought that was a milestone, but we’re already over 600. So, hello everybody, and thanks for stopping by to read my ramblings as the show goes on, and even when it doesn’t.

Things have gone so well, that I actually don’t know what to write about today.  How’s that for a good week!  Next week they’ll be plenty to write about.  I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.  But this weekend it’s supposed to be kind of dry, somewhat sunshiny and almost warm, so it’s the best filming day we’ve had yet!   Hey, it’s just the kind of luck we have.  And we’re over it…

So I think I’ll dedicate this one to my mom, who has actually volunteered to be one of the zombies in the movie.  My dad has an allergy to latex, which pretty much put the kibosh on him making an appearance.  But, I will say, there’s something fun about talking your mom into being in a movie she would never actually watch.

Okay, let me rephrase that, because now, she has to watch it.  And then she has to confess to her friends “Yes, my son made …that…”  And then she’ll probably have to apologize.

I don’t mean that in a bad way.  She’s the person that introduced me to The Exorcist, and The Omen.  She definitely appreciates a good horror film. She’s also the reason I still watch black and white films, and the reason why I will stop whatever I’m doing if I find “The Razor’s Edge” with Tyrone Powers and Gene Tierney.  If you’ve never seen it, it’s a different kind of movie.  So much so, that it’s hard to fathom that it was made in 1946.  It’s really where I started to appreciate dark personal dramas.

For those not familiar with the movie, it’s about a World War One vet who comes back from the war, and starting in the roaring 20’s begins a search for meaning, which is scoffed at by his socialite friends.  It’s pretty much the juxtaposition of The Great Gatsby, not that there’s a lack of love for F. Scott Fitzgerald… but given the choice, I’ll take The Razor’s Edge.  It’s less mystery and more personal.

In a very tangible way, my mom is the reason this movie is written the way it is, and I can’t thank her enough for introducing me to some of the films I probably never would have watched if she hadn’t been my mom, and for shaping my sensibilities.

I hope when it’s all said and done, that the movie roots show through.  I hope people get it.  I hope she gets it.

Alright.  I’ve rambled enough, but hey, it’s cheaper than therapy…

What? You think I didn’t realize it was Tuesday, and I needed to do a blog post?  Having hit our 500th reader (in just 20 days no less) how could I not.  So to the folks out there following this, a big hello and thanks!

Scene
Int: A 100 year old barn, surrounded on three sides by trees, nearly completely isolating it.

When things don’t go right… like this past weekend… I tend to look backwards, and occasionally need my rose colored glasses smacked off my head.  Fortunately there are multiple volunteers for the job.  So as I stand in the middle of the nondistinct kitchen, upset with all the shit that kept us from filming this past weekend, and as I start to wax on poetically about filming the first segment of the movie, I can almost hear the whoosh of 4 hands swinging back, cocking in preparation to knock those  rose colored shades off.

It’s a weird thing.  When you’re out there in the 100 degree heat, and the humidity is 70%, and you’re in a giant barn ( that took a month longer to find than you expected)  with no air conditioning, it sucks every bit as much as it sounds.  The only thing that sucks more is when it starts to cool down at night, and then, when it hits the dew point, everything is soaked. You forget about being up for nearly 24 hours straight, or not getting a chance to eat one day or the three weeks it took to clean the barn out and get it ready for filming. The 25 bails of loose hay that had to be removed.  The poison ivy.  The damned gopher that would make fresh new holes that  needed to be filled in every week inside the barn.  Walking across that field 30+ times.

As The Mike would say,: “I love shooting, I just hate all the bullshit you have to do before you start filming.”, which I think sums it up perfectly.

Don’t get me wrong.  The crew isn’t a bunch of crabby people.  (I’m crabby, but only on Thursdays.)  When they see the rough edits, they all agree, all the bullshit was worth the effort.  They, like me, would just like one shoot to happen that didn’t have all the headaches.  I hold out segment three of the film like a carrot.  Reminding them that it’s one location, and indoors, with air-conditioning.  Weather won’t matter.  Heat won’t matter.  It will be a nice leisurely shoot.  This is right before I remind them that the big challenge, segment four and the fun that the winter shoots will be.  (I can almost hear the hands whooshing)

And let’s not forget the funny moments… like Dennis going into the gas station, and forgetting to take his prop gun out of his holster.  Or Trinka, at the same gas station a week later with a giant black eye make-up and wanting to see how real it looked, so she decided to act like a battered woman.  Chris’ coffee cup confession, and Joe who can fall asleep sitting up, but you don’t have to worry about it until promptly at 3:00 am.  All of them were a blast to have on set.  The behind the scenes footage is priceless!  They had the tough job.  Helping set the tone and the pace, and I really think that’s the key to this movie.

When you’re reviewing the footage, and editing it all together you seem to forget just how much bullshit was involved in getting that footage, and all that’s left is the sunny after glow.  The people making this with me care, and it shows.

So a big shout out  to Trinka, who really did give it her all every time she showed up on set, and Joe and Dennis and Chris who spent all those nights out in that field, hoping to hear that magic phrase “Moving On!” take after take after take.  And especially to Stan.  Who spent two hours getting put into makeup each time before we shot, and then put on quite possibly the stinkiest wardrobe in the history of film.  I know you guys haven’t seen the footage yet, and I hope when you do that you’ll agree with everyone else that is was worth it.

So for now, as much as I want to be out shooting the rest of segment two, I’ll be content to finish editing part one, and hoping everything goes right this coming weekend.

Scene
Int: A darkened office in the middle of the night.

I’m learning to hate Thursdays.

Fridays are the day you spend running around with your head on fire.  You have so much to do, that you don’t have time to think about what your doing.  That’s what Thursdays are for.  It’s the weekly dousing yourself in gasoline.

It’s not a coincidence that I’m writing this at 3:44 in the morning.  It’s also not a coincidence that I’ve had my weekly hyperventilating, full on spaz attack freak out. I’m not an arguer by nature.  I don’t actively seek out conflict.  I’m a orderly kind of guy.  And that’s what makes Thursdays so hard.  It’s getting everything ready for everybody, and making sure we have everything we are going to need when we get there on Saturday to get started.

I’m not big on anger, but I am particularly susceptible to frustration.  That’s the one that gets me to raise my voice.  It’s not a yell.  It’s more like a plea. I hope they know I’m not yelling at them.  I’m venting.  It’s either that or an aneurysm.

A place for everything and everything in its place… It’s one of those life lessons my father drilled into me.

I hate putting anything off until the last minute.  I hate not having a plan.  I hate not knowing exactly what we’re setting out to do, and roughly how long it should take to get done.  I know I suck at getting to places on time, but once I get there I want to know exactly what steps A, B C, and D are.  I’ll probably always need to work on my punctuality.  Sorry in advance.

But, I also realize that for this all to work, and turn out well, that we all have to know exactly what’s happening and when.  Planning is vital.  And I’m sure to some of the folks on the crew, I seem a bit obsessive about it. (I’m sure some of the cast have noticed too.) If they wonder why I’ll always look exhausted when we shoot, this is why…

When I get everybody to the location I only want them to focus on what’s happening in front of the cameras, and not worrying about  “how are we going to do this with that…”

When I have those “off in my own little world moments”, it’s normally me taking mental inventory.

So far everything has worked out.  I really should learn to relax a little bit, and enjoy the ride.  I really should trust the folks on the crew better than I do.  I know they know what’s expected, and I know they know how to get it done.  It’s just their process doesn’t always dovetail into my process, and that’s the source of the frustration.  I know they want everything to go right too.

And I know after reviewing last weekends footage, that this is turning out spledidly.  I really couldn’t ask for a better cast.  It may have sounded like I was gushing a bit in the earlier blog post, but the performances are really wonderful, thoughtful and nuanced.  It’s a rare thing, to go back after the adrenaline has cooked off and see that what you have on film really is as good as you thought it was, and the credit is all theirs. Nichole, James, Ben, Derek, Colby, Benton, Elysse and Melanie take a bow.

And then there’s the moments like these, when I’ve had my mental meltdown.  And after being talked down, realize that the situation is never as dire as I thought, and I feel like an ass.  The apologies really are sincere, but I always feel like they’re inadequate.

When all is said and done, we’ll shoot what we can shoot, and I know that it will turn out wonderfully.

Like I said.  I’m learning to hate Thursdays.  I hope the crew doesn’t learn to hate Thursdays too.

I said warts and all.  Well, here’s a wart.

Scene
Ext: A calm river with a large picturesque sandstone rockface.

The only thing that matches how sore I am today, is how absolutely happy I am.

Not only did we shoot everything we wanted to get done on Sunday, we actually managed to get everything we missed on Saturday too.  The entire cast brought their A-game, and all my worries about the speedy recasting and “is this going to work” went right out the window…

I’m glowing with a sense of relief and awe.  They each brought a full sense of every character to the table, and that’s really what this segment of the film needed.  I didn’t want ciphers or one dimensional characters, and every single cast member really put heart and soul into their roles.  You can tell that each of them really thought about who their character was, and there was some improv additions that really showed the attention to detail all of them put in.  You can’t appreciate just how much work they put in until you meet the real person, and then see the person they become when you yell “ACTION!”

Sure we had our share of problems:

Running late in the morning, though we started at 4:00 AM.  Not being able to turn the trailer with the canoes around on a one lane gravel road.  Getting started later than I wanted.  Rain.  My horrible sense of direction. Almost hitting a fucking turkey on the road.  (You can’t make this shit up!  I have 3 lovely witnesses!) The drunk guys who wandered to where we were shooting, and decided to stick around for a few hours.

And despite all that, we managed to get it all done, and get caught up to boot.  Sullivan Missouri is postcard perfect, and it was worth every minute of the drive.

More on all this later.  I’m so damn sore from crawling on the ground with a camera I can barely move.

Scene
Multiple Int: A kitchen, an office, the interior of a truck

A furious night of activity and no sleep.

We knew we were going to be a crew member short, so everyone was in full scramble mode.  We had issues with the trailer, as the one we had has an old electrical hookup and we had to have an adapter.  Let the quest begin!  So after feverishly searching every auto parts store in the area until they all closed, we were left with the problem of how to get 4 canoes, and props and wardrobe, and cast, and crew all to our location without a trailer.  It just isn’t possible.

I swear, Summer is cursed…

And then, at 10:15 we got the call that changed everything.  Another cast member that we had to replace, or loose shooting Sunday, and next weekend too.  Not doable.  More decisions to be made.  Thankfully we hadn’t started shooting, and we don’t have to decide whether or not to throw the footage out, and start over.  There’s nothing worse than having to start over.  Inertia is a bitch.

Thankfully, we really did cast 2 deep, and Colby is more than happy to step up with next to no notice.  Maybe… possibly…

A call to U-Haul.  Scramble, scramble, scramble.  And finally an answer.  The closest trailer…. North of Hannibal.

A desperate drive to Foristell. A no name hole in the wall auto parts place.  Holy Shit… they have the adapter…. and we have the trailer…. and it’s 10:00 AM.  FUCK!

Two hours drive time gets us there at noon, and one of our cast members has a prior commitment for early in the evening.  An hour for first setup… and we’re at 1:00…. 3.5 hours of shooting time….. Four hours of driving for 3.5 hours of filming, which will be edited down to about 7 minutes.  Maybe as much as 9.  Cursed I Say!

So all of us exhausted finally have the conversation.  Our first day of shooting Summer is a bust.  Call the cast!  STOP!  We’ll explain later.  Phone calls x 8.  Yee ha!

Movie making is about more than pointing a camera, and then putting people up on a screen.  It’s about problem solving,  and everything is a problem.  The crew already knows this.  There’s nothing glamorous about sweating your ass off for 13 hours, or bug bites, or poison ivy, or eating a meal in 5 minutes in between shots or being so exhausted you fall asleep sitting up in a restaurant booth waiting for breakfast after shooting all night long.  This is what it takes to make a movie.  Well, this movie.  And  I appreciate my cast and crew more and more every day we shoot, and even some of the days we don’t.

I’m on hour 21 with no sleep.  Mike’s behind me strumming away on Robert’s prop guitar, sipping coffee.  Everything went wrong.  We called the shoot off for today.  And everything’s alright… until tomorrow.

Scene
Int: A funeral home.  Lots of people standing around, politely, awkwardly chit-chatting. The groups are in constant flux, shifting from one area to another.

Strange day.  One of our neighbors passed away, after a long fight with multiple health issues brought on by a stroke several years ago.  His last few months sound nightmarish.  In between the canned exchanges, and details of his last days, I can’t help but feel a little dirty.  When people ask, “What have you been up to?” I smile and dodge the question as artfully as possible.  You can’t really just blurt out “I’m making a zombie movie!” at a funeral.  Well, you can, but I won’t.

I’ve always thought fondly of the family.  You can’t not see the loss etched all over each of their faces, and can’t help but admire the fact that you know none of them will grieve until they can do it privately.  There won’t be any crying here.  Maybe a fist fight, but no crying.   That’s just the kind of people they are.  For now, it’s all smiles, and handshakes and hugs and platitudes.  Cindy leans close and confesses, “I can’t wait until all these people leave.”  Her eyes are glassy, but she sucks it up and greets the next group.  It’s hard to watch.

It strikes me that funeral homes are strange places.  The walls, carpet, and upholstery are all conspicuously designed to not draw attention to themselves.  Convienently there, but not, just like a lot of the people in the room. They want to make sure your focus is right there… dead center.  Yet, everyone chats like there’s nothing strange about any of this, and nobody actually talks about it like it’s real.

There is an elephant in the room.

Scene
Int: A yellow hotel conference room.  The room is packed from one end to the other with people, most of whom have price tags hanging off their clothing in one spot or another.

So with all the recasting that had to happen, we decided to do another table read to coincide with our wardrobe check.   We have all the roles filled with only one minor casting hitch that had to been ironed out.  But at last that is sorted, and we’re back to the races.

Justin (our make up guy) came over last night, and we’ve gone through the shooting schedule to make sure he has all the materials he needs.  Seeing Justin always makes me happy.  It’s kind of a confirmation that we really are going to be shooting.    We discuss the differences between this segment and the previous.  With the first portion of the film, he had to be able to do one makeup over and over, and consistently, so that it wouldn’t screw up continuity, which entails a unique set of problems.  Now we go completely the other direction, where no makeup will appear on film more than once, but he has a lot of them to do in a limited time.  Naturally it has it’s own set of hurdles, but I’m confident we’ll make it happen just fine.  Karen feeds us fajitas.  The steak is kind of tough, but Justin eats without complaint…  But that’s Justin.  Scariest looking nice guy in the world.

I show him a rough cut of one of the scenes from Spring.  The smile on his face makes every piercing stand at attention.  He’s pleased, and he can’t hide it.  This is a good sign!

And while all that is happening, I’m working on the full version of the website, and deciding which items will be going live and in what order.  I like what we have so far, but it needs something.  That one last poke in the face.

I knew the second portion of the film was going to be a logistical nightmare, and it is…

A couple of items need to be adjusted, but we’re finally there.  And with filming finally getting under way this weekend… the chaos really begins.  But it’s a chaos that I enjoy.  There is one upside to all of this, and that is we’re no longer racing deadlines.  We can actually relax a bit and shoot without worrying about anybody on the cast leaving the state before we’re done.

While all this goes on, Karen comes to me, and asks a question about the movie… It’s a question I can’t answer, which is odd for me.  I’m a rationalizer by nature, and when I don’t have an answer, I tend to try and think myself through a question (normally out loud) .

“How do you plan on shooting this?”, is the question.  “Have you looked at the storyboards?” I return.  “Yes.”…  She still looks confused.  I can almost hear my subconscious mutter, “Oh shit!”  I thought it was pretty obvious.

SCENE
INT: A kitchen with a computer desk in the corner, late in the day.

A cell phone sitting on a computer desk rings.  A woman answers the phone… disappointment furrows her brow.

So, we finally heard back from our cast member who was in the auto accident.  And it wasn’t good… He will not be physically able to play the role.  And I can’t imagine anyone else in the role.  Which hit the next domino, and we are going to lose another cast member.  So the worst has actually happened.

And while I can’t do anything about this, I can’t help but feel profoundly sorry.  The Russians have a word for this:  Nichevo, which translates into “it can’t be helped.” , which is pretty fascinating if you think about it.  A culture with a history so frought with misfortune, that they have a single word to express the idea of  “You’re fucked. Get over it….”

The upshot, we planned ahead, and we have picked replacements already.  Now all they have to do is go through the script, and be ready to roll when everyone else is.  No pressure guys!

So we proceed to a full table read, just so I can see how everybody gels as a group and as subgroups, and get everybody fit for their wardrobe.  I also want to give as much direction as possible here, so they know what I’m expecting, and we can save shooting time.

And thanks to Karen’s fabulous brain for pointing out something to me.  If we start and everything is green and sunshiny, and as we progress the trees start to turn, it makes their journey seem even longer, and it leads nicely into part 3.  I’d kiss her brain if her skull wouldn’t get in the way.

Yeah, I could have changed the title, but “Hello world!” just felt right.  Welcome to the warts and all, blow by blow production blog for The Year After Infection.

We join our heroes, right after they have completed principle photography on the first segment of the film.  And after many hassles, trips, vacations, holidays etc., they gear up to tackle part two.  Things aren’t quite going  as planned, and we’ve had some colossal hurdles to jump, but at long long last, we are getting the last details together to start filming again.

Scene
INT: Dusk.
We open in a kitchen in a non-distinct house in suburban Missouri. Four people, two men, two women, stand around an island in the kitchen drinking coffee, smoking, and debating exactly what happens next, and when it happens.  It’s obvious to look at them that none of them have gotten a lot of rest recently…

Due to running long filming spring, we lost one cast member, and due to an auto accident we may be loosing another, which will, in true domino effect fashion, cause us to lose a third.  Happy is not a place I’m visiting right now…  I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a lot of things, but we’ve already scheduled a casting call and did some reads just in case.  I just wish there was more we could do about it, but, at the end of the day,  it is what it is.

As we gear up to get all of the wardrobe and props and makeup together for shooting, the casting dilemma has left us in a buy two, and hopefully return one, frenzy.  But everybody is upbeat.  Hopefully part three will go smoother, if we can just avoid any further delays.  Oh please don’t let there be any delays.  In the back of my head, DELAY is a super villian, who waits around corners near sunny streets with a roll of duct tape and a lead pipe, itching to crack you over the head as you stroll by and usually only on good days.

It appears we have everything sorted, and now all we have to do is race the weather.  Standing in a freezing river holding a camera is not real high on my list of things to do…And we can’t really have orange trees in the background and maintain the appropriate theme…And it looks like it’s going to be an early fall this year.

The upside is spring is editing together wonderfully, and I really couldn’t be much happier with where we wound up.  The performances are great, the footage looks wonderful.  I can’t wait to get everyone together and let them see the rough cut, so they can see where all the work they put in went.

I always intended to start blogging much sooner than this, but waited until now, because the prep work is really pretty boring stuff.  What’s involved in making 1500 feet of fake barb wire  just really doesn’t  scream “READ ME!”  I’ll just go ahead and spoil it for you… A couple of weeks and about four times what it costs for real barb wire… But, now we’re actually to something worth writing about, and there is actually a glimmer at the end of the tunnel, so I feel comfortable writing about it now.  There’s the part of me that thinks…”Great!  Just what the world needed.  Another indie film production blog.”  I ultimately decided that what I wanted to do was write what I was thinking it, while this process moves forward.

So.  Anyway…  Here goes…