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…