Ext:
Vandalia, IL

A wet, nasty, cloudy day.  Just chilly enough to be uncomfortable, but not quite cold.  I think Yucky is the correct meteorological term.  It was an intentional late start.  We only had some pickup shots to do for the kitchen scene, and one last nighttime exterior scene.  Not exactly a full plate, but it was the last bits we needed to wrap Winter up.

We got there late, and we started slow.  Nobody was really in a hurry.  It was Julian’s last shooting day.

I’m gonna take a minute and gush here.  Julian is a director’s dream.  Eager to get going, but willing to follow the pace.  Knows his dialogue and his part from top to bottom, so you can switch gears, or change your mind as you need to.  Quiet, polite, easy going, tireless.  He brought this project home, and in a big, BIG way, and I can’t thank him enough for everything he brought to the role of Marcus.  Without him, it would have been a very different movie, and I’m glad he found us.

We had some nighttime snow scenes to shoot, and we had a bit of trickery that had to happen to get that done in April, but I won’t bore you with the technical details, and just suffice it to say that I didn’t quite know how that scene was going to look, but having set it up and shot it, I don’t think anyone would ever assume that it was anything other than Winter.

It was a long, fun, quite kind of day.  Julian’s final shot was no dialogue, and emotionally intense.  Karen confessed she felt a little voyeuristic watching it.  Like an awkward personal moment you really have no business being there for.  It was difficult to watch.  After Julian’s final shot, there was a round of applause from the crew, and we were getting the cast changed out of wardrobe. It ended at just about midnight, and we packed up and headed home.

The Fall sequence is in tweak editing, and the Title sequence is pretty much done.  Down to one last shooting day.  Actually, it’s probably going to turn into two.  Our location for the basement scene has flooded with all the rain that April has brought us, so we will probably have to find an alternative location.  On this project, it’s not the stuff you plan for that’s the problem, it’s the stuff you don’t (and can’t) that tend to jump up and bite you in the ass.  And my cheek has fresh teeth marks on it.

More to come.  Just really exhausted this week!