04/29/14

04/29/14

The last couple of days have been very taxing shoots. We’ve been going very late at night every night and the fatigue has started to wear on the cast and crew. We’ve been out in the cold, and we’ve been out until 4 in the morning multiple nights in the row. As two people have brought up, there is a myth that making movies is glamorous. It can be tough arduous work and it can be really hard to stay positive and focused. we are going to have to do some reshoots today in part because by the time we were getting coverage at the end of the night last night for a scene, it was 3:30 in the morning and most of us were so fatigued that our performances were suffering. We did our best to listen and react, but the sharpness of our brains were gone and so I am not upset at all about reshooting. We have mixtures of productive and unproductive days. On sunday, we shot 13 pages. On monday we barely made it through 4. We had some obstacles in the way, but there was also a lack of preparation in various aspects that was slowing us down. There are people on set, I would like to think myself among them, who try to give their all every minute of the shoot. Unfortunately, on a low budget production like this, it’s been hard to get the focus and dedication out of everyone that we really need to succeed on this project. 

We were battling bitter cold last night and it was throwing off the performances. We as actors are not guilty. It was making it very difficult for us to focus and do our job. But there are a lot of people giving a lot of support. It was hard not to be thinking about how long the shoot was going, and a couple of times early on thinking about: Shouldn’t we be going by now? Why haven’t we started yet? and beginning to anticipate another long night with dread and a little bit of resentment. As an actor, especially on these low budget productions, it can be important to forget about time. There’s always coffee and tea and food. Keep yourself fueled. Between takes, instead of talking or surfing your phone, use the opportunity to pour over the lines of the scene, check your motivations, your moment before, or simply meditate and rest your eyes and your mind. The crew is working much harder than you for the most part, always re-adjusting lights, pressing buttons, conferring about focus…so it is important that when it is time for the actors to go to work, that you are ready to give the best performance you can, and make all of their work worth-while. The actor’s side of the job is one that requires a surplus of emotional and mental focus. If I bring my most prepared, centered and relaxed self to set, that is when I am working as hard as the crew behind me. So between takes, get off your smart phone, don’t check facebook, close your eyes and meditate, because you want to keep your brain fresh for the task at hand. It’s one of the big differentials between theatre and film work. You can bang out a two hour show in theater and then wipe off your make up and go home. film requires arduous work that has to be filled by love, passion and commitment for your work. 

If you are going to let your emotions show to anyone on set, let those emotions be gratefulness, humor, enjoyment and warmth. Let your frustration or bitterness be melted out of your body and breathe deeply, drink lots of fluids. There is no room for touchiness on set, although it happens frequently on any job, typically the later it gets. However, when actors let it shine through on the crew which is busting their ass, that’s when actors get bad reputations. We are very blessed to be able to do what we do as actors and have this medium to do the work that we love. But if you need everything to go your way all the time, stick to community theatre. There is no room for that in the ultra-collaborative process that is filmmaking. Everyone is working too damn hard and is too damn sleep deprived for anyone to wallow in their self pity. 

It probably sounds like I’ve become incredibly bitter about the film only four or five days in, which is not the case at all. I would love to stress the fact that I am extremely excited every day to be on set making a movie in which I get a lead role. It’s not glamorous every moment, but it is always exciting and never ceases to be an extremely memorable experience. I am so glad to be working with this group of people and I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else right now. In fact, I would be extremely envious to hear anyone else I knew getting the opportunity to be doing what I am doing now, and I do not disregard that. I love the people who I am working on this project with and they are a joy to be around every day. Tonight is going to be an arduous shoot, and we will probably be going late into the night again. Luckily, everyone is well rested today, as everyone slept in, and I think we are going to have a productive, focused shoot with some excellent acting opportunities on our part. We are shooting at a hotel and I am going to come packed prepared to stay the night there, since it’s about 20 minutes away, they have wi fi, and I would love to take a really hot shower and sleep in a real bed, not an air mattress :). That’s all for now, will try to write more later.  Final note: Steve Sears had the great idea that we can now have yogurt Parfait for breakfast, which is literally changing my life, I feel jazzed, well fed and ready to go!

04/26/14

04/26/14

Didn’t mean not to journal again yesterday. We had a 14 hour (roughly shoot) last night after being on a normal schedule and we didn’t get back from set until around 6:30. The whole house is still asleep right now and it is 2 pm on saturday. I mean the WHOLE house, the early risers and workaholics and everything. I am one of the few people awake right now, me and Steve Sears. The scary part about yesterday was that we were only shooting six pages, and tonight we have the same amount of time to shoot twelve. Looking on the bright side though, yesterday was the first day of shooting and that slows a production down a lot. There was a lot of setup, there were a lot of technical difficulties, including have to throw away almost two hours at the front end because our location was difficult. We were shooting in an Order of the Elks building, sort of like a Lions Club. We were using a small office in the front entrance as the sheriff’s office of this town. Unfortunately, it is also the foot traffic corridor to a bar, which is an independent business inside the building and is down an open hallway with no doors not fifty feet down from us. So we lost a good two hours to loud drunks and a jukebox machine before one of the locals on the crew, Blake, took what we had not the courage to do and politely explained to them why we needed at least the music off because of what we were doing. Still after that, we were dealing with curious drunk people, and talking until about ten pm. By that point, we still had LOTS of coverage to get on this short scene. We also encountered technical difficulties, like cords hooked up to monitors not working, so only one person could really see and set up a shot at once. Then there was just a general lack of urgency with the speed  at which things were done that first day, which added to the difficulty of a challenge where we had to light night as day, which turned out incredible, by the way! We had a generator outside powers giant lights on sticks which shone tungsten with a daylight filter through stained glass windows high up in the office room. That combined with the room being very saturated with light, and the blinds closed, you could not tell the difference on camera between night and day. Incredible. 

I worry about the fact that today we are shooting in the same location, but even closer to the bar. On a saturday night when we will not have the right to kick everyone out and power off the restaurant portion. We don;t have nearly the budget. But as the kid blake explained last night, people in Los Angeles sometimes forget how to ask for things, because they are so used to just paying for things. Paying for everyone to be gone or quiet, or paying for a business to shut down for a night. Here we do not have that luxury. We also won’t encounter that problem with every location we shoot. The Elks Lodge building is a weird place.

I feel very good going into this shoot tonight. It will be another long one, probably twelve hours at least and keep everyone at this house on a strange schedule. The nice thing about staying up this long is that I don’t worry about my usual issues of tossing and turning and having to let my mind relax. I just knock out in under 5 minutes. I woke up pretty refreshed after sleeping in a deep coma for about four hours, where I had vivid dreams where I had deep conversations about art with Steve carell and Paul Thomas Anderson (who I was also assisting with his marriage problems.) Luckily, I have gotten invaluably used to being in front of a camera from shooting my web series. I am not worried about appearing bad on camera, I have faith that with the homework and preparation I’ve done (which in this case is a lot because it is a LONG scene, one of the longer in the movie) that I will be ready to rock and roll. That is also the joy of film, we move forward at such a crawl that you get a lot of opportunities to get things right. My important job today is remember my moment befores, my objectives and my relationships. Also, details details details. How the diner smells, are the seats comfortable, is there music playing, what time is it, am I energetic, lazy, pouty, where did I want to go for breakfast, where would I rather be right now? All these questions and more can make my character more real and easier to slip into when they are getting ready to call action.

04/25/14

04/25/14

Didn’t journal yesterday. It was an activity filled day which sort of served as our last day of relaxation before we start shooting, which is today! I actually don’t have a scene to shoot today, which will be rare, but we are only shooting the one scene today which I think may also be rare… it’s going to be a great scene set in a sheriffs office and I will definitely be there on set, cheering my cast members on and studying my own lines for tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be a long scene (12 pages) shot at a restaurant and I believe it’s what we are spending all day doing. Everything I have heard about the production design seems fantastic and I am really looking forward to seeing how things look when all the sets are fully dressed and lit and ready for shooting. There’s a certain magical quality that arises when a set is made shoot-ready. It really gives a feeling of being in another world, which is the idea! 

Yesterday we visited an Elk’s Lodge where we will be shooting the restaurant scene. One of the weirdest places I’ve ever encountered. Sort of a private, smoking and drinking lounge, members only for a bunch of Sheridan good old boys. Lots of taxidermy and patriotism. I took some great pictures which I have put up on my blog once I get internet. We also visited another location out in the small town of Story, which is where a good deal of the exterior action is going to take place. This town has less than a thousand people! it’s the image we want to sell as the size of the town we are going to. It’s also putting things in perspective as far as the script. This town is a REALLY small town. I think we laugh at some of the justifications in the script, saying ‘That’s ridiculous! I mean, I get that it’s a small town, but really? No form of town government?’ Those people have not seen the town of Story. Sure, you’re not that far from a much bigger town, but in the case of the town in our story, we are giving the presentation that this is a town that is isolated, cut off, and just a little weeeeiiird. 

Been having a lot of fun bonding with the other cast and crew. There have been some intense games of NBA 2k, which I’m starting to think I might just skip because it doesn’t really exercise my brain and it kinda just pisses me off. I am starting to leaning towards playing games of chess with various people, and yesterday we broke out one of my favorite games, Forbidden Desert and ended up going 2 games back to back. We didn’t win either time, but it’s a great team building activity and it was fun seeing cast and crew working together trying to solve problems and having fun at the same time. Today for me is going to be about a lot of writing about my character in my character journal, studying my lines and rehearsing with my cast. It’s gonna be a longer day for my cast because they will be shooting a scene late into the night already and then shooting our longer one tomorrow. I will have to be as prepared as I can possibly be so that when they DO  have time to work on it, our rehearsals are effective. I have utter confidence in this group though, so no matter the case, I think we only have fun times to look forward to. I can already tell this is going to be an amazing experience that I am going to remember forever. You don’t get many opportunities to live in another town and make an indie movie at this budget, of this scale at this point in my life and career. That’s why it’s important for me to keep this record. Will journal again later tonight about how today went, since it is till early morning here.

04/23/14

04/23/14

Today was the beginning of my journey on the film! It started out at about 5 am this morning (it’s a wonder that I’m as awake as I am right now, considering its quarter to one am the next day…but it’s undoubtedly the adrenaline and excitement of being here with this group of people.) My lovely roommate Cascade was nice enough to give my co-star Nate and I a ride to Burbank airport early enough to get us there at 6 am! Travel was smooth. I am usually a good flyer, but we encountered a lot of turbulence on the descents for both of our flights (Burbank to Denver, Denver to Billings) and I almost hurled on both flights. I was able to meditate through them both. 

It didn’t take long for the production to start encountering road blocks. A key member of our crew who was supposed to be flying with members of the cast missed the flight out of Burbank! We will endure, although we were supposed to shoot some guerrilla footage during our trip and that is now out since we will not be flying together again. Murphy’s Law was in full effect today. I lost my kindle…like an idiot…(sorry mom! :( ) our lead actress’ luggage got left in Denver, which contained wardrobe for not just her but for another cast member. Fingers crossed that it will arrive tomorrow. We had a read through with the cast, crew and the addition of local cast members who I was meeting for the first time. I got to meet the gentleman playing Abel, a character I will have lots of interaction with, as well as two ladies Donna and Deb who will be playing large roles. The read through went well, but we have new copies of the script that the director, went to the get printed. He got halfway through one copy and the printer ran out of toner, and no one there knew how to change it! We made it through the read through fine, and it was great to hear the script out loud, see small bits that need polishing and also how many laughs there are and great moments we have to look forward to. 

So far I have been to four places in Sheridan. Qdoba (oh, how I’ve missed you) Walmart (bought some needed toiletries and such) Our house! We have a big, nice, house. The two girls on the entire trip are being true troopers in a house full of men. It’s a little like living in a frat house, a little like camping, a LOT like low budget indie filmmaking and cannot be a cooler way to spend the next three weeks. The rooms are wide open spaces and everyone has their own little nest with their bags and an air mattress. People stay up until late hours of the night playing video games, reading scripts, journaling and talking about life and film. There is such a contagious love of film in this household it is truly invigorating. At any time there are people in 3 different areas of the house, and you will find a common them with a passionate love of film and knowledge of the culture, or something else like comic books…or food. I don’t think these are people I will get sick of, only people who I will grow to love more. I’ve been thinking today about how we are staying here for THREE WEEKS. Thats  A LONG time! By the end of this shoot, I’m going to start dreaming about this house. 

The last place we went was a steakhouse for dinner. It was great to sit down with everyone and order a meal. Yes, I paid my own bill, but I will be being taken care of for the shoot. I have no problem with the ‘indie-ness’ of this project. There is no ego, no diva-ness. We are all just here to be young and excited and kick some ass. I know that there will be problems that we encounter, but I have faith that we will overcome all of our obstacles. I have such faith in the production crew of this film. I’ve given up trying to talk about what will be in the future for this project, but that’s because things keep changing and there’s nothing I can do about it. It doesn’t shake my faith in the film itself though, I know that at the end of the day…we will have created something special. I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me. I have to throw myself into the script and use all of my training to be prepared to go to work each day. We do not shoot tomorrow, but we will be taking a ‘tour’ of sorts and visiting all of the locations, to get a feel for our locations. Today has sort of felt like a fun, bonding day of silliness. I don’t think anyone underestimates the amount of work we have ahead of us in the next three days. We will be rocking and rolling. I’m ready to go to work. That’s all for now.