Okay, I’m writing this long after the fact, but I’ll try to remember as much as I can…
We’re shooting all the outdoor stuff today, on a cul-de-sac in Live Oak, in front of my friends Brian and Adriana’s place. (Brian is the Production Designer that got me my first real gig, on Fat Rose and Squeaky. They’re wicked cool, as the kids used to say)
We have a long “walking along the sidewalk” conversation between Chad and Gina, and no tracks… just a steadicam. Matthew is pretty adept at the steadicam (he used it at the party scene) but now he’s gotta walk backwards with it, and that’s tough. Nevertheless, we get the shot off in a master, then some OTS singles. Looks pretty good, and we got a couple alternate reads too. I’m happy.
Next is the “accident” scene. Here’s where Gina gets hit by a pickup truck… she steps off the curb, in front of a speeding truck. It’s for the fantasy sequence (oops, spoiler) and needs to be good. We’re not really putting Gina in harm’s way… we’re doing it with a cutaway and some After Effects magic. So she steps out, screams and throws up her hands, then calmly steps out of the road. We leave the camera locked, then cue the truck to roar past. Simple, right? This is where it’s great to have your editor/fx guy on set… Jay Kensinger directed these shots himself, so the editing ended up going great. It’s a shot that still makes people jump when the see it, even if they’ve seen it before.
Next up? The INTERIOR truck shots… Gina and Chad talking in the old panel truck. We had rented a car dolly to tow the panel truck behind my pickup, so we loaded everything up and (given that we were on a cul-de-sac with no traffic) proceeded to stack the camera, DP, Scripty, and reflector grips into the pickup bed. Another reflector grip literally hanging off the fender of the hero truck, and a mic inside the hero truck and wired to the camera in the tow vehicle. Easy Peasy, right?
So we tow the truck down the long block, get two or three takes straight through the windshield (we’re moving slow) and then go for the turnaround at the end of the block. Except there’s not enough room, and the car dolly starts to fold up on us. We can’t damage the panel truck (dammit) so we unload and rethink. Time is flying. Wot to do?
We’ve got six people… how hard can pushing the panel truck be? So Matthew hangs on the open driver’s door with the camera, framed for the single on Chad, and we PUSH that sucker for a hundred yards. No, it ain’t easy. Those old trucks are friggin’ heavy! Then, once more back again to get the shot from the passenger side. We’ve got some stills and video of this whole thing… I’ll get it posted one day. Suffice it to say everybody pulled their weight, and we got what we needed… ultimately some of the best looking shots in the film. Something about getting moving car shots makes your movie look so much more professional!
But we’re not done.
Still need an exterior of the Funeral Home. We’re lucky to have gotten permission from a local funeral home to shoot out front — since it’s a weekend, they’re pretty dead (pun intended). It needn’t have been a funeral home, of course, any practical location could have doubled, but the building looks perfect, and it’s only a ten minute drive away.
But the SUN is SETTING.
So a skeleton location crew takes off. I ask Matthew to ride along in the panel truck, get some traveling interior shots and some engine noise (since we were towing/pushing the truck, we’ve got none) and we all meet at the second location. The sun is setting, we’re scrambling to set up the crane (I want a nice crane establishing shot — it ends up looking great). Then, a two and some singles as they converse under the portico (only a few lines… it goes well) and we’re nearly done.
As the sun is setting, we need a few shots of Gina getting zipped into a body bag (again, a fantasy sequence). We’ve got a black vinyl zippable wardrobe bag which we slit open across the bottom… Gina slips it over her head and lies down, we splatter her with some blood (and Turbo pales her up) and then we zip it shut over her face. Looks outstanding. Then we realize the hands zipping shut need to have rubber gloves on, and we don’t have any… they’re back at the first location. However, there is a tattoo parlor a few doors down, and they’re happy to give us a pair, so we’re golden.
A few other little inserts, and NOW we’re done.
Man. What a day. But that’s pretty much the whole shoot. We have a few pickups that a crew of four can get next weekend, but essentially we’re wrapped.
Congratulations, everyone!
Now for some sleep.