Rigging the dashboard cam
Wow. The last two days have been extremely… well, prosperous.
Knocked out 11 pages of the screenplay during that time. Filming more tomorrow. I’d like to give you the day-by-day report, so this post will be all about January 5th.
The reason I failed to post yesterday was because I had trouble running my computer after loading all the footage and editing with software that is geared toward home movies.
In fact, I woke up sporadically throughout the night hoping to get my computer up and running to no avail. I had already put together the behind-the-scenes video that I’ve included at the bottom of this post.
The entire day was hectic. As I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, the decision to film exterior scenes at a local community college came last minute. We’d originally planned to film at a friend’s home on Wednesday, but he made a compulsive decision to go on vacation, forcing the cancellation of our shoot.
Setting up a fake list of grades
I spent Tuesday night memorizing my lines, and thankfully was able to practice more once Scott, who plays “Jax”, arrived at my house. We had a small list of prop items I needed to gather before we left:
- 2 button down shirts that needed to be ironed
- A list of fake names and grades
- Poker chips and cards
- A tripod
- Umbrellas
- Towels
Much to my apprehension, “El Nino” was supposed to hit southern California, where we live, during both days of shooting the exterior shots.
It rained all morning and was still pouring by the time we arrived at the college. Once we arrived, we were near certain we’d have to cancel the outdoor shoot for the day. It was to our amazement that we discovered several outdoor areas that were protected by overhead cement pillars (?).
My friend Aaron, who was recently featured in my Amazing Race post, came along to help with the boom mic. He also found a way to arrange the 4 umbrellas we had with us on the nearby puddles to drown out the constant dripping in the background. The towels we brought along were vital, as we needed to wipe down the table and nearby puddles (though my deck of playing cards was completely destroyed by the end of the shoot).
I can’t emphasize enough how grateful I am to have brought Dan, my acting friend, along on this project. He got so many takes from so many angles I have no doubt we will be able to make our scenes appear flawless, despite the many times we screwed up our lines.
Dan the man
All in all, Tuesday was a great success. I can’t wait to tell you all about Wednesday’s shoot tomorrow – the rain was ten times worse.
- Thomas M. Watt
Thomas M. Watt 