Days 3 and 4

Yen Tan between takes.

Well! It's been quite spectacular... no compromises! Seriously, Yen has been completely blown away by everything, and we're making our days now. The crew has totally gotten into sync now, and everyone has a hand in making this picture truly great! I think yesterday was the wakeup call we needed.

Basically, we landed at Club Nikita on time, and all the gear was offloaded in record time. But then several departments started dropping the ball, and all of a sudden we were 3 hours in and not a shot off yet. But James and I put our heads together and we pushed though, getting every shot and completely wrapping out of the location at 4:59pm. Yes, you guessed it: we had to be out by 5.

Well, what would YOU do if you had a temp of 103?

I guess James is supposed to be some sort of intimidating guy. I'll tell you this: today he intimidated TIME and SPACE, kicking it into high gear to get us through the day without one missed shot, despite a fever of 103! Damn. THAT'S dedication. I love ya buddy, get well.

"Jeff" visits his dead friend's parents shortly after the accident.

The scenes between Jeff and Mark's parents, Larry and Margaret, went pretty well up until the final setup. It was a wide three-shot of Jeff eating lunch with Larry and Margaret at the dinner table. No dialogue. Seems easy enough, but we ran into a situation where the DP started to light the scene one way, and then the frame was changed by the director in mid-light. In an effort to get us out on time, Michael tried to tweak the setup already in place, and 45 minutes later we were all frustrated. The general consensus was to just shoot it because we didn't have the time to spare. After all, it was 1:30pm already, and we were scheduled to wrap out by 2.

But,"Just Shoot It" sounded like a compromise to me, and so far we have made no compromises.

I had already asked the location owner, Stephanie, for another hour, which she was happy to give, so, knowing we had breathing room, I pulled Michael aside and we just discussed the issues at play and what needed to happen to get the shot. I asked him to re-think the setup, and gave him the time and freedom to completely re-light the scene from the ground up.

Rarely on an indie film are you in a position to relight a scene from scratch, and this is a great example of why I have pushed for an 18-day schedule from the get-go. 18-days for a film of this size is perfect! We can schedule 8-hour days, and if they go long we're only talking about a 10 or 11-hour day. So, it buys us some breathing room to tackle problems when they come up. Both yesterday and today we got out in 9.5 hours, even with all of the delays and problems.

So, I cleared the set, apologized to the actors and Michael relit the set. And in only 25 minutes, the shot was completely transformed! I'm serious, it was like he went in and just took an entirely different approach and NAILED IT! We walked away from that day truly happy.

And that's all I'm here for: to make sure Yen and Michael have the time and tools to do what they need to do to make their perfect film. If that happens, I'm on top of the world. Literally.

Michael Victor Roy - He's the Man of the Hour.

More to come. I'll let you all know how the scooter scenes go - they're tomorrow!

Cheers,

Jim

(Write a comment if you want! I like feedback. Do you want more details of the day-to-day? Set drama? Logistics? Pictures? I'll make it happen! -Jim)