This was my personal monster project; literally and figuratively as it meant taking the entire cast and crew out of Bloomington and to Indianapolis for a two day shoot.
Gary at the Old Northside Bed and Breakfast was very gracious and let us film at his beautiful B&B. He went above and beyond to accommodate us and work with us so that we were able to not only get the best footage possible but that we are also comfortable and well looked after while we were on location.
I also owe a big thanks to Tyrone who graciously let the crew stay at his home in Indianapolis while we were filming. He also saved the day because there was a miscommunication between Sahar and Eumi, which resulted in Eumi leaving her lenses back in Bloomington. This would have been a major set back if it weren’t for the fact that Tyrone’s roommate, Chris, is a photographer and he kindly allowed us to use his lenses.
Ken, Kate, and Tyrone were solid with the acting work and great with the odd hours and did not fuss about the drive to the location. They had already put in three solid evenings of rehearsal with me in the weeks prior to the shoot, where we were able to lock down the blocking and lines. This also gave us time to sort out the costumes and make sure that everything was ready by the time we were on set.
We had also used two of the rehearsals as camera rehearsals to work out some of the camera blocking.
However, another small instance of the best laid plans coming apart was the fact that once we arrived on set, Gary told us that he had some cancellations and as a result we had more time for the afternoon shoot than we had originally been told that we had. The two-fold problem that this created was that instead of sticking to the original plan we tried to set dress and black out the windows for more set locations than what we were scheduled to shoot. This meant that we ended up wasting time because we were dressing more areas of the house than we needed to, which ended up have the second draw back that we had less time to shoot the shots we needed.
The next day I was able to compensate for this by coming up with a plan of attack where, Nick (another HUGE thank you) was able to set up a set location as we shot in another location. This doubled our speed as we were working much more effectively and in essence meant that as soon as we were done in one room we could move over and shoot in the next location. I should also note that the second day, we had Ole and we did not have him the first day so this meant we had another shooter and could move more quickly. In fact, we had three cameras going on the second day at one time.
In the end, I ended up with 72.5 gbs of sound and footage so I would say that everyone really pulled together and made a fantastic shoot. Mark and I did have to meet with Tyrone to do five pick up shoots but aside from that we were able to get everything in the can in two days.
At this time, I am editing the film into a rough cut and it is really looking very sweet.
Thanks again to everyone who helped on this project.
Cheers-
Russell
p.s. Mark Totte was great to work with as a co-director on this project and I seriously hope that I continue to get to work with him as he is very talented and a joy to work with.
russellmcgee 