the up-swing

so right now, i'm feeling very good about the film. joe and i had a nice lunch meeting where we talked frankly about our concerns regarding the production and i think we both walked away realizing that we're actually in really good shape. there are so many logistical issues and the expectations we have for the project and ourselves and each other are so high that it's easy to sometimes lose sight of how much fun this is. yes, it's true that none of the constant cast/crew has had a very relaxing summer. we've pounded out over 17 hours of footage (which is actually a little embarassing, but i do like to just let the camera roll - afterall, mini-dv is relatively inexpensive even for the high def masters we're buying) and easily logged more than 120 production hours (not including the off-set work of rehearsing and scheduling and securing locations and rescheduling and collecting extras and communicating with our sponsors etc). but now we're on the home stretch... we've got just about 40 pages of script left to shoot. almost everything is scheduled and reserved and locked into place (everyone cross your fingers that our discussions with the doug fir are fruitful).

and after this weekend we get a break - one weekend off with which to rest and restore our mental and physical resources for the last big push. i think we're all definitely staying focused on the production... but i'm also (not so secretly) looking forward to getting into post-production. we've been watching the footage on a semi-weekly basis, but that's still no substitute for actually stringing it together. generally, i prefer to edit some footage at the end of each day of filming, but this has been such a demanding experience (physically and mentally) that i just haven't had any time or energy to divert toward post work.

switching subjects: i really can't say enough good things about our cast and crew. andy, our sound recordist, has been extremely dedicated and laid back throughout the entire shoot. gerry, our dp, has given us as much time and energy as he can spare. alicia has been relentless in keeping things organized and flowing smoothly and has made a jaw-dropping transition last weekend from producer to actor as we shot her first few scenes. and joe, as fatigued as he gets and as hard as i make it for him, is always willing to give us one more take if we think we can do better.

i don't want to get too sentimental in front of everybody, so i'll cut short the compliments for now...

so let's talk about a shirtless mike johnson. you see, what happened was: we were at dot's saturday morning to finish up our last scene there. and mike, having just been handed his usual wardrobe consisting of an extremely tight t-shirt and fairly snug jeans went into the restroom to change. and when he emerged, there was two or three sizable water spots on the shirt from the sink in the restroom. now obviously, we'd have a hard time justifying a wet t-shirt at this point in the narrative (not to mention the continuity issues it would cause), so we removed his shirt and started working on drying it. in the meantime, i had joe and mike rehearse the full scene, just as we would shoot it, except, of course, mike was shirtless. and it was actually an interested exercise - how does it change the dynamic of an on-screen relationship if one of the characters is half-naked? the dramatic core of the scene survived in spite of the partial nudity and after a few runs through, mike even treated us to an improvised diatribe on everything there is to love about david hasselhof. at that point, we gave him the shirt back. but all the fooling around gave us a nice opportunity to incorporate a hillarious star wars improv between joe and mike into the beginning of the scene. i won't spoil it for you - but i will say two words: dartha stewart.