Carl Lives

Contrary to popular prognostication, Carl lived through the midnight boat-flipping scene.

As late as Saturday morning we still weren't sure where we were going to shoot. I was getting pretty worried. My Dad had borrowed a rowboat for us in Glasgow. Since I grew up there, I know a lot of spots where we could have put it in the Lake. But we really needed power for lights...

I was thinking of a campground that is near the water. I know they have electric hookups at some of the campsites. I called them, and oddly enough they were booked solid -- with a 36-degree low that night! There was some sort of Halloween thing going on that weekend.

My parents suggested that the marina where they used to rent a slip has power. So with a bit of a late start (8:30pm local time, after eating some of Mom's hot homemade soup mmmmmmm) we took off towards the marina. On the way I called my buddy Brock who was going to be there, but he had hurt his foot and couldn't make it. And I was going to try to wrangle my brother into coming over to help out, but he was in the middle of plumbing his new addition.

We got to the marina and found a perfect spot with an outlet. We set everything up and filmed as much as we could right on the shore. We did the closeups, the oar in the water, stuff like that. The hardest part was rigging up the oars. The boat didn't have any "oar holder thingies". In fact it didn't come with oars -- my Dad actually bought some before we showed up (man is he a nice guy, thanks Dad!). Carl figured out a little rig using bungee cords.

After shooting the "easy scenes" we went back to the Jeep to warm up for a while before the in-water scenes.

We sat in the Jeep and watched a guy in a golf-cart ride over to where our stuff was. He was poking around so we started running down there. Carl almost gave the guy a heart-attack when he said "Hi!". The guy, who obviously worked there, asked what we were doing. I have to admit, it looked odd. There was a rowboat tied to the dock, about 20 towels and blankets lying around, wires, and something resembling a body wearing a dress in the boat. We explained that we were making a film.

He asked us if we were renting a slip. I said, no, but my parents used to. "What's their names?", he asked. This is where I started to think we were about to get kicked out. "Bill and Linda Cook.", I said. "Doesn't sound familiar. There used to be a Pop Cook...", he said. Which is (I often forget) how everyone else in the world knows my Dad. So he asked how Pop was doing and then he took off.

After that, Carl did his amazing scene and flipped the boat perfectly on the first take. He gallantly jumped in to retrieve the boat, then ran up to the Jeep to avoid death. I was rounding up the equipment and lost the boat like an idiot. Fortunately it drifted over to the bank and we were able to fetch it without diving into the icy abyss.

Six hours later we returned to my parent's house, exhausted. Mom made us some good breakfast and we left for home Sunday morning. We are still recovering (I slept 11 hours last night) but the footage is good!

The lessons from this shoot are:

• My parents are really really nice


• Having even one other person around to help out can save a lot of time


• Lighting things properly at night is almost impossible


• All the equipment you really need is bungee cords and rubber bands


• If you need a dead body, a jumpsuit stuffed with dog toys and wearing a dress is kind of realistic. And creepy. And weird.