The Never Ending Shoot

Today was insanely busy for everyone. Carl and I met for breakfast around 7:00am. We got to Nick's house at about 8:15am, poor Nick had only been in bed for a few hours. We walked into his house and his dogs were so excited that they peed on his floor. I cleaned it up -- just another part of the glamour of making a movie.

It occurred to me as I woke up at 5:50am that the scene we were shooting takes place at night, yet the windows will be letting in the full sunlight. The genius of Mike Muething and the resourcefulness of Nick Franceschina provided us with darkness. They used some straps, carpet scraps, an old poster, felt (why did Nick have felt?) and duct tape. It was great.

What did not occur to me (but later became painfully obvious) was that I had forgotten the dress. When we shot the body dumping scene, we used a dress of Danielle’s that she was to wear for this scene. I had taken it to the cleaners afterwards, but forgot that I still had it in my closet.

My beautiful wife who is the greatest person in the world volunteered to bring it to us (keep in mind this is around 8:30am on a weekend). So we continued setting up.

Melissa the amazing hero of the day showed up with the dress. Then, disaster struck again. As we took the dress out of the cleaner’s bag, we were greeted with stains from the lake. They hadn’t gotten it clean.

Well, Danielle put it on and it wasn’t so bad. You couldn’t really tell so we continued with the shoot. Danielle – I owe you a dress.

Poor Danielle had a busy schedule that day too. She is currently in a live theatre production of Annie Jr. and had to leave around noon. We filmed as much as we could, but couldn't finish up in time. We did, however, get the kissing scene.

We all decided to meet back up at 6:30pm. Nick let us leave all of our gear in his house and we resumed our separate lives for a time. Personally I hung out at Starubuck's and did a little writing. I really should have spent that time napping.

Carl and I met for some more caffeine at a different Starbuck’s around 5:00pm. We’re working on a few ideas for “post-Columbo” projects so we discussed that for a while.

For some reason, the evening shoot was much easier than the morning one. We finished up shooting just after 8:00pm, cleaned everything, watched the dailies (which looked great!) and headed home to bed.

Which is where I am. This has been a long exhausting day. Our next project will have 2 locations, tops. In fact, I have tentatively titled it “Six People in a Room”.

Many thanks to Nick for letting us ruin his Sunday (and holding that stupid boom mic), to Mike for getting stuff done when it needs to be done, to Danielle for being a real actress, to Mark Cole for not killing us as we yelled while he was trying to sleep. And to Nick's Mom for getting the dogs out of our way all day long. And to Carl for being a director and an actor in almost every scene. And to me, because, well, someone has to hold the camera.

Remember, 90% of accomplishment is showing up.