More on Storyboards

Today we are going to shoot the bulk of the driving scenes. Last night as I was storyboarding I found a way to do it that is way better than what we had been doing.

For the past 2 shoots, we were just drawing the storyboards ourselves. Think stick figures and squares. It works, but clearly illustrates (pun intended!) the justification of having a storyboard artist. So last night I fired up Final Cut on my trusty Mac and just took screen shots from the original movie. WOW are these easier to follow.

OK, that's it. I'm just killing time before the shoot.

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.

Mom and Dad Save the Day

We've had this coming Saturday scheduled as the midnight rowboat shoot for a while now. That has been on faith because we hadn't actually found a rowboat. You would think that you could just rent one overnight, but apparently that is impossible. The terrorists have won.

On Monday we were starting to panic. We really needed a rowboat pronto. One of my friends could possibly get us one in Nashville, but that's quite a drive from here...

I grew up in the fairly small town of Glasgow, Kentucky. I've often said that if we were doing this project there we would have been done long ago. Between my parents and my brother, we know enough people to borrow almost everything you would need.

So Monday I called my Mom and asked her to check around for a boat. Tuesday night my Dad called me back and asked if I'd rather have a 10-foot or a 14-foot boat. Awesome! We're gonna watch the weather forecast and head down either this weekend or next depending on the rain situation.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Shot 1 - IN THE CAN

Yesterday was our first shoot. Considering it was the first time I've ever even seen a movie shoot, it went smoothly. We had planned to shoot from 10am until 2pm. We were done about an hour early and that includes a liberal amount of goofing off during the shoot.

It was a blast! The scene we shot was on the lake and the water was stagnated and DISGUSTING. Huge thank-you's to Nick Franceschina and Mark Cole who agreed to get into the murky malaria soup. I was originally going to be a diver myself, but Mark Cole volunteered the morning of the shoot. That was awesome because we would have had to get someone else to operate the camera otherwise.

Also big thank you's for helping us out Saturday go to (in no particular order):

• Matt Sullivan


• Toney Simms


• Dan Riegler


• Carl Danowski, Sr.


• Joanne Danowski


• Melissa Cook

We learned a few things on Saturday.

1. Storyboards are unbelievably important. We had storyboards, but next time they'll be more detailed. The ones we had were OK, but when you're out there on location you can't leave anything to question.


2. Planning, planning, planning. We did tons of this and it paid off well. I'm so happy that there wasn't a major gap that ruined it all. We found out the night before that Winton Woods (where we were filming) had a sewage leak and was not safe. We already had an alternate location scoped out and everyone was notified right after we found out. Yeah, Sharon Woods was kinda smelly, but I don't think any of us are going to get a disease.


3. It's hard to get good sound. I'm an audio moron. The mic I bought is awesome, but I need to learn how to use it. I have a friend that used to do sound and lighting at Disney, so Mike you had better get ready for me to start bothering you a lot.


4. Getting a scene done is incredibly rewarding. We seem to have a lot more momentum now and I'm excited about the next shoot instead of nervous. The project seems more "real".

There's still a ton of work to do! We just cast the role of the leading lady, Lasanka (masticatus majorus). I'm going to print copies of the script and burn a few DVDs to hand out to those with speaking parts. And Saturday is the big midnight rowboat scene where Carl has to flip a boat into the lake.

Storyboarding for Saturday

We did the storyboards for Saturday's shoot, the daytime rowboat scenes. Our friends are really coming together for us... we have been graciously loaned some snorkels and masks and a lot of people have volunteered to be there as extras and policeman. Friends are great!

Tomorrow we are heading to Winton Woods (where we'll be shooting) to scope out the location and get a feel for it. We're going to show up a few hours early on Saturday because that's the Right Thing to Do.

Steady.... Ste-ea-dy...

I built a steadicam! It was really easy. This guy tells you everything and has very clear directions.

Also I picked up 4 cheap police badges at a Halloween store. They asked me about them and I said I was making a film. The owner asked if I was from L.A. Haha, no. He then said that a few people had been in there from L.A. and were shooting a movie in Newport. They had bought an Elvis wig. I wonder if it's Edward Furlong, as they are shooting Jimmy & Judy here...

That's my Kubrick stare, by the way.

Storyboards and Rowboats

After we finished the script, we storyboarded the entire midnight rowboat scene. That's the scene we are attempting on October 16th. The whole scene is about a minute and a half. We'll need about a dozen different shots that we can edit together.

We also decided to get aggressive and try to do the daytime rowboat scene this coming weekend. There is a park in Cincinnati where you can rent rowboats. We'll need 4 boats. There is the capsized rowboat, a boat with fishermen in it, a boat the police are on and (of course) something to hold the cameraman.

Notice I said "police" just now. Yeah. We need cop uniforms. We found a rental house in the area and they are $35 a pop per day. We could probably swallow that (I guess), but there are about 6 locations with policemen and scheduling those on the same day is insane. So we are going to just take the Ed Wood route. We'll find some uniform shirts, buy a few badges and ask the actors to wear blue pants.

Somehow between now and Saturday we have to storyboard the scene, throw together some police uniforms and round up a bunch of extras. Carl has been on the case with the extras. I'm going to hit some thrift stores for shirts and, failing that, there are a few uniform shops in the area I can try.

The real work has begun. :)

Task 0

The script has been entirely transcribed. 67 pages.

Keep in mind, we haven't actually done anything yet. We may finish shortly before I die.