ugh
Got up a bit before 07:00 yesterday. Got to the studio at 10:00. Only we ‘core’ people were there. I had asked a couple of times what I should bring with me. I enumerated what I was bringing with me. But I still had to go back to Birch Bay to get stuff. One of the prop guns had been left on my fireplace instead of being put back in its box. I generally don’t handle the non-real guns, so I didn’t know it wasn’t in its box (which was in the backpack that holds the guns). And they decided they wanted the Steadicam. And we needed dummy rounds for the .25.
I bought a bullet puller (a device that looks like a green plastic hammer) and used it to make 9mm dummies a few days ago. When I tried it with the .25s I found they were too small to be held by the holder. I went to the sporting goods store to get a smaller holder. They didn’t open until 11:00, and it was 10:30. Since I had to go back to Birch May anyway, I took the .25 rounds and the bullet puller with me. I went to the smallest bedroom, which is where I keep my tools, to get a washer. Tripped over a power cord. I discovered that whoever put up the closets left some little metal bits (ends of screws? Nails?) sticking out at the hinges. I tore a scratch deep enough to bleed in the meaty part of my palm as I tried to keep myself from falling. The punchline is that I didn’t have any washers there.
So I went to another closet and found a washer with a ¼-inch hole in it. I drilled it out to the next size up and it fit the .25 round nicely. That was the easy part. The washer wouldn’t fit in the bullet holder, so I put it on top of it – failing to notice that the puller’s end cap has a hole in it. My improvised device fell out. Time is ticking. We have a movie to make! Quick! Think of something! I decided on the risky maneuver of putting a nickle between the end cap and the improvised bullet puller. I knew it was risky putting a piece of metal over the primer of a live round, but I was in a hurry. But the risk was not very high so I did it. The good news is that the nickle didn’t burst the cap. The bad news is that when I whacked the impact puller the end cap flew off and flew across the room, the holder came out, and my washer-and-round flew away as well. I haven’t found the washer and round yet. I drilled out another washer and this time kept it in the puller by putting a piece of gaffer’s tape over the end cap. It worked. I pulled five bullets. Based on the amount of powder that came out with them, I think .25 bullets are mostly propelled by their primers. :dubious:
Back to the studio! I wanted people to watch the making of the dummy rounds. Never hurts to have extra eyes when dealing with firearms. (I left the live rounds at home. I do not want live rounds and dummy rounds in the same place!) I put the cases into the crappy little Raven we were using for the scene and popped the caps one by one. Then we had to put the bullets back in. Man, those suckers are tight! Bent the lip of one case, so it was unusable. We removed the striker from the pistol and replaced it with an eraser from a mechanical pencil so that the slide can be cycled. Dummy rounds – duly witnessed by six eyes – no striker, and rubber where the striker goes. That’s about as safe as it can get. The irony is that we didn’t shoot the shot where you see the round go into the chamber. We didn’t even need the bloody dummy rounds!
Around noon – two hours late – we headed to the hotel. We’d been waiting for the make-up artist, but she was held up at the border. They said that even though she was donating her time and expertise for the film, she was still ‘employed’. They took her photo and fingerprints and turned her away. Bugger! Now she’s going to be hassled every time she wants to come to the States! :mad:
Now, we waited before going to the hotel not only because we were waiting for the make-up artist, but because we had to wait for the room to be vacated and cleaned. Checkout was at noon. When we got to the hotel the room wasn’t ready. We cooled our jets in the lobby, equipment on our doorway dolly and one of the hotel’s trollies, for about an hour.
Finally got to the room. Coincidentally, it’s the same room that the guys making the pro-fluoridation commercial we worked on had used. Nice room. As suite – with a name and everything. And free! Only the scene wasn’t written for a suite. The luxury of having a living room was outweighed by inconvenience of having to figure out how to get from the door to the bed. And lighting was a nightmare. Polished surfaces all over the place. Even our little 250w Pro Lights were difficult in this environment. I started by lighting the bathroom. We ended up using practicals for a lot of the lighting. It was easier, and we could get the right colours on the cameras. (One advantage of video vs. film.)
But the room was ‘ugly’. Too many corners, too many decorations that couldn’t be moved. It was a slow shoot. We got some good stuff though. The doorway dolly was too big, so we used the skateboard dolly I built. It worked great! Man, I’m proud of that piece of equipment!
I think it was after midnight before we got to the bedroom scene. Since there is nudity, it was a ‘closed set’. Unfortunately our producer – who is the producer because she’s really, really good at keeping track of everything and getting us locations and stuff – thought ‘closed set’ meant that only those people necessary for shooting the scene should be there. So we didn’t have any PAs or anyone but ourselves to do set-ups and move gear. On a ‘closed set’ the people who aren’t involved in the takes are simply locked out of the set while the scene is being done. In our case, they weren’t even there. That really slowed things down.
The closet doors in the bedroom were floor-to-ceiling mirrors. That limited our angles. We did use them to our advantage though. But it would have been simpler without them.
This was taking much longer than anticipated. I usually figure that it takes twice the expected time to shoot a scene. The director built in the 2x factor into the day. But the 2x schedule turned out to be too short by half. Everyone was dead tired. The producer was pulling her hair out (not literally). She was stressed because we had so many more shots to get. The director was stressed because he was thinking we wouldn’t finish. I was just freakin’ beat.
Oh! Man, I almost forgot! It was raining! Hard. It was blowing a gale outside, and we could hear it. It’s a non-smoking hotel, so we had to go out on the balcony if we wanted an illicit cigarette. Cold and wet. In any case, on one of the few smoke breaks I talked to the director. ‘Look. We got some good stuff there a minute ago, and it went really quickly. Everyone’s energy was up. We’ve got these shots left to get. (I enumerated them.) Let’s get in there and bust them out. It’ll be easy.’ So we went back in and started busting them out. A couple of inserts were easy. Others were not so easy, but we got through them.
The last thing we shot was the sex scene. Our assassin is losing his mind. He has a monologue that leads up to the hooker crawling across the bed toward him. We set up the skateboard dolly and I pushed in while he was talking. Low angle and off-axis meant that I not only had to push the dolly, but I also had to pan and tilt. Easy enough – except when you you have to move very, very slowly. Did I mention I was tired? We really could have used a dolly grip. I wasn’t 100% happy with any of the takes. (I think we made three. Maybe four.) But the director said that what he saw on the monitor looked as good as some similar shots in ‘real films’. I hope he’s right.
What time did we finish? I’m not sure. I think it must have been around 05:00. Our actress was a real trouper. She must have been as tired as the rest of us, and she had to spend a lot of time waiting around for us to set up and get other shots. But she stayed 'til the bitter end without a complaint. Everyone had to stay, of course. But our hair stylist left sometime after midnight. We just had to be careful to save the hair-mussing 'til last. We got back to the studio, only about three miles away, at 05:30 and unloaded the gear. And then there were the phone calls…
We were supposed to shoot another scene today, starting at 11:00. After all of us being up for 24 hours? I don’t think so. And it’s an exterior and it’s raining. (Rain! In the Pacific Northwest! Unbelievable!) So the producer had to call people to them they could sleep in today. After ‘shooting’ (including the 10:00 call where we were getting ready) for 19 hours, we got over an hour of footage. This will take up maybe five minutes of screen time.
Apparently I’m funnier when people are tired. I had 'em in stitches, I tells ya, as we hung out at the studio. My antics were the same as always, so it must be on the receiver’s end. But people were laughing before that. Everyone knows I have bad knees. I tripped once – once! – last week during the shooting of the woods chase. But yesterday I was all thumbs when I was trying to make the dummy bullets. Not only were there the mechanical difficulties I’ve already described, but things just would not stay put! Rolly bits would roll off the chair or table. Fiddly bits would slip out of my fingers. Nobody saw this, but I did mention it. There was gear piled up all over the suite. I didn’t trip on any of it. But it looked as if I might. Or people assumed it did because they know about my knees. At one point I was repositioning myself at the camera. Everyone else – the actors, the director, and the producer – had been sitting a long time. I was the only one standing because I had to work the camera. Anyway, I knocked off the headphones that were precariously perched on the camera. No biggie. Happens to everyone. But they fell as I was getting on the floor to get a minute of rest and they happened to be under my foot. I knew they were there, so I didn’t put any pressure on my foot. But the producer grabbed my foot to keep me from crushing them. That wouldn’t have happened, because as I have said I knew what was going on. That’s the only time I ‘stepped’ on anything. But that didn’t stop the klutz jokes. It’s all good-natured ribbing, but it was a little unfair since I’m not always tripping on stuff!
So. It’s after 06:00. The four of us are at the studio. Everyone (except me) is concerned about my driving home. It’s about 20 or 25 minutes from the studio to my house. I hit the road. Shortly after getting on the freeway the sleepiness hits. BAM! Having loads of experience in long-distance driving I was very careful and made it home in one piece. But it was surprising how fast the weariness came. By 07:05 I had attended to the physiological imperitive being signalled by my bladder, briefly attended to my oral hygene, turned the electric blanket on to the second-lowest setting, and crawled into bed. Slept for over seven hours.
Another shooting day tomorrow. We’re showing our actor driving around, so I’ll get to use my hostess tray. The Panasonic has a ‘raincoat’, so we’ll use that camera. Thankfully, it’s an 11:00 call.
Stay tuned, folks! Most of this stuff ain’t gonna be in the DVD Bonus Features! 
Um… I’m afraid you lost me there. 
