Sweat, sweat and tears.

Getting onto a major film is always a hoot, especially after doing five weeks of basic cable tv. When it's a Don Cheadle movie, so much the better. (The Washington Post talks a bit about the film, and our locations)

It's a mad, mad day: Five setups in one day, two units shooting pretty much simultaneously, as the producers scurry to bang out all the DC shots in a 24-hour period, and then get back to nice, cool, (cheap) Canada to finish the film. Still. "Talk to Me" looks like it has potential.

But oh but it's hot. I'm sweating buckets at 7AM. Our first setup is in Southwest DC, in front of a church and then in a public housing block. We're making everything look like 1968. Take a loot at your backyard, and think about how many items you have that weren't around back then. Multiply the task if you have kids -- toys are completely different now. So we have to move ALL of the stuff from the back yards, and dress in period material. Fortunately these public housing units have clotheslines out back, which we dress with period clothes. Not so easy are the satellite dishes pointing to the southern sky. One comes down (it was disconnected), the rest are covered in burlap. The set looks good, the director is happy. The locals are just great -- friendly, cooperative, all very interested in what we're doing. I don't think a lot of films have shot here.

Then it's a mad dash to the other sets, one up on H Street, two others on the mall. Then back the SW to wrap the townhouse... except as we turn the corner, there are, and I counted them, 12 police cars, plus an ambulance and a pumper truck. "Oh no," I think, worried about the locations guy we've left to watch our set dressing. I hop out of the box truck and walk over; fortunately our guy is safe, but has quite a tale to tell, in which a dozen police officers chased a suspect THROUGH OUR SET and corralled him in the intersection. Eventually we get the truck there, and start loading. Just as one of the residents comes home, and starts screaming bloody murder that we didn't have the right to shoot in her yard (you're eight hours late, lady!). We slam the doors of the truck and get the hell out of there.

Long day. Call time was 6AM, I wrapped at 11:15PM. I think I drank nine bottles of water, and never peed once.