A fitting end

The picture wrapped. Finally. After 13 hours of shooting, the sun was up, and we'd finished a big special effects shot. The last shot on the day was a closed set, an actress in a shower. So the rest of us got a jump on wrapping the sets, and the grips started assembling their miles of cable, tons of chromium steel stands, and shot bags. I dropped off a few things at the lockup, then, my car literally filled to the roof with personal possessions (including an oak sleigh bed), I headed up to my storage locker and unloaded.

Done.

Tuesday evening, we had our wrap party, at a lovely little private marina over in Eastport. As always with this production, the weather was abnormally cold. But everyone was having a good time. Drinks were aplenty, and we ran a few scenes for the crew, plus some (pretty funny) behind-the-scenes footage. Fun times.

Until, of course, Annapolis' finest paid a visit based on complaints about noise. Things got worse from there: One person arrested for unknown reasons, another for mouthing off to the arresting officers. The rest of us tried to figure out a bar in which to continue the party, but I got separated from the van. Realizing I was too tired to stay out anyway, I trekked home and got a great night's sleep. Which means I didn't get to make all the goodbyes I'd wanted to, but that's film.

And that's a wrap.

Tick tock

Only a few days left. We're cramming scenes in like commuters on a Tokyo commuter train -- there's always room for one more. Last night I was told, suddenly, that we were to shoot the shower scene, the one scheduled for Sunday night. Of course, the location with the shower had no shower head. I was a aware, and one of the things I was supposed to pick up at Home Depot on Sunday was a new head; being told at 3AM that I needed one in 45 minutes created a slight dilemma -- but I actually found one. Installed it in minutes, noticed that it leaked like sieve, took it apart, repaired it with rubber bands and super glue, and put it back together, only to be asked on radio if we "have options for a different shower head." It's 3AM! The shot wasn't on the callsheet! Sheesh.

We wrapped on a Sean Whalen today (pictured), a very nice fellow who was perfect for his role. He brought in an enormous pile of cookies for the crew -- a nice touch.

Tonight I have to have another house dressed. It's close to being done, but there are a few remaining issues, such as smalls, curtains, photos, etc. Call time is 7PM, and it's 2 right now. I should be asleep, but a marching band rolled through the neighborhood an hour or so ago, and I can't seem to drop off again. Might as well head over to set now. That will of course mean another 18-19 hour day, but what the hell, this is why I get the big bucks (but not a Starbucks in the morning; apparently my Production Designer title isn't quite impressive enough to the young fellow who does the the coffee runs; he brings one for the director, the producers and the DP. No respect, I tell you, no respect!)

Setting thy houses in order

Two if them, to be exact: They're old caretaker's homes at the fringe of the facility. One is in decent shape, as one of the maintenance guys lived there until recently. The other is, quite literally, falling apart. My scenic put her hand through a plaster wall trying to paint it. The script calls for a certain southern poverty, but this might be overdoing it.

The line producer calls me at 1100 telling me that they're moving up the schedule one day. Instead of having two days and one night to prep the next set, I have one day, eight hours to be exact. So I scramble for set dressing, my carpenter bangs out the needed doors and windows, his helper scrounges for smalls, and I sit in the hotel lobby creating fake web sites. We're ready. It really wasn't that big of a change, as we've actually gone past the most difficult sets. There are five days left in the shoot, plus three more for wrap, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel -- and I'm pretty sure it's not a GP40.

When this movie wraps, I will have exactly one day before I start prepping for some commercials in New Jersey. And, in the middle of that, it looks like I'll be doing greens for a major feature that is rolling through DC in mid May. It's nice to be working, but it would also be nice to have a single day off this spring...

I'm getting too old for this shite

I'm not quite the oldest person on the set, but I'm in the top five. And with the exception of the effects supervisor, I'm pretty sure I work the most hours. That's a tough combination; the 21-year olds can do fine on 19 hours of physical labor after three hours of sleep, but those days are behind me. Plus I'm a notorious stress eater, and given that I operate in panic mode 90% of the time on this project, I'm gobbling down junk food like Rosanne at Hershey Park.

Yep. 19 hours. Our producer gave us a little pep talk on Monday about how we were going to run "a little long" over the next night. Call time was 7PM, wrap was 2:10PM. I was working about three hours before call, and three hours after wrap. Ouch. Too tired to sleep now, and need to be back on the set at 7:30AM on Wednesday, dress and build until 7:00PM, then cover the set for another 12 hours. I'm treating myself to one beer as a I write this, and it's not the crappy Natty Bo that we took from the set today, it's a nice cold Sierra Nevada. Of course, I can see the Natty Bo neon sign from where I'm sitting -- my rooftop deck -- and since it's 71 and beautiful out, for once, I'm pretty content. A cigar would be great right now, but my throat is a bit too raw. Half the crew was hacking and coughing today. The DP sounded like E.T., and the scripty pretty much coughed continuously for 19 hours.

Had a little spat with the construction supervisor today. De juro he works for me, but de facto he is best friends with the line producer, so it's sometimes difficult to task him. There are only seven shooting days left, and not that much construction to do, so perhaps I'll actually get through this thing.

After eating a pound of peanut M&M's a day, of course...

April Showers

...bring high water bills in May. Or so they say.

We're drenched. It's rained so damn much on this shoot, but tonight it was a downpour. The little tent area where makeup and sfx make their homes was literally flooded, an inch plus of standing water that simply could not be absorbed by the waterlogged ground. I'm happy I spent the $150 on new waterproof boots in March.

I'm beyond tired. I'd been trying to wean myself from the set, by slowly introducing two of my staff into the roles of on-set dresser and propmaster. Didn't work. The second unit used some of our props, and f'd up one of them -- without telling us. When it played back on A Unit, no one noticed that it was in the wrong configuration -- I didn't notice because I wasn't there, I was off set working on some web site props. The two folks on A Unit didn't notice because they didn't see what B Unit was shooting. Our script supervisor didn't notice, because she wasn't on B Unit -- no one was doing scripty for B Unit. Finally one of the grips (!) casually mentioned to me that the prop was wrong. I ran in, and sure enough, they'd done nine takes on three setups with the wrong prop. I told the director, who was furious. So now I need to be on set at all times -- I've taken over propmaster duties in addition to being Art Director and Production Designer.

Of course, this limits my ability to do any kind of swing work, and invariably I get dragged into set dressing too.

Today someone moved one of the props (a hero cell phone). I was pretty livid, but didn't say anything (other than griping in my blog). It took about an hour to find it, and the director was none too happy about that amount of time, as he wants the phone for himself when we wrap.

Tomorrow is going to be rough. The producers told us today to expect 16 hours of shooting, followed by a full company move. I generally arrive four hours before call, so it's looking like (another) 24 hour day for me. Ostensibly Tuesday is our off day, but I have five setups to have ready for Wednesday's call, so I might have to push on and prep those, followed by another 12 hours of shooting. I always thought when I became a department head my life would get easier, not harder...

Impressed some of the kids today by calculating how far off the lightning was (counting the time between the flash and the thunder). One insisted that light and sound travel at the same speed... and we wonder why the US is falling behind in science...

Safety first

I'm a bit of a safety Nazi when it comes to firearms on the set. Fortunately, the first AD shares this trait. So we go through the ritual of examining my 1871 .45 before each scene, or the weird shotguns that get called for in a couple of sets. I think some of the rest of the crew think we're obsessive. Too bad. If I'm going to wrangle weapons, I'm doing it my way.

The actor carrying the weapon is Kevin Gage, who is just plain a great guy. His character is not a hero, but acts heroically in this film. I've enjoyed a number of conversations about a variety of topics with Mr. Gage. In addition to being a very fine actor, he's a funny guy, and he also make sure to note the name of even the PA's. That means a lot to a crew member, especially compared with another actor, since wrapped, who shall remain nameless -- in addition to appearing on set drunk out of his mind each night, he was rude and abusive to just about everyone. Gage is a gentleman, and it's a pleasure to watch him work. Oh, and we could be brothers.. we're about the same height, and the same weight (although the distribution is somewhat different). Same hairline. Same bushy eyebrows and blue eyes. Same beard (well, I had to shave mine to play the sheriff). In fact, I also doubled for Gage in a scene, where his character is driving up to an old barn -- in his wardrobe, from behind, no one can tell.

In fact, I have now played three roles: Sheriff Tate, doubling for Gage, and, as of tonight, doubling for the killer. A few days ago, the director asked a bunch of the crew to write down a few city names, as the killer collects, shall we say, trinkets about his victims, and documents them electronically. I did my example. The director flipped through the dozen or so examples, grabbed mine, held it up, and proclaimed "THIS is a serial killer's handwriting." So I've got that going for me. So tonight, we needed an insert of the killer actually writing one of his labels. Wardrobe put me into the killer's jacket, I stood on an apple box (the actor who plays the killer is at least eight inches taller than I), and I wrote out "Miami #2" in my best serial-killer/architectural draftsman penmanship.

Have I mentioned lately that I can't act?

"It's beautiful here in Spring -- you'll love it"

Much of the crew for this film is from L.A. When I interviewed with the producers in March (which seems like March of 1955 about now), I assured them that while winters in Maryland are no fun, and summer absolutely sucks, our springs and falls are beyond comparison. So, naturally, it's been about 20 degrees colder than average throughout this shoot, and it's rained virtually every night. At one point lightning storms blew in over an exterior set. We'll work in the rain, but not in an electrical storm -- we scattered pretty quickly.

A few days ago we moved locations, from the Creepy Abandoned Mental Hospital (tm) to an old barn south of Annapolis. In that the production has but one truck, a former U-Haul renter which belongs to my construction supervisor, it ran back and forth all day, carrying effects gear, makeup, tents, tables, etc, until we finally got it to move all of the art department. Now, here's the thing: Before the move we shot for 13 hours. We had a ten hour turnaround, of which we spent about nine moving everything. Then we shot for 12 hours. You do the math. The director, who almost always remembers what it was like to be a grunt on a crew, seemed to have missed the timing factoid, and was getting pretty grumpy about there being any delays in setting up a shot. At this point I had to wrap my on-set people, as they were into their 25th straight hour. So I'm covering the set by myself, and the requirements for each take were as such: Tie down the semi-naked girl in the coffin, who will star screaming as the killer approaches. Wrangle the beat-up coffin, with its mostly broken hinges, into a position where its lid will stand up at exactly 91 degrees. Re-rig my tiny piece of minofilament that I will use to make the coffin lid fall. Then time a swing with a 20' stick that will hit a swinging light right as the actress throws her stunt knife. All this will happen while we're rolling sound, so I must be silent, and we're shooting with two cameras, one of which as an 8mm lens -- meaning the cameras "see" about 290 degrees of coverage. Oh and one of them is on a Technocrane, and moves about 10' during the shot. You do the math: Either I was in the shot, blocked by a camera, pulling too hard on the mono, the hinges on the $250 coffin were shearing off, my light-hitting stick was in the shot, etc. The director was furious. Oh, and meanwhile, the second unit was setting up a shot in which a drill bit comes crashing through the top of a coffin. Of course I'm the only one with a keyhole bit, so I'm rigging this setup between takes, and running the drill too. My poor Ryobi is too hot to touch, there's smoke coming from the bit, and I've already killed two batteries in prep.

I do in fact have the greatest job in the world, but sometimes it can be a bit stressful. Having always been a stress eater, that I've put on five pounds on this production should really come as no surprise.

Night Shoots

The first rule of the film is not to talk about the film. The second rule is "obey all rules." Or something like that.

So I can't go into detail. Suffice it to say that the latest project is a horror film being shot at an abandoned mental hospital. It doesn't get any more artistic than that, eh? But I'm actually enjoying myself: The director is a great guy, and he's spent so much time below the line that he knows how to ask for things in triage: Level one he has to have, level two would be nice, level three he doesn't give a shite. I love that. It allows me to plan and react, instead of just doing one.

And for the first time in a feature, I'm The Guy: Production Designer. Sure, it's a low-budget slasher film, and my staff consists of five people, so there is some serious title inflation going on here. But it is nice to not only be allowed to have input, but to expected to do so. Last night we shot the biggest and most involved set of the shoot, where we turned a 2,400 square foot office into a cramped, run-down rural sheriff's office, complete with jail cell. I've seen the dailies and it actually looks pretty good.

Oh, and once again, me with my everyman face has been plucked from the crew and stuck in front of the camera. This time I play a rural sheriff, big belly sticking out over the Sam Browne belt. I won't tell you what happens to the sheriff, but it's not pretty.

Call time is generally 6PM, and we wrap around 7AM. It's weird to come home in the morning and hit the sack. But, what the hell, I can never sleep at night anyway.

More to come. It's good to be working again.