Act 2: And it begins.

So, I started editing tonight. I wanted to get the first scene done, as I plan on meeting up with the Zotts on Thursday or Friday to discuss the score and see if they can't come up with something then. I ended up getting a fairly simple first cut, although I fear it's a tad long. After, I uploaded it and emailed the link to Danny and Phil so they could maybe even get a head start on ideas. Here's the link,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q76V0rWWLZQ

If the right music is there, I think it might be good. I really want to establish Nick Adams as this care-free, happy-go-lucky guy. A walk in the park, playing with dogs and cheerfully delivering flowers...I would think that gets the point forth.

One thing that makes this scene lengthy is that I decided to shoot almost everything in very wide shot, with Steve being very small in the frame. I choose this for two reasons: One. When Max and Al enter Henry's everything gets very tight, spatially in the framing, and how I intend to edit it. I wanted to have a contrast in the shots to reflect the tension and the change that takes place in Nick Adams. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'd like to primarily use that shot-counter shot with Max and Al on each side of the frame with the painting in between and then the other one with George in the middle, we see the back of Max and Al and Nick Adam's is in the mirror. Then, when he faces death and has to think about it, accept it, Nick Adams is now seen in that same tight shot, with the painting behind him. Two. I wanted to speak on the insignificance of Nick Adams, as one person in the world. The film is about Nick Adams, but indirectly. The main conflict (at least by its billing) is Max and Al killing Ole Andersson. But the conflict at the heart of the story, is the inner-conflict that Nick Adams has. You could even say it's Nick Adams vs. Death at one point. And Death wins.

A little break

I decided to take a little break from everything to do with the project. I've been reading a pretty good book about editing wrote by the guy who edited Apocalypse Now and The Conversation. There's some good ideas.

I think...the target start date...is...Monday.

I've already looked at some of the footage, just while capturing it to the harddrive and there's already a few things that have me a little bit perturbed. Just details that we missed (two of them because I didn't have a widescreen monitor, and the third because I couldn't look at the shot while we were shooting it).

There's a whole lot that I've got buzzing around in the skull. It's a tad bit weird to seriously think about being a filmmaker, for income, with the entire financial system in this country potentially on the brink of collapse. I mean, if the entire house of cards collapses, what's that mean for the state of monies available to make films? I suppose the people escaped to their silent films during the last one, but today they've got their TV's to numb their minds. Oh well, I guess the only thing you can do is know that there are many different business models that can be taken with the internet and digital screening, etc. Maybe traveling showings. Lots to think about.

I've been thinking a lot about the next project, as I try and push "The Killers" out of my mind for a while. I've picked up 4 books that I'm going to be reading through while I edit: a new trasnlation of Grimm's Fairy Tales, a new translation of Aesop's fables, a book of the Marquis de Sade's short stories and a book of Samuel Beckett's short stories. I've also got Lewis Carroll's complete stories sitting on my shelf. I think I want to do some sort of really fantastical fairy tale, using the snow, the Michigan forests, the iced over rivers, and some of the other more interesting natural locale. I also would like to try and get down in those tunnels underneath the city. We'll see. As it stands now, if everything goes as I hope, I won't be leaving Michigan until January 2nd, so I've got 3 months to edit "The Killlers", write the next short, and shoot it. That's plenty of time, if I buckle down and use the writing process to take a break from the editing process, yet still keep the creative juices flowing (although I think I'm going to be doing a lot of painting throughout this). Trick with that is keeping the ideas seperate.

I've been reading a book of interviews with Stanley Kubrick and between that and looking over the footage, thinking about the shooting, I've come to the conclusion that the only way to ever achieve anything close to the success he was able to attain, is to develop a sharper mind, an even keener attention to detail and I need to shoot, shoot, shoot, until the actors drop from exhaustion. I'm sure Steve'll appreciate hearing that.

That's a wrap.

We just finished the flower shop scene and some odds and ends shots for the title sequence. I'm going to grab some dinner, take a nice long walk for the first time since this whole thing started and relax before the cast/Steve Barker going away party. More later.

Almost done.

We got 90% of the first scene tonight. Tomorrow we shoot at the Flower Niche from 4:30 until 5:30 and that's it. Done. I've got a lot to write about it, lots of thoughts, but for now, I need rest. My right back muscle feels like it's all twisted up like a twizzler. I need some rest and am very drained right now. Exhausting but it feels good to be nearing the end of shooting. Then comes to the real hard part.

Cousin Jon and I met up at 3 pm and went to the park and figured out where each of the shots would be, so that when we came back with Steve, we were ready. As luck would have it, we got another freighter in the shot. I wish we could get one going the opposite way tomorrow for the running scene, but that's probably nitpicking.



After we got that, we went over to Mrs O'Donnell's bf's place to deliver flowers to her for the last scene. We also got my mom in a scene, with our goofy-ass dog Maddie, in the park.

So much more to say, but I just don't have the stamina to sit here and type it. Lot's of thoughts colliding around in the skull. Tomorrow's a big day. So far so good it seems. We'll see.

Day of Puppies

Today felt very scattered and I don't have a very positive feeling about what we accomplished or lackthereof. In hindsight, maybe we should've taken a day off to recharge, but with Steve leaving Saturday, we don't have that luxury. Basically, there wasn't any plan. I couldn't plan a walking route because I didn't know if Steve had gotten ahold of Dotty, and Dotty turned out to be more elusive than we thought she would be, so Steve couldnt get ahold of her. Add that in to the late start and the sun-light issue and we didn't get what we wanted to get. We did get one of the flower deliveries and some "night-time" running shots, and I think we got a reasonable amount of good footage for the Cab scene. But from first shot of Nick Adams entering Henry's, where there some puppies in the window of the building along the route, Steve wasn't very focused and was all like "puppies!!" We should've known, at that moment, that the day wasn't going to be one of the better days.





Afterward, Todd, Steve and I brainstormed about the opening sequence, because Todd and I agreed that we didn't like how off-the-cuff, unplanned the day was. We've got a pretty good idea of how we're going to shoot the opening sequence now. Basically, we're going to place Pine Grove Park, spatially, south of the area down Quay St, in the film. Nick Adams starts South and heads North to get to Henry's and has to run south to warn the Swede. Tricky editing and shot placement tomorrow will be key but I think we've got a pretty good grasp on the whole thing.

I need rest though, because my back has been aching something with murderous intent. Long day tomorrow and it starts early. I gotta get us in a flower shop.

Day of Accomplishing

We set out to get the kitchen scene and the rest of the Swede shots. We got both.

Cousin Jon and I got to the B&B around 5ish and we setup where the Swede's bathroom would be. After that, we got everything ready to take over to the Black River Cafe. Timing worked out pretty good because just as I was finishing the Pad Thai from Bangkok Star, Sean arrived, and
within 10 minutes Steve and Todd arrived. Just as we gathered all of the things we'd need and started to get out the door, Lusk arrived and we were ready to go.

We got to the Cafe and they were still cleaning up, closing down the kitchen, so Sean, John, Steve and I ran through the scene a few times sitting down and discussed what we had in mind for some of the lines, what's going on in the scene, thematically, etc. Then Todd and Jon started setting up the lights for the scene. Jon had to stand in the freezer to hold the light that bleeded out into the room to expose Steve and Sean, who were tied up together. Actually, the tying up part, that's what took the longest out of everything. Longer than setting up the lights, and running through the lines to where we had an idea of the scene.

We got 2 shots with some of the same lighting, we just had to move the camera in a bit.

Next we setup the lighting for when George comes in and unties everyone. It took a little bit of back and forth guessing until we got it right, but I'm very happy with the look of the final angles and lighting with them.

An interesting thing happened during the last take, and it's another prime example of why, next film, I want more time to rehearse the scenes with the actors. Mid-way through shooting, Sean finally found the character of Samuel and really came through, to the point where we reshot the original walk-in angle with the new attitude. After we got a few good takes of that, I gave Sean a simple suggestion "be a little bit more angry, and stay behind and clean up your kitchen after Al just took it over. This is where you work, your livelihood and show your anger about the whole thing." He took that and gave me probably the second best moment of improvisation in the film after Jim blowing smoke in Emily's face after she asked if he went to church, he picked up the rags and slammed them against the wall in disgust.

These are the moments that can really make a film special and they only come out when the actors are living in their character's skin and start really acting, and it's so hard to bring them out when you shoot the scene only 15 minutes after running it for the first time with the rest of the actors.

We wrapped up shooting at the Cafe and Sean and John were officially done for the film. I have to say, I'm really really glad that I asked both of them to play the parts they did. I know I originally wanted the funnier O'Donnell brother to play Samuel, but my original idea of having the beginning vaudevillian, almsot Chaplin-esq funny to make the sudden change in mood when Max and Al start giving orders never really materialized and having Adam playing Samuel with the rest of the film probably would've seemed out of place. It's nice little happenstances like that that can make a film too.

We brought the camera and equipment back to the B&B while Todd and Jon took down the lights and Cliff was waiting for us. We had to setup the lights still, and I started to worry right then that we'd run late, as I knew he didn't want to be there super long. First thing, we reset the lighting for a close-up on Cliff, and I'm glad we went ahead and did that, because I think it'll really splice well with what we already have.

Next, we had to setup the crazy light contraption to get that fan-blade shadow I wanted. We had tried it out the other night and knew it would work, but it was still a hassle to get it up, and there was a close call for a minute where I thought for sure my Tota light attached to the end of the poles was going to smash the wall or window.

So once they got that going, we had to get the fan going. For the effect I wanted, the blades where going waaaaaay too fast. We had to slow the fan down somehow and we had a few ideas. First, we tried to duct tape heavy nails to the blades, but we didn't have enough nails for all 5 blades and only taping them to 3 blades made the whole thing wobble and unstable and didn't even slow it down all that much. Next, we found a box of screws and taped about 8 giant screws to each blade and turned it on. It was slower, but not slow enough, and because the fan blades were plastic, they started to give and next thing we knew, the screws were smacking the framing in the fan, and we had to kill the juice before we had a deadly turret on our hands. Then Todd had a great idea: just attach some string to the blades and have someone pull it, like a yoyo. Sure enough, after my dad brought some fishing line, we had the fan going the way we wanted and we got the shot we wanted.

After that, we had to decide how we wanted to light the shaving sequence. Todd was on that quick and within 20 minutes we were rolling. He was on the ball all night, except when he tried to throw the ball of yarn in the photo below, through the rafters and it landed in the wash basin, getting soaked.

I'm really happy with the look of both, the side-on shot and the "in the mirror shot".

After that, Cliff was done shooting as Ole Anderson. I was thinking on the way home, it's interesting how you develop a working relationship with certain actors in groups. The only other actor that was in the scenes with Cliff, was Steve. But Jim, John, and Micki had a ton of scenes with Steve, so there's this weird grouping thing going on in your head and how you to start to relate to actors and see how the thing is playing out. Jim, John, Steve and Micki all had each other to play off of, but Cliff really had to work off of Steve and just dig deep, and I think that's probably a lot harder for an actor. I think, for me at least, it also influences the tone and everything else, from lighting and probably eventually the editing. I felt more at liberty to go ahead and do some neat dark shadow stuff with Cliff's shaving sequence (it's hard to notice in the still above, but he's casting double shadows) because all of those scenes between him and Nick Adams have that kind of stuff going on, it works consistently. It'd be strange, I think, to throw in a scene with the Killers and light it really extreme contrast, etc. because they, for the most part, exist in well-light shots. At least in my mind, what I've seen thus far. Anyway, back to my original point, I imagine there's an even more extreme influence when you're doing something where you might have 3 or 4 actors that are working alone with you in scenes and maybe never working with each other. Lots to learn and that's good. Always room for improvement.

Which reminds me of something Steve said last night. He complimented me (or he was being a sincere asshole) about being flexible and open to criticism and new ideas. It hasn't occurred to me through the movie much but I guess in hindsight, I've probably been more open to other ideas than someone who directs like a dictator. The way I see it, if you're on my set, I've asked you to be there and there's a reason for that. Why surround yourself with cast and crew that you don't trust, think you can't learn anything from, or who never have any ideas better than your own. If you're a total control freak and can't take input, making films, being the collaborative art that it is, might not be for you. Even with Kurosawa being such a control freak, he still found people that he trusted and worked with everytime. There's a reason why he had the same script supervisor for almsot his entire career.

That's what excites me about the editing process, even with all of the stress and fear that comes with it: to see what happens when you take your original ideas and bring them to life, with everyone else involved adding something to it. The whole thing is bound to change and evolve into something else that you could never imagine. Now will that outcome be for the better? Here's hoping.

We film tomorrow, 5:30. Steve's gotta deliver some flowers, do some running and get in the back seat of a car. And then. We're. Done. Scary. I know.

Day of Trouble making.

So after a much needed 2 day hiatus in the schedule, we returned to filming tonight, as the sun literally started to peak through the thick cloud coverage that had been in the sky all weekend.

Dan, John and I were waiting for Steve and Todd, getting some odds and ends taken care of (clock shots) when Steve text'd me asking if we could put off shooting until tomorrow because he didn't have any hot water to shave with and he was "a little drunk." If he wasn't leaving Port Huron in 5 days, I would've said yes, but as it is, I told him to get his drunk-ass down there.

By the time he arrived it was too late to get some exterior shots with the flowers. At the start of the night I said "let's get 5 of the 20 shots left tonight." We'll be able to get at least 9 of them tomorrow when we do the kitchen scene and then the rest of the Swede. That'll give us 6 shots to get between Wednesday and Friday.

Eventually we decided to pack up the equipment and go on a guerrilla-style trip in the car. We first went back to the public housing building to shoot some exterior stuff, just to have a building to establish where the bedroom scene with the Swede takes place. Steve had just finished his second take (running along the sidewalk, through the parking lot, up to the doors) when some crotchity old hag told us they were going to call the cops on us. Here's Steve explaining:

After that, we decided to go to the Raven and get one of the flower delivery interior scenes. Looking at it now, I think I might want to redo it and light the back of the room more. I'm not sure. Alana from the Raven played the girl getting the flowers, Debra Sample (because the card was for Samples and the Beck song "Debra"). Either way, after 20 takes we had a few good ones to choose from and it was time to move on.

Since we were just down the street from the Harrington Inn, we decided to go and see if that'd work for the building for him to go in. That was what I wanted originally, and the more we talked about it, the more it seemed that it wasn't really the kind of building that you would find a bedroom like the Swede's. But we shot it anyway, just to have it in case I decided later that it'd work and if we couldn't find anything better.

It was while we were sitting along the sidewalk across the street from the Harrington Inn, trying to think of where we could find some stairs, when the cop showed up. The hag from the public housing building did call the cops on us. We played it cool, explained to him that we were shooting a film and he was like "yeah, just don't scare them, they're old people and don't handle fear well" or something not quite so blunt. The cop suggested we check around Pine Grove Park, and I think he thought we were talking about exterior stairs, but we headed that way anyway, when we saw the Port Huron Hospital parking garage, with 4 fliights of stairs, illuminated like the Holy Grail over that castle with all the loose religious chicks in Monty Python. We parked and investigated. All the doors were locked, but as we walked around, we realized that the entrance where cars go in, A) was open and B) was not being stationed by a lot attendant, so we just went in through the garage, shot 3 quick takes of Steve running up the stairs, and got the hell out of there. 10:30 and we had 3 scenes down.

As we were walking out of the parking garage I mentioned that we should call a cab and just have Steve get in, and film it from a ways away, when Cousin John brought to our attention that we were standing across the street from the cab depot. What the hell? we thought, and went over and asked them if they'd just let us shoot that. Sure enough, a nice Penny West, swung around and picked Steve up, let him get in, and drove around. 4 shots done.

We decided to go back to the B&B, see if we could find Kayte, who lives across the street and who'se hallway we wanted to use as the Swede's. We had to ask her neighbors if we could plug in a light and Todd explained we were shooting a moving in the hallway, to which we heard the lady ask "why would you want to make a movie about our hallway?" Anyway, we got the scene, in two different lighting setups. I can't decided which I like more, probably the darker one (yes they're an homage to Orson Welles/Stanley Kubrick. Bite me).

We got that done, and that was our 5th scene of the night. Afterwards, we went back to the B&B and setup the lighting for the Swede's bedroom scene tomorrow night, and planned how to shoot that. Todd's got lighting ideas for the kitchen, and we'll have 2 hours to get it done in. No or never. Long day tomorrow, but should be a blast. Wednesday we won't have to film until 6ish, so I can sleep in all day. Should be fun. We'll see.

Rainy Day

The rain has been nonstop since Friday. It's made a) it impossible to shoot the exterior scenes we still need to do, b) impossible for me to go outside and use my cell phone, and c) back pain flare up like crazy.

Haven't heard from Cliff, but I'm hoping we can shoot the rest of his scenes tomorrow evening. We've got a plan on where to shoot the hallway scene, hopefully we can get that done as well, and hopefully, if it doesn't rain (major if there), we can shoot some more stuff with Steve.

My goal is to shoot the kitchen scene on Tuesday. To do that, we need to find a kitchen. First Ross Bible's kitchen was our kitchen but they bailed on us because the movie's about murder and they're puritanical hypocrits. We had 2 kitchens sort-of lined up to shoot that scene today. The Black River Cafe, which is on Main St, said we could shoot there today but then they flaked on us and the only available time they can do it is probably not going to work. The Vintage Tavern was our other option and there was some confusion as to who was supposed to call the owner and when, so that fell through. But, even if we can't film tomorrow, my goal is to secure a kitchen to get those 2 scenes we need to film in there, shot.

The biggest hurdle to get done before Steve leaves is the first scene, Introduction of Nick Adams. Steve and I discussed it last night, and it won't be a hard scene to shoot, just a lot of work to get done, although I've been thinking of ways we can make it easier (natural lighting outside, single shot indoor scenes) so we'll see. We need to find 2 people to have flowers delivered too, and then we've got to actually get the flowers, or fake flowers, or whatever and do that. That needs to be done probably Wed and Thurs. I'd like to get Steve's scenes done by the middle of the week so he doesn't have to worry about that stuff his final few days in town. I just hope we don't have to reshoot anything, and if we do, I'll need to find out fast what needs to be reshot.

Last night Steve, Todd and I were hanging out at Steve's friend's house and Todd and I started discussing potentially starting another project once this one is done. We both had the same idea: a stop-motion/live action mix of Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" but the key to it would be to get Steve to help. He thinks he could do the same work from Portland that he'd do here, but I dunno. Gotta finish this one first before we move on to the next project. Either way, we got Steve to agree to stay in Port Huron if we could get 100 signatures on a petition for him to do so...as of now we have 5.

The one thing that I've been thinking about lately, is what I would've done differently with this film, and what to correct next time around. So far I've come up with the following:

1. Have much more time to rehearse before shooting. It's rather unfortunate that by the time we finished shooting Max and Al's scenes, Micki and Jim had finally gotten into their character's skins. It kind of makes me want to go back and reshoot some of the earlier stuff, but that's just not feasible.

2. Have a widescreen monitor. Or shoot in full-frame. There's already been a few scenes where I can see something in the very edges of the frame that shouldn't be there. A book-bag, a light stand, a bounce sheet, etc. They didn't show up in the monitor because it was squishing the video format and it's hard to pickup tiny stuff like that in the small monitor in the camera. I still think we were able to compose some really interesting shots, and there's a lot of geometry going on in the framing, but it'd be nice to have a widescreen monitor next time around.

3. A better grasp on sound. The only thing that worries me is some of the dialogue that we don't have many takes to choose from might be tied to other audio, like a chair moving, and we cant do anything with it in post. That's something that I'd like to work on next time around.

4. Storyboarding. I've always thought storyboarding was kind of stupid and a waste of time when you can sort of picture the shot in your head anyway. What I discovered is that, even if you can get that same shot, it'd probably be a lot better to have them drawn out so you know how the shot's will transition. That's one thing I didn't plan on, particularly because in pretty much everything I've done, filmmaking-wise, in the past, I've never had multiple takes/angles of stuff, it's all been live shooting, no retakes, etc. When you edit that, there's a certain flow that helps decides the cuts, you have to stay in somewhat of a linear fashion. With this project, not so much, and so while we got all the shots I wanted when I foresaw the film, I don't know how well they're going to splice together. We'll see about that.

5. More time to shoot. The whole thing has been rushed a bit, between having only 22 days from the start of the film until my lead character leaves the state, and only having x amount of days in the B&B. I would have liked for us to be able to really take our time and only focus on getting 1 scene per day, but that would've required 23 days of shooting. While I don't think any of the shots, etc. were rushed (except in the case of when the soundman was literally trying to rush through stuff), it would've been nice to really take our time and instead of getting 2 or 3 good takes and 1 perfect take per setup, we could've gotten 4 or 5 perfect takes per setup and maybe even do 2 or 3 variations of the scene within each setup.

There's probably more, but I need to lay down right now. I've been sitting at this computer all day, capturing video to my harddrive in seperate files, broken down into scenes and takes, etc and my back feels like I've got giant fish hooks digging into it and someone's trying to reel me in. Fun times.

Here's some stills from some of the footage I've captured:

Nick Adams trying to convince the Swede to leave town.

"What about the bright boys and the Mexican?"

"Do you go to church?"

Shot.

Counter-shot.

"You, Mexican, stand right there." "Whatever."

"Use yr head bright boy."

Max and Al about to leave.

Odds and Ends day

Woke up today at 12:15 in a panic, thinking I had told everyone to meet up at 12:30. It was raining, which meant that beyond my back aching like holy hell from working on the film all week, it ached from the rain too. I almost called everyone to cancel the shoot, especially when most of the shots we still needed where going to be facing the windows that wouldnt be quite so bright as they should be. But we're running out of time and I wanted a day (tomorrow) to look at all the footage and double check if we need to reshoot anything.

First we did the shot of Max and Al walking into the diner. That didn't take long.

Then we did the "kitchen shots" of Micki around the corner. The lighting was awesome, I hope they fit in nice as far as editing goes.

Next was the establishing shot that we ran filmed pretty much the entire film in.

Then, Sean O'Donnell finally made his appearance as Samuel, the Mexican. That was good fun.

After that, we went over to...a building...to shoot the elevator scene. It wasn't perfectly setup how I wanted it, but hopefully, through the wonders of montage, we can make it work.

We're getting really close to being done. We've got to do the following:
Close-up on the Swede for Scene 7 (with Nick Adams)
Scene where the Swede smokes sitting under the shadows of the fan blades, 2 angles, one of him in close-up and one wide-shot to see him put his ciggy out and get out of bed.
Shaving scene - probably 2 angles interspliced, as best we can.
Kitchen Scene - there'll be 3 setups for this and will take the longest I'm sure.
Nick Adams introduction - this'll actually take the longest, but it's just Nick Adams delivering flowers and making people laugh and be merry, shoot that around downtown.
Nick Adams running to warn the Swede - more of this.
Nick Adams entering the Swede's apartment building.
Nick Adams in the Swede's hallway.
Nick Adams hailing a Taxi Cab
Nick Adams in the "taxi".

and that's it. Actually, the more I look at it, the more I realize that we've got quite a bit to do still. Hopefully, if the rain holds off, we'll be able to shoot the stuff with Nick Adams running tomorrow night, the Swede scenes and the Kitchen scene Sunday night, maybe Nick Adam's in the Swede's hallway/entering the apartment.

I'm exhausted, but it's a good feeling in a way. I'd rather be in pain from doing something creative and fun than from just being in pain. This whole thing has been a lot harder, and while it's exhausting, it's something that I'm pretty damn sure I want to do again. I was telling Micki, Jim and Lusk earlier that my next film project might be something with that John North Wright stuff. We'll see. I've got some interesting ideas. First, this projects need to be finished.

I'm looking forward to getting more than 7 hours of sleep. Money says I'll end up crashing for something like 11 hours.

Long ass day.

So today we had a marathon run of filming. Lusk, Jim Frank, the Eppley Brothers, and I started around 12:30. Micki got there around 4:10, and Steve and Todd arrived around 6:00 pm. We all left around 10:30 pm. We got, in the can the following:
2 angles of Scene 3f
3 angles of Scene 3m
3 angles of Scene 3a-3d

We still need to get all of the scenes with the Mexican (Sean O'Donnell) in them and a few more scattered shots.
I'm just hoping beyond hope that what we've got thus far edits well. That would be the biggest disaster possible. I don't know why I'm worrying about it, probably because it's my first real film and so there's all sorts of pressure on, and if there was one way I could screw up (beyond shooting everything in hazy focus, or accidently erasing a tape) it'd be that.

The shoot did not feel like 10 hours. It just went by. I didn't really feel my back acting up until about an hour after we finished, when everything sort of settled down. Now it hurts like 8 bitches on a bitch boat. I need to get a good nights sleep because tomorrow will be another long day, most likely.

Micki and Jim were great today. John, as always, was too. Steve didn't have much to do, and he kind of got overshadowed during the actual filming but watching back some of the stuff, he was doing some great reaction work. I need to pay more attention to that kind of stuff while shooting.

Instead of giving the actors all sorts of directions on how I want them to deliver each line, I decided to give them a basic idea of where I saw the character going, let them work it out a little bit, and by the end, hopefully they'd have the character pretty well developed. I just think that its never going to be exactly like I saw it in my mind, so I might as well let the actor fill in some of the blanks and become something fresh, even to me. So far it's seemed to work really. I could've gone to everyone with very specific choices, but I guess I chose each cast member based on the characters' personality anyway and what I kind of hoped they'd bring to the table. I've been so happy with all of that thus far.

One thing that makes this high pressure for me is that, in a way, I feel like this film will live or die by my direction and editing. The screenplay is based on a classic by one of the greatest 20th century writers, the actors are all great, as well as the set and lighting. It's all on me then. If it sucks, it sucks because of me. If it's passable, it's passable because of the cast, script, etc. The only way it's going to be great is if what I bring to the table doesn't fuck up everything everyone else is bringing. So we'll see. It's been a blast and a long journey. Not too much longer to go. It'll be nice to finally get this goddamn story out of my head and see it with my own eyes. Here's hoping, we'll see.