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.