07.13.07
On the Set: Day Four - Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Our morning was a series of dolly shots, starting with a long establishing shot of the neighborhood. I was press-ganged into deforesting a section of scrub brush for branches and leaves to cover someones SUV, left oh so conveniently in the middle of our scene.
Along with Lydia, we poked tree branches into the roof rack and gaff taped leaves all over the thing until you could have driven it through the woods and remained hidden… I would have laughed my ass off if the owner showed up during the take…
For some reason, the wasps weren’t out in force and the rest of the shots went smoothly - I was on edge, prepping for the big finale; making a delivery system out of foil turkey trays and water bottles, aided by Shannon, who came up with a great deal of ‘MacGuyver-ing’ ideas herself…
When lunch was over, the crew got the dolly ready for the last shot, I went over the plan with Mike, owner of the house and now my partner in the bloodletting, warning him about how slippery this stuff got, once it spilled. We had radios on this shoot, as opposed to the last time, where The Director called my cell phone and gave directions over Sprint’s wireless network… So, we got in our ready positions, and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
There was a loud banging on the garage door, The Director asking why we didn’t start pouring - the radios didn’t work. Mike and I didn’t hear a thing. One shot wasted.
We reset and got into our positions again. This time I heard the command for blood and we started pouring. Only to hear ‘Cut!’ a mere 5 seconds later. There was a plane overhead screwing up the audio. Reset again.
This time, Lydia was sent in with her phone and, as they say: Third time’s a charm. We managed to get a take in, much to everyone’s relief, especially my own. Once we got it down, we did take after take, working our way through 24 gallons of fake blood until we were down to a bucket of runoff and pouring remnants from used containers into half used ones. We had 4 gallons left.
We couldn’t do a proper take, so, in order to use what we had and to get an extra shot in, The Director had Heather stand in front of the garage, waving, blowing kisses and showing off for the camera.
The Director called cut and pronounced the shoot was a wrap, we all applauded and gathered in front of the garage door for a cast and crew photo, feeling much relief as it was over. Time to clean up - my only regret was that I had delivered my best movie quote and no one caught it: The Director had banged on the garage door, asking if we were out of blood and could clean up, and I had replied with, ‘You’re all clear kid, now lets blow this thing and go home!’ - but he had already walked away…Post clean up and a whole stack of pizza later, we had gathered out on the back deck, The Director and Heather thanking us all for the time and effort, especially for those of us who had been through this twice, to the new members of our little film community, and the announcement that the first festival that this film is slated for is Sundance. We all shared champagne and high-fives, hugs and jokes - piling into the passenger van feeling tired but proud to have been a part of this, a warm full moon watching over us as we made our back to the city…
