Friday/Saturday April 02/03, 2010
Shoot: Day Three of Four
I had emailed my friend
Paul Brown
as a possibility to play Lucille's current husband.
CC'ing me, Paul sent a very well written email to Jerry inquiring after the role, but I later learned Jerry had managed to acquire someone for the role
(and that he was going to notify Paul thereof).
In my reply I urged Jerry to retain the contact information for Paul for future projects.
Jerry also sent along the callsheet for the Friday night night-shoot; the principals' calltime being 7:30pm.
Checking the bus schedules
(having just enough time to go home from work, shower, shave, walk the dog, et al),
The Rapid Bus decided to blow past the Woodman stop, so I figured I'd get out of the way emptying the rental box.
As I walked up Van Nuys Boulevard, I stumbled on an uneven slab of pavement and went down.
Many people fight trying to fall; I know that that can be more injurous, so I go with it.
In this case I was going forward enough to scrape my right arm at the elbow.
Thankfully I was wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt beneath a hoodie, so the scrape was less substantial than had I been wearing a bare-armed short-sleeve t-shirt.
Later, at the shoot, I noticed that the area about the scrap was massively goose-egg'ed.
It was far enough up on my arm that the blue Hawaiian shirt blocked it so on film it wasn't obvious.
During the day Friday Jerry sent the updated pages on the Mrs. Golatch bit.
I printed this out at home before heading out.
I decided on the double bus, my EZ pass eliminating the need for transfers, et al.
I arrived at Jefferson at Hoover at 6:50pm, enough time to get a "snack" at Wendys, once finished coming across Jerry and Lukas doing the same thing.
We headed over to the store next door, and while they set up Garrett and I relaxed and chatted in his car, mostly talking about his working on the Playboy shoot the other day.
Around 7:30 we were brought over, met a few of our background actors, and soon Christina arrived.
We also met our Mrs. Golatch, played by the enthusiastic
(and perfectly cast)
Deanne Mencher.
The three of us ran the updated dialogue as the camera was set up just inside the store's door.
Around 8pm Garrett and I were set for our montage-of-sorts shot, which filmed to be super sped up, a la the Vinnie Jones
subway platform sequence
for
Midnight Meat Train.
Maybe 40% of the real customers entering or leaving the store at that entrance went into insti-Oh No I'm Ruining A Film's Shot, while others just ignored it.
A few real customers asked us actual questions; thankfully I knew where was the bathroom so could direct people to there, and for specific products, I jokingly gestured to the store and indicated it's Probably In There Somewhere...
Occasionally Jerry was able to wrangle an actual customer to greet us as though they were regulars.
One customer, a very pretty girl, inquired of me the bathroom, and as she thanked me, added, "Superior is a great store."
Sure enough, she wasn't even aware we were filming.
A large group of students were gathering to be charter-bused to Someplace, and several came to shop, so they were enrolled to greet us happily.
At one point one of the store's workers came up to tell us
[Garrett and I],
that we "had to stop" filming, as one of the customers "complained."
Without breaking stride, I simply told her pleasantly that the director was just outside the door, so she went out where she learned while she had the capacity to request that we stop, considering the provided permissions Jerry had acquired, the worker lacked the authority to stop us.
As it was, she was also informed that as the film speed was such as to barely recognize anyone coming and/or going, that the "complainer" would not be recognized.
Eventually the shot was done, and we moved on.
Several of Jerry's friends were background for when we had the store to ourselves from 10pm onwards.
We had to wait for the mega-TV screens cut out as they blared music rendering filming scenes with dialogue impossible.
They finally cut out around 11:30 or so, and we filmed the Golatch scene.
For Garrett's Bill's entrance,
video editor, film maker and music video maker
Jesus Rivera
played cashier Mike, whose colourful wardrobe was awesomely hilarious.
We discovered we were both into metaphysics and
the paranormal,
including but not limited to his having visited to
Waverly Hills,
the Mecca of paranormal investigating...!
Jesus also provided the "flair" buttons for the All-Mart aprons, one of which I noticed was of
Danny and the Dinosaur,
of which he knew as a button but not as its book.
He looked at its back and noted the title thereon, as I told him that I had
the original hardback book
as a child.
Christina's scenes were completed, and she was wrapped for the night.
Soon Christine arrived, as well as
Joe Montgomery,
the latter of whom would be playing the oft-name changing character of
Lucille's current husband: apparently now it's locked down as Frank.
Their scene was finished when we stopped for lunch at 3:30am.
As Joe had to go all the way to Palmdale t'get home, he simply retreived his Subway sandwich and departed.
Christine departed as well, and as we went to film the final sequence, to our horror, some of the lights at the door on which we'd been relying had turned off, apparently automatically.
We probably would have been done far earlier had the store workers
(e.g., cleaners and stockers),
had been quiet, or at least more quiet than they were.
This delayed us here and there, just enough that now lights were off, time-wise.
As it was intimated the lights would auto-turn back on at 6am, we worked at cheating the shot to be under good lighting, when suddenly the lights we wanted came back on.
Before they changed their mind, we quickly went back and did two versions of the ending, as a new set of lines were added for the new lighting.
We did both versions with the better-lit spot, with which to give Jerry the choice.
I joked the Alternate Ending could be on th'DVD...
The 5am target wrap time would have been hit had it not been the environment was only about 90% actually controllable.
We wrapped at 5:30am, which was still pretty good.
Jerry had had Christine autograph the script, and Garrett and I added ours as well.
We went our separate ways; Jerry driving me back to the Valley.
We discussed the night's shoot, work, et al, as well as future concepts with this and other projects.
Ironically we arrived at my street at 6am, about thirty minutes later than my regular weekday Dumble walk-time, so as I entered the place Dumble was all set for his morning walk, my being all set for bed notwithstanding.
After our walk, I conked for several hours, waking and learning online already posted were some of the behind the scenes photos one can see below already.
Later in the day, Jerry emailed us:
From: Jerry White Jr.
Subject: A Superior Shoot
Date: Apr 3, 2010 4:07pm
Hallo all!
Thanks for a wonderful night!
Performances were fantastic throughout
--
despite the late hours and lunch after 3am.
I really like the process of writing characters for specific actors as I did for most of the roles in this film.
And it's been great to get recommendations from fellow filmmakers on who should play a role (Deanne and Joe, I'm looking at you).
I hope you all got plenty of sleep today.
Thanks again,
Jerry
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