BAM!! ...down for the count

Well all this non-sleep finally took its toll and I caught the bug that's been going around. Yesterday on the way to the shoot I felt it hit. "Oh, crap," I said to Mo. "Get me to a drugstore, I need Airborne pronto." So he drove me to a CVS, but it was too late. Man, I got hit hard.

Luckily Shive was kind enough to tag me out last night around 10pm, so I took his car back to the appartment for some sleep. I actually got some. The throat is scratchy and the head is groggy from the Nyquill, but hopefully I'm on my way to recovery. We'll see.

Tonight I'm off, as they're shooting the "intimate" scene. I think Mo will be the only crew member on set. He'll just use boom stands to set sound.

So who knows what I'll do today. It sucks to be a thousand miles from home and just lying in bed, but that's probably what I should do. I'd really like to see some people that I don't often get to see, but I don't know if that's the best idea right now. Argh.

Shake, rattle and roll... and wake up

You know what's awesome? They started resurfacing the street out in front of the place I'm staying this morning at 7am. The monster machine that tears up the road actually shakes the whole building like an earth quake.


Last night we shot the kitchen scene. It looks fantastic. Cranes and dollies make camera motion so cool. And the lighting was sublime. Getting the lights of the city through these giant loft window is such a score.

The sun didn't come out yesterday (and evidently will be gone for the rest of the week), so we couldn't get the tights from the couch scene like we were planning. We were going to do the walk-in scene as well, but there's just no way to match light from the earlier sunny day footage. So we shot some stuff that won't get used, and waited for the sun to go down.

The energy was pretty dreary to begin the day. Every one was dead-tired (most of us didn't get more than 5 hours of sleep the night before). That mixed with the fact that Mo and I were the only members of the camera crew present made for low energy and slow going.

But once the dark rolled in, Shive and McClintock showed up, and made moving things around a much more manageable task. Jon (DP) was on a long overdue Valentine's date with his wife, so I was running second camera. Man, I love shooting.

Everything was looking stellar. I can't wait to see all this footage laid together.

The buses are still maddeningly loud. They only run on the hour starting at midnight. We gave thought to shooting from 1 am to 5am, but I think that would kill cast and crew, so we're just going to have to make due. The killer is that from around 5pm to midnight they seem to run by the building every ten or fifteen minutes. Not only that, but firetrucks (sirens and lights a blazin') visited the building across the street THREE TIMES yesterday. And they were at the building on the other side of us when we went out to our cars around 2am. Weird.

Grey day, but the light's still good.

Well, we wrapped after 3am last night and didn't get back to the apartment until after 4. We were back up and at 'em this morning at 9am. That combined with sleeping on a couch and holding my hands above my head all day makes for many an ache and pain. Ugh.

But the footage is GORGEOUS. Last night was the first time we shot with the night city in the background. It's sooooo cool looking. The sunset stuff before that was really nice as well. The light in this loft is just fantastic.

Yesterday my cousins Mikey and Drew lent a hand. It was great seeing them and having them on set. Mikey's a veteran to the industry (after only a couple years of living out here), and Drew got to experience a set for the first time. He's a track coach at Loyala Marymount, but he made a fantastic grip as you can see from the photos.

I can't believe how loud these damn busses are. I realized that there's a stop right in front of our window. That makes for some fun sound situations. We'll see how that goes in post.

We're light on crew today, so I'm moving up from sound guy to camera man (ooooooh!).

Don't forget, you can check the picture updates as I post them over here.

In closing, I'll leave you with a picture of the shirt I wore yesterday. Mo and McClintock each stated: "That is the coolest shirt ever." So this one's for you, Dave (thanks for the shirt!).

Moving along on the Eden shoot

So last night went until about 2am. The shoot schedule called for a 9pm wrap.

Oh, yeah.

The director made a good decision and pushed this morning's 8am call time back to noon. Not only that, but the shoot changed to a rehearsal (and finishing setting lights, testing sound, prepping the set, etc...). By the end of the night we should have a hot set and be ready to roll tomorrow.

Things look great. We've converted a shi-shi loft into a believable bohemian crash pad.

The footage looks phenomenal. It's amazing how pretty things get when they pass through a RedRocks lens adapter and into the camera. When you look at the live scene, and then turn to the monitor, you can hardly believe it's the same thing. The footage is going to be soooo pretty.

Jeff's got a really good eye.

To keep up with our days, you can check photos here.

February Eden Shoot