The Great Production Experience - Saturday, July 28

Date: Friday, July 27

Location: My grandparents' property, Natural Dam, AR

Cast: Luke, Lana, Trevor, Daniel, Tony, Chris, James, Dusty

Crew: Hannah, Tara

*Yawn* Ah, there's nothing like waking up at 7:00 in the morning when you've been up working since two the previous evening. It was a lovely morning, but we weren't enjoying it terribly much, thank you. A couple of our group were up before me, but I managed to rouse the rest of them and even peek in and wake up Lana as she slumbered on a beautiful mattressed bed. OK, OK, so she was sick; is that supposed to be some kind of excuse? *Ducks*

Breakfast: Donuts and chocolate milk. Three cheers for chocolate milk! A truly wonderful way to kick off a day. After getting everybody up, fed, and dressed, we departed back into the woods to our set from the night before for a morning scene.

The scene went well. I cannot resist pointing out that a certain female member of the cast was not set to appear in the scene; her character is off-screen in Shawn and Travis' tent and only her voice appears. This esteemed actress did not need to enter the tent at all to play her role; she could have merely stayed off-camera, yet she somehow managed to stay inside the tent for the duration of the filming of the scene! I must admit, she delivered her one line beautifully during each take. If only I could have it this easy.

With that done, Daniel left with Trevor, Tara, and Hannah to drop off Tara at her abode and pick up our morning crew. Our morning crew being James and Dusty. While they were gone, well, what's a filmmaker to do but shower? It was a lovely shower, and I confess I took longer than usual. It was a bit disheartening afterward to put on the same stinky clothes, but I felt 500% better. Smelled 500% better too, even with dirty clothes. Old Spice is awesome stuff.

Because of various delays, Daniel and the others would end up being gone for about three hours, instead of the expected two. And they had already left a full hour late. The rest of us (myself, Lana, Tony, and Chris), after taking the showers, went off to scout locations along the sides of my grandparents' bluffs. Marvelous things they are, and they will look gorgeous when we use them in the climactic final chase of the film.

Here's one of the many brilliant sections of woods.

Pretty sweet view.

Could this cliff or another like it be important in the climax of the movie? I wonder...

Fast forward to lunchtime; the others had finally completed the trip up, and we sat down to a delicious meal of grilled-chicken sandwiches. Oh baby, these were awesome. The girls applied makeup to the newcomers while Chris ribbed Dusty about being so late. Ah, good to be among both of my fellow youth leaders again!

After lunch, it was time to go back to the original Shawn-and-Travis tent location from the day before, the one we'd done all the running around. This time, in a scene that takes place shortly after the aforementioned one, gang members Carl (Chris) and Barry (James) run into Shawn and Travis' tent. More running, but this time for the bad guys. Chris and James play their roles with the intensity of hunters in the midst of the hunt, while Daniel and Tony get to be laid back and cool.

Then Daniel had to take Tony back to Van Buren since his part in the acting had been completed. Meanwhile, we filmed a couple of scenes exclusively between Carl and Barry. My goodness, James had trouble with one of them! He could not stop laughing at a particular part. We went through probably about twenty takes but finally managed to salvage the scene. He did better with the next scene, and to his credit, you probably won't be able to tell in the finished film that he had such trouble. After a while Chris also got distracted and started laughing some too. Sometimes it's hard to keep yourself under control as an actor; in this case they needed to work quickly because both of them had to leave pretty soon.

At last the scenes were done. Exit Chris and James, both of whom did a fine job. We were now ready to do our final shooting of the day, all involving only one actor: Dusty as Clyde, the leader of the Gang and older brother of Eric. Only problem was, the first of these scenes happens near nightfall. We had to wait until the sun was nearly down to drive out to our road location (in my grandpa's nearly-brand-new Chevy pickup, which he graciously agreed to let us borrow) and film a brief scene where Clyde talks on the phone and then vents inner turmoil. One down, two to go.

Back at the house, we had a simple shot of Clyde sitting in a chair and staring into space. Really? you ask. What's that doing in a movie? Doesn't sound very dramatic. Well, time will tell, but I think it will be very dramatic when it's all put together. Anyways, it was difficult to try to light this scene; we ended up using some white Christmas lights (those come in very useful for night scenes) and a low-wattage blue light that Lana bought. It took a while to get them situated where the camcorder would pick up the light on Dusty's face correctly. To make matters worse, my grandparents don't have air conditioning, so it was like a sauna in the room. But we got it done, and it matched my vision for the scene very closely.

The final shot was just a brief look at Clyde in bed, unable to sleep. This one was easy to light; we got it and got the shot in just a few minutes. Then it was time to bid my grandparents goodbye, thank them heartily for their gracious hosting during the past thirty-two hours, pack everything up, and head for home!

Hannah and I finally made it home a little after 11:00. Oh, glorious shower and bed that I call my own at home! It's now Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning technically), and I think I'm almost physically recovered from the weekend. Pretty crazy, but we got a lot of stuff done.

I am so thankful for my fellow cast and crew on this project, who are willing to devote so much of their time and energy to a dream that was not their own. I love all of you guys and could not do it without a single one of you. Thank you also to all of our families, who have sacrificed much as well that we might be able to make this little movie. I pray that it is all worth it.

Here I go getting all sentimental. Can't let that happen yet; we've still got a lot of filming in front of us yet. Stay tuned once again for further updates!