Drunks, Day 2: What Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong

June 3rd should have started different. It should have been easy and we should have gotten a lot done. Fact of the matter is, we got very little done and it wasn't very good. I dare say, it wasn't very useful at all.

It started harmlessly enough. I was late getting to the set to find that everyone was still outside the bar. Mike had been trying to reach the bartender, Melissa, to let us in and wasn't having much success. In fact, he wasn't having any. We were suppose to start at 9AM and we waited to start shooting until the sun was good and high in the sky, after Noon sometime.

I had spent the days prior to the shoot getting a shot list put together. I realized that I should have done this from the get go, but better late than never. With what we'd shot before and since we were set to start at so early, I figured we could get all the interior stuff shot and then move to the exteriors some other time. So when I mocked up the shot list, I didn't include any exteriors, save the intro to them.

After noon, we knew we weren't getting in the bar. So we figured we'd start the exterior stuff then. It was hot, we were frustrated and tired. Mike's son, Michael, and a woman from Mike's acting class, Heidi, came on for a scene that Mike had penned after the last shoot. It was a great scene that would added more laugh appeal to the film. And since it was so new and I didn't knock out a shot list to include it, we'd have to play it by ear.

Now, I learned a valuable lesson from that day. A lesson that I'm still learning even to this very minute. "Be prepared, junior, be prepared." That was Bruce Willis' last line in 'The Last Boyscout'. I've learned to rely on Hank on the set. He provides a wealth of ideas that I sometimes can't come up with on the fly. June 3rd has taught me that I have to be self sufficient, cause when the going gets rough, the going can kick you in the balls and if you're not looking when you get up, it'll do it again.

Theo lit up.

The rest of the afternoon was a nightmare. We had waited so long to start and were taking so long with each take that the sun was moving across the sky faster than we could get it together. The shadow line on the ground was crawling faster and faster. And with all that sun we had plenty of back light issues with Theo, who was standing facing the shadows. Fortunately Theo brought some clamp lights and we bolted two of them onto a light stand, ran an extension cord from the tattoo shop next door and hoped it would work. We also couldn't get my truck into the original parking space we had the week before, so we had to shoot around it.

Michael, walking away, taunts Theo.

It wasn't all bad. Michael, a very sharp 11 year old, came through with flying colors and really made us all work better. Heidi really wanted to work and it showed. Sky tried his best to give me what I wanted. And I tried as hard as I could to keep it all together.

I drove to work afterwards thinking about how bad I'd done. I didn't feel right about my direction, about my cinematography and about some of the performances.

Still, it was another lesson learned and another day doing what I ultimately hope to become my full time job.

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