Day 11

We got alot of shooting done today. A student council scene (that we weren't expecting to do today), a new scene that Mike wrote last night (Margareta's a very quick study), and many car scenes. Most of the drive test portion of the movie was filmed today. We have to get audio still, since Highway 10 can be kinda loud, but that shouldn't take long.
It was warm again today - especially sitting in a car riding around town trying to kind of record the time code for Mike. Let me tell you - riding around with Vaughn, Dusty, and Pendell is quite an experience - a good one, but unique all the same. Never thought I'd be in a car with three men listening to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack while trying to follow a mustang... We were all dripping by the time we called it a day. However, the good news is we aren't called until tomorrow evening for more car scenes. At least many of these scenes will be in the evening - when it's cooler.
It's nice to have actors who don't have an issue with getting really hot, or sweating, and are generally good sports.
We have about 8 and a half hours of film so far.

The Watering Hole

Northwestern College has graciously allowed the production to use their theatre green room as a meeting place during our shoot. (Thanks to Jamey Durham, the newly appointed head of the Communications department!) It's a great place to keep food cold, get ice, rest and keep everything needed for the shoot stored and organized. The crew meets here every morning before the day begins.

Sam, Ryan, Dusty, and Katie hang out after lunch until shooting starts up again for the afternoon.

Becky, Vaughn and AmyLeigh consult the production board that holds all the information for scenes, actors, call times, locations, props, and just about any other information needed to keep the ball rolling.

Meet Tom

Tom Hydeen is playing our DMW Examiner, Hugh Furtner. Tom is a music minister and has played many roles on stage. Most recently he played Mr. Vander Gelder in Hello, Dolly! He's a great actor and I'm sure he will have fun today riding around in a Mustang convertible with Dave.

An introduction

Hello! For those of you who don't know me (and I'm assuming that's probably most of you) - I'm AmyLeigh. I get to be the Script Supervisor(which means I keep the time code for each take of each scene, and keep track of the continuity of the actors, their costumes, and the scenery), Costumes extraordinarie, and owner of the truck that carries all the dollies and road blocks. I'm from Colorado, though I've spent three years in college here. I'm not a fan of Iowa summers - though the humidity means fireflies - which don't live in Colorado. I worked with Mike and Jamey last year on Prairie Pirates, and am back again this year. Yay! And.... that's enough about me.
Today marked our 10th day of shooting. We're doing pretty well I think. We learned today that Mike's dogs behave really well when in front of a camera - which wasn't a good thing since we were banking on them being their...ummmm...energetic? selves. However, since we were only working with one actor besides the dogs - it went fairly smooth. It was hot today, or so it felt in Mike's garage. However, movie shoots have taken place in hotter, more uncomfortable locations, and Amy gave us popsicles in the afternoon, so it's all good.
Basically, today consisted of a hot garage, two well-behaved dogs, an amazing dog wrangler who is also known as Mike's eldest, popsicles, chinese, frozen mountain dew, a brown mustang, dog poop made of chocolate, peanut butter and flour, wet clothes, and smooshed french fries.
It was a good day.

Working in the garage

After a hot few hours in the garage, everyone had lunch and took a Gilligans Island break.

Katie is the resident dog handler. Buddy and Scout are supposed to jump on Tim, who plays Dave, but found they kind of liked him, so Katie and Vaughn (not pictured) had to do some creative dog handling. No animals were hurt during the making of this film. :)


Mike and Amy Leigh getting ready to shoot Tim meeting the dogs for the first time.

Link up

Melody and Amy Leigh in their "it's so hot" shirts. Appropriate clothing choices since today we filmed in a non-climate controlled garage, with two uncooperative dogs.

Amy Leigh's back. Melody's back.
Amy Leigh! Sooo cute and very creative. Amy Leigh and Melody will start blogging about behind the scenes stuff soon, so watch for their comments in the next few days.

Ryan Pendell, our clap board operator, has a great blog. He has started documenting his experience working on this film over at Kicking the Gourd. Pop over there to get his perspective on making an independent film.

Lots 'O Extras

Ready to roll!

Jamey, our producer, is giving the kids instructions for their scene. He's the guy with the cap on in the middle of a sea of bikers. Mike is in the back of a van filming and yelling, "Don't look at the camera!"

These guys learned there is a lot of waiting when you're making a film.

Lucky for us, they all took their wages in the form of popcicles!

Photos from the gazebo set

Dusty (boom/sound), Mike (director/camera operator/writer), and Melody (production assistant) setting up a shot. Real dolly equipment on order! PVC is bumpy.

Weighting down the homemade dolly with pop cans.

Lacey and Matt are in the gazebo. Becky at left, is the production manager. Ryan (walking by) works the clapper, is assistant camera operator, grip and all around hard working guy.

Production is going well with relatively few wrinkles. It's a great group of people we have working on this project.

Casting Pics

Matt Laird and Lacey Parker are in the roles of Eddie and Laney

Magareta De Boer and Tim Sprigg play Cindy and Dave.

Shooting started June 19th. More to follow!