DAY 9

EVERYONE shows up at 6AM, including our new best friend Tom FINALLY A CONTINUITY PERSON. Well, everyone BUT:

An actor, who’s stuck on the road with a flat tire. Another actor is sent to go find him, right as the lost actors PHONE GOES DEAD. What a way to start the day :(

Another actor is missing too. Actually, he’s just been sitting in his car, but has forgot a VERY important part of his wardrobe. Wasn’t this problem supposed to be solved after the last wardrobe mishap? Not with a tiny crew, who all has at least ten different jobs to keep track of. Dude now has to drive back to his pad in rush hour traffic. MEANWHILE:

The actor who went out to find the other actor CAN’T FIND HIM ANYWHERE! So much for an early start.

What to do?? Shoot some new inserts of the flyer we shot with an actress that was replaced with another one. We do that, walk out on the street to think, and then:

The actor with the flat tire rushes up all out of breath. HE WALKED ALL THE WAY TO THE SET. The actor still looking for him is called back. Meanwhile the actor with the forgotten wardrobe is STILL stuck in traffic. What now?

Reshoot part of another scene at this location that didn’t quite work the first time. 

The actor who forgot his wardrobe arrives. Time to get down to business. Shooting a long scene, involving six characters. The Set General works out all the blocking, but three different colors of maker tape continues to confuse the actors. The scene is broken down into four parts and we shoot, doing the first part of the scene last. A free style band jam that exhausts all the actors, after take after take of jumping around, riffing like crazy.

YAK SHOWS UP WITH POLLO LOCO

We move into the other part of the set, which TEAM DEAL has been dressing all day, it’s a site to behold.

But as per usual we are WAY behind... one scene is knocked out before moving outside to shoot dusk for dawn. Tom’s still there cuing actors. A short scene with only two set ups, then it’s back inside.

We’ve got a hard out, so gotta move. Another scene is shot before going on to the last one of the day.

We rehearse/block the scene, realizing we got a BIG PROBLEM. The scene just ISN’T WORKING. A pow wow ensues as the clock continues ticking. We try one thing/then another. It’s still not feeling right, but gotta shoot. A few more tweaks, it’s feeling a bit better. But gotta go. The hard out is about half hour away and we still got about five set ups to shoot of a scene that’s just been re-written on the spot. Is what it is, so away we go.

We’re still shooting as the next group of people using this location begin filing in:

Right as we’re shooting THE LAP DANCE SEQUENCE. Yep, to all these fine folks it looks like we’re MAKING A PORN!

Team Deal continues putting ‘hot set’ signs all over our section of the location, right as we finish at the last possible second and split.

Tomorrow. THE MOTHER OF ALL SCENES

photos by Suzan Jones