black coffee

previously published by me elsewhere:

We had intended to capture a couple reasonably complicated and important scenes over three evenings this past week.

The little wind that could of Tropical Whatever Alberto was still unpredictable enough on Monday night that we decided to cancel our Tuesday shoot. The decision to scrub the other two nights was a result of what happens when only a couple people are consistently focused on a project: some oversights made us ill-prepared to make those scenes happen.

The production gathered again at 9:30AM on Saturday morning ready but not necessarily willing to tear through a rigorous schedule, covering a couple quick segue scenes, an involved fight scene, and three re-shoots.

Three hours in and we were well behind schedule, and very little could resolve our lag from that point forward. Our crew was short several members that made last week's shoot run so smoothly: our new production assistances were out of town, the sound guy had a paying gig in Orlando that took precedence, and one would suppose our assistant sound guy had better things to do.

Due to scheduling restrictions, an overall demanding day on our make-up specialist, and other considerations, I had one of our re-shoots scheduled first thing. Maybe that's one of the reasons things went so sluggishly for the first half of the day.

There's something about re-shooting a scene that reminds me of this quote from the live Joni Mitchell record Miles of Aisles. Mind you, this is during the early-70s when musicians were far more accessible and lifeless arenas hadn't overtaken the concert tour, and a certain intimacy still existed with famous musicians.

Between tunes several of the audience members are blurting out songs they want to hear, which inspires Joni to compare the performing arts to being a painter. The point that I always remember is something like: you can't tell VanGogh to paint A Starry Night again.

I kind of got the same vibe going back to a scene that was executed particularly well some weeks ago. Going back is overkill when hindsight teaches you nothing new, and you're almost Gus van Sant guiding yourself through "Psycho".

We went back for one small reason. It was something I feel the average viewer wouldn't pay any mind to, and something a more expensive movie production could have fixed in post.

This is the footing our day got started on, so it was only inevitable that I would have to call off several of our actors by an hour at a time. One actor's call time got pushed so deep into the evening that we cancelled with him entirely.

Eventually, we got to the scene that took us the rest of the night. By which, I mean we wrapped set around 5AM Sunday morning. There's something special, and almost predictable, about spending that much time with people that it is the fodder of the better reality television and sociology 101.

For the most part I think we all connected in new ways, but predictably people together so long also get on each others nerves. People get tired, but certain people also get funnier.

To me, it's thrilling to be a part of a group of people driven and dedicated enough to stick it out late into the night.