today was not as productive, we did a few things but came up empty handed.
my stomach aches have been getting worse and seem to have no rhyme or reason to them. no matter how much or how little i eat, no matter what it is, constant pain. this pain has been happening as far back into my childhood as i can remember.
maybe it's the stress of not having a job or knowing what the fuck i'm going to do about money or anything ... i don't know. i'm stressed all the time. maybe i'm stressed because my stomach hurts and it hurts because i'm stressed?
i feel nauseous and tired and hate it. but maybe the film will get made. the more people read it, the more they are liking it. i can't wait to start shooting. haven't shot a film since march of last year. that is too long.
have also been looking into finding footage of the person that we're basing the film on, trying to get down his mannerisms and looks and whatnot. interesting business.
today i got up and did over a week's worth of dishes. i know. ew. i'm a boy. deal.
then i went to meet up with everyone's favourite book reporter, quentin mills fenn and the lovely miss miriam toews. yes, as it stood, everyone else would be using the same artwork (other publications) and the collective reasoning at uptown was 'why don't we just get nick to take some photos of miriam?' and so that is what i did.
she was a delight, a treat, lovely, funny and sweet. i gushed to her. i also bonked my head when i walked up to her to shake her hand. they were on a patio and i walked into one of those umbrellas. yeah. sandpaper, that's how smooth i am.
ANYWAYS we had some lovely small talk, i got off about 70 shots and handed them in to my editor. in one week you can see the shots in uptown! isn't it magic how it all works?
for those that don't know miriam's work, she is easily my favourite local author. 'a complicated kindness' is equal parts 'less than zero' and 'catcher in the rye' - but with a mennonite girl in steinbach. yup.
also, right after this i went home and finished up the dishes and then chad came over and kim, the make up girl. we discussed what we needed. we decided on a few scenes to start shooting next weekend (possibly press conference, a meeting with a tom waits-ish artist and an interview starring a certain local journalist). kim was definitely on the same page as us, great to have her on board. she gets it, it's nice. nice to not have people roll their eyeballs at you. so we decide to go to harlequin and get some wigs. i've never tried on wigs before. after a few, we decide on a blond wig (our character is insanely vain and sports wigs in the 70s to 90s) and an afro wig (for our grand finale) and a mustache (for chad? no, for the film). successful.
august 31, 2008
i checked on something and a certain favourite director of mine ... well, let's just say that something i had been working on has maybe paid off. i won't say anymore because frankly, i don't know what to say or think.
off the record. ssshhh.
sept 3, 2008
so today chad and i went and booked a room to shoot the press conference scene, well, we tried to. it seems that through patty hawkins you can book rooms in the theatre building but not the regular university, that is a whole other ordeal. so fingers crossed we get this room.
then we met up with josh and cranked out all the songs for the film. we had the basic ideas written in the script (lyrics anyways) but we quickly fleshed them out. mostly 60s pop songs, really catchy, repetitive stuff. then josh is going to flesh them out and then we are gonna really record em. then the people in the film can lip sinc to something.
then we did the 'promo shots' of harv (me) in the 'back to mono' style and i think they worked neat. they will, anyways. chad is going to photo shop em and make em all perty like.
Sept 4, 2008
so today chad and i went and dressed the set of 'harv's office' at the chief's old office (my grandpa's old one, at the dealership). pretty sixties, all wood panel, cool old desk and nik nak crap. great. can't wait to shoot in it. there's even a bar! note: if it is still there if and when we shoot 'mr writer' then we should use it for murray's office.
then met with dave brown, the gun guy. SUPER good meeting, he's on board, supportive, likes the script, called it ambitious, etc. got the joke too. he says we can use a certain actor's studio to do some auditions in, and he's even going to take us into the class tomorrow night and say 'hello all, this is nick n chad, they're making a film about an eccentric record producer'. also, he has a steady cam that he says we can use. what a helpful fellow.
chad and i went and met up with marc evans for thai food (though i only had wanton soup - i also can't spell wanton). then marc and i had our first non-chad hang out (band practice) and that was my day. then i watched eXistenZ and a documentary about the production designer on all cronenberg's films and she went to u of m as a design major or something.
i miss my girlfriend. i haven't seen her at all this week.
i also miss sleeping. i can't do it.
think i'll call bruce mcdonald in the morning.
g'nite.
Saturday, sept 6, 2008
so yesterday i had lunch with my dad, a meeting with bj about helping out with some production, talked to the j koz about whatnot and saw jen for the first time in a while.
then this morning, we started shooting.
kim's make up looked great, it only took about an hour or so to make me look like i had lived the hard life. lines on the face, fucked up my hair, pretty great. i am 35 in the scene. we also transformed jen's living room into a paris cafe (twin peaks style) and you wouldn't know unless i just told you. jen's acting was great, really glad the first scene was with her (harv is interviewed by her). josh filled in as a waiter and took a few photogs as well. dale did the sound, chad shot and directed. i'm glad he's directing because it takes SO much off of my mind. in addition to getting everything prepped, i also have to act and be in character and whatnot. so chad directing me and jen and worrying about lighting the scene, aces.
problems:
the camera has no headphone jack. most days we will be shooting with an external sound unit. today we were not so lucky. most of our sound was fine, but on the last few takes we had static. sigh. oh well, it will be okay, we can cut around.
six hours of shooting, the scene went from being about a page (equal to one minute of screen time hopefully) to about 3 minutes (i improvised, fleshed out some stuff). but it was also the first day and well, it can't all go right the first day.
stand out - dale going to safeway to find juice to sub for wine and a manager following him around because he looked like a hoodlum, holding different bottles up to the light, trying to find the right colour of juice.
so all in all a great start to the filming of "a reasonable man: the unauthorized biography of harvey stevens".
september 11, 2008
making lots of headway on the film this week. we shoot the press conference scene on friday. we have approximately 35 scenes to shoot still. eep. 14 of these scenes are in the recording studio. fuck my life. if we shoot a few a day though, numerous days per week, should start rolling. we just need a few more elements. a lot of casting has come through though in the last few days. victor enns is playing chuck buck, the frank black character, a few more ideas/confirmations - andrea premecz is playing the 'mom' in the 40s/50s. we still need an eleven year old boy to play 'young harv'. joey jacob is playing 'stanley sloan' (her schedule permitting - and yes, the gag is that a woman plays stanley, a man cherise... sonny & cher references ... ) and who else? a few others.
the press con is all set too, room is booked, got a neat microphone from L&M today. i have mapped out a location:scene schedule type thing. we're setting the schedule, we've decided. kind of a 'this is when we're shooting, be there or be square' type thing.
cast we need:
milty 'milt' milton - bodyguard
that canadian band - basically the guess who
a few musicians
eleven year old boy
maybe a few others.
saturday september 3, 2008
shooting day 2
so here we go.
yesterday we shot the press conference scene. i was the only actor in it (you'll get it when you see it). basically - my character holds a press con to prove that he is still young and hip and to show off his new look. he's announcing that he's producing a new band (fixxxing). he is very excited. he is also losing his mind during this.
kim did my make up (aged me to 46) and we headed down to the school. chad put the tiny camera on the large tripod - hilarity. we used a banquet meeting hall type room for this (looked like a hotel conference room) at the university. bj and his friend brad eventually showed up. brad operated some flashers to act as the paparazzi cameras. there were lots of lights set up. the gimmick we were using was to start on 'harv' (me) giving his press conference, pull back and reveal the room ... (you'll see). anyways. it went well. aside from a few glitches (sound) as always. our sound is hopefully not cursed on this project.
captured the rushes today and they look great. marc evans said it looks like sctv, and given the absurdity of the scene, i think that works as a compliment. anyways.
i'm wiped. we have some locations to scout but mostly we are cast (a few to get still). i think i'll be going to stalk actors at a class on monday night.....
kim is gone for a few weeks as well and we have to wait to shoot a few scenes for some film and casting ... ramble.
jen and i had a great couple of nights lately. i'm a happy kid, gotta say.
september 18
so bruce mcdonald called me today.
if you don't know bruce, he's been my hero since 1998 when i first saw hard core logo. he directed that, the show twitch city, tracey fragments, roadkill, highway 61, love crimes of gillian guess, picture claire ... a few others. music videos. television. etc. he's a canadian guerilla filmmaker. he's kind of my hero.
there's a new hard core logo website that is in development and through a strange series of events, bruce got in contact with me about writing for it. i talked howard about two weeks ago, one of his producers. he said bruce would be getting in touch with me. today he did.
i'm not bragging, boasting, anything like that. i'm just fucking thrilled that i get to do some writing for someone that i really look up to, that i had a really good phone conversation with him and made him laugh a few times.
he said today he was going to try and call michael turner up (who wrote the book that the hcl film was based on) about a 'bible' of sorts for the website. essentially, the site will consist of articles, reviews, journals, all about the band on the road from its inception in the early 80s to their break up in 91 and the reunion and everything else. it would be creating a history, a back story. go see the film, you'll get it.
so he needs to talk to michael turner. then he needs to talk to noel baker (he wrote the screenplay) and see how busy he is. so if those two are too busy to helm the project bruce would like me to do it.
i will now stop gushing.
"A REASONABLE MAN" update
i will now gush out our very productive film day.
chad and i went to st. andrews (just outside the city) to see the first recording studio. it looks great, the price is right, the guy who owns it/built it is super nice and we feel like yes, we can work here. we had to rush off to our other meeting at the other studio though. so then we stopped by kildonan park to see if there was a spot to shoot the wedding (there is) and we were happy. made it to our other studio meeting. this studio is a film studio warehouse with a recording studio inside. they were very 'you have all access to everything' etc, but the price is a bit high. for a room that we liked and didn't love, we couldn't justify it.
got home, called mike petkau (who i somewhat know from taking his pictures for uptown). as i had fallen in love with his studio at cmu, i finally got ahold of him about the possibility of using it. he has to check with his boss, but barring anything insane we should have it. we're going to see it on friday. there is also a reasonable price tag per day. ideally, i would like to shoot there (as would chad).
we also organized the shit out of our to-do list. there are many things left to do, but we have started to set dates for locations and people, so it is falling into place and when it is all set in stone, it doesn't feel like a 25 page, 36 scene film with over fifty characters.
we went to find a bingo hall for the climax scene, hit a few places, shrugged at them, stopped by the ruby slipper vintage shop, found some great sixties clothes for the girls but since we had no girls with us, picked up nothing. then we found 'bingo world bingo' on sargent. perfect looking, randomly we showed up when they were just opening for the bingo evening. reasonable price. fuck yes? fuck yes.
yesterday kaeliegh and i spent the day working on her character and outfits, picked up some great stuff (an american flag sweater - A-MAZING) and a few other great props. bow ties. etc. can't wait. she's making her wedding dress out of some tule (sp?) and various other things, as a used dress is anywhere from $50-150. we hit the big three stores too, value village, goodwill, salvation army. great day, hadn't seen the kid in a while.
so all in all ...... pretty great stuff to report. we're not shooting this weekend (make up girl is away) but NEXT weekend is the wedding and shit is rolling from then on pretty insanely.
can't wait to show everyone this flick. can't wait to keep shooting it, first off. jeepers!
tune in for our radio show tomorrow. i don't know what we're playing yet. we'll see...
well, bye!
ps going to see burn after reading tonight. coen bros comedies are the best kind of comedies.
sept 25
so we start shooting again on sunday. sunday is the wedding scene. the wedding scene is outside. and now they are calling for showers, moving in from alberta, POP 30. could suck. could work out. fingers crossed that people show up.
we had a rabbi picked out, but he fell through so yesterday we got howard curl (who is a john kozak co-hort, "two men in search of a plot") as well as a prof at u of w. we went to the fabric store to get fabrics for our jewish wedding supplies (rabbi's scarf, yamakas - i know that's spelled wrong - and a red carpet for the wedding). we also went to this huge wardrobe warehouse (30,000 costumes) and picked a few things out. fingers crossed about that stuff as well, we're getting a quote about the prices, dry cleaning costs factor in apparently.
casting is up and down overall. found a few more people this week (nicole grabowsky will be patty, emily wessell and katherine supleve studio girls, krystle snow is the 'other karen' and drew from electro quarterstaff is milt). still a few things to cast. scheduling conflicts are already starting though. and i'm a little curious about what is going on with our studio. it went from being 100% to 95% or something. eep.
this film is stressing me out so much that sometimes i just sit and list things in my head and not actually get anything done, just list and stress. kind of worrying i suppose. stomach is in a constant state of worry.
this weekend we film the wedding scene at kildonan park, at the flower garden. parking is in the pavilion parking lot. we're heading out for 9am. marc evans has wrangled a few extras, but if anyone that reads this and wants to come to harv and karen's wedding, it is a cast call of noon and it does take place in 1987, so dress appropriately.
the shedule is full up as well for the next month of my life.
oct 1 we shoot band inserts at the university
oct 4 we shoot a super 8 1950s scene of a yard sale
oct 5 we shoot a tom waits ish meeting
oct 11 we are in the bedroom with harv and karen
oct 12 we make stereotyping funny again
oct 15 we interview on 16mm
oct 17-19 we are in harv's recording studio
oct 25 we go to 'the centre of canada'
oct 26 we shoot two people by accident
nov 2 we wrap with the bloodiest bingo hall you have ever scene ...
that being said, our radio show will be on repeat or hiatus till then.
so ... there's that.
sunday sept 28, 2008
so yesterday we rocked out some more demo stuff with josh benoit. the tunes are coming along for the film. why did i write so many original songs into the film?!?!?!?! oh fuck my life. but it's going well. mixing bowl percussion, is that how they did it in the old days?
then the ken mode show last night deafened me wonderfully last night. fucking ROCKED. i haven't seen the guys play in a long time, and never yet with chad. so that was pretty great.
this morning we set up at kildonan park to shoot the '80s jewish wedding' scene. harv (me) marries karen (kaelieigh). we had about 15-20 extras show up (filled the shot perfectly). had some paparazzi, a bridesmaid, a rabbi, people cheering ... did about six takes (a red bull truck drove by in the background of one .... kind of hard to have that pass for 1987). i was quite happy with all of it, as was chad. one of those shoots that built up and the first couple of takes i was just remembering 'oh yeah, i'm acting right now' because i'm also worrying about 8000 other things ... so it takes me a few takes to get going. but by the end i nailed it, howard nailed it, kaeliegh nailed it, camera and sound nailed it and we all said 'huzzah'!
some of the cool kids that showed up included the likes of drew (eq), shane (ken mode), toby, chad, jane (outside joke), aaron (video on trial!??!) and a bunch of other people i didn't know and never really met. but marc did a great job rounding them up, i'll give em that.
THEN josh shot some stills of nick and kaeliegh for our wedding album hehe. these shots will go in their bedroom. it will be awesome.
THEN THEN we shot the promotional photogs for the band 'fixxxing'. the great thing is, they LOOK LIKE A BAND. they look like they belong together. i'm quite happy with it all. quite. did the standard brick wall shots, the side profile shots, the jumping in the air shots and abbey road.
i will go on record saying that chad is doing a great job directing this, he has so many pieces of the puzzle moving and in place and even has the time to direct me, it's a nice feeling. he's probably the only person i would ever feel comfortable with directing the words i've written. dale is knocking it out as the sound man and doing it on camera for the doc feel (you'll get it when you see it) and bj's shots today - on the mark.
i said to kaeliegh today too that i think it was good to start her out with a basic minimal dialogue scene (she claims she's never film acted before, even though she's great). i think she'll be great. she's really falling into the roll.
most of all, this is fun. this will be a fun month! i'm glad i don't really have anything else to worry about right now, it's a really good feeling.
wed, oct 1, 2008
so we shot at the university today in the plainest room we could find. shooting on super 8, we shot some 1950s performance scenes in a parody of the ronnettes, the beatles and the righteous brothers (the bennettes, johnny & the moon dogs and the awesome cousins respectively). panic set in early on when we couldn't find enough actors to fill in. we wound up finding our old pal matt kennedy (he was in my film 'take offs and landings' and makes a bunch of his own films) to fill in as a very energetic george. dan who was at the wedding the other day was our john, craig had to dawn a wig to be paul (his hair was a bit short) and bj (who helped light the day) wound up as our ringo. problem is, bj is also our cherise (in drag) but you can't tell it's him in the shot. they poorly (on purpose) lip synced to the reeling and feeling song and then we brought in our righteous brothers. chad and i decided to rip off this moving camera shot from the classic you've lost that loving feeling promo clip with the light reveal and all that. kevin and (i'm drawing a blank) filled in as our bobby hatfield and bill medley - they were hilarious. then eva (ava?) was our ronnie spector/bennette, rocking this bouffant wig and sparkly dress. the lighting was perfect, the shot was perfect, it was all magical.
five hours of prepping and shooting all together (hauling my drum kit from jen's mom's house to the school to my apartment was the least fun of the day).
marc bought a bass today randomly. yesterday i bought an electric piano from vv for twenty bones. can't go wrong. anyways.
big shoot this weekend. let's hope it all pulls together.
fingers crossed.
big day tomorrow too. eep. got to go get election streeters ... dun dun dun
oct 2
this weekend is a big shoot, it's one of our last outdoor shoots (save for walking into a building in the final scene which i just this moment realized is in NOVEMBER and the possibility of how cold that might be just gave my overtired body shivers). where was i going with this? yes. the stress of thinking it might rain (it isn't supposed to at all) and the possibility of an actor not showing up.
next week i have to cut my hair to look like phil spector. good lord what i won't do for a movie.
had a nice day with jen today, we got some streeters for the election. most kids in university will be voting, some don't know for who, all are quite vague and one girl is voting (i think conservative) because she's catholic and pro life. yup. then we had some delightful lunch at confusion corner and i picked up those glasses for andrea's character (harv's mom needs cat eye glasses in the fifties!!!). tomorrow we will finish dressing harv's office, saturday we shoot a yard sale/baby scene and sunday we shoot office. next weekend we shoot three HUGE scenes in the bedroom with myself and kaeliegh. fingers crossed that we pull that off in a day. we have to dress the bedroom to look rich, eccentric and 80s. that will be fun! then one sunday of next we shoot with gary ross (my dad's buddy, an old jew) as the old jewish manager of country sensation would-be patty pratt (life long pal and neighbour nicole grabowsky).
i also came up with a nice ending to one of the scenes we're shooting this weekend. it will definitely give the needed 'we feel sorry for harv' moment that the film is lacking. otherwise he's just a dick. you can't like a dick. we can laugh at a dick but i want people to like him too. i want there to be a side that roots for him. right now he's just an asshole. a dick and an asshole. that is who i am playing hehe.
october 5
saturday we shot the 1951 yard sale at my gramma's place, as well as the 1940 bedroom baby harv scene. i played harv's dad (with a mustache - looked like hitler) and andrea premecz (catch her on 92.9 kick fm tuesdays noon-3!) played harv's mom. wes came down with his 1956 pontiac and stayed to do sound. isaac was our eleven year old harv and he rocked the scene and had a blast. it was a fun scene to shoot and it fell together rather quickly. child actors are always dicey but this kid brought his a game. he even enjoyed it. my gramma gave his parents beans so we literally paid them with beans. yeah. or bean seeds i think. anyways.
then we shot the bedroom scene. andrea in a nighty with curlers in her hair, me with a big man nighty. nuff said.
today (sunday) we shot at landau ford, my grandpa's old office that time forgot. make up girl was over early, our replacement 'artist' actor came through (marshal wiebe, never acted before but nailed it). bj shot, dale sounded, drew body guarded (lifted waits in the background actually - hilarious). it was a seventies scene so we decided to end the seventies on a sad note, an intense note, took a lot out of me. the scene is the only one where i really act and not just play a character. fucking heavy stuff. i even cried a little. i blew my wad on the first rehearsals and takes and couldn't get the tears going again til take seven. eep. either way, we nailed it, we're happy, we go ahead and prep for next weekend (three bedroom scenes, second/final office scene).
of course, while we were shooting saturday bruce called (and i missed it). turns out i get to run the show on the hcl website (write the 'band history bible', etc). so we're talking tomorrow. pretty good. prettay prettay prettay prettay good.
i'm so tired it hurts.
oct 7, 2008
just got off the phone with bruce. he's putting me in charge of writing the bible and band history for the hard core logo online site. i would also be the editor, run a round table of writers, and get to write as much as i want. he's giving me this based on a little bit of what he's seen of my work. kind of insane and trustworthy? yeah - but i'm not gonna complain. the way he said it was 'we'll give you a shot and see how it goes'... eep!
it's nice to be woken up by a phone call from your hero once in a while.
so i'm now going to wait for a call or email from jonas diamond at smileyguy, they're doing the production and design stuff i believe? then we talk about pay. i will finally be a paid writer. i was talking to a friend the other day and they said "blah blah when you're a famous writer" and i said i would just like to be a paid writer.
so ... yeah. there's that little stress about talking to bruce gone away :) i've been literally holding and staring at my phone hehe. anyways. enough fan boy shit.
today i'm getting my hair cute to look like harv stevens in the 60s. eep? eep. good thing i've already got a girlfriend cuz i won't be getting one with this cut. i've also gotta prep a bunch of 80s stuff for the bedroom scenes this weekend. AND i've gotta go and get bj to try on his dresses. yeah. cross dressing characters... sigh. anyways.
have a lovely day? i'm going to go and watch the final hour of the six hour beatles anthology i found on vhs taped from abc when it originally aired in 1996, thus saving the hundred plus dollars it would cost to buy on dvd.
monday oct 13alright.
so we shot at my parents' house, in their bedroom (we needed a big room with a walk in closet) on saturday and it went really well. three scenes, two huge ones and one small one. all involving nick and kaeliegh as harv and karen, one involving the director (chad) as the director. leah is back in town, glad she can help with the film too! i haven't made many without her. kim did her make up magic to age me and give kael a fuckin shiner, josh shot and my little calgary cousins showed up during lunch to terrorize (they're in town for turkey). it all went pretty well i think. got some good takes, yelled a lot (my throat hurts two days later) and kael got better with each take.
we started the day with a scene involving my character having e.d. and me stomping around in ONLY a dress shirt, gitch underneath. yup. the glamorous life of indie filmmaking.
yesterday we set up my bedroom to look like a fancier bedroom, grabbing the old brass headboard from the rents' and life long pal nicole grabowsky (playing patty pratt) and i simulated sex while chad and his sister watched. yeah, seeing as it was thanksgiving and all, certain crew members decided the night before that they forgot it was thanksgiving and michelle tremblay stepped up and now thinks i'm probably a bigger weirdo than ever.
then we headed (in the rain - i'm so glad we've got our exteriors out of the way) to landau to do our final office scene. purchased some herbal cigs (vanilla ... smells like CRAPnilla) and a lighter (two bucks for a fucking bic!?!) and got gary ross to be our murray berkowitz. we knocked out the short scene in an hour of shooting. the smoke we all smoked made me feel fuckin ill but whatever, it looked cool.
then we picked up jen and it was off to friesen family thanksgiving! the evening was long but good, filled with many foods and laughs and whatnots. evening went on pretty long though, and ended on jen and i having to drive my grandma home in the rain, around the perimeter. then this morning we woke up to the news of the free press strike, which affects uptown because we're in the same union. so that happened. so jen is pretty down about that. so am i.
on saturday kim said she couldn't do make up on wednesday. we have a bunch of interview scenes to film.
just now chad sent me an email saying our stanley sloan actor is out and we shoot him/her on friday and sunday. nice notice. we think leah will do it though.
so strikes, cancellations, returns, etc. jeepers.
and turkey. so much turkey ...
oct 14
so lots of shit has hit the fan today.
our make up girl has cancelled on us for the weekend, but she is allowing us to use her kit. she is going to show jen how to do the make up on thursday afternoon.
waiting to hear back from lots of peoples. kaelieigh has put the word out about extras and a few are filtering in. it is a good thing.
josh is in for friday and sunday and hopefully saturday. he is also going to jump on some bed tracks for the kids to lip sync over this weekend.
still waiting to hear back from a few people which is driving me nuts!
turns out insurance isn't going to be that expensive. thank fuck. also, got all our ducks in a row with the city of winnipeg about the public shooting and the use of a firearm on set (though i haven't heard back from dave brown but he hasn't let me know that we AREN'T on for any reason, i just get jumpy when i haven't heard from someone in a few weeks, i just want a CONFIRMATION). also, we have to paper the areas we are shooting at 48 hours in advance to let the peoples know we are shooting and have a firearm. yup.
so lots of legal hoops to jump through. also, not having our make up girl means we need to find someone else to fill the holes in marc's ears or re-cast marc's part. she's really hurting us here.
oct 15
things we accomplished today:
touched base with a few extras, not enough though. definitely not enough males.
we got insurance. cheap and pretty painless.
touched base with the bingo hall lady. that's on, officially!
got a shot schedule down.
watched a film called 'grace of my heart' directed by allison anders (four rooms) which featured john turturro in a phil spector inspired role and matt dillon in a brian wilson inspired role and j mascis in a j mascis inspired role. it dragged, but had a few neat moments. and eric stoltz!
things we got hurt on:
more people cancelled.
the amount of people who return my phone calls is few and far between. damn you potential extras!
hopefully tomorrow goes well. must:
finish organizing costume/wardrobe
get a wig
pick up costumes
pick up girlfriend and take her to learn the make up
grocery/craft service shop
and oh yeah
LEARN MY FUCKIN LINES
oct 17, 2008o today we shot a really long day in the recording studio at CMU (canadian mennonite university).
loaded in around ten am, chad, leah, josh and i set up the room, took down non-60s period stuff (computers, digital recorders, etc). extras showed up (after some confusion about which campus they were supposed to go to). once bj finally showed up, we started shooting.
the day (or whole weekend rather) has been stressful trying to organize people to be available for the shoot. we thought we'd have a room full of musicians ... nope. just josh and the girls (emily aka emil from hmv whom i missed quite a bit, alexa (kael's friend) and her friend melanie). and then - miracle upon miracles - a random extra dude with amazing long hair and beard calls up, shows up, has period dress, plays guitar and fuckin helps save the day!
dave brown was there as well. he's our gun guy. well, everyone's gun guy. he's a big help. he's just an awesome dude, can't say anything but good things. he's really helping us out. the gun was great. it's a real revolver - not a replica. it will fire blanks next weekend, but this weekend it is just pointed in people's faces.
we shot a bunch of scenes, inserts, montage stuff (nicole's patty pratt montage was pretty funny).
so today was stressful but a ton of stuff got done. even knocked off marc evans doing his grant davidson entrance. the only downfall was that we didn't have drew, our milt, our bodyguard. we'll have him all weekend though, which is good. very good. with goodness on top.
it was just a really stressful day, and the non-commital peoples that may or may not come on sunday ... pretty stressful. gotta say.
tomorrow is going to be pandemonium. lots of extras (more than we will need probably, but like any good house party, over invite so at least a few show up) and our cast is pretty solid and reliable for tomorrow. jen is going to fill in on make up. neat stuff.
another interesting tid bit about casting, there is kind of a surprise section of the film and a certain surprise actor is 'in talks' to help us out. well, he's gonna meet with us and talk about it. but it will be wonderful. can you wait? cuz i can't.
last night was great, if not long. the day was long (last minute errands for today) but jen ran around with me which was nice. then at 530 my aunt called and asked if i wanted neil young tix, which we did, so we went (after me trying to track her down at the wrong red river campus, etc....) so everest (pretty good) death cab (great - sound problems and testy ben gibbard aside) and uncle neil. side note - gibbard lost about 40 pounds and doesn't wear his glasses anymore. weird!
so uncle neil did about an hour of distorted awesomeness, super old gear, there was a guy PAINTING PICTURES behind the band and yeah. then an hour or so of acoustic, back to electric and that was it. did 'old man', 'heart of gold', 'needle' and a few others that were all i needed to hear.
then, the encore. one song. i recognize these chords. 'i read the news today oh boy' ... a day in the life. beatles. my favourite song by them. at the end, the distortion part, he destroyed his guitar, well, he ripped the strings off and then strolled off grabbing a beer on the way out. pretty epic. ran til 1145 though ...... only problem was i had to go meet kim to get some make up stuff before she left work at 12 .... luckily they were there late.
long story short, i'm exhausted but a good kind. i think the day went well. i think tomorrow will go great. i'm hoping we can pull sunday out of our asses.
oct 18
today started a lot smoother, went a lot smoother, overall - smooth sailing. we had to rush a little but it went great i think.
jen filled in for kim on the make up and did a bang up job. i looked old as the hills.
we shot 1987 stuff today - fixxxing, as a band, looked great. victor as chuck buck, kaeliegh as karen down, chadd as jose santos, brett as ace heartstrings. they looked and acted like a band. their doc crew was great as well. bruce (old film pal) came out as the engineer, looked like mulligan in hcl. hilarious stuff. a few extras, dave brown, etc. josh shot it all. everyone gets a few more lines when we improve.
tomorrow may get pulled off! we seem to have our canadian band on board (when we had zero guys as of friday i think) and ya. nice relaxing night tonight, jen and i ... good times.
i'm exhausted, my voice is almost gone ... tomorrow is not a big dialogue day though. should be good! although i think i'll yell my ass off in our final take. that'll be funny.
it makes me feel good that take after take we get a reaction out of the crew and cast. not an ego thing, just a 'they keep seeing it and it is still funny' kind of thing. makes us think we have a good movie on our hands!
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