The 168 Film Festival has been such a great experience for me! We had a great team overall. I stayed at the producers house and was pretty job shadowing for much of the time. During the shoot, I helped with camera log (2nd AC) and as Assistant Editor, getting the P2 cards transferred in to Final Cut and labeled by scenes.
We were constantly leaning on the Lord for prayer, and calling our prayer support in California and our prayer team in FL. It was a neat experience to see God answer!
Day 1-6 details below:
Day 1, we went to a fork in the road out near Tampa. We all got lost and were fumbling with our GPS’s. I had a google map printed out, which actually went to the right place! It was quite hysterical, since our movie is about a guy who gets lost following his GPS! We shot about half of scene 4 this day and got about 6 hours of sleep.
Day 2, it was raining and a bunch of storms were coming through the state all day. The West side of the state was worse, so the producer was up at 5am, checking weather, talking with the director and others for about 4 hours trying to find a location. We ended up going to Melbourne and filming in the rain. Except for one of our actress, who went to the other side of the state! That made things interesting, but it all worked out. We prayed for the rain to not be bad, and it wasn’t to bad while we were filming. A semi-light sprinkle. Then it poured when we left. We shot most of a scene there.
By this time I was getting quite worried, since we had only shot about a 1/2 page of a 10 page script! Everyone left that location…except the director/camera crew, whose windshield wipers quit working! He was not able to drive the truck through the heavy rain, and ended up taking his car….which broke down on the way to our location in Orlando! What a trip. We had been praying for focus for the team. Finally about 8pm or 10pm the director and camera guys arrived in Orlando, and we filmed the office scene at an architectural firm. Til 3am. =)
So, at 12-2am, I was driving a car back and forth between the editing station and the location (just down the street). The car key was broken, and you had to hold the top metal round part to the key and turn it at the same time to start the car. Every engine light was on and the gas was on E. Needless to say, I was a little nervous, but it worked! So that night, we got about 2 hours of sleep.
Day 3, we went back to the fork in the road and filmed the rest of scene 4 and some pickup shots of our actress for scenes 2-3. On the way there, I was with the producer and we got a flat tire on the road. “Angel boy” backed a pickup truck beside our cars, hopped out with a big jack, and changed our tire quicker than you can blink! That was really neat. It was like God was saying – even though you have problems, I am with you and have gone before you! After shooting at the fork in the road, we went back to the church location and shot on a bluescreen and recorded voiceovers. We ended about midnight, I guess. The editor picked up footage at teh church. Got 5 hours of sleep?
Day 4, our last day with our actor/actress! We still had parts of scene 2-3 to shoot and the last 5 pages of the script. Would we finish?! Our call time was 7:15 at the church. We met there and then left for a wilderness location in Sanford. Our first shot went off around noon. Finally about 1:15 things kicked into gear and the director and DP took off for the wilderness area around the corner and shot through to the end of the film. We quit using the slate, and things were focused! After one take of the very last shot of the movie, the DOF on the camera died. So we were done with the actors and just did a few pickup shots of the road without all the lens gear on the camera. Whew! We made it. That night I drove down to the editor’s house, and logged footage from that day, and transferred the files over to him. Got back late again. =)
Day 5, the car we were using for the main character belonged to one of the crew and was on it’s way to Miami. The drama continued as we tried to find a car to use that morning. We ended up going to the airport rental station and finding a similar car to rent. Then we were off to Sanford for a few pickup shots. Smoke coming out of the car engine, laptop inserts, and shots to match the greenscreen. This was technically a “day off” at my workplace. I wanted to go see the adventure while they shot, but I was left at base camp that day due to the few number of people we had. It was very beautiful there at the state park, by the lake, and I got to read for a couple hours. Then everyone came back and I heard about their adventure with the undercover policeman! He wondered what they were doing, and if they had a permit, etc. They had some illegal filming going on at night and thought we might be part of that group! But, we were not and everything was ok.
After steaks at Logans, that night, we took the footage to the editor and met at Jason’s Deli and transferred off the rest of the footage to our backup drives.
Day 6, we ran errands this morning, returned the car to the airport and ate at a fun little Mexican restaurant for lunch. I took a nap in the afternoon, then made a bunch of calls to help with some missing paperwork. We ate leftover Logan’s for dinner. Mmm. And then we went to the editors. I packed up and drove home to Sanford from the editors that night at 2am! It was really fun to watch the editor work. I tried to get caught up on some emails too. We got a “picture lock” and then the editor was working on credits and sent things off to the composer. He got 1 hour of sleep the night before, working on the rough.
Day 7 (WED), back at work! The producer kept pressing through to get the score finished. We also had an original song written earlier that week for our movie. It was great.
The film was due at 2pm Thursday (overnight in the mail) and we got if off on time! The movie turned out well from what I can tell. We’ll be having a little cast & crew party to see the final. We probably won’t get a copy until next year due to festival rights and everything. We called it “Plow Thru Productions” due to all the problems we faced and worked through! Oh, and next year, we’ll be having an AD. =) The food on set was delicious also.