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labingiWe had our third shoot for The Hour before Morning last week. I never did get around to blogging about the second shoot because my computer chose that evening to melt down, so I'll recap here:
Shoot 2: Meravyn, Trenod, and the Wounded Man.
We wrapped Trenod (Sam) and the Wounded Man (Eugene) with this shoot. It was all day Saturday, lots of hard work and good things accomplished. It was also another adventure in the unpredictability of microbudget film making. We asked everyone to block out their whole Saturday to ensure time for the several scenes we needed to film. But life intervenes, and a few days before the shoot, we got word that Sam had to work till 2:00 on Saturday (this can happen when you can't pay your actors and they need to eat) and Eugene had to leave by around 4:30 Saturday to get ready to catch his plane to Mexico. So... our full day for filming became about 2 hours for all the scenes that required Sam and Eugene both. Everyone rose very gamely (and intelligently) to the challenge. Before Sam arrived, we filmed everything else we could that involved just Meravyn (Trisha). Then, we blazed through the Sam & Eugene scenes, and finished up with Sam & Trisha. I was amazed by everyone's calmness and diligence under pressure. Very good performances from all involved. I could feel the heartbreak of Meravyn and Trenod's breakup. Sam played Trenod, I think, more sympathetically than I wrote him, which is all the good. I think he will be a character many people will like. (He tends to be disliked in the book, from my experience.)
Special thanks to Jake for deploying his usual calm and good will to reorganize our shoot to make most efficient use of our actors. He was much calmer than me; I confess I was a bit panicked to start with, but it all turned out in the end. And thanks, too, to Marc for making a good trick pitcher for sucking up water from its base (weird and science fictiony).
Shoot 3: Jenchae and Akhté.
Our third shoot has been the beginning of our Jenchae and Akhté flashbacks. We started with one of the trickier scenes in terms of gathering actors: Jenchae, Akhté, and 3 of Akhté's friends singing. We were granted gracious permission to film in Un Solo Pueblo and use their beautiful hand-crafted jewelry and decor. This gave Akhté a very stylish apartment! Tiffany wrote us a beautiful workers' protest song, complete with harmony, and gave us a lovely recording to work from.
Once again, we were beset by the unpredictability of actor availability. Of our three Friends, one couldn't afford the trip to the shoot (being from California) and another was ill. Thank goodness for the good will of last-minute stand-ins. Jay's (Akhté) wife, Jersey, agreed to step in, learn lines, and use her gorgeous voice to provide harmony for the song utterly at the last minute, and she was fantastic. Tiffany's husband, John, also sprang to the rescue, turning in an excellent performance as Friend 3, despite having little acting experience. And, of course, many thanks to Katie, the one originally cast Friend who was able to show up; she also performed very well on very little rehearsal.
Greg (Jenchae) and Jay (Akhté) were phenomenal. Both are very experienced and talented actors whose presence is going to elevate the whole look of the film. Due to a miscommunication, Jay didn't realize we were planning to film scene 5, so he hadn't prepared for it, but he rose to the challenge and gave us a moving performance, with great interplay with Greg.
Again, all the crew were terrific. I could not thank one without thanking all (which would just take a lot of space). As usual, everyone did at least 3 types of tasks and performed calm and creative troubleshooting over the usual troubles: gaps in costuming and set dressing, lighting difficulties, etc., etc.
At the end of this shoot, I turned over directorial duties to Jake (previously AD), who is both much more experienced and temperamentally much better suited as a director than I. I feel very happy to leave this task in his hands and look forward to being able to focus more on the script, the universe, and coaching the actors on their characters.
Shoot 2: Meravyn, Trenod, and the Wounded Man.
We wrapped Trenod (Sam) and the Wounded Man (Eugene) with this shoot. It was all day Saturday, lots of hard work and good things accomplished. It was also another adventure in the unpredictability of microbudget film making. We asked everyone to block out their whole Saturday to ensure time for the several scenes we needed to film. But life intervenes, and a few days before the shoot, we got word that Sam had to work till 2:00 on Saturday (this can happen when you can't pay your actors and they need to eat) and Eugene had to leave by around 4:30 Saturday to get ready to catch his plane to Mexico. So... our full day for filming became about 2 hours for all the scenes that required Sam and Eugene both. Everyone rose very gamely (and intelligently) to the challenge. Before Sam arrived, we filmed everything else we could that involved just Meravyn (Trisha). Then, we blazed through the Sam & Eugene scenes, and finished up with Sam & Trisha. I was amazed by everyone's calmness and diligence under pressure. Very good performances from all involved. I could feel the heartbreak of Meravyn and Trenod's breakup. Sam played Trenod, I think, more sympathetically than I wrote him, which is all the good. I think he will be a character many people will like. (He tends to be disliked in the book, from my experience.)
Special thanks to Jake for deploying his usual calm and good will to reorganize our shoot to make most efficient use of our actors. He was much calmer than me; I confess I was a bit panicked to start with, but it all turned out in the end. And thanks, too, to Marc for making a good trick pitcher for sucking up water from its base (weird and science fictiony).
Shoot 3: Jenchae and Akhté.
Our third shoot has been the beginning of our Jenchae and Akhté flashbacks. We started with one of the trickier scenes in terms of gathering actors: Jenchae, Akhté, and 3 of Akhté's friends singing. We were granted gracious permission to film in Un Solo Pueblo and use their beautiful hand-crafted jewelry and decor. This gave Akhté a very stylish apartment! Tiffany wrote us a beautiful workers' protest song, complete with harmony, and gave us a lovely recording to work from.
Once again, we were beset by the unpredictability of actor availability. Of our three Friends, one couldn't afford the trip to the shoot (being from California) and another was ill. Thank goodness for the good will of last-minute stand-ins. Jay's (Akhté) wife, Jersey, agreed to step in, learn lines, and use her gorgeous voice to provide harmony for the song utterly at the last minute, and she was fantastic. Tiffany's husband, John, also sprang to the rescue, turning in an excellent performance as Friend 3, despite having little acting experience. And, of course, many thanks to Katie, the one originally cast Friend who was able to show up; she also performed very well on very little rehearsal.
Greg (Jenchae) and Jay (Akhté) were phenomenal. Both are very experienced and talented actors whose presence is going to elevate the whole look of the film. Due to a miscommunication, Jay didn't realize we were planning to film scene 5, so he hadn't prepared for it, but he rose to the challenge and gave us a moving performance, with great interplay with Greg.
Again, all the crew were terrific. I could not thank one without thanking all (which would just take a lot of space). As usual, everyone did at least 3 types of tasks and performed calm and creative troubleshooting over the usual troubles: gaps in costuming and set dressing, lighting difficulties, etc., etc.
At the end of this shoot, I turned over directorial duties to Jake (previously AD), who is both much more experienced and temperamentally much better suited as a director than I. I feel very happy to leave this task in his hands and look forward to being able to focus more on the script, the universe, and coaching the actors on their characters.
