Diary Of A Film … Wednesday, August 19, 2009 11:am
Howling Henry Robinson woke me up this morning at 10:am…he knows better. I had just got to bed this morning at 6:am. He called to tell me to check call-time today. His is 7:pm., mine is 6:pm.
Henry and I play music together sometimes, with him on harmonica, me on the starvation box and he asked me if I was going to bring a guitar. He wanted to jam during downtime between scenes.
“Henry, there’s no place for me to keep a guitar while we’re shooting,” I said… Henry can just stash a couple of harps in his bag and he’s good to go. I told him I would see him there… and now I was up and awake…awake and tired, y’all…and I can’t go back to sleep.
So, in keeping with my plan, I’ll give the highlights of my experiences yesterday/this morning.
First let me say that there may have been a little naiveté on my part to think that I could just block out everything that was going on around me to hammer out script ideas.
What I did, however was make a lot of notes and meet a lot of folks who may help me bring these ideas to fruition including lighting and special effects people.
Here’s how it went down:
Day One of Straw Dogs
I was afraid the production might be cancelled due to rain, but it stopped in the nick of time and left the air thick with a hot muggy humidity that felt something akin to sitting inside of a dog’s mouth.
Mosquitoes love this kind of weather. That’s okay, I brought Cutters.
I was running late for the 6:30 call (I forgot the Jimmy Davis bridge was closed.) but Glorioso Casting seemed to factor all of that in. It was 7:pm and all the extras were still in the south parking lot of the Century Tel Arena awaiting further instructions.
I had meant to get something to eat before heading out, but because I was running late I forgot. The guy parked next to me wolfing down a burger acutely reminded me of this.
As I was being guided to the next shuttle leaving for the Parkway High School location I ran into my old buddy, Bryan. A couple of years ago when the movies first came to town, Bryan really wanted to get some work being an extra. Now he was an old hand at it.
This was my first experience for a movie, although I had played the part of Olivia Newton-John’s guitarist for the television series, “Sordid Lives”.
Bryan and I took the shuttle together and I told him about my idea to knock out this no-budget movie. I also turned him on to Robert Rodriguez’s book, “Rebel Without A Crew”.
After arriving we went through line to register for the day’s shoot. Bryan and I parted ways, since he hadn’t really been called in, but was taking a chance that there would be enough no-shows to qualify him to work.
The sign-in area was set in the gymnasium and the line went briskly. The next line was for wardrobe. I knew my friend Aimee was working in that department and I’d probably see her there.
It was soooo hot and humid. That pretty much settled it for me. If I’m going to do the majority of everything on my film, I’m going to shoot in late autumn, say end of October, November, Decemberish. I fold in the heat.
As I stood in line, a production assistant said that it may take a little time and that food was being served further down in what appeared to be a quadrangle, so that’s where I headed. You never know when it might be your last chance to grab a bite, and as I said, I had forgotten to eat before I got there.
I was one of the first to go through the multiple tables of food. It was hot dogs, burgers, beans, potato salad and melons, with various things to drink…no coffee though. I chowed down as head-banging music wafted through the hot sticky humid air. I took a Prilosec to be on the safe side.
When I got to where wardrobe was set up, in what appeared to be the school’s cafeteria, I did, in fact run into Aimee and she was very busy. I was quickly assigned two t-shirts…one for the Bengals and one for the Mudbugs. I would be playing multiple parts as fans of both teams. That was cool…I had the range.
From wardrobe we were directed to a tent with tables and chairs to wait for further instructions, which came shortly after. Bryan was there…he was in! The first scene was a tailgate party, complete with vendors serving chicken and catfish, and a huge bonfire. If I had known about the catfish I might have passed on the hotdogs. FYI, we did NOT go hungry on this shoot.
I ran into two old buds, Lee and Neecee and we pretty much hung together throughout the night. Our first roles were as fans of the Bengals, wearing orange and black. This group would later be called the orange group.
After a couple of takes, some folks from casting approached us and asked if we would like four more dates as extras. I signed up.
After about 10 takes in this location we moved to the stadium and became Mudbug fans, AKA the blues…and for the next couple of hours we camped on the bleachers at the 40 yard line reacting to football skirmishes until midnight and then 12:30am…LUNCH.
We left the stadium to go back to the quadrangle for baked chicken or pork chops with Caesar Salad, slaw, mixed vegetables and desserts of German chocolate cake and banana pudding. I didn’t need to eat again, but I did.
Lunch was about thirty minutes and then it was back to stadium for an enormous amount of different takes of us cheering on the football teams. Folks were beginning to get a little punchy and cranky around 3 in the morning. This went on until about 4:30am and by then I was beat. There was not a lot of scriptwriting being done on my part. This may not have been the strongest part of my plan.
At the wrap of the shoot everyone sort of zombie walked back to a prop area to return signs and banners and/or to wardrobe to return clothing and then entered a laborious line to have paperwork turned in and signed-off.
A few minutes later I crammed into a shuttle with a group of girls who apparently were the cheerleaders…no one was cheering. We were tired pups. We were then dropped off at our parked vehicles. I finally got home about 5:30am and quasi-drifted to sleep around 6ish.
Tonight we’ll go back and do it again…
