



The good news is that we're wrapped. We had a gorgeous day, we shot some beautiful footage and we are done shooting this bear of a movie.
The bad news comes in dribs and drabs.
I didn't have fun today. It was just one stupid problem after another, things that would never be a problem on a film with a budget and permits and stuff but which strike us so-independent-it-hurts-your-eyeballs all the time.
Woke up naturally at 7. Alarm went off at 7:55. Gloated over simply perfect weather. Enjoyed self on Internet for a bit, rode train in, got subway out to Bed-Stuy with no problems (amazingly), got to Bed-Stuy at 10:10.
Early for a 10:30 call time. I scout around for a bit, mentally block the scene.
I don't want to wake Rico's housemates with the buzzer, so I call him. Can't get through. I text him. He doesn't respond. I'm confused.
Carolyn arrives 10:45. A Web site had given her the wrong train directions. She has forgotten the white hoodie her character wears and must scour the neighborhood to try and buy one. Around 11 she gives up on this and calls a car service to go home.
Finally give up and buzz into Rico's place around the same time, waking his housemates. His phone had evidently eaten my attempts to reach him. We start setting up shots that don't include Carolyn.
Our sole crew member is Kent. (I couldn't rustle up another, no one got back to me.) The exact same stupid Web site had given him the exact same wrong directions, rendering him lost in Bed-Stuy, and so he doesn't show up till about 11:45, maybe noon. An hour and a half has passed since call time and we've gotten maybe two shots.
The neighborhood comes alive at this point, and we are soon plagued with children running around, people hangin' out and talkin' on their neighborhood stoops, folks buffing their cars, people sanding (I swear to God at least six houses were getting their floors sanded, generally with the doors open, and I began making a habit of closing complete strangers' front doors without the workmen noticing), and trees being cut down. A freaking woodchipper actually comes to eat up a tree, at which point we give up and go shoot some MOS exteriors elsewhere for a bit.
Yeah, I'm concerned about audio. I don't want to have to ADR too much. We made sure to get clean takes of the most important speeches, even going back and reshooting one of 'em... ugh.
Kent has to leave around 4. We get our sole remaining exterior shot and break for dinner. The light has been very pretty, dappled sunlight dancing through the trees and stuff, and to preserve it for my half of the conversation there comes a point when I am literally boxed in with bounce boards.
I just hope we can hear dialogue and not every neighborhood sound in Christendom. It was ridiculous. The distractions
We go upstairs. Light. It has been over two years since I have had to deal with lighting and I'd forgotten it can be a slow process. But the acting goes pretty easily; I fire off about ten takes of my big monologue one after the other, taking to it all nicely.
Wrap around 8, after the world's latest start and not such an unlate finish. I am out Rico's door by 9:45, off to the subway literally humming the "Star Wars" theme.
Then some idiot gets hit by a train up ahead and delays my return home by more than I care to discuss. Didn't get in till 11:30. Ugh!
I wish I could say I'd had more fun. It was just one stupid, stupid, stupid thing after another.
But I still can't think of any better way to spend a day.
Time to fix things in post, bitches! That's a wrap! That's a fucking wrap!