Dropkick Me Kenny Through the Goalposts of Strife

I'm completely drained from Sunday. I really tried to push the material as well as Mike and myself. At the end of the (long) day, I think it was worth it, but it was a rough ride. Our actors were patient, George and Ken, and Yara was as sporting as her outfit in being kept late. James came out and didn't even get his scene shot since we were behind. We appreciate his understanding about that.

Mike really made a big difference, since he basically provided permission to go with some of the more kooky ideas that I might have written off otherwise. He really seemed to pick up on that at our lowest point. That is why he is there. Also because he mans the rifle when Patrick is not present, all Werner Herzog-style.

Some of you have heard me talk about this, but you really end up writing a movie three times. Once when you create the script, again when you film it, and finally in editing, which is the version that actually goes out to the audience. The shooting is the most stressful portion, that's when the money is flowing, the people are all there and you don't have a lot of time. There are so many moving parts and people don't show up, bulbs burn out, car doors lock automatically...

During writing and editing, you have the time to figure out what you want to do. On the shoot, it's all happening at that moment. That's really the challenge of filmmaking (sure it's not possible without all the other stuff, the planning yadda yadda), because what you envisioned in the script is taking new form in the reality in front of you. Actors play the part differently than in your imagination, the sets take on a unique look, unexpected events happen. You have to respond to it all and shape it, grabbing the bits that work, pointing people in new directions, keeping everything within the context of the film as a whole. It's also six times harder if it's comedy. If you can react to it well, you can find what works and really capture something interesting.

That process happens on all the shoot days, but Sunday we were looking at new directions for material and doing so amidst the usual insanity adds to the burden. Sure, a director can have a vision, and find the right actors and push their performances in the desired direction and have all the control in the world, but the movie takes a new life. What's more, no matter how pure the initial vision, people add things to the movie that you simply can't imagine. It's unexpected bits that often transform a movie into something really special, if handled properly by director, editor and the et ceteras in the credits.

You can't tell exactly what that is on set though, editing reveals it. Just like with shooting, as you start to put footage together, it begins to take a new form, and what feels like the best take on set can seem totally out of place when compared to the rest of the material. All of this is for the best, in a sense it is just a continuation of the editing of the script, refined throughout the production until the final print.

For instance, we did a scene a completely different way simply because the lockbox we had only fit in the largest suitcase we collected. I knew we would be using the lockbox but never actually knew how large it was. But we took that and responded to it and made some choices. Just like we pulled the switcheroo on George and moved his scene to a new location. You can have a high degree of confidence in what you shot, but like I said you never really know until you go to edit. We'll be reviewing the footage and seeing how it sits, but that's why you shoot multiple takes. Sometimes a line gets flubbed or a light gets bumped, but you also just need choices in the editing room. It's easy to get a few laughs, it's another thing to maintain the tone throughout the movie.

I of course exacerbated the stress of shooting by forgetting like five different things we needed that day. A lame mistake that threw off the schedule quite a bit since we had to retrieve them. We recovered okay, but didn't make the progress we should have. We'll be holding some extra meetings this week to make sure we get back on track and sort out these logistical issues.

Oh yeah, one more thing for the colossal post:
We made our first appearance in the press!

Kelly shared with us an article from the Puget Sound Business Journal about the growth of filmmaking in Washington that mentioned our production by name. Pretty cool since this happened completely without my knowledge.

This ain't gonna be no fancy blog post

Mainly because it's late Sunday night.

For those of you who might be concerned about our soundperson man, that is just makeup around his eye. But I would hit him, or anyone else. I'm on the edge, people. If you're getting a lot of passive, there's a bunch of aggressive around the corner coming to balance it out.

Like here, sometimes you really have to look at a man putting on his gun. Just so you're ready to be angry if he makes a mistake. It may seem harsh, but our safety depends on attention to detail and our business depends on attention to safety. Something like that. The sign says it best:

I'll try and use complete sentences from here on out. Saturday was really about people stepping up to get things done. I didn't say they'd be good sentences. Who has time for that? Susan and Karen did some great shopping in the morning, uh and afternoon, and later Karen put that pantsuit to good work alongside our other lawyer.

das Patrick also made his long-awaited and avoided return to the lens side of the camera. Jen made her first appearance on set and provided some awesome help.

Nat in particular deserves mention. Susan and Karen helped enlist him in the project and he really delivered on a very difficult request. He came to the set to take one of the roles having never even seen the script and did a fantastic job. He was prompt, willing and really bailed us out of what could have been a disaster.

We had a busy Saturday, kicking off with shopping, set work and rehearsal and moving into a lengthy evening of shooting. I was pleased how well the material came together though. Interestingly, for the first time on the shoot we had a take derailed by laughter. Maybe we've had a couple smiles here and there, but not the kind of crew-wide, uncontrollable snickering that appeared last night. Either it was late at night after a long day or there is only one joke in the movie so far, although apparently quite an amusing one.

Why not one final picture of Jim and Ted's important associates, Gina and Harold?*

*Because I'm not normally one for all this touchy-feely "production photos" business.

I am the director...

...and if necessary, I will hit an actor.

Or a soundperson.

Doesn't matter to me.

Tuesday - Day 6

Filmmaking always has its challenges. Tuesday had a couple. Mostly it was a tough night because we had a lot of complicated dialogue spoken by multiple people. I'm impressed at our actors' ability to roll through challenging lines. As is becoming habit, we spent quite a bit of time going over this scene. It's tough because it helps Mike and I to settle in and find where we want to be, but I like to keep our other performers fresh. Sometimes the repetition helps calm down tendencies to 'act' with some people (not really necessary with this cast), but it can also take the edge off the focus, so there's definitely a line there.

Once we started rolling, things moved along fairly well. Mike and Patrick stepped up with some creative light work to help lock down our last shots of the night. Mike actually pulled off some great laughs inside that he didn't get to soak up. It's not common to see someone do impressions with a two-headed worklight. I suppose it's also interesting how many different movie associations we can call up for lights streaming in a window.

Day 5 - Locusts

As I walked Trooper in the morning on Sunday, I noticed it appeared to be a nice morning with some blue sky peeking through, acting as if it might clear up. A few rain clouds hung around threatening to be an annoyance but I was thinking the sun might overrule the weather forecast. Ha! We had just moved inside to grab some shots and wait for the wind to die down when it began to hail. All I can say is that when I wrote that my character wrapped himself in a blanket in the scene, I wasn't quite sure if I knew why. It appears to have been one of the few decent decisions I have made in my life. Not that it mattered much, since it was uh, cold outside. And inside. The office is unheated (see below).

Despite the weather ( which of course blossomed into a bright sunny day once we finished shooting), it was a fun shooting day at least in terms of material covered. I want to thank Coby for coming out as Steve the camera man, and Kelly for squeezing us in with her other shoot. Sarah and Mike worked out a deal with a guy from craigslist for an interesting costume item. Although a risky proposition, I think spending the morning wearing it was useful, as it revealed a great deal about how the cast and crew feel about their director. It gave Vicky a chance to have some fun with her role as well.

I'm curious to hear everyone's explanation of what exactly is happening in this photograph from Sunday.

One last thing...if you ever have a chance to speak with people of importance at Sony, please tell them that Sony needs to natively support Panasonic's tapeless format. Sony Vegas has always been fantastic about being format agnostic, and it is a huge pain that they have explicitly not supported the HVX-200. Yes, there are ways around it but it is ridiculous that Sony is dumping droves of customers who want to keep using an awesome editing platform with a very, very popular camera.

If this movie ends the world...

...we apologize.

The weather here has been absolutely crazy. We started shooting on one of the most beautiful days ever, where the sun literally melted skin off the faces of cast and crew (and Broadus's megaphone took care of what was left). That led into relentless rain the next day and then this last weekend got even more interesting.

I went to pick up the truck Friday night after work so we could move over the set pieces for the bounty hunter office. I went into Redmond to pick up some furniture from the Value Village there and had the pleasure of loading the truck in the hail/snow. It's nearly the end of April by the way. The word was more snow was supposed to come in over the weekend, which I have to say caught me a little off guard and had me concerned for our Sunday shoot which was slated to be outside.

After retrieving some teriyaki since the girls at home were unable to find someone to deliver food to them on Friday night (due to impending apocalypse), I ran back home to visit Trooper. Despite that he doesn't really understand 'affection', I think at heart he is a sensitive soul. Being left alone on weekends seems to be wearing on him. He's probably headed to dog day care for our future shoots. He needs others around, as he tends to favor close proximity above any concerns about physical comfort.



After letting the dog out, collecting more furniture and picking up les Producers, we finally got to Sandpoint about 9:30. That gave us just enough time to unload (in the snow of course) before the security guard rolled up and told us he was locking the gates as he does every night at 10 PM. This was surprising and somewhat irritating, since we were planning to work late getting ready for the Saturday morning shoot. I had applied with the park to be able to stay until midnight and it seemed that they had no problems with that, although no one mentioned the guard locking up at 10. We left and resolved to wake up at the miserable hour of 6 AM to return and complete the set decoration. Did I mention that the desks we were planning on using were also mysteriously locked away?

Although we didn't quite make the 6:30 pick up time for Sarah, we got an early start and began the cleanup on the office space. I returned home to collect additional equipment and a variety of props to help fill out the setting. Mike also came through big in supplying a number of office supplies. Susan also got in touch with Dan who came by and gave us the magic keys to get the access we needed, which was awesome. By the time I returned, the previously empty space had been fully converted into a working bail enforcement office. I delayed our actor for the day by an hour to give us a chance to finish up. Building up a set from scratch usually takes more time than you think it will, but Sarah and Susan are amazingly efficient at this process and produce really amazing work. I might have painted the walls if that were an option, which it wasn't, but other than that the set looked amazing. Here is the finished result. Not the best picture but it really captures the vibe of the weather outside.



Since it was the first day on this set and with the expected complications for getting the office running, we stuck to the small, simple scenes with just one other actor. Demone came in and delivered a great performance as expected. We did attempt a rather challenging white board scene. I think we hit on an approach which worked, but I'll be curious to see how it fits together in the end. Other than that, it was smooth sailing. By that I mean cold. Really cold. We had a space heater that heated its space but no one else's. The worklights were the best solution for
staying warm. I can't believe people have ever complained about them being too hot before. They are portable fire and it is fantastic.

Special thanks to the fine folks at 7-11 who sold me candy while Susan used their microwave to provide hot food for the cast and crew. Entering the set and seeing the steam pouring off the food was like viewing a miracle.

I have absolutely no memory of Saturday night. Did something happen? Wait, is that when we saw the awesome club location?

Day 3 - Shattering the head (Not quite)

Tuesday night we filmed the scene where Ted and Jim educate Rebecca on the true nature of the bail enforcement profession. The most amazing thing about that night was how Sarah and Susan transformed my apartment. They converted what was previously the very essence of masculinity as revealed in modern interior design into a miracle of feminity. They really did extraordinary work.

Since it was the first really dramatic sequence Mike and I had to perform, we spent quite awhile getting it down. We subjected our Rebecca to a grueling two hour rehearsal prior to shooting. In the end I think it was worth it though, our parts got a lot better. We postponed the actual destruction of the head for a later date since we wrapped around midnight. That should give us more time to create some sort of safety plan.

"They finally have a military response to the coyote problem."

We kicked off shooting of "The Search for Kennyboy" this last Saturday. The quote above is one passerby's comment on the proceedings. Our first day was in Discovery Park in Seattle and unfortunately was rather chaotic. Things didn't quite come together the day before the shoot and that translated into a rocky start to the whole affair. Everyone was really patient given the circumstances and we got some sweet footage from the day. The Seattle film office and the Parks department deserve notice for getting us set up to film in the park, and Officer Davenport was really great to work with.

Saturday focused on the military sequences and they really wouldn't have been possible without the help of Jason and his battlesim crew. They were absolutely amazing-friendly, professional and looked great. They also brought along matching uniforms for Kathy and Broadus which really added to the overall look of the scene. We can't thank them enough for their help. Just a warning though...don't get in the way of them and their cigarettes.

Sunday we had what will probably be our most complicated shoot. Thanks to Gregg, we were able to shoot at a private hangar in an airpark which gave us the freedom to get the shots we needed. We had multiple vehicles, a ton of actors and more rain than was really necessary. Things were going well until I suggested they were perhaps going "too well". After that it began to rain ceaselessly. Perhaps that is the price of a ridiculously beautiful day in Seattle on Saturday. (Another price is sunburn. Oops.)

We got creative and were able to get some protection to pull off the last shots but overall it was pretty disappointing that the weather moved in like that. I have yet to see the footage but I think it's going to be pretty cool. I mark this as the first time that weather really affected one of our shooting days (unless you want to count high winds in a certain scene from Kingmaker).

We had lots of excellent help on the weekend and everyone who came out really made an impact on the project. Despite the various troubles we encountered, the weekend was still really productive. Nicholas, our Director of Photography, has been fantastic and his efficient shooting helped keep things moving. Here is hard at work with Dr. Mike. Okay, the back of him, but you see how he's with the camera?

Dang old Patrick even came out on Sunday and got way raw on sound, which was awesome. It's too bad that dude is so busy being a rock star because he is missed on set.

Allan also offered his driving skills for the weekend to help cart around the various vehicles for the shoot. For those of you who know him, you're probably quite aware that he is not the type to drive around in a Hummer. Of course, that's exactly what I had him do. How did he respond to this opportunity to experience the thrills of a gas-guzzling icon such as this? I'll let him tell it:

"I let a Prius cut ahead of me onI-5, so I feel like I may have started something really special. I say the symbolism of that rates right up there with the dude in Tiananmen square, butI guess history will judge."

The Search for Kennyboy

So what is "The Search for Kennyboy"? I'll offer up a little teaser.



It's a love story...

It's a tragedy...

It's this kind of a movie...

OMG FURST!!!

Welcome to the Group B Films blog, a chronicle of misinformation and nonsense about our latest projects. We've just started a new production and I'll be starting to post about that shortly.

We've posted a few things on youtube, some ancient works for our 'formative' years and a project I did not too long ago for a festival, if you want to get some idea of what we are.
http://youtube.com/groupb