That's a wrap.

So some people consider a long weekend a weekend where you have an extra day off. Others consider a "long weekend" to be when you have to work that extra day and the two before it. The second definition I believe is how those working on the movie saw this past weekend. Everyone involved in the production over the last few days made an extraordinary effort to complete some of the most challenging scenes in the movie.

Susan and Karen deserve a huge thank you. With a number of our trusty cohorts away for the weekend, they stepped up to build most of the set and props we needed this weekend. Since the portion of the film we shot takes place in outer space, that was no small task. Their contribution didn't end there as they also assisted with makeup and costume while providing food as well. We simply could not have shot what we did without their help.

Nicholas also deserves a big thank you. He was the only individual besides Mike and I who was there for every minute of the shoot. That is a serious commitment. Even when we were running late with last minute production details, he was prompt. I know he had his frustrations and irritations but he never complained. He simply worked ceaselessly and his camera experience was invaluable.

The University of Washington made this weekend possible by allowing us to shoot at one of the UW buildings. Eileen, the graduate student who helped us out in the space, was absolutely indispensible. She enabled so much of what we did, helping people find bits for props or suggesting locations. We really appreciate what she did for us. She was even game enough to come out for a little after-party which was cool.

Space being a rather empty place, we had only one additional actor in over the weekend. Cody did a great job amidst some very adverse circumstances. On a complex shoot, at a rented facility, shooting the final sequences of the movie, it is terrifying to receive an email from your main actor saying he has tonsilitis. I called him on the phone immediately to learn that he was just a few minutes away. He deserves to be commended for standing by his commitment to come film even though he felt miserable. It didn't show during his performance which is impressive because he got to join the long line of actors in the movie who are tied to a chair and tortured. Thankfully, Mike was one of those who'd been in the hot seat before, so they were able to make camaraderie. He also rolled with some new lines given to him the day of shoot and quickly came up to speed with them.

Cody's tonsilitis was one of many near misses and misses this weekend. It figures that the riskiest shoot is also the one that will have more problems than any other on the production. For a number of reasons, we were behind on preparation for this weekend, which is always a recipe for chaos. Most of it was mitigated, but it also meant we couldn't offset any hindrances that did arise. Of course, hindrances decided to arise anyway. The main room we expected to use actually was being utilized, so we had to adjust our set to compensate which was probably our biggest issue. What we came up with actually may be better, so you have to embrace things like that. We had a truly frightening close call when Nicholas's hard drive hit the floor. It did some soul searching but eventually found itself so we were able to continue.

Mike brings so much to the production that is hard to describe, but he brought it. Even when he didn't want to.

To everyone else, actors and otherwise, who have contributed to the production, thank you as well. From the beginning we knew the scale of the project would absolutely push our means. Sensible independent filmmakers would set their film entirely on an abandoned sound stage with only an actor or two. Sure you can make a great movie that way with the right script, but our goal was to make something exciting and different or at least fail miserably trying. We needed all of you to accomplish that (uh, the success part) and it's been fun working with everyone. I know we'll be able to count on your continued help as we start work on sequels 2-7.

This isn't the end of the blog or anything. I'll keep updating as we go through post-production, but this seemed a good time to acknowledge everyone who worked on the production phase.

PS: We finished our main shooting on the movie.

Photo-photo-photographs

Here's a few photos from the weekend.

Time to build a studio...


Set designer hard at work.


Greenscreen ready to go.


Are those spacepants you're wearing...?


The DP, hand on the tiller of his mighty camera boat.


Heated discussion.


Our most helpful liaison.


Our producer.


Nothing could stop the party.

What can anyone hope to achieve that hasn't already been done by The Clash?

I don't know, but these guys will give it a shot.

Star Pupil

Overheard on set

Twitter this.

M: I bet Robert DeNiro would be making fun of us for moving weird in these suits.

Bob D: I wore my flightsuit for six months before my Top Gun audition.

J: I thought you didn't get that part.

Bob D: That's how good I am.

...and when the universe is overrun with space elk, who's going to hunt them if not Ted Nugent?

Just some food for thought.

For those of you clinging to your seat wondering about the outcome to the editing software sweepstakes, we have a winner. Through process of elimination, Adobe Premiere seems to have come out on top. The clincher came when it loaded MXF files with no problem and played them back with no performance issues. If the internet (Thanks Creative Cow. Check out creativecow.com if you're interested in the technical side of movie production. It's a great resource and so far more helpful than Adobe's documentation) hadn't informed me that it can edit at audio sample levels it probably still would have lost to Sony Vegas. It almost did anyway. Premiere's attempts to go 'pro' by mimicking Avid have led to regressions in usability rather than progress. I'll try and save that rant for a separate discussion on the People Who Care blog.

I will say that I was unable to update the program. After reading the official technical advice which informed users they should install and reinstall the program and along the way completely reformat their entire system, I finally found a half-understood nugget of info in a forum which indicated the fix to the problem was an incorrect version number in the update xml. Talk about criminally ridiculous. Once I got past though and it's not easy to get past something like that, things were a little better.

The subtext here is that I've begun officially editing the movie.

The Return

After a fairly long hiatus for various reasons, we have been shooting the last couple of weekends. We're very close to completing production. Yesterday morning we were able to grab some scenes that have haunted us throughout the shooting. It was our earliest day yet to avoid the din of downtown Seattle. Many thanks to the brave volunteers who showed up at that horrible hour to lend disenchaned veracity to the movie.

The week prior we shot a couple of the space sequences. It's true it's totally ridiculous and miserable to shoot special effects/space shots in a low budget film but whatever. No sense making something boring.

Mad props to the crazy Haitian chick that Mike met on the bus. She did a sweet job reanimating Kenneth Lay so that he could at least make a cameo.