Friday night, around 7:00, we got a call from our guy in Little Rock telling us what we needed to include in our movie.
Genre – Detective/Cop
Character – Nick or Nancy McCray, former professional athlete
Prop – Birthday candle
Line – Say it like you mean it, baby
We sat around drinking beer and brainstorming for the next few hours, but didn’t really accomplish too much until we broke into small groups and fleshed out individual scripts to present to the group. Lucky for me, I started spit balling with Wes, the producer/director, and since his was the only vote being cast, mine was picked. The kicker of course was it was an idea I had pitched three hours earlier. But that’s how it goes when you have a dozen and half people trying to agree on something. By this time the crowd had dwindled to just a few of us, and we assigned ourselves most of the roles. Another hour or so was spent storyboarding and scriptwriting, and Kathryn and I finally got to bed around 12:30 ish. A few of us were up quite a bit later than that. But the real fun didn't start until the next day.
Saturday morning Kathryn and I woke up at the last possible second and finished the script. We went back to the coffee shop (our home base) at 10:00 am and showed it to everyone. A few minor changes were made and it was copied en mass for all the actors. After that, a few more changes were made to just two of the scripts, which resulted in periodic confusion throughout the day.
Around 11:30 we started setting up at location A. The first shot was taken around 1:30. A few minutes prior to that, my stalker showed up. Not to stalk me, fortunately, but because her friend was in the movie and didn’t know I was too. So it was a bit awkward for a while.
By about 4:30 we had finished at location A and packed up to move to Location B, where we continued shooting. The stalker’s friend had other things to do, so we finished her scenes, and as soon as they left, I came out of hiding and had a blast. We filmed until about 9:00 I think, then the very few of us still around scrambled to pack everything up and went our separate ways. Kathryn and I rented a movie and collapsed on the couch. Wes immediately began the editing process, which ended sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
Sunday morning we saw a rough cut. I re-shot two scenes and we had a musician lay down some tracks. Wes put my new scenes and the music in, a few of us signed lost release forms and that was it. I still don’t think they’re worth 10 million a movie, but I do have a new respect for actors. After one day of filming, I was beat. I can’t imagine doing it for a month straight. We slept all afternoon Sunday, and I could still use a little nap today.
If anyone happens to be in the Little Rock area next week, the official screening is Tuesday, July 24th at 7:00, 7:15, 9:00 and 9:15.
