Production Diary: End of Week 3
30 June 2007 in Blog | Comments enabled

It’s amazing to me that in the same instant a thing can be a dream come true… and my worst nightmare.

That’s what it’s like to direct your first feature. (In case anyone was thinking of doing it.)

But after three weeks of 16 hour days, little sleep, roasting sun, mud, making 40 extras look like 100, boats, weather delays, and stress like you wouldn’t believe, Josh and I have come to an interesting conclusion —

WE LOVE TO MAKE FILMS.

This was a great week. It’s Saturday and we have the day off. I know we said production would last three weeks, but since we fell so behind, we had to add 3 more days. So we shoot Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of this next week.

Just FYI, I have lost 7 pounds in the last three weeks. Started out at a nice 150 pounds and am down to 143. I should patent this as a new weight lost system - “Filmmaking Fat Away”

Let me give you a rundown on what happened this week.

Sunday, June 24th, 2007 - Day 11

We had an early call time in Winder, Georga at a bookstore. It took us a couple of hours to get everything going but once we were lit, things moved pretty fast. Our goal was 5 and 7/8 pages.

Sunny Williams plays April, the owner of the bookstore. We shot all 4 of her scenes in one day. It was kind of cool to shoot her scenes in sequence because you see her character arc all in one day. She played those scenes with Carrie Walrond, the pastor’s wife. Carrie and Sunny were the stars of our short film, Replacing George. We love their chemestry on screen. They both did a great job.

Tom Vail, the owner of the bookstore was very kind to let us shoot in his store. And I think he enjoyed watching everything. We wrapped around 6ish. Then went to my house in Buford for dinner and then the entire cast and crew caravaned up to Rome, Georgia where we were to shoot for the next three days. We made our day. It was a good day.

Monday, June 25th, 2007 - Day 12

While in Rome, Josh and I stayed with Larry and Moni Owen. They are good friends of the family and were gracious enough to let not just us but several of the crew stay in their home. The Selman family also opened their home to the cast and crew. We didn’t arrive in Rome till Midnight but the host families didn’t mind at all.

Call time was early because we had so much to do. We were shooting at Floyd Springs Baptist Church where my dad had been pastor for 5 years. It was weird being back after so long - it didn’t feel that long ago. We left the church in 1999 but not much has changed. I didn’t have much time to walk down memory lane. We were aiming for 6 pages. We didn’t make it.

We started doing a scene in the Fellowship Hall and then moved into a hallway, a bathroom, and then finished the day in the youth house. WAY TOO MANY LOCATIONS FOR ONE DAY! We naively thought the church was one location. Unfortunately, even though the hallway is 30 feet from the fellowship hall, it still means a heck of a long time to light. We will never plan more than 2 or possibly 3 locations in one day, no matter how short the scene or how close the two locations are to each other. It just kills your day.

The youth house scene was hard because we had 15 kids in this small room plus 6 actors, 10 crew members… oh and two 5k fresnel lights. That was a sauna. Not as bad as the bedroom we were in the week before but still VERY uncomfortable.

We ended up wrapping late. I was a bit discouraged that day. I’m learning that I don’t handle stress as well as I thought I did.

That night I laid down to sleep at 12:30am and woke up at 5:30. It felt instantaneous. My remark was, “I slept through sleep.” I hate that.

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 - Day 13

When you need 100 extras for a scene, ask for 300. Even though you are assured you will have those 100, you never get as much as you expect.

We had a complicated shoot day on Tuesday. We were trying for 4 pages but we were hoping to get 6. We only got 4.

We started out shooting a potluck dinner scene. Its the first Sunday our pastor and his wife are at the church. We needed about 50 extras to populate the fellowship hall and we needed food to feed them. We asked all the extras to bring a covered dish. We were scheduled to shoot the big sanctuary scene first but since we only had about 40 extras, we had to delay that until we could find more people.

The problem with shooting the fellowship hall scene first was that everyone ended up eating the prop food - including the crew. So those covered dishes were empty by the time lunch came around. It was mass confusion. Hehe.

But we got the fellowship hall scene and moved on to the Sanctuary scene. At that point we still only had 40 extras. So we spread them out and moved them around and hopefully it looks like 100. We’ll have to see in the editing room. But honestly, I think it will work. On a side note, we had three guys in their late teens or early 20’s that all wore a white shirt with a dark tie and dark pants (they didn’t plan for that, I don’t think.) Our DP called them the Mormon triplets. (Thanks for coming guys. I really do appreciate it.)

We had a local actress named Minnie Tee there to play a REALLY bad soloist. And she did a great job. The pastor and his wife have trouble holding in laughter. it’s a scene I’ve lived through many times in small churches. I can remember my dad sitting on stage and biting his lip as some church lady prances around the stage singing some old gospel song. Good times.

We started filming another scene in the sanctuary and then scrapped it because we lost light. Our DP, Chris Campbell has a saying that sort of drives me crazy but in an endearing way… while shooting a scene that requires sun light and the light is fading he turns to us and says, “This shot is going to look amazing when we reshoot it tomorrow.” AARRRGGHHH!!! But he’s always right. We try and shoot without bright sunlight but it never looks good… and we end up reshooting. Hehe.

Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 - Day 14

We started out in the sanctuary on Wednedsay. Thanks to our Gaffer Hilton Garrett, we were lit and powered by 7:30 in the morning - that was call time. He went early. Keep your eye out for that name. He’s a really hard worker. He’s the only one on set that RUNS when something is called for.

Unfortunately, Josh got to set and informed me that he had to leave the set and go back to Atlanta for personal reasons. So I was directing alone. It was a little more stressful than usual. I didn’t have my support system. I’m sure the stuff we shot on Wednesday will be the weakest scenes in the movie. But I did my best. There is a reason we direct as the Daws Brothers. I can’t do it by myself.

We reshot that scene in the sanctuary and then moved on to shooting a scene where someone chases the pastor’s wife through the sanctuary. It was pretty surreal filming Carrie Walrond crawling under the very pews I had sat in while my dad preached all those years. But again, there was so much to do, I only had a moment to really take it in.

BTW, we needed about 15 extras that day. The mormon triplets came back but this time dressed in colored shirts. Chris Campbell referred to them as the “recently converted mormon triplets.” He makes me laugh. He does improv in Atlanta.

After lunch, we moved to the hallway again. We were so dumb to go from Fellowship hall to hallway to sanctuary, to fellowship hall, to hallway, to bathroom, to fellowship hall, etc… But we were scheduling around actors. We will never do that again. You pick the location and then schedule the actors. If the actors can’t make it, find new actors.

There was added pressure on Wednesday for two reasons. The first was that we were shooting the first scene of the movie WITHOUT Josh. If people turn off our move in the first 5 minutes, it’s my fault. DOH.

The other reason was that the church had a service that night and we had to be done filming and outside by 6:30. We wrapped at 6:15 and then moved the equipment outside as fast as we could. My parents had to vaccum and clean up everything as the crew loaded the truck. But we made it. The service started at 7pm right as we were all about to drive off to have dinner at the Owen’s house.

(On another side note, I was amazed at how awesome my parents were this week. They really had to deal with a lot of crap. They cooked for the entire crew, cleaned up after them, and handled relations with all the locations. So they get credit for catering, craft services, location managers, production assistants, possibly line producers, as well as other random producing items. We could not have made this movie without them. They are exhausted and I wouldn’t blame them if they never work on our sets again… but I sure do love having them around. And I think the crew does to. I cannot thank them enough for all they’ve done for the last three weeks. They win best parents award. Next time, we’re making them producers and getting someone else to clean up after the crew. They deserve better.)

We had Chic-Fil-A sandwiches donated to us which was a real blessing. The food budget for the film was getting low.

Thursday, June 28th, 2007 - Day 15

We slept in Rome again on Wednesday night and then drove up to Ellijay. Back at the lodge. We started out shooting a scene on an island in the middle of the lake. When Josh and I visited the lodge several months back, we saw that the lake had an island so we wrote some scenes around it. What we didn’t realize is that the island is made completely out of goose poo. Chris Campbell dubbed the island, “Goose Sh*t Island.”

The whole lake bottom is just thick smelly mud and it runs all the way up to that island. The thing that made this even messier is that our two main actors have to be in the water and swim up to the island. Carrie and Stephen are both troopers for doing this. They spent the entire day swimming and rolling around in nasty water and mud filled with goose crap.

Then we moved on to a scene I can’t talk about without giving things away. So I’ll just say it had stunts and took WAY more time than we thought. Stunts always do.

On Thursday evening, I let go of the schedule. I had been in control of it instead of allowing the producer and AD take care of it. I’ve been so used to doing that on our smaller productions that I had a hard time letting it go. But the stress of directing plus keeping the schedule was just too much. And as soon as I did, I was a new man. It felt like a weight had been lifted.

Friday, June 29th, 2007 - Day 16

Yesterday, we started out shooting around the lodge and moved back to the lake and finished the scene I can’t talk about. Then we moved back to Goose Sh*t Island for more shots out there that we didn’t get because of clouds the day before.

BTW, the footage of the island stuff looks like LOST. It’s all handheld and really pretty. You’d never know that there was soo much Goose crap.

We wrapped around 7ish and made it home last night around 10:30pm after cleaning up and packing up. It was such a nice day. When people asked what we were filming next, I said, “I don’t know. Ask the AD.” And they were okay with that. One of our actors who also prdouces movies said I should have let it go weeks ago. I wish I had. But now I know for the next time. It felt so nice to only focus on shots and performances. Friday was a good day.

So that was week three. My goal is to see Live Free or Die Hard this evening after I get set for tomorrow.

We have some underwater filming to do in Cave Springs tomorrow and then back to Rome tomorrow evening.

On Monday we’re back in Ellijay at the lodge for one more day and then Tuesday we shoot some in Atlanta.

We’re starting to get sad that it’s almost over. On that first week, I wanted it to be over. Now I wish we had 3 more weeks. Though with LOTS more money, more crew, and a goal of about 3 pages a day, rather than 6.

We sure have learned a lot.