Production Diary: Last Three Days
4 July 2007 in Blog | Comments enabled

So we wrapped the film on Tuesday, July 3rd. But we have another week of pickups to do. We would like to have extended production another week but our lead actress is going out of the country to work with orphans. It’s kinda hard to put a guilt trip on her for that. Hehe.

Let me give a quick recap of what happened the last three days.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

We began the day at a pool in Cave Springs, Georgia doing underwater shots. The pool has a stone bottom and I think is spring fed. They say it is in the shape of the state of Georgia but it seemed too elongated for that to be true.

The water was really cold. I felt bad for the actors and crew who had to get in the water. Josh and I didn’t get in. We couldn’t be of any help. We had several safety people there plus two guys operating the camera.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have any sort of video feed so we had to trust our DP, Chris Campbell. Fortunately, we trust our DP. And the footage looks great.

I can’t really say much about what we shot without giving away key scenes in the movie. Sorry.

That evening we drove to a home in Rome, Georgia where we shot a night scene. I can’t say anything about that scene either. But someone dies in that scene in a pretty cool way. And he’s killed by someone pretty creepy. It’s a great scene.

Monday, July 2, 2007

We spent the night in Rome and then made our way BACK to the lodge in Ellijay to shoot a flashback scene. I can’t speak of this scene either. But I can say that it was fun to shoot. It was another death scene. And again it was a pretty cool death and the person doing the killing was also pretty creepy.

After we finished up the flashback scene, we had to shoot a short scene where one of our characters is being thrown in the back of a truck. He’s dead. Wow, there was a lot of dying on set this week.

We finished the day by shooting the infamous scene 100. We’ve already shot that scene. We shot it the first week. But it started raining and we couldn’t finish it.

As we began to shoot the scene, it began to storm again. That’s TWICE. I’m starting to think that this scene isn’t supposed to be in the movie. It’s pretty weird. We’ll have to get it in August. I can’t belive it - A THIRD TIME!!!

On Monday evening, we went home. Because of the rain, we wrapped around 4:30pm. We only had exteriors to shoot so it was over. We packed up and drove back to Buford. I was feeling kind of stupid and decided to go with my sister and our 2nd AC, Alan Melling to see Live Free or Die Hard. About 30 minutes into the film, I fell asleep and didn’t wake up. I do remember seeing flashes of action sequences and I did hear Yippee Kayee (or however you spell it) but I missed the entire plot. (Was I dreaming the scene where Bruce Willis jumps on an f-16?) I also remember a lot of witty one-liners from Justin Long but wasn’t aware of why he was saying them.

I need to go see that movie again. How could I have slept through a Die Hard movie you ask? Try shooting a feature in 3 weeks. It’s exhausting.

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

We had 1 page to shoot on this day. We shot it at Carrie Walrond’s house (she plays Nora, the pastor’s wife) which made a 7AM call time a breeze for her. We only had her for 3 hours so we had to move. The problem with rushing on the last day of production is that every one is tired and burned out. We were dragging. And then it started raining. So we rushed to finish.

The scene was near the beginning of the movie where the pastor and his wife pack up and leave Atlanta on their way to the North Georgia mountains and their new church. Tiffany Morgan, an extremely talented and experienced actress in Atlanta, plays Nora’s sister. She did an amazing job. We love working with Tiffany. She’s been in a couple of videos we’ve produced for local organizations.

At 10:00am, we wrapped production. We were planning to film some driving scenes but it was overcast and it wouldn’t look right. Plus we were all beat. 20 days of 16 hour days just wears you out. It was nice to go home early.

So that was production. We now move into post-production.