May 24th, 2006: Day 3

Shivers approaches.  Lock up your balloons.

----------------------------------

So this was "the fight". Frank and I got into it a bit, and it's a shame my behind-the-scenes guy wasn't there, because arguments always make the best stuff to watch, right?


It's no big deal now. Frank probably doesn't even remember it. Shit like this happens on low-budget shoots.


May 24

At the grip house in the afternoon Mun and I pick up stuff fast. My wife has ordered cast/crew T-shirts which she gives me to hand out, and we bolt across bridge.I also treat Mun to a snowball, which he doesn't seem to be familiar with.

We start on time, shooting Shivers approaching Tuckahoe from the direction of the farm next store(where, scriptwise, he has dispatched a family and their naked neighbor). Looks good. We do a number of takes plus the POV shot we owe of the field/barn, but I don’t think that it’s going to match the other side of the shot that we shot last night.

We move to the exterior of the kitchen house. It takes a while to set up but it looks very good. We start shooting but fall behind quickly. Lighting very nice takes time.

We shoot the Lynn/Peters conversation and man, Frank and Jacky are really pouring it on. I actually get a little lost watching them. It’s no longer actors saying my lines, they’re people talking about their past and their wants. It’s cool.

We then get some money shots of Shivers melting into the darkness of a barn and it reminds me of Alien when the aliens fade away into darkness. Mun knows his shit.

We get way behind. We miss dinner. Next thing I know it’s 2am and Mun wants a break—I don’ t blame him. We take a break, trying to get the scenes done. We miss a couple of shots and time flies by. We wrap at 6am—we missed a scene and owe a couple of shots from another. It’s a nightmare.

The reason you need to put your day job on hold while you shoot a movie

Then I hear from Frank that he has to drive back to the other side of the bridge to do auditions for his regular job in two hours. The regular job that he said would be completely on hold while we shot this movie. I mention that he’s not supposed to be doing that. He says it’s only this and “I’ll be fine”.

I'm thinking: He's already tired. He's gonna go do this, and come back and be worthless when we need him to remember his lines tonight. This is WHY I stressed that he would not be able to do his regular job during the filming.

We drive home and I find him there. I remind him again that he’s supposed to be on this exclusively. He blows me off—then we situate everyone’s sleeping arrangements. And Frank tells me there’s only one little hangup-we have to be out of the house by 3pm. The new owners of the house are coming over to paint.

Let me backtrack: This was Frank’s house that was the set for Lynn’s house in the film. I wrote a portion of the movie around it. But three weeks before we were to shoot, Frank tells me he sold the house. It’s okay, he said, because he made a deal so we could still shoot there and use the house as a basecamp on the eastern shore. He assured me many times there’d be no problems.

So that's why at that particular moment after coming back from filming that I blow up. I tell him that wasn’t the deal—we can’t work 12-14 hour days and come home to sleep for 5 hours. I can see the rest of the crew slinking away from the argument we’re having.

The argument doesn't last long but it’s pretty harsh.

It’s 7am--good night.