"Feral" Production Notes (working title was "Sisters") 2/9/07 The first shoot on the night went smooth. I was amazed that I was able to stay up all night. We got all of the shots we needed to edit together. There was one technical problem that the headphones snapped off of the headrest for them (and I forgot my spares), but we had a very creative solution to the problem. We got everything accomplished that we planned for the first night, and using the headlights from the cars to light the scene helped immensely with the lighting scenario. We did have a one dead car battery, but I had my trusty jumper cables to get the car going again. We discovered how dewey everything gets in the middle of the night. Everything was sopping wet and dirty from lying on the dirt road. Chris' cold rotisserie chicken for break was edible, but not a hit with cast and crew. (When the Director or D.P. is doing the catering we forget to heat things up.) We got finished ahead of schedule and I saw it as a sign that the whole shoot would go this smoothly. 2/10/07 And then we had the technical problems. I scheduled the shoot backwards, so that the actor that played Jerry wouldn't have to hang out all night just for the end of the scene, that was my first mistake. I didn't realize until later that I had the same angles listed for the beginning of the scene as for the end of the scene. Then I didn't mark where the tripod was to get that same angle again for the beginning of the scene after we had shot the end of the scene. That was frustrating and wasted time. Also, there was miscommunication between me and the crew, me and the director, I don't know if I was just over tired, or over confident from the previous night going so well. I had problems operating the crane (that I had never used before), we had problems with our lighting system not working. I lost a crew member. I couldn't find him and sent people to look for him and we found him sleeping on set in one of the cars. We didn't get all the shots that I wanted, but we shot enough coverage to edit together. We ran late and the equipment was just thrown in the bus and a lot of things in the bus fell over and spilled. Other than that, The cast was excellent. I'm so glad that they hit their marks and had their energy up. We did not have to do a lot of takes because the cast was right on, which saved the shoot night because technically it was annoying. Brean made baked ziti and it was a hit. 2/16/07 Renewed after a week of planning and recouping (and practicing with the crane) and reorganizing equipment in milk crates (Thanks Brean!) and plastic bins (they hold up better against dew than cardboard boxes), we are ready to bravely drive the RV packed with people and equipment to the location again for another night of shooting. . . . And the bus would not start. We have a dead battery. A quick trip to the auto parts store and some time to change out the battery and finally we are on our way hours late already. On the trip we realize that we left the snacks at the house. I fall on the crane twice! We forgot a cast members pants for wardrobe and we forgot the broken road sign. Luckily we have Andre driving one of the prop cars (Chris') and he runs back to the house to grab the pants and sign while we continue on to the location (thank the invention of cell phones). We arrive at the site 2 hours late and there is a lot to do. The weather was clear but promised to dip close to freezing and it was COLD! I was more organized with the equipment and with the crew and we now could unload and load much faster. So, we set up the scene and I immediately have issues with the lighting, we didn't bring the 500W lights, so we have to spend time make-shifting a 500W light from two, we have a 300W and we clamp on a 250W. It's still not enough light to light the scene. We don't have enough power and we can only pull 700W from the RV. I have to move my moonlight to the other side of the road and have it closer to the cars. Finally we start shooting. The crane still works, even though I fell on it twice. and we get our two crane shots for the evening, even with the low light. We continue shooting the first scene, with me constantly rearranging lights to get the talent lit. I made goulash for break and planned to warm it in the RV oven, but it won't light. We end up having to microwave it which pulls more power from the RV generator so we can't shoot while it's being heated. However, everybody seemed to like my goulash. When we go out to shoot again, there is another problem with the lights, the RV generator doesn't pump out a constant currant anymore, it pulsates with it's cycle. So, with all the technical problems, we see if the teenagers and Amy can come again on Saturday and we call it a night at 2:30 am. Again the cast was excellent, the crew was great and had lots of suggestions and ideas and worked and froze their butts off in the cold. We almost had a full cast present, minus one. 2/17/07 I buy higher wattage lights, and Stephen Hughes of my crew is a lifesaver with his generator and 10-foot A-frame ladder. We get underway and immediately set up for finishing up the scenes we did not get the night before. The higher wattage lights work much better and we can get a couple of wide shots that we were unable to get the night before. There is no light flickering and we fall into a rythm of getting all the shots done. We just fly through the scenes AND we complete the all the scenes we did not get to the night before. We also get the scenes we orginally had planned for Saturday and the fancy-schmancy transition sequence (which the Director, Chris, ran camera for because I was having problems going up and down the hill safely). We end late, at 4:30 am we start packing up, but the whole night went smoothly and that location is finally wrapped. I'm so proud of my crew, all of them willing to help wherever need be. The cast was right on with lines and marks, which helped immensely with moving through the evening quickly. And Brean made a delicious stew. I'm so glad Chris, the director, is calling breaks, because when I get to shooting, I forget that I need to give the crew a break and eat. So now we will be invading a new location this coming weekend and continue this movie-making-with-no-budget experience. Updates to continue when I have time. 2/20/07 - "Sisters" movie production is nearing it's halfway point. We have two weekend shoots under our belt and have battled technicall obstacles, the weather, and the late hours. Overall, I am quite happy with the results. I have to say that my crew is exceptional! The cast has been great! We still have three more weekends to shoot, but I am looking forward to them. 2/23/07 We shot at Ruff 'N Tuff Paintball Park in Opa-Locka, FL. Big thanks to Ruff 'N Tuff Paintball for letting us use their wooded fields. Confirming with crew, I find that I only have 3 crew members that can come out when I expected 7. Well, let's back up just a little further. From last weekend we know that we can't use the RV generator to power our lights anymore because it makes the lights pulse. We were saved last weekend with Stephen's generator, but Stephen (and his generator) are not going to make it to this weekend. So, Chris and I have to figure out if we can take Chris' monstrosity of a generator and get it in the RV. Thankfully, it does fit in the RV, just through the door, and we only have 2 extra people riding with us (Dave and Ozzie) which is good because the generator is in the way of everything. So, we are on our way. Everybody else met us there, Jennifer (Shelly), Jessica (Amy), Naomi, Brean, Bukki, Julio, and Andre. We string 200 feet of extension cord all the way back to the back of the woods to the location, and set up lights. Remember, there are no lights in the wooded paintball field so we are walking through woods, barricades, over logs, branches, all in the dark with just our little flashlights to light our way. It feels safer than the previous weekends, though, because these fields are all fenced in. Then the generator didn't want to start. Chris kept cranking it and cranking it, and it finally kicked over and it is LOUD! It is louder than Stephen's, but now we have power for light at the location (always a good thing when shooting a movie). We start shooting, and an airplane goes overhead, then a train goes by blowing it's whistle, then a helicopter, then some loud motorcycles. And we have dialogue to shoot. Such is the case of a no-budget shoot, we had to continue shooting. We couldn't wait for the loud noises to die down, we didn't have the time. So, we keep shooting, thinking all the while of all the looping we are going to have to do later in editing to get good dialogue. We run late and have to get out of there because they run paintball games during the day. I look at my pants, and since I've been doing a lot of kneeling, I have paint all over my sweatpants (thank goodness it is washable). And then I-95 Northbound is shut down completely and they are making everybody get off the highway. And there we are with this big RV trying to get over to get off the exit with everybody else. We finally do make it home. 2/24/07 After an entire day of no sleep for me, because I'm running camera for an acting class, we are on our way back to the paintball place. The big generator riding along in the RV with us. Since we set up in the same place as last night, Dave, Julio and I set up the lights and string the cable and get the generator going pretty quickly. Then the crew is waiting for the actors to get into their special effects make-up. While we are waiting I get some shots of "spooky" woods and our first shots are going to be dragging Amy by her feet all through brush and through the trees and down a hill. I had fashioned a board, a 2 by 6 that is about 4 feet long (it's actually off of my waterbed base) and I drilled some holes in it so we could tie a pull rope and a rope around her waist to actually pull her on so we weren't actually pulling the actor along in the dirt and shrub and debris. So, crew was still waiting for actors, so I had Julio pull me strapped to the board and I got some POV (Point of View) of being pulled shots, which was fun. It was also fun pulling Jessica around on the board. For each reset of the shot, Chris and Julio would just pick up the board with her on top. Hopefully she had a good time. I really wished we had somebody running the "behind the scenes" video camera for those things, but we just did not have enough crew to have somebody free to run the camera. It would also have been cool because we filmed the attack scene tonight too. We were really pressed for time and knew we had to be out of the there by 6 am and we had the whole attack scene to do with the stunt. The actors, Rachel and Jessica, did a great job with it and the FX make-up by Chris and Bukki was excellent. We packed up quickly and got out of there just before the paintball park was opening up. I again didn't have any time to sleep before I was working the acting class again. I'm so glad I took Monday off from my "regular" job. 3/3/07 We rented a cabin at Jonathan Dickenson State Park up by Jupiter, FL to shoot the interior cabin scenes. Now, we did not have permissing from the park to shoot there, and we can only have 6 people sleep in the cabin. The cabin is a very small trailer, and we can only have two cars at the cabin. So, I planned to rent a campsite also and I was going to bring my tent. By the time we were finalized on plans to actually go to the cabin, and I got the cabin reservation, there were no longer any campsites available. When I got there, I was hoping for a cancellation, but no luck. So, I had to figure that one out, but I got there early and was able to check into the cabin early, and I found out from the people that rent the cabin, that the fold-out couch is broken, so there goes one of the beds I was planning to have people in. Oh well, they will have to deal with the floor. I get in the cabin and I unload all the equipment from my car and organize the small space before it's invaded by 7 other people. I do as much as I can, taping black trash bags on the sliding glass doors to block out the light and I can't get started on the windows because the director has not seen the cabin yet and I don't know which 2 windows (out of 6) that he wants to use. But I do know that my ND filters I bought are too small for the windows, something else to figure out. At the call time, 2 pm, I'm standing at the cabin alone, wondering where is the other two cars from our car pool. I get a call from my Camera Assistant, Julio, who tells me that he is not car pooling with the others, but driving himself because he is coming from Orlando. Yet another issue to figure out how to handle because that's one too many cars (actually 2 too many because I don't have a campsite for my car). And Andre, my other crew member, tells me he can't stay both days, so he is driving himself. So that's another car that's too many, and a crew member short for the second day, which I could only have 2 crew members total for this situation. Anyway, my director and the caravan has made it to the park. I tell them to follow the signs to the cabin. The next call I get is from Chris, the director, and he has locked his keys in the car with it RUNNING! He is in the park but he missed the sign for the turn off to the cabins. He had stopped at the concession stand to ask for directions because ALL 6 people (and 3 cars) in the caravan missed the cabin signs. So the cars that do not have their keys locked inside them continue on to the cabin and we start unloading. The cabin gets real crowded real quickly with 7 people going in and out and trying to find space for all the stuff. I'm so glad I got there early and found places to stash the equipment because otherwise I would not have been able to find anything after all the rest of the stuff was in the cabin. Chris called for roadside assistance. Chris' car is unlocked and we are all at the cabin, I have most of the stuff put away and I have the actors already starting to get into costume and running their lines. Chris decides which windows we need to see out of and which ones we black out. I give the task of fitting the 6 too small ND filters onto 4 oversized windows to Julio and Andre. They do an excellent job using every piece of the 6 filters creating a jigsaw puzzle over the windows. It takes more time than I expected and we are finally ready to start shooting at 6 pm, 2 hours later than I planned to start. We do our green screen effect which I found a green science fair display board at the art store that worked great. Since we had to have the green screen outside the window and it couldn't be right up against the window, the two folding sides of the green screen worked great for holding it out from the window so that I could get a light on it from outside. I hope it comes out right when we finally do the effect in post. The rest of the shooting of the interior scenes were interrupted by getting some exterior shots of the characters entering and exiting the cabin while it's dark outside. This is the footage that needs to match to what we filmed at the paintball park the weekend before. AND we have to be very careful outside because we did not have permission to shoot at the park, and other campers would wander by so we would have a lookout that would tell if someone is coming down the road, which was hard to do because it was so dark and there were no lights, and then we would shut off the 500 watt blue gelled studio light that was creating our moonlight and tell the actors to run into the cabin until the people passed. At around 9:30 pm everybody was hungry and needed a break, so Chris started working on dinner. He wanted to continue shooting after dinner, and I knew we weren't going to be able to do much after 10:00 pm because that was the park's cerfew. I went out to the big parking lot to check on our extra cars and found a Florida State Trooper getting ready to get a tow truck out to tow them all away. I explained to the Trooper that we had extra people hanging and that the park people told me that we had to leave by 10 and I was just taking inventory of who's car needed to go and avoided getting cars towed. Andre had to go home anyway, so we sent him home, and Julio and I had to leave the park, so no more shooting for us. As Julio and I were driving out, I remembered one more exterior shot we needed to get while it was still dark outside. Which is when Naomi is let into the cabin from outside. So I called Chris and they got the shot without me with Chris running the camera. 3/4/07 The next morning, Julio and I got up about 7:30 am and stopped to get coffee and donuts for everybody and headed back to the Park and the cabin. We found everybody already up and getting into costume, so we got started with filming pretty early. We continued shooting and fell into a rhythm pretty quickly and were able to get a lot of shots and scenes done. I planned to have everybody out of the cabin at 4 pm, so when Chris received an emergency call and needed to be out of the cabin by 3:30 pm, we were already well along with the shots. We rushed a bit at the end, but got a lot of good "one takes" with the actors. (and whoever had my still camera for production shots really liked taking photos of Julio) After everybody left, I stayed at the cabin to finish everything up and look around Jonathan Dickenson Park, which I hadn't been to before. I went to the observation tower hoping to catch the sunset, but it was too cloud covered. I bought some firewood and had a very nice campfire going, however, I didn't think to leave some of the foodstuffs with me and I packed it all off with Chris and the actors. But I did get a visit from a very curious raccoon, who came right up to the campfire and the picnic table about 4 times. I guess he thought it was weird that I didn't have any food either. Later I heard lots of loud rustling in the woods right by my campfire. From the amount of the noise, it sounded like something big. I knew they had deer, raccoons and other wildlife, but I wasn't sure what other wildlife. I couldn't see that far into the woods because the campfire was dying out and there were just embers left. I strained my eyes trying to see what was making such a racket, all I could make out were the tops of bushes moving giving away the path of the animal. And then it broke out into the clearing and came right up to me and smelled my feet. It was an armadillo, I knew they couldn't see very well, which is why it didn't know what I was until it was almost walking on my feet. But as soon as he smelled me he started running the other way making another huge racket in the brush. 3/10/07 We are almost done, we have made it to the final day of shooting and I do mean we get to shoot during the day. So we are outside for the abduction scene and it's a bright Florida day, but we have to battle with the pesky little clouds that seem to sail over the production just when the director says action. But we had fun with it. I had trouble again trying to get the crane to move smoothly, and we only had one crew member (Julio) out of 3 expected. So the director (Chris) had to drive the get away van . . . in costume. After about 5 takes, we switched and Chris ran the crane and I got to drive the van. That was a nice break for me, I felt like regular crew instead of Producer and D.P. It was fun to drive, because we would drive beside Rachel, Seth would open the door, Ryan would grab Rachel and all would tumble into the van. What I didn't know when I was running the camera, as soon as everybody would get in the van and shut the door, they all burst out laughing. They were having so much fun abducting Rachel. So it was fun driving the van. After about 12 takes, we wrapped the crane and got the shot from different angles. It was a lot of fun shots, Rachel being tied up in the van, her being dragged out of the van, which I beleive she landed on the director who was just out of frame making sure she didn't get hurt. We shot the rest of the day in Chris' back room that looks like an abandonded warehouse (thanks to Hurricane Wilma). I made a fake window so we could control the "sun" coming through the window and have it move across her like a sun setting outside a window. Later in the day everybody was happy that window contraption was there because the 500W light bulb exploded. The peices were so hot, they landed on some color tempurature gels and melted them. We had a backup bulb and did not lose much time in the shoot. There was lots of blood used and the makeup of her bruises looked great. I commented on how real the scabs on her knees looked and was informed that those were real from last weeks shooting (oops). Rachel was a trooper. Ryan and Seth did a great job and I have to hand it to Julio for being so reliable and working so hard for me. 3/29/07 - "Sisters" has a new title "Fearal". Production was finished on 3/3/07. YAY! We did it. The movie is now in the hands of the Director, Chris Nelson, who is going to do the post-production on it. The production was a lot of hard work, however, I had a great time doing it. And just to give you an idea of how hectic the weekends were for the shoot, here is the recap. THAT'S A WRAP!!!!
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