Today we’re shooting at the Melrose Lightspace, a classroom/art gallery space on Melrose Ave. It’s super cheap - $220/day if you book in advance, $120/day if you book the day before (roll the dice…). The space is perfect for shooting - versatile and cheap. I’ve actually been toying with an idea for a script that I want to shoot in there.

Once again we’re creating a fake wall within a larger space, but today we’re using the movable walls provided by the gallery. The set we’re shooting today is the “before and after” of a set we shot in the United Pacific Stages last week. In this scene a character enters the Starblazer Video offices (circa 1995), moves thru the outer office (Melrose Lightspace), turns a corner and enters the sleazy porn producer’s office (United Pacific Stages), has an argument, kills the sleazy porn producer, then runs out and back thru the outer office (Melrose Lightspace) and into the street.

The reason we have to shoot this section at this location is we simply ran out of time in our first location. We made the decision to push the outer office stuff based on the assumption that we’d be able to find a generic location in which we could create a set that matched the other part of the scene. Thankfully the Melrose Lightspace is just that. Part of the matchability is actually due in part to a storage issue. Along one wall of the Lightspace are several risers, normally used for classes, propped up against the wall, underside facing out. Turns out the undersides are the same color as the UPS location, and they work perfectly as shelves for video box inventory.

The second location we’re creating here is the hallway that leads to the “Empty Room” we’ve already shot at the Second City Training Center. In this scene the character walks down the hallways (Melrose Lightspace), does some business, then turns and enters the “Empty Room” (Second City). Bad things happen to the character at that point, so no need to film him running out, cuz he doesn’t…

The SCTC was too perfect for the “Empty Room” to pass up, so when they told us we couldn’t shoot in the hallway, the decision was made to push that part of the scene based on the assumption that we’d find a generic location in which we could creat a set that matched the other part of the scene. And here we are.

Today PA Kevin’s parents showed up to watch filming. We got a handful of crew members from the Ithaca internship program - Juniors and Seniors move out here for a sememster or two, take internships on films, in production offices, development departments, etc., for school credit, and hopefully make some good connections for when they actually move out here. I’ve used interns on most of the stuff I’ve produced to varying degrees of success. One of my past interns is actually not available because I got her a good paying job (sad for me, cuz she’s awesome and I’ll probably end up working for her someday), and this time around we got a couple guys who are really great workers and very dedicated.

So PA Kevin’s parents showed up and today was the perfect day because there was no nudity for the 15 minutes they visited the set. Phew! However, Director Kittredge did bust out with a “That was fucking goddamn good!” about 2 minutes after they sat down.

We’d planned to possibly shoot a quick insert shot at this location - We need a “POV crossword puzzle” shot pointed up toward the actor from below for a scene we shot earlier at UPS. The original set was basically black, so the camera department put some black cloth on the ceiling in anticipation of shooting the insert here at the Lightspace. Sadly, we ran out of time - we needed to get to our second location of the day, across town near USC - so we scrapped it for the moment.

We packed up the gear and drove down to the $40 diner location that I wrote about in the last Production Diary. The thought was we’d break for lunch, have everyone order off the menu for a change of catering pace, then start shooting in the location. I felt guilty about the low cost of the location, so I figured throwing some business their way during a time of day when they normally had no one in the joint would make me feel better.

$250 and 2 hours later (ugh on both accounts) it was time to go back to work. Strangely, once everyone got into the restaurant, it became ordering chaos, as if none of these people had ever ordered off the menu before. Super loud, and a lot of “Which is better, the meatloaf or the chicken?” questions for the waitress who obviously had more on her hands than she could deal with as she was covering the entire restaurant.

I felt like the disapproving dad when I had to tell everyone to hyper down and just fucking order their lunch, but I didn’t want that thing to happen that drives me crazy on film productions - The whole “We’re taking over and acting like this isn’t someone else’s business/home/location cuz we own the joint” syndrome. Our crew is awesome, I’ll say that a billion times, but I never want to encourage the “We’re doing God’s work, which gives us license to step on people” attitude that so many productions adopt. It’s just a movie.

Before we shoot inside the restaurant we need to grab a quick reverse of a shot we did at Director Kittredge’s house yesterday. In the scene one of the characters spies a character on the street as he drives around town (Director Kittredge’s place), stops the car and takes a picture of the person, then drives away. The reverse will be the subject of that photograph, now standing in the middle of the adjacent motel’s parking lot on an island of grass with a tree in the background. We have to put the character in the shade because the previous shot was filmed on a rare cloudy Los Angeles afternoon. Fingers crossed the shots match.

The reason we didn’t shoot the reverse with the rest of the scene was this would have been the only thing the actor would have done that day - stand on a street corner for ten minutes. We couldn’t justify paying a SAG day rate for that, so we pushed the shot to a day when that actor actually had a couple of other scenes. SAG Ultra Low Budget day rate is $100 a day, which sounds like nothing, but on the budget we’re working with $100 could be a day of craft service. We gotta save it where we can.

Once we move inside we’re set up in both the “big party” room and the booths just outside. The restaurant is still open while we shoot, although as we set up there are only two tables in the other section of the restaurant. There is low level ambient noise in the joint, but we’d have to put in “restaurant walla” in post production anyway, so this isn’t the worst thing in the world.

However…

Once we start actually shooting? Suddenly it’s time to chop onions with butcher knives on metal prep tables, dump bags of change on the counter to count, yell at the cooks, and those two girls in the booth around the corner? Talking, talking, TALKING endlessly about NOTHING at the top of their lungs. I swear, they’re talking at the same time not even listening to each other.

I mentioned how lucky PA Kevin was that we didn’t have nudity when his parents arrived, but we’re back on the naked track here at the end of our day. Once we finish the scenes in the outer area of the diner, we have one more left. Time is running out - we have 30 minutes before we’re kicked out - but the scene involves one character spying a surveilance camera, walking up to it, taking off all of his clothes and standing there for a moment. Now, I sort of left that scene off the list when I booked this location, so they don’t know we’re doing nudity today. So that’s going to be a challenge. Another challenge is the windows that cover every wall of the restaurant, allowing anyone walking up to the door, or even passing by, to see inside.

First job - grab every piece of cloth we have on set and clamp them over the windows in the “big party room”. Next, move all the equipment we’ve staged in there out, and all of the equipment we’ve been shooting with in the outer area into the room. Reset the “big party room” back to an actual restaurant. Frame up the shot. Post our crew in front of the door to the “big party room” in exactly the right spot so the patrons eating dinner can’t see in, but the camera inside the room can’t either. “Action!” Two takes of the actor walking in and stripping off his clothes, and we’re out.

We managed to get almost everything we wanted to get today, with the exception of three short scenes involving a payphone and an actor that will be out of town for the next three weeks. This actor will also have some insert shots to do, so we’re just going to cross our fingers that he doesn’t bleach his hair or get horribly scarred on his trip so we can match the footage already shot.

We have four days off, starting tomorrow, then we move into FJ’s loft for three days next week. Sadly Matty left today for a business trip for those four days, so I won’t get to spend them with him. I will be doing mostly nothing for as long as I can, reenergizing for the last push…