We’re back after four days off, with three days left of principal photography. It was great to have four days off. All I did was watch a bunch of movies (Another Gay Movie, Diary of the Dead, The Signal), Reality TV (Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model, 80th Academy Awards), surfed the net, slept, ate food that is bad for me, and basically vegged.

One piece of business on Friday - the payroll company sent me an email informing me that we’ve spent our deposit for the SAG salaries already, and they won’t be able to send out this week’s paychecks until we get them another check. The fact that we burned thru our payroll deposit isn’t a surprise - we always knew that we were going to have to deposit more money into the account at some point.

But finding out TODAY, with no warning, on the day the checks are supposed to go out is a problem. Technically SAG can charge us $10 per day per actor for every day the paychecks are late. I don’t have time to get the check to the payroll company before they close for the day, so I have to wait until Monday, when we’re shooting downtown, to send someone to the Valley with the check. I consider this the payroll company’s fault, so I’m ready to fight the good fight for them to either A.) pay the fines or B.) explain the situation to SAG.

Today, Monday, is our first day in FJ’s loft. The first day in a new location is always stressful. You can’t really know what problems might arise until the company actually loads in. You’re basically starting over, and that’s a gut wrencher. To top it off, I have a flat tire this morning, causing me to be late. Arrgh.

Because ’s loft is currently on the market, I’ve threatened everyone with decapitation if something is broken, scratched or marked.

Strangely, even with four days’ rest, everyone’s mood is really prickly for some reason. And of course, we’re trapped in this apartment for three days, like some emotional crock pot, simmering until the crazy blow up. Fingers crossed that won’t happen, but right now I’m ready to cut someone’s head off.

We shoot a lot of scenes involving Matthew Montgomery on the phone, one of which is with one of my characters. I’m double cast as the “DP” of the modern day porn production company, and “Gunnison”, the editor of a porn rag who is only heard over the phone. We decide to record my half of the conversation “live” during the shooting of the scene, which will save us time in post. So Sound Mixer Brian puts a mic on me and I read my lines off camera. (Of course I don’t have them memorized.)

One thing that takes some getting used to when you’re an on-camera actor is shooting conversations with overlapping dialogue. You would think you could just shoot the scene and overlap, but that actually makes editing the scene a nightmare unless the scene takes place entirely in a master shot with both characters on camera at the same time. But if you want to cut back and forth between the characters’ closeups, and you have someone stepping on someone else’s line, you have to use that take in total - you can’t cut around someone’s voice overlapping someone else’s, meaning you can’t do any post magic. No tightening up the pace, no using different takes to create a different tone for the scene, etc.

So to create a dialogue scene you have to shoot each characters’ lines “clean”, with no overlap. Which is sort of weird, especially if the conversation is either A.) an argument or B.) between two characters that are supposed to be interrupting each other. Each actor has to deliver his lines as if he’s either cutting someone off, or getting cut off, without either actually happening. It’s like a slo-mo fight. “I hate your fucking guts!” PAUSE “Well your mother is –” PAUSE “Stop right there, bitch!” Because my lines will need to be put thru an effect later to sound like I’m on the phone, the witty banter between Matthew and I currently has trains running thru the pauses. Later Director Kittredge will push them together in post and make them overlap.

During “golden hour” we shoot a scene on the roof that is doubling for the NYC skyline. Of course, anyone in LA or NYC will screech that we couldn’t possibly double the LA skyline for the NYC skyline. (I imagine the LA peeps saying “Are you fucking kidding me?” and the NYC peeps saying “LA filmmakers are dumbasses…”). But the roof has a view that has all the roof stuff - air conditioning stuff, ladders, machinery - that obscures the actual skyline. So we’ll shoot the scene in that direction, then do one static shot of the reverse as a “plate” so we can lay in the correct skyline for the establishing shot in post.

We shoot over 9 pages today, which is incredibe, but of course I’m unhappy cuz we planned on 11. I’m SUCH a slave driver!