10/06-07:

I went upstate to shoot some fall footage for the openning credits. Of course the warm weather wanted to stay and keep the leaves green. Oh well. I was pretty successful getting what I needed, despite inadvertantly erasing some early morning shots (that's what happens on no sleep).

A funny story: On the way upstate I was stuck in traffic due to an accident and I looked out my window and saw a beautiful farm house with the sun just hitting the roof. I thought, 'well, I'm not going anywhere so why not grab my camera and shoot out the window.' So I go to the back of my truck, open the gate and grab one of my large black travel cases that house camera equipment. I open a case, grab my camera and lens and go to the front seat. I roll down the window and slowly slide the camera (keep in mind that the camera is mounted on rails) out the window and put my eye to the eyepiece. Now here is where it's funny... To the driver behind me, all he can see is me going to get something out of my truck and the rails coming out of the window (these rails can easily be mistaken for the end of a rifle). Lucky for me the cops were busy at the time. Anyway, the shooting went well (despite the fact that I spent an hour shooting a bird feeder waiting for a bird to come along and grab a bite to eat. Apparently not a single bird wanted to be in the movie.

10/13-14:

Chris, Brennan, Michael (our DP) and myself went upstate to shoot scenes 3 and 5. We had a very nice overcast day and got to our location at Cranetech by 8:15 am Sunday morning. We were able to shoot the first part of scene 5 (Matt drives to work), despite Chris' inablilty to drive a stick shift. So between stalls and rolling out of frame we were able to pick up a beautiful crane shot (thanks Michael!). After the Cranetech footage we had to get ready to shoot scene 3 (the car rig). I'd never used the car rig so it took some finagaling (did I spell that right?). Anyway, Brennan was a true sport and kicked some serious a**. After this, I realized that we still had to shoot Chris running out of his basement apartment (my Dad's house) and we were fighting the night. We finally finished shooting aroung 5:30 pm. and had to pack up and head back home. Now we are preping for our shoot on the 24th (if the weather holds up...)

Michael setting up the car rig for scene 3

Brennan chilling out in between takes... what a star!

Michael's ready for the crane shot at the crane factory.

Todd struggles to get the camera set up right.

Todd sets up the crane. And it was cold!

Michael and Todd make sure the camera is secured.

10/24:

Well... it rained. Sort of. Chris and I kept checking the weather forcasts and it seemed to change by the minute. So in an effort to save money we opted to cancel the shoot (everything we needed was exterior). Despite that it still cost us over $400 in fees for people we already booked, we were right... it rained. For three minutes. Boy, was I p*ssed. We did learn a valuable lesson in film producing; when planning an exterior shoot, always have a back up plan!

Well, I was determined to shoot something, anything. So I hooked up the car rig and figured I'd get the insert shot of the coffee cup for scene 3. I was able to get the shot and figured I'd also get the car driving away. So Chris and I found a good street in the neighborhood and set the camera up. We were all set and were ready to start filming. The street was clear and free of traffic, the leaves were setup so they'd fly in the air. Brennan was chilling in the back seat (authenticity and continutity rule). Chris gave the signal. I started down the road towards the beautiful golden tree. Chris looked into the viewfinder waiting for that magic moment and then... the battery died. I pulled around and Chris gave me the news. I rapidly drove back to the house to pickup a new battery and returned to our 'set'. No cops, no angy or curious neighbors. Good. So I reset the car and Chris reset the leaves. He cued me and off I went. After three runs, I figured we were set. I pulled up to the camera, got out of the car and picked up the rig. I realized that the Brevis (35mm unit) wasn't turned on. GREAT! Now we have to shoot again. At least the camera had a fresh battery. Just as I informed Chris the good news, a truck pulled up right in front of our shot. We waited, thinking that the truck might move. No luck. So, off we went to find another great location with the trees changing colors (we've had a really warm fall and the trees weren't cooperating). After driving around, I said, 'Forget it'. Of course my tone wasn't so warm. Fortunately the footage wasn't too bad and we kept it. Now we had to reschedule scene 16 for Nov. 12th.

11/12:

Our first real day of principal photography. Another wonderful grey day (what, do we live in England?) I got up at 5am (Chris had to drive his daughter Jhansi to our in-laws at 4am to be back in time) and went to setup the crane. Crew showed up at 7am and we finally got picture up by 9am (next time I'll get an earlier start since we lost daylight by 4) Despite sound problems, and longer setup times, not being able to shoot the middle of the scene, we got it done. Well, we didn't really get it done, but it sure does look good!

Our first dolly shot of the film (and not our last...) So, where are the actors!

Chris is ready for his close-up.

11/13:

We still had to get the beginning of scene 16 (and luckily the weather matched fairly closely to Monday's shoot). We set the camera up down the street, Jhansi and Jaidan sat in the back of my car, Chris walked up the hill smoking a cig and we finished. My younger son Jaidan had a lesson at noon so we stopped. After looking at the clips, I realized that Chris was too far away from the camera so I said we had to reshoot, again. We also realized that we had to reshoot Chris' reaction shots to Pooja (Jasmin) since they came across too bitter making the relationship between Jasmin and Matt a bit too acrimonious. So aside from reshooting the opening of the scene, we reshot Chris' close-up. We set the camera up in basically the same place and did our best to match the angle and gave it a shot. Everything was fine except for the fact that we had two two year olds standing at the front door wondering what their daddies were up to. Whatever it was, they didn't like, especially Jhansi. So as I manned the camera, held an ND filter in front of the lens and "played" Jasmin, Chris acted to a little spot on the wall, Jhansi screamed, Jaidan joined in and we shot. We'd love to include the raw take with the live audio in the dvd but we're afraid the child protective services would take our children away. Turns out the ND filter turned all the blacks red (including the oh so important Domestic Oblivion shirt). Da*n it! So we would have to reshoot again! We tried a few days later but the wind was so strong there was no way to make it all match so it was back to the Mac. God bless color correction!

12/09:

Today we had to determine what scene to shoot based on what kind of weather we were going to have. I made up a shotlist for the scene I wanted to shoot (Jay comes home after shopping to see Matt and Bryan drawing on the stoop). Well, we had snow on the ground and the stoop was wet so I opted to shoot scene 47 (a rather depressing scene) and IT WAS COLD!!! So it was just myself, Chris, Brennan, Michael (DP) and Gabrielle (1st AC). We had 1/2 day to shoot since Michael was already booked for the evening. We were able to get very good footage despite the cold and time constraints. But, is the sun ever going to come out???

2008

02/09-10:

This weekend Chris, Brennan and myself went upstate to work out the scenes we will shoot next weekend (2/16 to 2/18) at the crane factory and to organize the VW Beetles we need for two scenes. We originally intended on auditioning students at SUNY Fredonia for some characters we still need (but due to conflicts with the students schedule we are going to do our auditions a different time).  Our trip was good!  We blocked and rehearsed the crane factory dolly shot (this shot will be beautiful).  We also had wings at the Killbuck and scheduled our shoot there for May.

Of course we woke up Sunday morning to snow (we really don't want snow and since it's going to be cold the entire week it looks like snow is what we'll have... oh well.  The snow, er I mean show must go on.

We are also fortunate that we have meet a few very nice people in our search to find the classic VW Beetles for the film. We had placed an ad in The Evening Tribune (the local newspaper) for the cars and had quite a response. I still have to arrange a way to have one car towed for the scene (there is a story behind this we will tell later), but it should be taken care of by Friday.

So now we are set for the rest of February, we have our shooting schedule for March with Pooja (March 15-24th), we will wrap Kapil, Debargo, Pooja, and Rajika April 12th-13th, and finish filming the last two weeks of May. Wow.