One Little, Two Little, Three Little Film Shoots

An insane number of things have been happening the past few weeks, so I apologize for falling off the face of the Blogger. I'll try to be brief in the recounting of my various endeavors, but I really like to talk about myself, so it's not likely.

That's just so me, you know?

Well, to jump straight to the big event: PRODUCTION. [insert regal trumpet music]

Eight days of madness! It was like Channukah, without the gefilte. The basic schedule was like this: our six separate film teams divided up into two groups, and then crewed for each other's movies. We had a different responsibility for each. So on my own set I worked as the director, but on another I was Assistant Camera (focus pulling FO LYFE), and on another I was... well... technically I was the gaffer, but I don't know poop about lighting, so I mostly just filled in as a grip (Professional Mover-Of-Stuff) and a clapper (no, not a person who cheers from the sidelines and offers moral support... the person who claps that little black-and-white slate and yells, "MARK IT!"). And at some point on that set I somehow became assistant director. Don't ask me.

Call times were usually around 7am, and we would all meet at the shooting locations to begin setting up equipment. The first shoot, which shall hereon be referred to as The First Shoot, made 7am call times a little less painful because the shooting location was in the apartment two floors above where I live. Roll out of bed at 6:45? You bet.

The First Shoot was great, for many reasons.

Many Reasons Why The First Shoot Was Great

1. We were shooting a comedy
2. The cast was good-humored
3. The crew was good-humored
4. Our camera supervisor Jaro is insane/my hero
5. There was a constant supply of rolls and cream cheese
6. We usually finished each shoot early
7. It was all shot in one location (meaning we didn't have to spend hours loading/unloading heavy equipment all over Prague)
8. We got to play with fake blood

Meatloaf and blood, m'lady?

You seem slightly startled. "A bloody comedy?! What is this, Hot Fuzz? And why am I suddenly talking like a Brit?" Nope, even better. That fake blood you see there is all menstrual, baby.

"OKAY JESSICA, I'VE HEARD SOME VULGAR JOKES FROM YOU BUT THAT'S JUST DISGU--"

I kid you not. The First Shoot's plot calls for obscene amounts of menstrual blood. I, for one, am a huge fan of this film and can't wait to see how it turns out. When the videos are all finished I'll see about posting links to them in this blog.

Moving on to the second shoot... MAH SHOOT.

It.
Was.
GREAT.

My teammates and I were stressing out because our lead actress cancelled on us the day before the shoot. But we found a replacement-- the wonderful and incomparable Petra-- and everything turned out swell. We had two locations for our shoot... the first day was spent shooting all our "hospital" scenes. We faked a hospital location in the hallways of the studio... it is truly amazing what a large potted plant and a few "medical" signs can do.

After a full 12-hour day of shooting, my teammates Julia, Dan and I hauled all the equipment to a remote apartment belonging to a friend, where we would spent the last two days shooting.

That ain't even all the equipment. Now, as each piece of this equipment is worth at least a third of my college education, we were not allowed to leave it unattended in this apartment. So...

The three of us had a lovely slumber party! Yup, two nights. Surrounded by several thousand dollars' worth of filming equipment. Beautiful.

The schedule for our film was tight. All three days were more or less 12-hour working days, and that only applied to our cast and crew. Once everyone went home, Julia, Dan and I went back to intense planning and preparation for the next day. Did I mention how much sleep I got throughout this whole ordeal?

Not much.

The rush of seeing our ideas being set up and shot all around us was unreal for me. Some things came out exactly as I had pictured them; other things turned out differently and often worked better than my original vision. Dan, who was the Director of Photography, did some incredible things with the cinematography.

THE overhead tracking shot! This was a very exciting moment for all of us.

In the meantime, Julia the Art Director/Assistant Director kept my frazzled mentality in check by ensuring that everyone was where they needed to be and that Dan and I were sticking to the schedule... which is really difficult to do when you go into crazy-filmmaker-mode.

Julia, of course, is the picture of sanity.

While I've directed plays and things of the like before, I've never directed a film... at least, never a film of this magnitude... so I was pretty nervous the night before our film's production began. But I gotta say, everyone in our crew was on the ball. Each person played such a huge role in making our potentially-hectic film shoot a smoothe and, dare I say, exhilerating experience. I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to be working on our movie.

Also a first: working with a child actor. I love kids. I love teaching kids. But this was difficult for me. When you're working with a child actor, you can't communicate with them the way you would an older actor. You have to make very specific choices in deciding how to get them to do what you want. It's hard, especially if you're dumb and stock the set with cookies and then the kid gets cracked out on sugar.

THIS guy.

Luckily, he is the actual son of the actor who plays his father, so when things got a little too difficult I was able to let Dad handle it.

So: yes! Three days of an amazing shoot! I had so much fun! Exclamation mark!

The Third Shoot was a little helter skelter, not gonna lie. But everyone was still as helpful as on the other two shoots and we all made it through. This shoot had the most locations-- three-- so in case I wasn't already an old pro at moving all that equipment up and down copious flights of stairs, this just reaffirmed it.

Want to know the cool thing (one of them, anyway) about this shoot?

CAMEOOOOOOOOOOO!

Yup, I played a jaded teenage daughter. You'll see me for a good 5-10 seconds in the final movie, plugged into my music and hating my uncool parents.

Like so.

Ooh! Julia was in it, too! As the beautiful but incompetent hairdresser.

That shoot was only two days, which was probably for the best. We were all extremely exhausted by the end of production.

But not too exhausted to celebrate Thanksgiving, which was on the last day of shooting! We decided to celebrate Turkey Day and the end of production by doing the most American thing we could think of: dressing up klass-ay and dining at TGI Friday's.

...The meal was overpriced and sub-par. But the excellent company more than compensated! I have grown so close to all of these people (and others not present in photo). I'm really going to miss them when this is all over. In a week.

Oh, and by the way... we celebrated REAL Thanksgiving as well. Culture shock moment! Czechs don't celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, you think about it for about 3 seconds and... well, duh. But the very notion: our dear Czech buddies have never had a Thanksgiving dinner! SO... we Uh-murricans pushed our desks together, covered them with table cloths (a.k.a. bed sheets, 'cause we're klass-ay), and held a MASSIVE Thanksgiving feast.

Everyone brought something to the table... literally. And by "everyone" I mean all 16 members of the study abroad program. That's 16 dishes right there! Granted, our Czech friends helped us eat all that food. All the same, I was in a major food coma post-feast.

Oh! And for whoever's interested, I made sweet potato casserole. :) It was nom-tastic, if I do say so myself.

It was a lovely evening of friendship and giving thanks. We all went around the table and said what we were grateful for, and Arwen and Rocky even reenacted the story of Thanksgiving for our Czech friends while Jack narrated. It may be the best Thanksgiving I've ever had. And I KNOW it was the best our Czech friends ever had.
"Silly Jessica, it's the ONLY Thanksgiving they've ever had!"

You're smart... too smart.

Countless other wonderful things have happened since Thanksgiving, but I'm afraid that's for another blog. Time to edit with my team, as I have been doing all day. Adieu!