fpw Wrote:....Acting has this aura of glamour, but there's nothing glamorous about the nuts and bolts of shooting a movie. It's repetitious and full of empty down time as you wait for your call...

fpw Wrote:Also, it's a wake-up call. Acting has this aura of glamour, but there's nothing glamorous about the nuts and bolts of shooting a movie. It's repetitious and full of empty down time as you wait for your call.

See you later.

fpw Wrote:Crew call isn't until 4pm so I spend the day writing. I break to go out and buy a new digital camera since my old Fuji had finally crapped out. All of the photos from yesterday are gone -- or never were. I find a Sony Cyber-shot on sale and snag it. The guy tries to sell me something with more features but if I use a camera four times a year it's a lot.

I'm supposed to ride over with Dario at 2:45. I get there at 2:35 and they've already left. Swell. I call the production office and they say I can ride over with Met Loaf. So I do. I want to talk about music but he wants to talk about how the film differs from my story. I give him my fiction imposing symmetry on the chaos of reality theory and why leaving out the homeless woman breaks that symmetry. He says he likes my ending better, but he may simply be polite.

We stop at a convenience store because he likes to drink Diet Coke with ice -- with ice -- and they don't have ice on location. We also have to find a florist so he can buy flowers for a woman he fears he inadvertently insulted yesterday. It's like driving around with an eccentric but lovable uncle.

They drop off Meat at makeup and me at the farm house location. Same as yesterday, they're serving breakfast. I grab some bacon and eggs and head up to the house. Dario is effusively apologetic when I tell him about being left high and dry -- he didn't know I was coming. I reshoot all the photos I took yesterday -- the ruins, the shack, etc., then go to the basement set where all of the day's interiors will be shot.

This is the scene where Larry, the trapper's son, performs a facectomy on himself. Covered with blood after bludgeoning his father to a pulp, he enters, opens a bear trap, and slams his face into it. The bludgeoning is in my story, but the trap is not. It's an AA (Argento addition) -- but I kind of wish I'd thought of it.

The prop is a real bear trap that's had its springs welded so they can't snap the jaws. Opening the trap takes the most takes because the actor's having a tough time making it look like he's struggling against the springs.

With retakes, lighting changes and different setups for master shots and close ups, it takes almost 4 hours to film a sequence that will run 40 seconds tops on the screen. I look around. Everyone's smiling. They're delighted with the progress we're making.

Meat arrives for the scene where Jake discovers Larry's body with it's ruined face (a dummy). He's been on the road doing driving shots for a later sequence. Now, with the interiors, the master shot and closeups are done in half an hour. He's outta there.

So am I. I say my good-byes and get an Italian left-right double embrace from Dario. I promise to send him the first-edition chapbook of "Pelts." (Hope I have an extra.)

On the way out I meet John Saxon who's playing Pa. No time for more than an introduction and moving on. He'll be shooting scenes with Larry down by the ruins. I'd love to watch but frankly I'm bored.

I drive back to the hotel with Meat. We commiserate about conglomeratization -- he about music, I about publishing. I get him talking about touring for his new album coming in the fall and his early experiences as an actor -- Rocky Horror in particular.

I realize how boring acting can be. They picked us up at 3:30 and now they drop us off at 9:30. They've needed him for maybe 90 minutes of those six hours. No wonder some actors get into drugs.

Meat wants to see the original "Pelts" story so I get his email address and promise to send it to him ASAP. He's too tired for a trip to the bar and I don't like to drink alone, so we shake hands and head to our respective rooms.

My Vancouver trip is, for all intents and purposes, over. All that's left is the plane ride home tomorrow morning.

Am I glad I flew 5-6000 miles roundtrip for this? Yeah. Very. I met some great people and saw pieces of my story come to life.

Also, it's a wake-up call. Acting has this aura of glamour, but there's nothing glamorous about the nuts and bolts of shooting a movie. It's repetitious and full of empty down time as you wait for your call. What's fascinating to me is the technical end -- the Director of Photography giving orders for the lighting, all these technicians bustling around, knowing exactly what's got to be done. And in short time a dusty old basement becomes an eerie, creepy chamber of horrors.

See you later.

fpw Wrote:[SIZE="3"]The photos:[/SIZE]

http://photos.yahoo.com/ffrraann46

cobalt79 Wrote:Cool photos, but I could have done without the tub of guts one. My office mate always thought I was a "tad weird", now she really has ammunition after that pic. All kidding aside, I can't wait for this production. Thanks for the peak!

Bluesman Mike Lindner Wrote:The tub picture was the mild one, Cobalt. The outtake had a hand coming out of the tub. The hand was holding aces and eights.