Today. Score!
Inside joke to my buddy Joe. Hope he enjoys the shout-out.
Okay, so this is going to be a different start to this entry. I’ve been starting them with “so I woke up this morning” and blah blah blah. Well, today I didn’t wake up this morning because I was already awake. As I type this entry, it’s well over 24 hours that I’ve been awake, and I couldn’t try to count how long it’s been. This is my warning that this entry might not make the most sense.
Late last night, well after I should’ve gone to bed, I started picking Kyle’s brain about how to do the concert, and if it would be possible to do the things I want to do. He’s got more experience in this type of gig than I do, so I figure he’d be the guy to ask. I was wrong, because he didn’t give me the answers I wanted.
The call time for this morning is 6:30am at Bills and I find myself on the computer far too late talking to Kyle and trying to trouble-shoot and brainstorm ideas. When I finally do decide to go to bed, it’s around 2am, and my mind is spinning and my heart is beating pretty quick.
So for the next four and a half hours, I lay in bed, getting angrier and angrier at myself for not being able to throw some Zzz’s.
Sue has the day off today so she’s decided to be a trooper and add whatever help she can. We pack up the camera and the sticks and head over to Bills, a little late I’m sure. Too bad I couldn’t send off this show by showing up on time on the last day. The surprise is that Alicia is late as well, and with the wrong coffee order.
We load up Bills truck and are about to take off to the Red Onion when Kyle shows up. Good timing. Bill, Alicia, and Kyle book it over to the location, and Sue and I head over to Timmy’s for some much needed coffee.
At the Onion, we meet up with Justine, Harry, and Joe to shoot the scene. I sense some sadness and reservation in the air as I’m sure it’s on everyone’s mind that this is our last shoot, and we’re going to wrap today.
This shoot has been a lot of fun, and if I haven’t said it enough, the cast is super-fly cool. Think of Shaft. That cat was a cool mofo right? I mean, Shaft was so cool they couldn’t even finish lyrics about him. Well, they can’t even write a song about this cast, let alone a lyric, because these guys are as cool as they come. I mean, someone goes to write a note to paper about this cast, and someone is going to bitch slap that pen out of their hand and tell them this kind of cool can’t be contained.
Alright, so we seriously rock this bitch out of the Onion. We start fairly late (as is our motif) and we finish up pretty early. We’re all on our shit today. Bill, Harry and I say our thank you’s and good-byes to Jimmy (another all time cool cat in the Sammy Davis realm) and we head outside. Kyle leaves to an appointment.
Sue and I take a coffee order and we’re off while the rest of the gang head to Mr. Sub to grab a bite. We meet up with them there, hand off said coffee order, then head back to Bills to grab one shot of a scene we missed, and to shoot the scene where Harry’s character arrives at the new pad of Joe and Justine’s characters.
Sue and I arrive with Justine, Joe, and Harry, and what do we hear thumping out of his joint? Saved by the Bell. Say what? Yeah, that’s right. Saved by the fucking Bell. It’s Christmas.
Bill ordered the seasons, and they all came today, except for Good Morning Miss Bliss, which lets be honest, isn’t really Saved by the Bell. Now you have to understand something for anyone that grew up in the 80’s. Saved by the Bell is the shit. That’s been an undying source of conversation for all of us. Rod Belding. Jeff pimp daddy manager of the Max. Eric, Jessie’s badass New York brother. The Zack Attack. It’s heaven at Bills place.
I’m confused though as Bill plays the supposed first episode on the supposed first disk. Nah, something’s missing. I know, and I don’t care what any Boxed Set says, the very first episode of Saved by the Bell starts with Zack waking up, hitting some remote control, and a life sized cardboard cutout of Kelly Kapowski comes from the ceiling; volleyball in hand. Slater arrives at the school to spoil Zacks dominance over his prey.
The first episode according to this box set is the dance off at the Max hosted by Casey Kasem and won by Lisa and Screech doing “The Sprain.” That shit ain’t right. That ain’t no first episode of Saved by the Bell. Oh well, we still dig on this shit anyway, but that’s still stuck in the back of my head.
We then check out the famous break-up of Zack and Kelly due to Jeff, pimp daddy manager of the Max, Mr. Patrick Muldoon himself. Just as good as I remember it. I believe Kyle makes it back by this point.
So, with two episodes of Saved by the Bell in us, it’s time to shoot again. The only problem is that two episodes of awesomeness, plus some food, plus an early call time, plus the heat equals dragging of some heavy ass.
We power through it all, and eventually wrap the production, despite fantastic AD Alicia passing out on set, as well as Kyle. Kyle, we’ve come to expect this from. Dude passed out on a fucking altar in a church before, and couldn’t be woken up, so him passing out is not a surprise. Alicia passing out was kind of a surprise, but the girl has definitely earned some R&R lately.
Anyways, I’d be a hell of a lot sadder about wrapping if I didn’t have so many other things on the go. The past week I’ve been thinking about this day, and how much it sucks, and how much I’d like to get another project going just to hang with these cats again. Who knows, maybe “Desolation Row 2: Desolated Again” will be in the works real soon.
Today though, I’m just too tired now, I got Episode 4 creeping up in my mind and on the calendar, the concert on the 24th, and the director from LA is supposed to call me tomorrow. I also got the whole website thing on the brain and hoping that we can transfer all the shit over before time runs out.
So we wrap and put everything away at Bills. I’m told the first three days of production on Episode 4 will be at Bills, serving as Cyrus’ lair, so we’ll just store all the gear here for now and then move it out when we wrap Bills…. Again.
We kick it in front of Bills for a bit as he rushes off to work. We say our goodbyes and go our separate ways. For now. I fully want to work with these cats again.
Alicia heads back with me and Sue to discuss wardrobe for Episode 4 and we grab some coffees on the way. Sue also reminds me that Shine a Light comes out today, as well as Lost Boys 2. We definitely got to hit that shit up.
We get the wardrobe sorted out, and shoot the shit for awhile. I come in to check my email to find out that the contract for the server ran out (I’m guessing) and we didn’t get the shit transferred over in time. Me, being the smart SOB that I was raised to be, didn’t bother backing up anything in my backlotrebels account. This is hurting like hell. Alicia and Bill did the whole thing the smart way, so they’re not out too much. Me on the other hand… well, I kind of always have done things the hard way.
It’s getting late, and Alicia has plans with her man Jesse, so we drag her along to get our flicks, and agree to drop her off after. It turns out Lost Boys 2 is a popular choice as we have to go to three video stores to find a copy. We end up snagging it at the Stinky Feet store, aka, Blockbuster.
Every time I go into this joint, it smells like wet feet. Despite how many times I shout out that it smells like wet feet in there, they still refuse to do anything about it. Tonight is no exception. The dude behind the counter also does not share in my enthusiasm for finding a copy of Lost Boys. Fuck him, what does he know about Edgar and Allan Frog? Obviously nothing. Oh, the uneducated.
We drop Alicia off and head back. However, by this time, it’s too damn late to catch any flicks, so Sue is halfway passing out as I put the days footage into my computer. Bill also gives me a shout while at work and we gab a bit about the day and some other shit that isn’t too important.
I’m hoping the LA director calls me tomorrow so we can get this show on the road. I also planned to do a couple of other things tonight, like getting to the bottom of this server fiasco, but after my last order for coffee tonight in broken English (and that’s being kind), I decide it’s best to leave the communication angle for another day. Clearly the sleep deprivation is starting to get to me.
So that’s a wrap on Desolation Row. In a way, I’m glad it’s over because it took longer than it should have. In another way, I’m sorry to see it go because of the people involved in it.
I have a philosophy where I like to learn from every project that we do. How else do you get better? I normally don’t learn too much from a project immediately after wrapping it. To me, a project is never really complete, it just gets to a point where I let it go, but it’s not really until that point, or some time after, that I really learn from it.
For this one in particular, with all the new equipment, and the new aspect ratio, I tried to do the bulk of my learning before we ever went to camera. Here are some things that I did learn though.
1.People will surprise you. Either good or bad, they’ll surprise you.
2.If you surround yourself with good people that are good at what they do, let them do their thing, and trust that they’ll do it good.
3.If these people aren’t doing their shit right, tell them they ain’t doing their shit right.
4.I still incredibly despise laziness. Maybe even more now.
5.If you set a goal for yourself and the people around you, you’re going to own that bitch.
6.Give everyone respect, but feel free to take that shit back.
7.Surround yourself with positive people. If someone starts talking skank, do something about that. If they’re negative, there’s no use for them.
8.Being on a set with no egos is the best place to be.
9.Do as much homework and research as you can.
10.If you find great people like I have for this show, don’t let them get away.
Here's a bunch of screen shots. The last ones for Desolation Row.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment