DECEMBER 12th, 2003 (Friday):
The first day of my film shoot. Everything went smoothly with the exception that one of my actors ran into traffic on the freeway so he was a little late for his shots that were scheduled. Fortunately, there was a lot of daylight left when he showed up and the footage came out good.
On the other hand, my shoot was almost thwarted when Frank, my assistant director, called up Wendy C. (FORMERLY one of my actresses) to see if she would make her 11:00 AM call time. Turns out she would be a little late (WHAT A SURPRISE), and it just so happened she got sick at Vegas the night before my shoot. Wendy told Frank on the phone she would show up if I needed her and I was like, "Um, YEA!" So she showed up. BUT GUESS WHAT? Wendy called me up later that night and told me she got even sicker showing up at my shoot and not being at home instead. So I felt like shooting myself when she told me she was throwing up and stuff...and she sounded like she was actually crying on the phone. THAT ACTRESS DESERVES AN OSCAR!!!
So late that night, I called up Sarina, my college classmates Travis, Eva and Kenya on the phone to ask them if they knew anyone who could replace that actress. I even called up Jasmine Mai, that model who I wanna meet at Hot Import Nights in L.A. on March 6, who was actually suppose to show up anyway the next day for a little cameo. I also called up Theresa Wylie...who was my original actress after Wendy flaked out on me on the callback audition a few weeks before (yes, I know...the first clue that disaster was BREWING). I didn't tell Theresa I replaced her when Wendy called and said she could do my shoot for fear I would lose Theresa as well if Wendy bailed out on me. Wendy STILL bailed on me, and Theresa said she had to go out of town during the weekend because she made new plans. I'm not mad at Theresa though...because I left her hanging when she even e-mailed me (about two weeks before) asking about what the status was on my film shoot. I got what I deserved.
I went to bed that night knowing that I DIDN'T EVEN have an actress to play Jeanine the next day.
DECEMBER 13th, 2003 (Saturday):
It was around 12:00 midnight when my classmate Kenya called me up and saved my ass. He told me he talked to Sheena Chou...an actress who actually auditioned for The Broken Table (I thought her audition went well...but due to the comments of classmates who helped me I got Elizabeth Fujimaki...who's also a really nice, talented and pretty actress). Kenya said I should call Sheena up since she was down to play Jeanine...so I did call her up...and Sheena said to e-mail her the script and call time and stuff so she could take a look at it. So I got out of bed, went downstairs to use the computer, e-mailed her the info and then went back upstairs to get back to sleep.
SIX HOURS LATER, I woke up and went to Cal State Long Beach for Shoot Day #2. Sheena was actually the second cast member to show up (after Harry, who plays the lead character Rick)...and at that moment I knew she rocked 'cause she actually came through for me. I began filming about an hour later...with Sarina, Ryan, Jarik and Sarina's Cal Poly friend Sonia showing up to say wassup (and eventually be extras, haha).
ANOTHER SETBACK was hit again. Jasmine Mai was supposed to show up around 9:00 AM, and it was already a few minutes (or an hour? I forgot) after that. So I asked Frank to call her...and it turns out Jasmine WASN'T going to attend. I called her using my own cell phone in response...but her voice mail came on (the next day, she told me in an e-mail that she had to attend funerals both TODAY and on Sunday, Dec. 13th, which is why she couldn't attend. NOW what are the coincidences with THAT??? But Jasmine apologized to me--when I didn't even bring it up in a message on her Yahoo! club--so all is well and she's still the NEXT MODEL I wanna meet at an import show). Jasmine's role was actually pretty important because she was suppose to be an attractive female student, just strolling by on a walkway, who provides the main source of motivation for the lame football jock in my story, Owen (played by Mike A.), to begin playing catch with his friend Johonn (played by Chris McLaughlin, who was filmed for a small role in Starship Troopers 2) and his girl, Julie (played by Elle, who my sister knows, and whose film shoot for Cal State Fullerton I attended in early November).
So with Jasmine out of the picture, I asked my make-up artist Teary to play this small role. Being the sport that she is, Teary said yea (albeit reluctantly, heheheh). Keep in mind that Teary is very, very pretty...and it's actually a lot cooler that she played the role, for personal reasons (and yes, much like Yen, she has a boyfriend). Teary and I hugged after her last take was filmed, so that accounts for something, haha. But seriously, she really IS a good sport, since she was only suppose to provide make-up for my show and now I'm in the position of either making her look good or bad when her scene pops up in the film. Hopefully, hopefully good.
Nothing dramatic happened after that, except the fact I couldn't get all the shots I wanted and that would have to wait for a pick-up shoot.
DECEMBER 14th, 2003 (Sunday):
"...A DAY WHICH WILL LIVE...IN INFAMY..." - Franklin D. Roosevelt (after Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941)
YEA YEA, I KNOW... I'm getting a little overdramatic (and extremely lame) here. Or am I? Since I heard on the KROQ radio station that Saddam Hussein was captured the night before (from his "spider-hole" in Iraq) as I drove to CSULB for Shoot Day #3. It was on this day when I would grow, in an understatement, a disdain for rain, even though I usually liked it when it rained. Sure beats freakin' sweating like a biatch during the summer. Duh.
The day started off on an undramatic note...although everyone was a little late after attending the 2003 Fall Student Filmmakers Showcase on campus the night before. Today we were shooting outside the University Student Union, where Ben (played by Tommy, who's actually in charge with mixing the sound on Pro Tools for all advanced student films that will be screened at a showcase) beats the crap out of all the male characters except Rick.
The day became dramatic after the 7th shot was taken, when one of my classmates (who shall remain nameless) stepped out of place to tell me that the way I was organizing shots was taking too much time. Granted, he was right...but Frank's the ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, not this dude, and it's Frank's job to tell me how we're running on time, not anyone else. So while everyone else went to lunch, I was pacing on set worrying that I might not get all the shots I needed for this scene. HELL YEA, I WASN'T GONNA GET THE SHOTS I NEEDED!!!
There're shots where Tommy tackles the other actors to the pavement during the fight sequence, and I was placing the stunt mat (actually an inflatable bed mattress I bought at a Big 5 sporting goods store) on the large stairway outside the Student Union when I begin to feel rain drops on my head. ALREADY ANGRY that I encountered insubordination on set, profanities began spewing from me. Don't know if it was Bryan, my cinematographer, or Arturo, the camera op, who told me to calm down 'cause I was making the cast and crew nervous...but I didn't care because all the frustration caused by Wendy and Jasmine bailing out on me was finally being vented out.
A rule of thumb: Never stray from your position on the set and tell someone else what to do. That's what I learned from one of my production film teachers... Even though we were classmates and close friends (most of us, anyway), that didn't mean we can just go up and tell other people what to do if they were higher up on ranking or in another department. A sound mixer doesn't tell the director of photography what to do...much as how a grip doesn't tell the production designer what to do. Etc. etc.
I tried to move on, but the minute Frank told me that I could no longer film the ground 'cause it was wet, I knew that this shoot was over. I was shooting a fight scene, and I NEEDED to show the ground. Eva, Frank, Bryan, Arturo and I were discussing having the fight scene take place inside the Student Union since it was open, but unfortunately I became so attached to what I planned in my storyboards that it was difficult for me to brainstorm new ideas for the sequence. So I told Frank to call it a wrap about an hour later, and all the equipment began getting put back into the grip truck. One of my other actors, Chris Morgan (who plays Jeanine's boyfriend) began taking pictures with my camera of himself and Sheena, and the rest of the cast in their character outfits as reference for whenever I would do a re-shoot. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW LOW I FELT DURING THIS DAY...and inside I was thinking a lot of blasphemous things about the Guy Upstairs because I was afraid that this would happen during my shoot, and it did.
I was still working at Disneyland during this time (I quit the following Saturday, Dec. 20th). I started working there in June, and once my teacher Rory approved my script for Envious in late September, the fear of it raining during my shoot got me preoccupied numerous times at Disneyland during a work shift. I knew a week beforehand that the weather would be crap for Dec. 14th, but the weather for the two previous days were so perfect that I thought maybe the forecast for Sunday was wrong. NOOOPE.
Another fear that became a reality this day was me making myself look bad in front of Teary. Teary and I were cool since Kenya's shoot in late September, and I was afraid that I would ruin that by showing my temperamental side (which I showed to other people). There were so many instances where I could've lost my cool during Kenya's shoot since I was the Assistant Director, but didn't. And I'm pretty sure Teary saw me throw my storyboards to the ground in anger when it began raining. It's really a shame thinking about this in comparison to when we were at Elle's film shoot in November. We got along really well during the shoot, with Teary and I talking on set about how The Matrix Revolutions wasn't so bad a movie (in hindsight, it actually was), a book her friend Ratha was reading that dealt with psychology (we discussed how a person you like will not fall for you if you make yourself too available to them...as opposed to playing hard to get), and how Teary asked me to hold up a mirror in front of her while she was checking out her make-up, since she was going to a concert on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood later that day. Okay... That last part of the sentence sounded kinda negative. Scratch that.
I would say there is no way in hell I'd let her read this post...but guess what? I said the same thing about Yen 3 years ago, and I intentionally told her about my website. And one of the first things that was brought up in her e-mail afterward was her reading what I typed about her in my entries.
So where was I? Oh yea, I made myself look bad in front of Teary. Anyways, I got back home from CSULB worrying about when a pick-up shoot would take place...and how I needed to re-constitute all the items, like food and the remaining rolls of Kodak and Fuji film that I would need for that shoot. A week later, Winter Break started, and 6 weeks of waiting to finish something I put so much time, money and effort into started.
UPDATE (March 11, 2004): Considering the fact my film didn't get into the Student Filmmakers Showcase at school, I probably won't be talking about the pick-up shoot (on January 31st & February 1st) anytime soon.
UPDATE #2 (December 17, 2004): Better days... I don't feel like typing about the pick-up shoot, but I'll post up pictures from it.
