Day 1: WRAPPED!

It's been 16 hours since we crawled out of our... let's call it a 2am-6am NAP, to get coffee and and get the day going. As the make-up artist arrived, our actors, sound... I realized there were even MORE details we hadn't addressed: where should people leave their bags? who is taking continuity pictures today? Umm... WHO IS MAKING LUNCH, because come on, I bought taco fixings! The indie-film universe smiled on us today and these little details weren't so much scary as they were little "oh *&@#*^" and grin moments where the timing clicked into place it all came together. Soon we'll have REAL production photos to share, thanks to our dear friend Tali and her fancy photo skills.

Today was an excellent of example of people rallying to make something beautiful and awesome for the simple sake of being a part of it's inspiring delivery into the world. And I don't call it inspiring because of the sentences in the script or the genius of any actor, but for the energy that surrounds an art project.

The ladies brought a lot of focus and respect today when we filmed our meeting group scenes-- some scenes were hard, some were long, and we did hit a bump of two while behind schedule. But we didn't sacrifice a single shot, and I think we owe a lot of that fact to their flexibility. Thank you Coco and Julie for your heart and sweetness, Lindsay for your brilliant hands and positivity, Pat and Linda for joining us last minute and going with the flow, and Avra for coming out of nowhere just to be involved because the subject matter meant so much, and thanks to Amber giving it her all every single time. Ruan's patience and thoughtfulness for the picture is incredible, Joel set up and torn down lights like a rockstar, Kevin our sound op found every plane within hundreds of miles and made it stayed the HECK out of our takes, Jessica kept our talent looking fresh and great, Jason ran the set smooth, and Kyle never failed to pull through in the clutch, he and a friend solved the taco lunch fiasco! A well-oiled machine, we are!

After the meeting room scenes were done we moved outside-- the rest of the night's schedule a bit in the air. one of our actors was flying in, landing at 7pm, driving 30 miles south from LAX International Airport on a Friday. These are not great circumstances. His flight got delayed. It sat on the runway. It landed late. It taxied into the wrong gate. The terminal was full. They rolled to a private landing strip. They took a shuttle back to LAX. And when he got here at 9pm, the car had barely stopped moving when he jumped out, a toothbrush, deodorant and a few wardrobe options in hand. He kept jogging across the lot, signing a mile a minute: "I have a green shirt, green, light green, which one? where is the bathroom, I'm ready for make up, I'm ready, let's go, let's go, let's go!" changing his shirt, brushing his teeth, getting his make-up all at once. Within 7 minutes Chris and Amber were on their marks for a rehearsal. We shot a wonderful scene with much aliveness and I am ten thousand percent sure that waiting, appeasing a cast and crew in their 13th hour with pizza and a puppy was the right thing to do to get them on screen together.

Tomorrow is a light day, picking up some b-roll and establishing shots. I'm seeing 3 keyboards at this point so, goodnight, and thank you all infinitely. This is pretty darn cool.