After a day of shooting in LaCanada the craziness and dust had settled. As I look around all the props, dirty dishes from my catered meal (that I cooked) for about thirty people (crew) was starting at me. It was a great shoot with a fantastic ending!
Now, I had to prepare for the second day of shooting. It would not take place for a couple of weeks. I had my reservations about the location. When you have no permits or lack of funding it is kind of guerilla filming.
The unexpected can happened… always. There were three scenes (flashback scenes or montages) one is a car scene where the actor gets hit, one is a heart attack scene and the other is a gunshot scene. I know what you are thinking how in hell are we going to pull off this one!
Michael the director and Raj the DP had gone to the site(s) which was one location but in different areas. We had to make it look like Texas! The setup is that Breesy ( main character) is from Texas and she is the “kiss of death” in her hometown. Any man that ever asks her hand in marriage drops dead. Actually the idea came from an Aunt that I had who had that problem. It was a running joke in my family.
So, we had to re-create it. DP and Director went through the paces before hand. As I went along with them I notice guards driving around. One even asked me what we were doing. Oh nothing we are just tourists! Howdy we are from Texas. We had no cameras at that time, but Raj had his camera that took photos it kinda fit and the first Ad and me just laughed.
So, our second day of filming began two weeks later. The day before filming, I went down there and looked around to see if there were any events happening down there. Nobody was around except a gym and cars on the other side. I was a little nervous because of the fake gun but it look real. You see in one of the scenes the actor shoots in the air of course in post the shot-gun sound is done but cops in LA are pretty fierce. We will have to sneak it! Which meant less crew so we would not be noticed. Daring I have to say. I told everyone lets start real early after all it’s Sunday. DP Raj was like” we need light”. Yeah I know. My sound guy from LaCanada was gone so I had to search for another one . Not easy. So, within those two weeks I got another posting up on Mandy.com for a sound guy.
Finally, I convinced one sound guy and his partner to work for nothing. Explained the project and situation. OK so this is a passion project he said. Yes. Please… I said. Begging on the phone at this point I had gotten use to it after all these weeks in pre-production. OK I will do it. Thank God! He is a really nice guy his name is Don Abernathy and Drew great guys!
This time it would be one camera not two, hand-held and I needed extras too. Some of the extras returned from LaCanada and some were new.
My actors (husbands to be) were such good sports and my makeup person Molly Beall was going to be there.
http://www.creationsbymissprissy.com/
I was lucky, I had Steve Boyce who had done stunts in some really big features so a car coming towards him was no big deal, Ted Sroka is a wonderful actor he will blast the gun and of course Benton Luke who was instrumental in filming the chapel, weeks before was going to do his heart attack and fall to the ground. My actors:
It seemed like I was getting what I wanted and it would be done without a hitch.
Stay Tuned.
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Redneck-Weddings/131800780233767
tweet us on twitter: @redneckweddings
Redneck Weddings! A Scripted Comedy 