Zach here. Yesterday, with the generous participation of Maya and Mackinley, I got the last remaining shot of the film. Twisted up in the backseat of a car with one eye on the camera, one eye on the audio levels, and an inexplicable third eye on the actors, I found a whole new appreciation for my ex-crew. I missed the days when my job consisted solely of making serious poses and furrowing my brow as the scenes played out in front of me. Oh yeah, and the shot would absolutely not have been possible without the unreasonably kind Rhian Peterman, who traded cars with me for the day, despite mine having a blown head gasket and spewing white smoke from the tailpipe. Obviously I neglected to mention this to him.
This was so overdue it’s absurd. There were a couple different times that we had wanted to feel “done” and yet hadn’t quite warranted the satisfaction: first when Dusty left, then when Nandan left. Now, as I’m getting ready to leave myself, I finally feel something like a sense of completion. As has become tradition, we wrap-partied over twist cones in the Eagan’s parking lot.
The amount of work this little guy has put in is above and beyond. Especially considering that he’s just a punk kid with no interest in acting. Why did he do this for us? It’s a mystery. And the same goes for Maya. She was a last minute replacement when another girl dropped out, and turned out to be an enormous improvement to the movie. Thanks guys.
Now don’t think that just because I’m done shooting means that the blog’s days are done. In order to prevent e-stagnancy, I’ve devised a new category called “reflections”. So many great photos have gathered on my hard drive over the past several months, so it seems like a good idea to share one of them every few days as well as what I remember about when the photo was taken. Coming soon…
Zach here. Our last official day of shooting was sometime last week. Or the week before. It was low-key and anti-climactic, which suits me just fine because so is the movie itself. The day before it was much more stressful. You never realize how many airplanes there are in the sky until you try to make a movie. Or how many little girls there are riding around with deafeningly loud training wheels on their bikes. Or how many dudes there are on the basketball court, slamming the ball into the ground as forcefully as they can with each dribble. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank that last dude for not playing basketball at our request. He saved our day by letting us ruin his.
Anyway, the last day. Low-key. We only had a couple of shots to get but the sun was setting quickly and it was a no-blowing-it situation. Normally we’d have blown it completely but everyone was on point and we sprinted through a handful of good takes in almost no time at all. First Luc left. Next Julia left. Thirdly we drove Mackinley home. Finally, Nandan took off late, late at night. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank him formally. I had been planning to make this movie for a long time, but I am absolutely positive that it would never have happened had he not made the intensely rash and foolish decision to come join me. Anyway, seven months after our first blog post and here’s what we’ve got to show for it:
Like I said, that was all last week. Or two weeks ago. It would have been nice to feel like everything was done with production-wise but there was plenty of b-roll-type footage left for me to collect on my own. I’ve been collecting it at my leisure. Life isn’t easy for a one-man crew, but I manage. For example, here’s a shot of my sound man getting some ambiance just this afternoon:
So what’s next? On September 15th I’ll be taking a Greyhound back east to New York (Nandan is there already), at which point I’ll add a new and exciting category to the blog: post-production notes. Get psyched!
I’ll try to keep updating somewhat regularly, despite there not being a whole lot to report these days. Things are entering dark and uncharted territory for us. It’s like some Return of the King type shit going on.
We went back into production Saturday after a week-long recess. The day was remarkable for the record-shattering number of times I managed to bring things to the edge of total disaster.
It all started in the morning. Upon arrival from my Vancouver vacation I had spent the night at a friend’s house about thirty minutes out of town. This friend had said he’d take me home in the early-afternoon but got caught up in some matters of home improvement and, in order to honor his obligation, just gave me his car. He said he’d pick it up later that night in Olympia. The day’s first location was at a drive-in movie theater. It was a complicated shot, probably the last shot of the film, and we’d been granted only two hours by the management to get it done. Punctuality would be key. I texted Mackinley to make sure he’d be ready and received an all-too-familiar response. “Wait…we’re shooting today?” To make matters worse, he was not in Olympia. To make bad matters better, he was not too far from where I was. I picked him up in my friend’s car and we just barely made it to the shoot on time.
As I mentioned before it was a complicated shot. With Dusty gone, our crew now consists of three people, and only two whenever I’m acting. We absolutely needed more people to get the job done. Naturally, we’d neglected to enlist anyone. Over the past several months, one of the things I’ve heard most often from people is “dude, just let me know if you guys ever need a hand with anything I’d be so down to help out.” Yesterday, no one was so down to help out. Pulling into the location I got a call from two dear old high school friends who were in town and wondering what I was up to. They knew next to nothing about making movies but were willing to be there in twenty minutes. Saviors.
We got everything set up and ready to go, but suddenly the audio equipment decided to fritz out hard on us. The recorder wouldn’t recognize the cards we put in it. It wouldn’t even power down. It seemed to be getting levels just fine, but Luc couldn’t hear anything in the headphones. The clock was ticking. The drive-in employees were getting anxious as customers would be arriving soon. I didn’t know what to do. Without audio there was nothing we could do. Our sole chance at getting one of the most important shots of the film was slipping away. That’s when we realized that the headphones were just plugged into the wrong jack and it was making the thing all screwy. We got the shot.
After a few hours of downtime, the next shot was to take place downtown; a re-shoot of something we’d done earlier and weren’t happy with. Thirty minutes before everyone was to meet up, Nandan and I remembered that we didn’t have the car that Mackinley’s character drives. It was a pretty big issue considering that the scene would be taking place inside of it. I made some calls and arranged to borrow my sister’s car, which would pass easily enough considering that it was dark out and that we wouldn’t be shooting the car’s exterior.
Nandan got in my car, I got in my sister’s car, and we left. This is when my friend called me wanting his car back. I told him where it was parked and that the keys were in the trunk of my car so he ought to meet us at the location. This is what he did, but in keeping with the rest of the day, the keys were not there. I had to abandon the other four members of the cast/crew to go back home in search of the missing keys, completely unsure of whether we’d find them.
I couldn’t find the keys. It was looking like an awful end to an awful day. Just as I was about to strap on a headlamp and comb the driveway, my friend picked up a set of keys off of counter and said “why don’t I just use these?” I didn’t appreciate his joking around and snapped back angrily. “Because they won’t work in your car.” “But they’re my keys.” Oh, so they are.
I got back to the location, we got the shot, and I went home to dream about all of the ways in which we might blow it the next day.
Zach here. Dusty left us on Friday afternoon. For Nandan and I, it was a heavier moment than either of us had expected. The guy had straight up moved here to help us out 24/7 (which was totally uncalled for and yet an immeasurable blessing), and we’d grown so used to him that his sudden absence came as a shock. It also signaled the beginning of the end of this whole thing. It’s scary, difficult to comprehend, and probably calls for a much schmaltzier post than I’m willing to write at this point. I’ll save it for when we’ve actually finished shooting. But the point is, our greatest and most sincere thanks go to Dusty. We couldn’t possibly have paid him what he was worth, so we paid him nothing, and he was alright with it.
Progress-wise, we’ve been getting pickups and re-shoots done here and there. Our final three days of shooting are scheduled for this weekend when the weather will hopefully have cleared up. Until then I’m off to Vancouver, B.C. for a three-day bachelor party. Yikes. Don’t expect an update until I get back. If you’re jonesing for your schmaltz-fix already, just check out the commemorative Dusty video I posted on our YouTube channel this afternoon.
Nandan here. We shot at the Buechel’s Canal House today, amazing place, we’ll be there again tomorrow. Big Thank You’s in order for Aaron for taking us out there (and for acting in the film, in a sequence shot a week ago) and for Simon Kogan for coming and helping us out in a big way: first by putting up with our rampant unprofessionalism, and second for playing a great role despite all of that. You’ve probably seen his sculptures if you’ve ever stepped foot in Olympia. If not, check out his website at simonkogan.com.
Nandan here. We embarked on our first group field-trip last Thursday, heading to our only location across the border: Pacific City, Oregon. After a week riddled with 100+ degree days I think we were all looking forward to nice little beach day. On the way down south we managed to stop by Dusty’s sisters house in Portland to fill our mouths with Lays before heading to what is now my official favorite eatery in all of Beaverton: Lupe’s Escape. They provisioned us with large saucy burritos, rice, beans, chips, salsa, and optional salad for a cool $5.75, and were very helpful when we expressed desire to have our meals individually packed for the road. They were also very amused when they saw us sit down to eat our individually packed meals in the lobby.
Our plans for Thursday involved finding a good deserted road and filming a scene where Zach’s car (Lila’s car in the movie) breaks down on the side of the road. After Lupe’s we abandoned I-5 for smaller highways that take us over the mountains to the coast. Somewhere in the middle of these mountains we found a gas station and decided to fill ‘em up. After gassing to the limit we noticed a slightly ironic fact about Zach’s car: it broke down. It took an hour’s worth of yanking and banging from Dusty’s trusty tools to get the car running again.
A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in the Olympia Megaplex watching the credits of Harry Potter with Dusty when we both had a good laugh at one particular job title: Weather Consultant. What a silly idea. Somebody’s job was to sit around with an iPhone and look up the weather.
After a few more hours of hot and sticky driving we came down out of the mountain to have our hearts torn in pieces by the sight that caused me to eat my contemptuous words at Harry Potter from weeks ago: Clouds. The entire sky was covered with clouds. It looked like it could even rain. Nobody had bothered to consult anything about the weather. Upon arrival at the beach we had about two hours of daylight left and some tough decisions to make. We were planning on shooting the beach sequence over the course of two days. But if the days didn’t match weather-wise we would have a serious problem. That being said the fog actually looked pretty interesting, and might be a blessing in what Zach described as “a really ugly, nasty disguise.” We decided to try to shoot everything that night. Miraculously we managed. And it looked splendid.
We then all spent the night at Mary and Rob’s house, a couple of class-a individuals we found on couchsurfing.com that accommodated all seven of us despite the fact that they already had three friends staying at their place.
Saturday brought us to Delphinia, a magical land that gave birth to our two newest child stars: Azaria and Amani.
And finally tonight we returned to the scene of previous crimes to film the one scene we didn’t manage to film a week ago during our party scene. It was a scene that involved Mackinley in a bathroom. Alone.
We have six more planned days of shooting. Wish us luck.
Zach here. Last post I mentioned shooting all night in a bookstore. That went alright. One of the shots got botched and we’re going to do it over again tomorrow.
There’s this one scene in the movie that’s a house party. We decided to throw a real one at our friends’ place and shoot it. This is where mistakes were made. To get people there we bought a keg of beer and like a gallon of poison. A lot of people showed up. It got loud fast. My character was supposed to be drunk in the scene. I can act a lot of things convincingly but not drunk so I started drinking. Meanwhile things were heating up and everyone was out in the backyard yapping. The tenants knew that the pigs would bust in if the noise level got too high and solicited my help. They gave me a megaphone. First mistake.
If you’ve never addressed a large crowd by megaphone then you may not understand, but getting my hands on that thing I felt like Gollum slipping on the One Ring. Or like I’d drank a Sierra Mist. I started wisecracking and barking directions like out of control. As anyone who saw Spiderman knows, with great power comes great responsibility. I was being irresponsible. Meanwhile the rest of the cast and crew were dumping all kinds of bad news down their throats. Soon came the inevitable visit from our friends the boys in blue. Said they’d received a call about some profanity being shouted via megaphone.
I swayed unsteadily alongside my two friends the tenants as they got disorderly conduct citations. Coppers wouldn’t put the heat on me even though I’d thrown the party. Said it had to be the residents. They’ll be appearing in court on August 5th if you’d like to go cheer them on. Hopefully the fines won’t be too steep ’cause I’ll be paying them (minus the money that both of them still owe me for Harry Potter tickets, of course). Back to the party.
Most people left at this point. We took advantage of the vacation to shoot some scenes inside. I was dizzier than the damned tazmanian devil but I can say, having seen the footage, that my performance was outstanding. Next on the agenda was the bathroom floor. Excess glitter and dried piss. Dry heaving.
I look up and there’s Dusty sitting on the edge of the bathtub donning all of our sound equipment and pointing the mic in my face. “I’m rolling, dude.” The two of us were in there together for hours. When I found my legs again it was long past bedtime. I climbed into the other room and balanced myself precariously between the comforter and the sheet. This is when I received one of my new favorite text messages. “Dude. I’m covered in vomit. Please help me clean the couch cushion I puked on and help me get home! I love you guys.” From Dusty.
According to Nandan, Dusty had passed out in an armchair watching Twilight. He was still sporting all of the sound equipment. 25 feet of XLR cable trailing behind him. He was still recording. This is where he harfed all over himself and the armchair.
Nandan woke me up at 6:30 with awful news. We needed to shoot a scene. I hated every second of it. I remember looking up at Luc, his eyes at half-mast and sound gear hanging off of him, holding the boom pole from the hip with the mic pointed outward at some random wall. I thought, “man, we’re blowin’ it.” But something like thirteen takes later we’d captured the film’s sweetest moment between Mackinley and I. Almost worth it. But by no means worth it.
Thanks to Nandan for being on top of it all night long, getting all of the shots we needed, taking care of Dusty, cleaning the bathroom, and picking up a new armchair to replace the soiled one, among other things.
And if your wondering where the rest of the crew was to be found while all this was happening, check out the new video about to go up on our YouTube page, including a taste of some Land of the Lost Soundtrack party beats cooked up by our very own Luc Heuer.
Zach here. Blog-wise, we started production so strong that a lull was bound to come around eventually. This is it. I have to go. I have to go shoot all night in a bookstore. But I wanted to let you know that we’re still alive and that things are going well. Here’s a fresh new take on an old classic.
And here’s some whatever.
The most exciting news as of late is the arrival of our friend Rob. He flew in from New York on Sunday to play a pivotal role in the film’s thrilling climax. Look for a special guest post from him coming soon.
Last but not least, here’s something we shot that I’m pretty excited about. I dare you to guess what is has to do with the rest of the film.
