Threads Journal

Here it is, finally typed out. Forgive it for being long winded. I didn't know what to leave out.


10/5 Thursday

I’ve been sick basically since I got back from Boston last week. Not super sick, cold sick. It’s annoying and I know it’s really going to be a pain once we get into the shoot. I’ve been eating well and taking my vitamins and zincing myself silly, except for work I’ve barely left my house, why am I still sick?

Packed like a madman this afternoon. For this trip, I decided to use some good, sound reasoning. I am very rarely, if ever, a person who leaves in time to arrive at where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there. By normal logic, if I have a three hour drive (I do) I should have prepared my journey to begin so I leave with at least three hours allotted for driving plus pit stops. The person I am, however, will begin madly throwing crap into suitcases fifteen minutes before this time begins. Obviously, I will have forgotten stuff, and will need to return to the house at least five times. I will also forget that I need to fill my tank, and I need shampoo, making my departure time even later. Here it is in equation form:

If T(theoretical) = Departure time necessary to arrive at location on time
And p=actual time to begin packing for trip (p=T(theoretical)-15 minutes)
And p(t)= time needed to pack (p(t) = 25 minutes)
And f = forgotten item(s) necessitating mad dash back into house (f=5 minutes)
And g = gas fill time (twenty minutes including coffee, taurine drink, water, gum)
And T(actual) = actual departure time

Must arrive in Vermont by 8:30, therefore, must live at least by 5:30, so normally:

T(theoretical)= 5:30, solve for T(actual)
P+ p(t)+(fx5)+g=T(actual)

So..

5:15+:25+(:25)+:20=6:25

What I did was tell myself I had to leave by four, and was on the road by five.

Wow, is the place out there. It was dark when I got in, there was a skeleton crew there already. The first shots tonight were my characters wife noodling in her office, so I had precisely nothing to do. Now, this house is like a giant Waldo picture. Stare at any one spot and you’ll find incredibly interesting things to explore. And this house is inhabited by this wonderful woman named Suzanne, who quickly became the Magical Elf of the house. Nothing she couldn’t find, and something was always on the stove.

When the truck full of equipment arrived I found myself n the peculiar position of being told to do nothing while everyone unloads the truck. Well, I’m not that kind of guy, so I marched myself
up to the truck and began pulling stuff off, much to everyone’s apparent consternation.

Apparently they deal with a lot of difficult actors under the best of circumstances, and they were waiting for me to have my freak out. Well, I fooled them!

Much later in the evening we filmed all of the bedroom scenes. Michele, who plays my wife, was great sport for crawling into bed with me. We had a lot of fun…not that kind of fun. This was me waking up terrified and her sleeping away. I know now why actors say it’s tough to do love scenes on set. With ten different people shoved up in the room the mood is anything but sexy.

The final shot of the night was carrying my dead wife and putting her back in bed, then we were off to clean up the insanely sticky blood product we were using and finally to bed. We finally hit lights out sometime around 5:30 am.

10/6 Friday

I thought we were starting the shoot at 4:30, so waking up at 11:00 was kind of excessively early, but hey, I’m that kind of guy. Not a whole hell of a lot for me to do. We were still waiting for the rest of the crew and equipment to show up. Ashton, the production designer, spent most of the day finishing his tree. In the great room he built this insane tree out of Styrofoam and joint compound. Today he walked the woods and came back with the branches he needed to finish decorating. I had a good run, then needed to venture out to find shaving cream and a razor, which is one of the things I forgot to pack, of course. This was a bad idea. Who knew there’d be traffic IN VERMONT? Yes, folks, apparently when there’s road work to be done they shut the road down to one lane and EVERYONE IN THE AREA comes by to look.

While I was gone some of the guys were setting up for tonight’s shoot, a car scene. This particular scene has gone through about three revisions, and this was something the crew was excited for, basically to see if they could pull off what they were looking for. They spent about three hours MacGyvering this contraption to set lights up on the top of the car I’d be driving.

The basic premise being that I would be driving this car with the crew in a pickup truck right in front of me. But that’s not the tricky part. The tricky part is that we’d be connected by a power cord to the generator sitting in the back of the pickup truck. And I could only be about four feet from them. And I had to have my headlights off.

After an hour or so of all the vehicles involved (three) driving around looking for an open gas station (Montpelier, ten miles away) we went off to our location, a quiet street on some campus of a college I’ve never heard of. Final setup took about an hour, and then we…well…tried to get the shot. I’m driving an automatic with a sticky gas pedal, Pat (the other driver) is in a standard pickup truck and the whole shot has to be going uphill, so maintaining proper distance was pretty tough, if not impossible. Keto’s in the back seat, cause she’s playing Daniel, one of the demi-god figures in this flick. Oh, and Tyler and Nicholson are squished into the back in the cargo area, running the lights attached to the top of the car. Very intimate for them. This was a long shoot with a lot of setup between takes, so everyone in my car was treatd to some of my personal favorite off color jokes to keep the mood light.

Oh, by the way, it is FREEZING out this night.

Four hours go by and the crew decides that the best way to shoot this would really be stationary, so back to the house we go. On that location there were only about twelve of us, everyone was back at the house. Here’s what amazed me. The whole time I’ve been sitting in a nice warm car most of the crew has been in the back of a moving pickup. Who gets the first coffee? Yeah, you guessed it. Hey, I like getting the royal treatment but man, those guys looked cold. For the rest of the night we basically shoot until dawn with a couple pick up shots.

10/7 Saturday

I wake up knowing already today’s going to be loooooong. We have the whole opening dream sequence to be shot at a high school during the day, and a big party scene for tonight. The cast hits the high school around 1:00. It’s fairly easy for us, pretty much standing and staring at each other. This movie has very little dialogue, it’s very visual. I’ve realized that most of this movie has me breathing heavy for most of my shots. Funny. There was a shot with Gray where we’re almost completely nose to nose. It would almost have been touching, if we could have stopped giggling at each other. Still, we finished about an hour behind schedule.

(Oh yeah, for lunch Suzanne brought us these completely amazing wonderful sandwiches and baby carrots and apple slices. I wanted to bring a clone of her home.)

We get back and there’s a ton of people for the party scene, including the singers for part of the soundtrack. Most of this for me was blessedly quick. Our two other main characters played by Todd and Kristi were also on set for tonight. Once again, it was a very late night. After the party scene was wrapped for the night the crew got this huge second wind that became really infectious. There were a few outside shots that were great fun for all involved. By this time it was getting on to 3 a.m. the second wind had begun to crash, but there was still more stuff to be done. I think we finished up around 5:30.

10/8 Sunday

This is it. The last night. I’m excited to be done, but I don’t really want to go back to, like, work or anything. A lot of tonight is finishing up inserts we didn’t get last night during the party sequence. Some parts were pretty disjointed. There was a good scene in the upstairs hall that went really well. My favorite moment was a small break in the shooting when I was with the camera crew on the stairs. Out of the blue I asked, “So, you guys got anything else coming up? I’m available."

Adam, “You wanna be a demon in my movie?”

Justin, into the radio, “Nico, you wanna get Kevin a copy of Writer’s Block?”

Elie, “We got four or five things coming up I know about…”

Nice to know I’m wanted.

We were definitely pushing it to get through the night. The last few shots were definitely pushing it. The second to last shot I had to find my dead wife, pick her up from the ground and carry her off frame. The problem was there were these loose sheets of satiny stuff on the floor, which are slippery. We took it twice, and twice Michelle and I almost ate it.

The final shot was of my hand pulling out a knife from a drawer. This was totally shotgunned, only three or four of us were there to do it. The sun was starting to come up over the horizon and finally we finished. Then the massive packing. The debate was whether to stay or make the three hour drive home. I opted along with most people in bailing.

Of course, the truck they used was dead. There was much hilarity (when I say much I mean NONE) when they attempted to jump the truck with my Jeep. That wasn’t working so we’re trying to find the starter, the solenoid, when finally I think, “hey, my Jeep’s had a ton of electrical issues, maybe we should switch cars.” As soon as we did, it started right up. This was the basis for my decision to get rid of that vehicle.

I made the drive in only a few hours. My bed was never more inviting.

All things considered it was an exhausting but really fun weekend. I learned a lot about working on film, and learned that a little bit of understanding and work ethic go a long way with the crew.