Day One

This will be short, I am whooped and grungy and sweaty and I have the weirdest sunburn ever. On our first day of shooting we were outside all day. I had on a top with a wide-scooping neckline and was wearing a big clunky necklace and no sunscreen. Oh, well. The least of our problems today.

It was a long, rough day, but we all survived, and we actually got everything done except for one small scene that I can either live without or shoot later. So, now I know that if things are going well, we will easily make our days.

Al Letson got in today and unfortunately it was his scene we had to drop. But it was a great way to end my day to come home and get a hug from him. And Eric is on his way here and we'll probably go grab some dinner. Also I got to hang out with my little cousins, Joey (age 9) and Sean (age 7), because they were in one of the scenes. They were very excited about it, mainly because they got to say, "douchebag," close to four hundred times.

We experienced some setbacks with transporting the gear, which is too long of a story to get into, and the problem still isn't solved. But that is my priority tomorrow and we'll figure something out. The shots we did get done look gorgeous and I look forward to playing around with them in post-production. Michelle has a lot of great toys in her bag of tricks, and a good crew that knows how to use them.

We had a plethora of Production Assistant interns, many of them with little or no on-set experience, but everyone did great, did anything asked of them, and I did not hear a single complaint out of any of them all day. That is SO important on a set, and I think just in life in general. I like to surround myself with positive energy, and we have a whole lotta that going on. Even though it was a full 12-hour day, and though it wasn't brutal it was still pretty hot, and we had limited access to bathrooms, one of our interns, Dylan, said as we wrapped up, "this was actually more fun than I thought it was going to be." That's a pretty good sign in my book!

I was SO proud of my actors today. All that rehearsal time really paid off. They were completely off book, had their physical cues down pat, they were totally rock solid. There was a lot of focus on the things that went wrong, so I think maybe it went unnoticed that the actors really got everything right, but they did. They made my life a bit easier today and they should be proud of themselves.

Tomorrow we shoot the big finale scene and that will be another killer day. But then I hope (knock on wood) the worst is over. And that is pretty much why I planned the production schedule this way. Get the outdoor scenes shot first, in case of bad weather, we would have a chance to reschedule, and shoot the finale scene next so we don't have this huge day looming over our heads and stressing us out.

Everyone, especially the film crew, are tired dogs. But to me, for my first day of filming a movie, ever? I am quite happy with the outcome. In everything I do in life, if I am having a hard time or things aren't going my way, or tough decisions have to be made, I just ask myself, "Is anybody going to die?" The answer has never been yes. So, whatever the issues are, they can either be solved, or lived with. End of story.