The Official Film Blog

The end came suddenly and without ceremony, much like it all began June 28th, 2008. On that date we got together for the first time. Maybe a little less jaded, a little more optimistic, and a bit more naive.

We dragged Vaughn and Dean to a building full of every lost item you can imagine. It was hot as hell, there were mosquitoes biting us and we had no idea what we were getting into. Aaron took an incredible amount of time lighting the room, and for his efforts I think he did a great job. Vaughn, who didn’t smoke at the time, was forced to smoke a pack of herbal cigarettes. They were disgusting and smelled like pot. The DAT recorder failed us. Can’t really remember what went wrong but I know we were having problems. Vaughn saved the day by having the exact model in his office. So Allan and Vaughn took off to retrieve it. The rest of us went to Markey’s for lunch and beer. It rained. It rained hard. If I remember correctly we ended up trapped there for a bit. Eventually we got back and finished the first scene of the movie. We didn’t slate a thing and had about a hundred takes of everything. Maybe it wasn’t great, maybe it was, but the one thing we did know was that it had begun.

I don’t know if any of us thought it would take this long to film everything. I think it was Lefty who first suggested it would take longer than we expected, much longer. At the time I thought he was crazy. I don’t recall what his estimate was, but I hope we beat it.

In that time since late June there have been loss of jobs, divorces, break ups, loss of family, loss of friends, and loss of homes. If it was unexpected it probably happened. Not to say that it was a series of disasters, there were good things. I believe there was a baby born, and a marriage or two in the mix. Through out it all though, we stuck it out. Our crew stayed together and we only really lost one actor in the whole thing. Not bad.

We’ve been incredibly lucky in the people we’ve met. They’ve made wonderful donations of time, money, and property. Things we never imagined when we wrote this came to be because of them. That’s probably been the most amazing part of it all.

On that last day we stood in The Saint. A bar donated to us for the day, by an owner that couldn’t show up. I don’t know if he intended to leave us in the bar unsupervised all day, but that’s the way it went. We didn’t take advantage of the situation, and hopefully left the place somewhat respectful. I think we had about 30 people that showed up to be extras, some friends, some strangers. They stayed patient through all the mess that the day was. Those are details that I’d rather not get into. In the end when it was over, everyone left. There were a few hugs and handshakes, but really it was all about getting out. It was nothing as I had imagined.

Later I found myself in another bar, alone. There was no crew get together, there were no actors celebrating. It was me, in a bar, in a stool, with a beer. I felt no relief or reason to celebrate. I was angry about all the problems we had that day, I thought of the long road ahead. Maybe I was right that night.

Now with a few days to look back on it all, I really think there is much to celebrate. Regardless if we’re done with every aspect of the film, what we did do was a major one, and one that I had my doubts about at times. Even on that last day.

Thanks everyone that has stuck with us, everyone that has stuck with me, because even though there is much work still to do, there is also much to celebrate for what we’ve done.

We only have one more scene left in this damn movie.  You’d think that we’ve figured out what were doing by now.  You’d be wrong.  I wouldn’t say everything was our fault, but still.  We’ll start with Angela.  She was going to be an actress for us, very nice of her to agree to do this scene.  She didn’t show.  Great.  Then a group of the loneliest guys in the world get on their phones and call all the lady friends they can think of.  Charlie, who actually turned out to be perfect, agreed to do the part.  Hooray.  Like idiots we sit around and do nothing while waiting for her.  After she shows we go to the site.  We forget to bring one of the props, for the second time that day.  Jack then applies the handcuff to his wrist, but we forgot the key.  Yep, total pros here.  The car we got for the scene was a stick, the driver we got for the scene couldn’t drive a stick.  Yeah, this was turning out to be a great scene.  We ran on a time crunch because of fading light.  Then after it was all said and done.  The van ran out of gas.

On a positive note, everyone laughed.  Andrew did a nice job of filling in for Lefty.  Charlie was a great sport about everything and did a nice job.  Jack learned how to take off in first gear.  Allan fulfilled his life long dream of being a stunt driver.  Shane made a lot more possible  by being around, wish we had him from the beginning.  And although nothing was perfect, it just might work.  As usual pictures are in the photo section.

One More Scene!