To quote Mattson, "this was Jon's day. He saved us." That would be Jon Robertson, who was mostly missing yesterday. Turns out he was driving all over the place, finding us a new location to work as a frozen lake, seeing as there's been a bit of a warm spell the last couple of days and no one really feels comfortable going out on the ice. And who can blame them?
But he came through. He found us a field in a park. Combine that with the 4 fresh inches of snow that fell last night and you've got a pretty good lake substitute.
Oh but Jon wasn't done. Today's scene exists in two parts: Anderson (Adam M. Griffith) and Old Anderson (Adam M. Griffith). So essentially we have to film the first part of the scene, then Adam has to go through 1-2 hours of makeup to look old. Either we do that in a car (awkward), outside (too cold), or we go to Jon's parent's house, a handful of minutes away. And so we showed up en masse, pretty much unannounced and took over their house. Like most parents of filmmakers, they weren't all that surprised. They knew there was a production going on and they knew what "we might stop by" really meant.
Side note: there should be a support group for the parents (and significant others) of filmmakers. They can all compare horror stories and we'll, by extension, look less crazy when our families realize that compared to other filmmakers, we're pretty normal.
And so we took over their house. I watched hockey with Jon's father while transferring footage. We ate lunch. They dug out a box of hand warmers and passed them around. They even loaned our DP Filipp some boots. And Adam got his old makeup done. Then, back to the field, where we raced the sun.
Back on the soundstage, we filmed an improvised bit where Adam removes his makeup, and Maria Rowene did some acting under a spotlight. This film, more so than I thought from the script, really gives Maria a chance to show her range. Hell, just the opportunity to be a monster and a real person is a lot. If you're casting a film, she's definitely worth exploring.
