Day 3 of Kris & Lindy Boustedt's THIS IS OURS

When you show up for the final couple of days of a feature film, you run into one of two situations. Either the production owes 10 pages and is in an absolute state of panic, or they're on schedule and pretty much stuff is just winding down. The former is pretty damned entertaining, but the latter is a lot less stressful.



THIS IS OURS is the latter. Bad for page views. Good for the final product.



Spend enough time on film sets and you can pretty quickly figure out the chaotic ones from the organized. People know where they should be. There's a sense of calm, of serenity (if that's possible), that infuses everything. Everything just sort of clips along at a steady pace.

Today's the final day for THIS IS OURS, and the bulk of it revolves around a scene next to the RV parked in the driveway. Plus, there's a stunt.



The scene is primarily between our two male leads, an argument that turns violent. For obvious reasons, I won't get into specifics, but basically it involves one character getting the shit beat out of him with the cricket bat we used the day before on the golf course. Sure, you can try and use the same cricket bat to hit golf balls and beat up an actor, but actors tend to be fussy about such things, no matter how many times you assure them that Brando totally would have done it. And clearly, you can't hit golf balls very far with a bat soft enough to hit anyone, although considering how far they actual did fly, that probably wasn't something to worry about.



Basically, you have to have two cricket bats--a real one and a foam one. That way you can accomplish both objectives. But where does one even get a cricket bat, much less a foam one? I haven't a clue. I'm guessing the internet? Which is probably why they only sort of match. The foam bat is at least 4 inches longer than the wooden one and the painting isn't the same. But that's kind of one of the great secrets about film props--it won't matter. They're in different scenes. The mind of an audience, having seen a cricket bat established earlier in the film, will pretty much fill in the gaps of any subsequent cricket bat they see later in the film and assume it to be the same one, assuming it's even remotely close. Think of it like a type of optical illusion. The mind, in a lot of ways, sees what it wants to see, assuming you let it. Switch something out mid-scene and you have to be damned close. Do it a couple of scenes later and the audience will make the connection without even realize they're doing it.



So we beat the shit out of Ernie. But even a foam bat has some weight to it. After a couple of takes, he's sufficiently bruised and in a little bit of pain. So for the reverse, Kris steps in to take the punishment. We shoot it, then Mark and Wonder jump in the RV, gun it up the hill and onto the road.



And that's a wrap on THIS IS OURS.



But that's not everything. The cast and crew has been living in this house for two weeks, so the next day, some of us (including a very hung over Marco Scaringi) have the task of cleaning out the house. It's just mountains of garbage, as this house doesn't do garbage pickup. So we empty the AYWR vehicle and use that to ferry garbage from the house to a nearby dumpster. We then clean the house, pack as much gear as humanly possible into the RV, and hit the road back to Seattle.







Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 2 of Kris & Lindy Boustedt's THIS IS OURS

The story of THIS IS OURS (as I understand it, not having read the script) revolves around 2 couples. The first, played by Ernie Joseph and Karie Gonia, are cultured and monied and established. The second, played by Mark Carr and Wonder Russell, are freewheeling in pretty much every way. They live out of an RV.

Today we're filming their introduction.



It's pretty simple. Ernie Joseph's character goes out for a run. He overdoes it, and gets rescued by Mark and Wonder in the RV. Easy. All we've really got to do is find a spot to shoot it on the roads near our home base. And since the woods are the woods, we pretty much have our choice of the back roads around here, which is all of them. Really, there's only 2 considerations: traffic and a place nearby to turn around the RV.

My thought is to send someone (i.e. me) down the road out of frame, to hold up traffic while the camera is rolling. It's the sort of thing you can get away with on a rural road, as you're really only stopping one or two cars at a time, and only for a minute or two. People are generally pretty understanding. We did this, for example, on THE SUMMER HOME and no one got hurt. But apparently, they've already tried it on this shoot and, well, let's just say they can't do it again.

So I guess the lesson there is, you might only get one chance on your shoot to break the law. Use it wisely.





The second issue is a little more practical. You can see from the pictures that these road are somewhat narrow with lots of really big trees on the side. An RV doesn't have a good turning radius. So you can just drive the RV past the frame, then turn around and do it again. Nor can you easily back it up like you could a car. So you need to find a spot where you can turn around easily and quickly in both directions, while still having the proper length of road for the wide shot.



We find it, sort of, and shoot the wide. But traffic is picking up, so we move to a different spot for the remainder of the scene (woods look like woods), which goes off without a hitch.



Then it's back to the cabin to shoot a scene with the RV in Ernie and Karie's driveway. It's not a complicated scene, in terms of blocking, but the light is too harsh. There's really no other place to put this vehicle, and it's kind of white, so the sun is bouncing off it and washing out pretty much everything. So DP Jonathan Houser naturally wants to put up some silks to cut down as much of the light as possible.

Enter Kit Boyer.

Kit stacks two silks in the same gobo head, which solves most of the problem, then throws up some frost. Only, the wind is creating too much noise (a silk is naturally quiet, but the frost make a crinkly sound), so Kit threads two bungee cords through an empty water bottle, which creates enough tension in the frost to cut down nearly all the noise. It works.



If you remember all the way back to yesterday, there was a discussion between Kris and Houser about how to shoot something on the golf course. Here's the scene:



Ernie and Mark are at a tee box, hitting balls. Ernie is dressed in business casual wear, hitting balls off a tee with a driver. You know, like you should. But Mark is dressed like someone about to head to a Phish concert. Oh, and he's hitting the balls with a cricket bat. Yes, a cricket bat.



You'd think that hitting a golf ball with a cricket bat is a pretty inexact science, and you'd be right. Most of the shots are veering very quickly to the right, in the direction of the houses just off the fairway. This begs the obvious question of whether or not we're going to break a window. We can't afford to break a window. We can't stop the scene, nor can we control the shots--at all. It's a short discussion, but it goes something like this: If you live close to a golf course, you have to assume that your window is in danger of being smashed. So, you either have that factored into your cost of living, or (and this seems more likely) you've got windows that can withstand a golf ball traveling at high speeds.



This seems logical.

Nothing breaks, and after a bit Mark starts to get better at sending the ball down the fairway. As the sun starts to go down, I grab the bucket and amble down the fairway to collect all the balls.

In the end, it turns out he never even got close to the houses.






Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 1 of Kris & Lindy Boustedt's THIS IS OURS

Early in A Year Without Rent, I was supposed to work on a film in Seattle that ended up falling apart. These things happen. A lot. But out of the ashes of that failure came two more films--THE SUMMER HOME, a short which shot back in April, and THIS IS OURS, a feature.

This rarely happens. Hell, when they talked to me about it way back when, I only half believed them.



But here we are, in Plain, Washington, shooting that feature film Kris and Lindy talked about on the set of THE SUMMER HOME.

THIS IS OURS takes place primarily in a cabin next to a golf course. It serves a dual purpose, as we're all sleeping in the cabin and it's the primary location for the film, which is exactly what we did on THE SUMMER HOME.



I arrive from Seattle an hour or so after call after getting a ride to my car from Brendon Fogle. It's a whole new team from the last film, with the only constants being Kris, Lindy, and Wonder Russell. Oh, and Falcor. I get the tour of the place, which is much bigger than it looks from the road and pretty easily holds everyone. Next to the cabin is a garage that serves as a holding area for gear. And there's a porch that overlooks a golf course. As far as places to make a movie go, it's a pretty nice one.

I'm on set for the last couple of days, so everything's already in full swing, clicking along. There's some rigging in ceiling to hang lights. Everyone's already exhausted. The usual.



There's always an adjustment period for stuff like this, where I come in as the new person. It takes a bit to actually work myself into the work flow. Even more so on this film, as things seem to going pretty smoothly. There's not a whole lot for me to do just yet. So I help carry some heavy stuff and take some pictures.







We film in the living room for a bit, then Kris, DP Jonathan Houser, and I go down to the golf course while they figure out how to shoot something that's on the schedule for later in the week.



Then, we set the living room for a night scene of a party in which, for some reason, Ernie Joseph and Mark Carr are wearing dresses. I'm not really sure why, but there you have that. It's that kind of film, I guess.



It's also, according to pretty much everyone, one of the most DIY shoots they've been on, due in large part to the ingenuity of one Kit Boyer, who when presented with a partial camera package for the RED, got creative. He made an eyebrow for the matte box with some cardboard, gaff tape, and a soda can.



But he also created something he calls "the plunge". It's, well, I'll let him explain it.



I can honestly say I've never seen that before. Fellow 1st AC's, the bar has been raised.




A side note: I've timed these posts to coincide with the THIS IS OURS Kickstarter campaign. So if you've got some spare change, consider sending it their way.




Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

THIS IS OURS (photos)

Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 4 of Kris & Lindy Boustedt's THE SUMMER HOME

Assuming you're more or less on schedule, a short day is everyone's favorite day on a film. String enough 14+ hour days together and a 8 hour day sounds like a vacation. Of course, some of the simpler things get a lot trickier, as everyone is a little punch-drunk.



As you can see, we're not so good at doing something as simple as cutting up kindling, which isn't hard at all. Also, it's raining again. Of course it is.

We shoot a couple of scenes by the wood pile. A big embrace. A broken coffee mug. More kindling.

An exhausted group of people.

From there, we drive to the nearby beach to film the ending. The rain has let up, mercifully. The big challenge here is a really simple one. We've got two people in a car, virtually no grip equipment, and a lot of glare on the windshield. A lot of glare. We're trying to flag it off with flexible reflectors, but the reflectors are also showing up on the windshield if they aren't in the perfect spot. Thankfully, they're flexible, which is pretty much required to hit that sweet spot.

And if it didn't take every pair of hands on set to get it in that spot, we'd have a picture of it. Instead, we have this.





I can't really talk too much about the rest of the shoot, what with it being pretty much a spoiler, but suffice to say it went pretty smoothly. Then, back to the house to pack up.

A lesson for aspiring filmmakers: you can work your crew 13, 14, 16 hours a day for no money. You can do pretty much anything. Really, you can. And if you open a bottle of champagne for the crew to drink while they're packing up, you'll have a very happy crew. Beer works too, but not as well as champagne.



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In the days since I left Seattle, the creative team behind THE SUMMER HOME has launched a Kickstarter campaign to pay for the film they've already got in the can. Check it out. And if you can throw them a few bucks, that'd be fantastic.






Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 3 of Kris & Lindy Boustedt's THE SUMMER HOME

When I was a little kid growing up on the coast of Maine, I distinctly remember having a t-shirt for the "Seattle Rain Festival, January 1st - December 31st". It was yellow. I have no idea where the shirt came from. I have no relatives in Seattle and no one in my family has ever, to my knowledge, ever even been to Seattle. But someone explained to me that the shirt was joke. It might be the first joke I remember. And, hey, I still know it.

I mention it now because I'm in Seattle and, naturally, it's raining off and on. Thing is, we need it to stop. Actually, we don't even need it to stop. We need it to slow down by the time it gets dark so we can safely shoot a night exterior.



In the meantime, we're shooting inside. We're using duvetyne to black out the windows in the bedroom and bathroom to get a night scene. The bedroom windows aren't in the shot, but the small bathroom one is and DP Ty Migota wants to try and keep the tree outside in the shot, so he sends Nick out to wrap the duvetyne around the tree. Sure there's better ways to do that, but we don't have access to those better ways.



Later, under easier circumstances, we construct a tent of duvetyne using c-stands and clamps on a porch outside a window. We're able to put a small light inside the tent. It's not so high off the ground, so it works. Until the rain picks up, of course.

Part of the challenge inherent in THE SUMMER HOME stems from that lack of knowledge about the location. We have gear we don't need and need gear we don't have. It's not as simple as just going to the store to get something--we're on an island. The ferry only runs so often.



So I guess it's not so surprising when Ty Migota holds a ND filter over the lens because there isn't a matte box. But what is surprising is how a couple of hours later, when the lighting in the living room isn't right, he holds that filter over part of the lens, fixing the exposure issue on the actor in the background.

It's a perfect no-budget indie film moment--using the tools at hand to get it done, convention be damned. And you know what? It works. It isn't something you're going to write to the film school alumni association about, but it works.



And really that's the spirit of the whole production. Just make it work.



So when the skies clear at the start of Magic Hour, we all run outside and improvise a scene with Wonder and Paul on the shore. Then, we set up for our night shooting, which involves a broken down car on the side of an actual road, with me around the corner to stop traffic (we have no permits) before the headlights get in the shot.



Next thing I know, I'm spinning a c-stand with a 650W on top, trying to simulate passing street lights. I can get 4 full rotations before the power cords get too tightly wrapped around the base, then it's back to 1 and start over.



And then, just because no one has gotten hurt yet, we film a scene where Paul has to literally scale the side of the house. Everything is wet and slippery. From my vantage point on the balcony he's attempting to reach, I see his hands grab the rail, then slip momentarily before re-gaining the hold. It's something they're going to have to replace the audio for because you can definitely hear a couple people gasping.

He doesn't seem to mind, and if that isn't the sign of a dedicated actor, then I don't know what is.





Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 2 of Kris & Lindy Boustedt's THE SUMMER HOME

It's a sunrise call for the first shooting day of THE SUMMER HOME. The first scene, as we saw yesterday, involves a shoot at first light on a dock.



Almost immediately it starts raining. Welcome to Seattle.

The dock we're on is maybe 5 feet wide. There are no posts securing it in the corners--just a big post at the end--and the entire thing pivots on a line from the shore to the post like a big see-saw. So picture that dock and how, um, unstable that could be. Now, put a RED camera on it, along with six people, actor Paul Vitulli on a chair, sound equipment, and a monitor. In a misting rain.



Well, make that five people, as it took Eric the sound guy exactly 30 seconds to decide he'd be much better off just standing in the ankle-deep water. I'm not sure I blame him.

Luckily, it's not a complicated scene, so we're in and out (out and in?) pretty quickly. And most of that stuff discussed in the video? That whole discussion about match cuts? Tossed.



But isn't that essentially what figuring out a scene is all about? You come up with the scene when you write it, and in your head it looks perfect, but your DP sees it differently in his head. Your actor too. And in order to get everyone on the same page, you go through the scene, beat by beat, trying to figure out the best, most efficient way to do it. Very often you'll have 3 or 4 versions of that. Sometimes (rarely) you get it right the first time. But the important thing is the process, because it's there that you really dig into the scene. The deeper you can dig, the richer the final product will be, even something as simple as a guy sitting on a dock at sunrise.

If you're working a film like THE SUMMER HOME, where there's fewer than 5 lines of dialogue, then it becomes even more important. There's no exposition scene where Character A tells Character B something Really Important, so you really have to know not just what narrative points you're trying to get across with a scene, but whether or not they'll be noticed by the audience. Easier said than done.



For the rest of the day we're pretty much in the bedroom. The location has a garage, which we've cleaned out to function as a staging area, so while the house is small, we're able to at least move around more or less freely.

Plus, we've got a fiery Executive Producer who demands attention at every opportunity. Seriously, Falcor has more energy than the rest of the cast and crew combined.



It's a long day, wrapping late in the night and the turnaround is short, which is far from ideal, but it's the film everyone signed up for. And Wonder Russell brought lots of beer.

You can ask a crew to do a lot if you supply beer.





Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 1 of Kris & Lindy Boustedt's THE SUMMER HOME

If you've been following along from the start, you'll remember that earlier this year I took a ferry out to Vinalhaven, an island off the coast of Maine, to work on Andrew Brotzman's NOR'EASTER. It was very cold in the North Atlantic Ocean in February, and I think everyone pretty much assumed that would be our only ferry film. Because, really, how many people film on remote islands?

That's why it was a little surprising to find myself back on a ferry mere weeks later, this time heading for an island off the coast of Washington State. Is it a sign of a new island film movement in indie film? Were we all so enamored with LOST that we just had to find our own little Dharma Initiative?

Probably not. My guess is it's just a coincidence.



The West Coast film in question is Kris and Lindy Boustedt's THE SUMMER HOME. Written by the Boustedt's and lead actress Wonder Russell (CONNECT TO), it's a small character drama revolving around two nomadic characters who come across a house on the ocean.

We're filming on Lopez Island (but the film isn't necessarily set on an island. I think we just need a shore), hence the ferry, in the summer home of someone in Wonder Russell's family. The cast and crew arrives on two different ferries. In the first one: myself, co-director Kris Boustedt, DP Ty Migota, and AC Nicholas Davis. None of us have ever seen this location before, or anything beyond a couple of photos of the exterior.

Think about that for a minute. How many times do you check out a location before you start filming? Three? Four? But if the location is decently far away and you're working on a short turnaround, you might not be able to do a proper location scout. And without a proper location scout, you're pretty much just flying blind.

And the house is, well, it's pink. Really, really pink. Grandma pink. I'm not sure photographs could have done it justice, even if we had them, but here's one.



The schedule calls for our first shot on Day 1 to be a single person on a dock at sunrise, only the dock is a little different than we thought--chiefly there's a big huge post in the middle of it. The sort of thing you can't exactly shoot around to get the effect they're looking for. Well, not easily. So maybe shooting around it isn't the best idea. Maybe you use it to your advantage.



It's pretty clear that despite not having seen the actual location, these guys are well-prepared. I sat in on a couple of pre-production meetings and watched them go over and over the script, trying to squeeze every last bit out of it.

So maybe that's a decent substitute for not seeing the location. Sure, it's a hassle, but you have to compensate by scouting out the emotional locations until you know them like the back of your hand.

Will it work? We'll see.






Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.