Set Report from Day #2

Whew...so...yesterday we had our first *official* day of filming. It was completely amazing.



(side note- this isn't a great picture of Sharayah, but you can see her cool coat and hair color. Note about the hair- Sharayah had QUITE the time getting it to that color. She had to dye it twice, and use dye remover in between that. It was a bit crazy!)

The day started with a flurry of preparations. While my younger sister (taking on the duties of props mistress) assembled Mrs. Brier's grocery bags and the winter version of the rosebushes, I drove over to a friend's house to pick up some huge outdoor lights to use in filming.

Then I came home and packed up my car with the various props and equiptment. To my surprise and extreme delight my brother and sister both agreed to come along and help at the shoot. They were both great assets, as my sister ran around helping to keep everyone warm and my brother used his size, strength and skill to help make our lighting changes swift and efficent.



We met at the house of our Blanche and Mrs. Brier. Everyone had assembled by a little past four and we watched the footage from Saturday, talked over the upcoming shoot, and prayed. This is God's project over and over so prayer is so vital to this film!

Then we sorted out the driving situation and figured that all...fifteen of us? Could fit into four cars.

In addition to our crew from Saturday, and my siblings, we also had two friends of mine from former film projects and another young gentleman who will be running sound for us on future shoots. Plus, of course, Mrs. Brier, and her husband and daughter.

It took us about a half hour to get down to the area of the city where we would be shooting. The house we are using as the Brier's home is just lovely- light blue with white trim and a closed in porch, set on a bit of a hill. However it's in exactly the sort of somewhat rough neighborhood you'd expect to see as the modern metaphor for the dark forest of the fairy tale. In fact, one of the neighbors who stopped by during our filming told us that the house next to ours had once been a drug house! How weird!



We started getting set up a little after 5:30 and worked until 10:00. Everyone was just amazing. Despite the extreme cold there were no complaints, only cheerfulness. In fact, Jed (our Bear) loves the cold so much that we had a hard time getting him in to warm up!

I had storyboarded the entire snowball fight sequence and that made things move much smoother. It also gives me confidence that we're going to be able to edit it together easily because I put a lot of pre-planning time into making sure all the shots would fit together properly.

It was awesome to watch Jed and Hannah and Sharayah. They all fit their parts so perfectly, that even though I was directing it, there wasn't nearly as much for me to tell them as you'd think. They just instictively knew what they should be doing. I'd say "action" and immediatly they [i]were[/i] Bear, Blanche and Rose. And they were hilarious! The snowball fight scene has to be the most laughter-inducing scene of the whole story and it was just so fun to watch them play it out.

It was just a blast. I think everyone had a great time. We have a good comradarie among the cast and crew. It just blew me away to see everything going so well. In fact, as I told my brother and sister later, by the time I got home I just about cried from happiness. God has his hand so evidantly in this project and it just amazes me.