Production Day 4

Today was an interesting day. Well, the first few hours of it wasn’t, because we weren’t starting to shoot until 6 in the evening. But when we did start out our day’s worth of film work at around 5, things began to get interesting.

We had to take two cars, as we were using borrowed cars as props in some of the scenes being shot. Soon after leaving, Jonathan got a call from his AD; she basically had no gas and needed him to pick her up rather than her driving out to the location.

So I went on alone in a pickup truck to the farm location, near Shellsburg, Iowa. The trip out there went great; it was just when I got there…. I wasn’t sure where to park, as we were going to be using the farm’s driveway, so I drove past it. Realizing that I should have just went ahead and gone into it, I decided that I needed to turn around.

And so I did. Or, attempted to, at least… It looked like a fairly even and level ditch; the grass was at about the level of the road. So I turned, meaning to only go a little way into it just to give me enough space to turn around on the road.

Wanna see what happened? Look no further:

Doesn’t look so bad, eh?

Yep, it was that bad. These Iowa ditches are deceiving.

‘Nuff said.

Once the tow truck got there, things started going better (for a while…).

Sooooo… That’s how our film shoot began this evening.

Just before we had left Jonathan’s house, I had a sudden impulse to go grab the second camera, which I hadn’t planned on bringing. I think that the Lord was prompting me to do so, as it was easily accessible (along with the all-essential battery that I didn’t think I would need…) in the cab of the truck rather than in the bed (where the other camera bag was completely blocked by lights and other grip equipment). Thank you, Lord!

Things went fairly smooth after that, except that we were losing light like crazy towards the end. We ended up lighting the outside of the farmhouse and shooting the pre-sunset scene as if it was post-sunset (’cause it kinda was…).

Since we had done this, Jonathan thought it would be good to get some footage of the moon, so on the way back from the shoot, we stopped on the side of the road. One problem: two cars with no headlights on, dark night, out in the country. And a police car.

Don’t worry, we didn’t get arrested. He basically told us that where we were wasn’t a good spot (right on top of a hill), and that we should try a gravel road instead. We were all thankful that that went smoothly…

So we went out onto a country road, gravel, dark. It felt kinda funny though, being out there, two cars in complete darkness…. and a farmhouse not a quarter of a mile away. I don’t know if they saw us or not, but if they did, it probably didn’t have the appearance of being anything good…

But anyway, it was an interesting day, full of adventures and excitement!

(and yes, in case you’re wondering, our drive home was surprisingly without any incidents!)