Wednesday, May 26, 2010

More.

A record 10 'Avatar' enthusiasts* and lasagna lovers watched 'Blue Crush' last night at our weekly dinner and a movie night and pretty much maxed out our theater (living room).  Even our overflow area (hallway) was full but thanks to Kim who always brings her own chair and the new 150 pound tree stump-end table, everyone had a place to sit


If our house was a meal we would be about half way through dessert. 
1. The main level concrete floor has 2 coats of clear finish on it and is a masterpiece that no one in the lasagna group noticed so maybe is doesn't look as incredible as I think it does.
2. Vin hung chains from the gutters.  His intent was to divert rainwater while looking chic (we saw it in a magazine).  So far they only work part of the time which is when it is not raining and they are just looking chic.
3. I love our sliding barn door-y bathroom door mounted on inline skate bearings and am hoping that someday I won't even hear Vince mumbling that he'd rather have an in-swing door every time he slides it shut.  The bedroom doors are in-swing and chic because of the strip magnet (like a shower door) that sucks and holds them shut.   The closet doors are still pretend.














My Kitchen.
9 feet 2 inches is a perfect sized kitchen for someone who doesn't want a microwave or coffee maker.


Visitors:
Tim (of MikWright fame) and Boyd (of having a 40th birthday party that lasted a whole week fame) showed up one day after school.  Flying first class from Charlotte, they found martinis and acupuncture in Nelson.  Hiking trails and Gilbert Grape in Metaline Falls. 

Our friend Eric came to visit. He's in the truck...the one with the cap.  We started following each other in Massachusetts.  Now he's in Bozeman, except for last week when he was in Metaline Falls.


* at the last minute we decided  that Avatar was too long.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Meet Our Movie






Brian (lead male) is bringing his new girlfriend Kathy to meet his family for Christmas dinner in rural Minnesota. Brian's family (age range from 5 to 75) expects him to bring the old familiar girlfriend they love and consider part of the family. When Brian enters with someone new, they don't know how to react. The story resolves when Kathy saves the life of one of the Uncles in a quirky, comedic scene and is welcomed into the family.

Loosely based on a true story, "You're Not Cindy" is an autobiographical comedy/drama of a Christmas when my college boyfriend surprised his family with me and I received a used, non-working clock radio in a shoe box as an impromptu gift from his confused parents weakly faking that they had expected me.

Without boring you with specifics, certain things need to be done before our movie hit the big screen.
1. Write a screenplay.
2. Find professional actors that would act for free
3. Find a location that looked like a Minnesota farmhouse, seated 16 for a Christmas dinner, wouldn't mind 35 strangers making themselves at home and was easily accessible for actors and crew from Canada and the US.*
4. Prepare a couple turkey dinners for 16 including pickled herring and several Jellos with Cool-whip.
5. Choose and wrap Christmas gifts for a big bunch of people in February.
6. Find and inspect hotel rooms for cast and crew.
7. Coordinate catering.
8. Find Christmas outfits for everyone.
9. Find a dog the day before the shoot since that is when we found out that our Canadian dog didn't have a rabies shot.
yada yada yada
Real movies have a lot of other people do this stuff but as usual it was just the two of us.

A series of lucky coincidences led us to the Lovitt Restaurant in Colville, Washington with an exterior that looked exactly like a Minnesota farmhouse if you didn't really know what a Minnesota farmhouse looked like. The Lovitt Restaurant, as you might guess by the name IS a restaurant, so inside it looked like a restaurant which would be fine if we had written a screenplay about a family that was having dinner at a restaurant but they weren't....they we at Aunt Marge and Uncle Joe's farmhouse for Christmas. Spokane cousins, that I only talk to when I need something (mostly kidding), earned a healthy spot in our credits with a collection of Christmas decorations that sang, snowed, kicked, swiveled and blinked. Then, between local secondhand, rent-to-own and furniture stores we managed to find a couch, loveseat and comfy recliner around town. Coffee and end tables, refrigerator, stove, a couple afghans and a TV that we could have on in the background throughout the day (is anyone else familiar with this family gathering phenomenon?)

Stuff I'd never really thought about...
If you want to shoot 'actor A' close-up from the front saying her lines and then 'actor B's' face reacting to 'actor A' when she's talking...it's at least two different set ups/takes....lights, mics, camera...everything. Then if you want to get a shot of 'actor C' overhearing and reacting to 'actor A and B', it's also and other set up/take. And, if actors A, B and C don't do their lines and reactions exactly the same every time, the takes can't be edited together smoothly which means that not all takes are good and you have to keep shooting until you get something good. You get the idea. When i realized that all of the gifts in a gift opening scene have to be wrapped up over and over exactly the same for each take, it was too late to make reservations for Costa Rica and spend the winter on the beach. A dinner table scene is similar. Let's use jello as an example. It gets passed around. Everyone takes some and puts it on their plates. Cut. Now let shoot it the other side. Easy for you to say. Now we need another untouched jello and clean plates.
And this is why we ran out of time.

Film Festival.
The venue (OK...so it was the school cafeteria) was sold out (if you can consider a free event 'sold-out') for our world premier. The standing room only crowd of movie buffs and surprised students looking for dinner, enjoyed the evening of 9 student films and 50 cent cookies that cost me 75.*
The audience laughed everywhere they were supposed to and then some. We held a question and answer session after the films and someone asked if our Christmas dinner scene was a real family dinner and if everyone knew each other. I guess that could be interpreted as a compliment? The event was followed by a party at our Nelson house until 2:30 and included international guests from as far away as Metaline Falls, Washington.


*For the event I bought some sweet breads and then went back and picked out 10 cookies at the Kootenay Coop Bakery.
"Would you like two more cookies?" the cashier asked.
"No thanks, I'm good", I responded.
"OK. That's 7-50".
I handed her a crisp purple 10 dollar bill.
"Thank you. If you would have gotten 2 more it would have been a dozen for 4-75." she said handing me my change.

If you think this post has a lot going on...you should have been at the Lovitt during the shoot.

The first photo is of the Lovitt before we did our magic.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Meet Our Movie, cont'







You have to look at these too.

The photos are of the shoot and my female filmmaker classmates JoAnne and Rory. JoAnne (left) took the photos on location, brought her kids to act and whipped up a tiramisu (see scenes 3 and 4) out of a cool-whip and cinnamon covered stainless steel pot.