Shooting Day
Well…it’s been a while since I’ve posted. We finally shot The Whiskey Priest last Sunday, October 4. And it was awesome! But not without trial…
I’ll catch you up…
Since we picked the cast, my DP, Nathan Carrington, put together a really solid camera/grip/light team for our shoot day. Everybody worked for free and they were fantastic. I hope the movie is good and makes them proud. These guys were A+ professionals who were not only efficient and hard working, but they knew what they were doing to make a great image for the film. Nathan himself is a fantastic DP and I hope to collaborate more with him in the future.
DOING A PERIOD PIECE! A pretty dangerous idea. Little did I think about every single prop and wardrobe that would need to go into this movie. Luckily, two things worked out for me. It’s only 1 location. And I learned about Debbiesbook.com. That website saved my life, which found me History For Hire Prop House. That prop house is full of really nice people who helped me pick out a lot of great props for a 1930’s Barber Shop piece. It cost a solid chunk of change but I was in so deep at this point it didn’t matter. That website also led me to find Palace Costume Co where they have SO much period piece clothing.
So everything was coming together great, right? We thought so. The cast, crew, props, wardrobe, location, shot list, equipment were all ready to go… That is until a few days before the shoot our location fell through on us. This was pretty devastating, but I’m never one to give up.
So…I spent my next 3 days sleeping a total of about 8 hours. I spent all day every day driving to Barber Shops looking for the perfect replacement, with great owners, etc… Well suffice to say we found one at about 8 PM the night before the shoot. That is until 9 PM when that Barber Shop backed out as well.
So now I’m having a mental breakdown. I’ve got 15 crew members and 4 cast members that need directions to the shoot, countless people that have invested their time into the film, and about $3000 of rentals at our houses. Well luckily we found Parlor Barber Shop. Andy, the owner, saved us. In a big way. It all worked out. It wasn’t my first choice, but in the end it was probably the best choice. It was in a quiet location (we had no permit - because of the last minute thing), the owner was cool with us moving his stuff everywhere, and it was close.
So we shot the movie…AND IT WAS BRILLIANT!
It looks beautiful. I’ll put screen grabs up soon.
Tags: The Whiskey Priest
