Driving to back to our location at Johnny Mercer's Pier for Day 2, I look up through my sunroof at the gun barrel gray sky.  Rain is not something that we need… nope, there's nothing in the script that calls for rain towers so I'm hopeful that the cloud cover will burn off.  Pulling into a parking space at the beach, I do see patches of blue sky peeking through the cloud cover… weather is going to be our friend today… The Weather Channel prediction was right, "no worries" Bill K said to me the night before as we were leaving Dockside after a cold beer.  (Can I have a Meteorology Team along for all my future gigs?!)

Having an 8am call is so much more civilized…   Our crew began to show up with Tricky leading the charge and, of course, Robert Hoelen close behind… Production Assistants grabbed coolers, bags of food and helped Mike R get his craft service table set up under the pier for breakfast.  (I had to laugh later when Mike told me that the folding table I had gotten him had to be the heaviest table in the whole world… he couldn't wait to be  rid of it!!!)  I mentioned before that a film crew moves on it's stomach and that's no lie.  When we do technical scouts, where we plan on parking the crafty truck and catering come up quickly in conversations… locations department knows that and wants to make sure neither is parked too far away from the set.  The crew grabs some Hardee's chicken biscuits and coffee (not the "breakfast of champions" or is it?), watching Ron, Ben and Stephen discuss the day's first shot.  I respectfully give them a minute or two, then bulldog in and ask where the camera should be placed… (I was the 1st AD today for the Cantore work) and as a AD, I always like to get the camera placed as soon as possible.  We used a couple of Bill's friends from the UNCW's film school to help us out with this scene, good folks!   

TWC creative team wanted a few more beauty shots of Jim Cantore on the beach… so we set up camera near the water's edge with the rays of the sun bouncing off the waves, couldn't ask for a prettier shot.  Jim Cantore arrived ready to shoot moments later and we were off to the races…

11 am was when I wanted to move the company up to the pier, so the guys had a good 2 hours to get plenty of footage of Jim C.  After the cloud cover burned off, it got hot again… really hot quickly.  Watching talent melt in the sun is never easy… Our makeup artist, Bryan M had his hands full this morning keeping Jim looking fresh.  Stephen C did a fair amount of directing himself with all these shots (I'll say it here, Stephen's writing, producing and directing, maybe TWC should give the man a raise, I mean he's wearing 3 hats and all…)

I needed Ben C to go to Wardrobe and pick out our talent's clothes for the second promo and I needed to go to get our actors to sign their contacts… very important.  So I left Bill K and Stephen C to get all the shots they needed and followed Ben C off the beach to the waiting van. At the house, Ben C quickly worked through the wardrobe that Robin D had purchased and found the look that he was looking for… the guys looked terrific.  Robin D needed to "distress" (make the wardrobe look older) the pants of one of the cast members but other than that they were ready to go.  Bryan would finish their makeup and hair on set… Ben left me to explain to the cast which contract they where signing and how much it would be worth.  Well, SAG hadn't gotten back to me about which contract to use so I took a gamble and used the one that looked correct. (Nope.)  Anyway, the actors asked a few questions and signed on the dotted line.  Filling out the starting paperwork is a big pain for both cast and crew (we have to do it on every production that we work on, even if we've worked for the company before, lots of trees being cut down)… you have to carry 2 forms of ID, fill out 4 or 5 pages of personal information and make sure all the pages have been signed correctly.  With that tiresome paperwork done, we also headed back to the beach and the action.

Stephen C and Bill K seemed happy with the footage they had shot and handed the floor back to Ben C who needed to finish a leftover scene from the first promo.  Just before 11am we said goodbye (wrapped) to Jim Cantore and moved the company off the sunny beach and up onto the even sunnier pier… there wasn't a cloud in sight… just the Carolina blue sky and that huge yellow thing in the sky beating down on our heads.  Our set was at the very end of the pier… a 100 yards or so walk from the air-conditioned Pier Building, for a heartbeat I wondered if I could watch them film from within the frosty cold restaurant, Bill K gave me a "is he really gonna wait in here" look as he plodded out the door into the sauna.  I smiled and followed him.  The crew moved all the equipment they thought they would need to the end of the pier and we all settled down to film the last promo… Thank goodness the wind did pick up… I would ask the same question for the rest of the day to crew members… "Why aren't you drinking a water?"  Mike Ray probably carried 15 cases of water to very end of that cement pier that day for our crew and talent.

Since we didn't "own" the location (that would be an exclusive buyout - and more expensive), we had a couple of bogeys (guys fishing off the end of the pier) that we had to keep our eye's on… they, for the most part, were pretty cool about not being too loud or walking into our shot while we were filming.  We had to throw Conrad B in as a Extra in the background (look for him) as a fisherman, I think he really started fishing, too!  Ben C concentrated on getting the best performances from his cast.  I have to tell you that Don Baker and Julian Bell nailed it, take after take.  Right before lunch, one of the bogeys (fishermen) caught a barracuda… that is one of the ugliest fishes I've ever seen but they sure were proud of it! Andrea S and Jim S wrangled the bogeys the best they could without causing bad feelings, Karen G kept a steely eye on the craft service table… under the pier… in the shade… how did she manage to land that plum assignment, I wonder?   

We called lunch not long afterwards and the guys went to find the air conditioned restaurant.  I volunteered for fire watch duty (security) on the equipment, made myself comfortable, started people watching (those fishermen must have dragged that barracuda up and down that pier 5 times… not sure why) and enjoying a few moments of peace… or so I thought.  Coming down the pier, engulfed in rising heat waves, a figure was striding towards me…  and I could tell they meant business… I looked around, I was trapped, no place to run to… it was… our key paper wrangler… Alicia! [Editorial Note: KT has watched way too many spaghetti westerns]  She pulled up a chair and pleasantly went over the needed business paperwork, (SAG contracts, talent releases, time cards, photocopying government id's and such).  Knowing that I would fail to collect these important or check that they where correctly filled out, Alicia put Andrea on the case.  Alicia secured all the paperwork that she could and headed back to the office to continue calculating what this was costing and if we were still on budget. 

After lunch, we had 2 hours to finish the day's work… The first business up after lunch involved a peg leg… that's all I can tell you at the moment.  Earlier in the day, I had floated an idea to Ben C that maybe we didn't want our actor to wear the peg leg, just the time involved getting ready and what if he hurt himself.  Ben C immediately saw the perils of having a cast member wear the device… he looked down at my feet… too young… he moved around staring at everybodies feet, stopping at Bill "Stuntman" Keith's feet who was on an important phone call back to HQ.  He directed Bill to turn, wiggle his toes and hop around on one foot.  Ben C was satisfied, we got our man!  Bill, now "Peg Leg Stand-in", Keith looked a bit ruffled at the new request… but agreed to do it.  Boy, did he regret that… we couldn't get the peg leg to work correctly (it worked great in the shop but moving as quickly as we were we must of installed it incorrectly on Bill K… Sorry Buddy!)  During filming, we could tell that Bill K was less than comfortable, he had to hold up his leg, balance on one foot and turn the wooden peg leg… take after take… kinda like the work he did on the bike.  I managed to stay out of his eye line cuz I could tell he wanted to discuss a possible "bump" (usually in cash) that some crew member probably told him he should ask for.  Well, he got it done… Who knew Bill had such great dance moves by the way… on one leg no less!     

While filming this insert, my mentor, Robert Girolami came to visit the set… (I heard Karen G squeal and knew right away he had arrived… Bob's got that effect on the ladies) he's interested in the camera we were using… Bob's got a TV series that he's producing in the fall and wanted to gather intel on how shooting on HD worked… (more on his show on a different blog).  Bob chatted with the crew for a while before the heat got to him and he left for cooler temps… I look forward to working with Bob again. 

Well, the clocked clicked quickly to 4pm and I heard Stephen C yell out "THAT'S A WRAP"…

Wrap of Principal Photography is the beginning of Post-Production… our DIT, Will was busy transferring the day's work onto a hard drives that I needed to Fed-Ex to Atlanta so the editor's could start their work… Stephen would take the backup hard drive with him on the plane, along with the sound dvd's.  Everybody else was busy loading the equipment onto the trucks, filling out the last of their paperwork and "Getting Out of Dodge"… Within an hour, everybody and everything was gone off that beach, now everything from the shoot was just a memory, a great wonderful memory! 

Now, well into Post, with the business of things landing as they should and great reports on footage being edited, I give big thanks to all who've helped and encouraged us. Thank you, Bill, for taking a chance on me and Southern Gothic Productions with this amazing project!

Friends - a little bird has told me that sometime in the coming week we'll see the fruits of our labor on The Weather Channel - TV and internet! Hope you're watching for it!