Earthquakes are to a girl's guitar - They're just another good vibration

On Sunday we went to the closing night of Lydia and an earthquake interrupted the 2nd act. It was my first earthquake experience and I was relieved to have my dearest friends with me. Mari, Barbara & Bonnie (my LA mothers), Christine, Laura, James (Mr. Laura) and Matt were there to support my sister as she ended her run on a play that’s been with her for over a year. We filmed Love Song between the Denver & Yale runs of Lydia.

I am starting pre-production on my next project. I will once again collaborate with my sister, Matt, Christine & Laura. I consider myself blessed that I get to work with my friends and my family.

Last night we celebrated Laura’s birthday. We got to meet Suzi’s boyfriend, he’s a musician and generously gave me two cds to use on the film. Mr. Suzi is a known rock star so I’m very excited to use his music. There’s a song I LOVE that I’ll be pitching to Christine.

I am now the Music Supervisor for Diving Lessons & Love 10 to 1. Christine’s piece is currently titled Love 10 to 1. For those of you who don’t know, yes, I’m getting divorced. I try not to go into my personal life here but my soon 2BX was in charge of music. I had a lot of fun picking music for Love Song & he brought in a lot of great songs. We’ve edited so much of the film that a lot of the music he picked ended up on the cutting room floor or more appropriate in the "deleted scenes" hard drive. There’s a great piece of irony in that sentence somewhere!

It will be interesting working on music for Christine’s film, she’s going to want Lilith Fair and I want to give her Judas Priest (kidding).

xoxo,
Lucy

LOVE 10 To 1 - IT"S A WRAP

Today we wrapped our FEATURE!

This journey has taken us all over the city of Los Angeles and beyond, here's a list all the places we've filmed;

Cerritos Swim Center
Downtown Los Angeles
Thai Town
Sherman Oaks
Burbank
Melrose
Brentwood
Hollywood
Venice
Woodland Hills

This crazy journey was led by three female writer/directors/producers (Christine, Lucy & Laura). We couldn't have done it without the help of our four Cinematographers (Leah Anova, Erik Forsell, Matt Boyd & Brian Sorbo) a kick ass crew that rotated positions but for the most part was consistent through out the shoot (Casey Slade, Brian Sorbo, Frederick Chaignant, Lynn Langmead, Jeffrey Waldron and Matt Boyd), our kick ass sound people (Carrie and Ray (1st round), Ian and Jarred (Love Song), the most amazing make up artist Susan Thompson, my costume designer Natasha & Jannae who did wardrobe, the best roommate Lisa J. who did anything and everything (Christine's roommate), my co-producer on Love Song, Meagan and a wonderful cast of 40+ people. There were others who helped during the first round back in October/November; Jenna, Dominick, Isaiah, Paul, Sandra, I know I'm forgetting people and I'm sorry for the omission but I've gotten no sleep. Also those who helped these last two days; Tad and Layne (sound), Kevin, Julien, Jamar and Craig.

Thank you to our friends and families for their help and support and to all of those who kindly donated services, locations, equipment, gear, music etc. Oh, yes and those who kindly gave us $$$$$$.

A HUGE THANK YOU to East West Players, Projetct:Involve, Film Independent, The Filmmakers Alliance & Movies By Women.

I'm too tired to write more.


xoxo,

Lucy

Seeing Things Through

When Christine, Laura and I started this process, no matter how far it seemed, we always acted with the intention of making this film and seeing it through. Yes, we’ve gone through growing pains; there were times when we wanted to forget the whole thing (because everything costs so much $$$$) and there were a few times when we would have loved to duke it out (again $$$$). We were under a lot of pressure because; we put up all our money into this venture, we had a HUGE cast and crew (especially the November shoot) to take care of and most important, we needed to DELIVER. This was our dream and we were one of the few who are privileged enough to pursue it and see it come to fruition. We made a FEATURE FILM!

A friend of mine thinks we spent too much $$$ on the film. He's working on a script and he plans to get our production value and quality with his $900 camera and a 3-4 person crew. I didn’t want to argue with him but I have to say that I was a little insulted. My production value was aided by the equipment we used (HVX 200 with Zeiss lenses, can’t remember if they were super speed or ultra prime) but the majority of it came from the cast and crew’s talent and experience. They made my story come alive and it was their hard work and dedication that gave me the production value I got. My friend is going to shoot his film himself and he’s going to direct it too. I’m not saying it’s not doable because it is. However, if you are going to tackle a film on your own, you need to write it with minimal locations and few actors. A strong team behind you is also key. He’s going to use the film White Red Panic as his model http://www.vimeo.com/1333375?pg=embed&sec=1333375

I saw a little bit of this film and it looks good. However, Love 10 to 1 is a romantic comedy and we have a lot of characters and a lot of locations. Romantic comedies look a certain way, our model for making this film was not a film we saw online. We wanted to make Love Actually meets Sex and the City on an ultra low budget. This was our dream and because we got such a late start at it we felt we had to do this right. If Love 10 to 1 was a horror movie and we would have used The Blair Witch Project as our model then it would be a different story.

People look at Robert Rodriguez and how he got into the industry and think they can do it that way too but he’s the exception, not the norm. Like everyone else who makes a film, I would like to make this a career, I would like to be hired to direct and hopefully this film can open the doors to those possibilities. I started preproduction in my head for my next two films. When my edit is done I’ll focus on pre-pro for the next two.

I have one day of establishing shots and Christine has her scenes with Ma, Grandma & Jenny to shoot. I’m very excited to roll up my sleeves and get to work on that. I need to backtrack, if you read the previous blog that Christine posted – What an exciting addition to our wonderful cast! Emily Kuroda as Ma and Takayo Fischer as Grandma, way to go Christine - please blog about this:-)

I am so proud of the work we’ve done and that from the beginning we set high standards for our film. I don’t know where our film will take us but I’m looking forward to the journey.

xoxo,
Lucy

The Election, Strong Women and Love 10 to 1

This film was conceived some four years ago when Christine and I met at a directing class at UCLA. At the time there were four stories - each about 20 minutes long. During one of our first meetings, the news broke that John Kerry had gotten the nomination from the Democratic Party. Fast forward four years later, and when I was on set shooting Love Song, news broke that Barack Obama got the nomination from the Democratic Party. Talk about coming full circle. It took us about 2 years to write the script. During the first year one of the writers parted ways because she knew she was not going to be able to raise the 5k that at the time we thought each story was going to cost - we were so innocent to think that we could shoot each story for 5k! But I digress.

By the time we release the film there will be a new President in the White House. Which brings me to the current election; I won't use this blog to take sides or to profess my preference for a candidate, but I will use it to state the obvious; The media and a good chunk of the country did Hillary wrong and now they are going after Michelle Obama. The woman is being crucified for speaking her mind and then when she tries to show a different side of her personality by going on The View they gang up on her for being "fake". The allure of being a woman and especially a strong woman is that we have many facets to our personalities. For example, if a woman is the CEO of a big corporation, or a film director, she's going to behave differently in the boardroom or on the set than she would when she's baking cookies for her kids or when she's out to dinner with her friends. Women today are expected to be Super Man, juggling career, kids, social life etc. In the case of Michelle Obama, campaigning alongside her husband, being under media scrutiny, taking care of her kids, plus all the other things she does, she should be allowed (without the media making something more out of it) to be who she is; that probably means that she's warm and sweet around her girls, smart and supportive when she's campaigning for her husband and all around Super Man/Wonder Woman the rest of the time. I have not heard anything about Cindy McCain but I've been living in the world of filmmaking where it's easy to loose touch with the world when you are in production. I'm sure Cindy is Super Man/Wonder Woman as well.

I strongly believe that behind a successful man there's usually a few women responsible for getting him there, usually their mother, wife, sisters and daughters not to mention a father, brothers or sons. Obviously the logic works in reverse as well.
Bottom line is that to be successful it helps if you have a strong support system and if that's not the case you need to be like the little engine that could and just keep moving ahead.

Which brings me to my next point - As a writer/producer/director on this project I wore additional hats, I basically did what needed to be done to take care of my crew, my actors and anything that came up, basically Super Man/Wonder Woman. As I'm watching the footage, I take pride in the strong women I created, because of that, the film is beautiful and sexy; that's my vision, those are my images up there and I need to stand by them. I had a conversation with Christine today and we came to the conclusion that in order to sell sexy we need to be sexy. We are going to embrace our inner Candace Bushnell, Pamela Des Barre and Jackie Collins - why is it that it's ok for female authors to be sexy if they are going to sell sexy books and not for female directors? We're going to change that!

We'll put the pictures of the director's photo shoot and you can judge for yourself - let's hope Suzie is available to give us a make over.

xoxo,

Lucy

Happy Valentine's Day from Dirty Virgin

SAG

I'm happy to report that last week I got my SAG contract for Love Song signed by my SAG rep and they sent me my copy in the mail.

HOORAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!


xoxo,

Lucy

In the Spirit of Good Karma

Please take some time to read the article below. I cringed as I read it (and I know Christine and Laura will too). In a much smaller, minute, miniscule, itty bitty scale (our budget was nowhere near what this was) it hit very close to home for different reasons.

This blog was supposed to be an honest account of the making of Love 10 to 1. In the last four years (it took about two to write, with writers and directors coming and going) we've endured a lot of hardships and met a lot of scummy people. In the spirit of Good Karma, we've refrained from blogging about certain experiences.

Christine, Laura and I got together last week and I urged them to blog. The subject of what should/shouldn't we blog about came up. Again, we decided that certain things should be kept private. Christine said her blogging would discourage other filmmakers, but we agreed that we should all blog about the unpleasant situations we've encountered. I'm just not there yet.

I promise that at some point, maybe when the film is completed, we will each take the time to share those experiences with our readers. We are not interested in discouraging anyone's dreams, just giving you a reality check on what it takes to put your money where your dreams are in order to make them come true.

With all of that said, we have also met AMAZING people along the way and collected an enormous amount of experience and resources.

At the end of the day I am grateful for it all.

xoxo,

Lucy

Don't F*CK w/SAG

My Sag rep almost gave me a heart attack the other day because he has not received my SAG paper work for the two days of shooting for Love Song. We played phone tag for about a 2 weeks. It was very hard getting through to him on the phone and the last message that he left me said something along the lines of being fined and getting an injunction put on the film EEEEEEEEEEEK!

This is the last thing any filmmaker wants to hear. I sent him an email letting him know that I had sent the paperwork and had the tracking number from the post office. I told him I had copies I could send him. The email was followed by another two calls and finally, on Monday we spoke.

All is good now, I can breathe again. He said I can send him the copies but I need to sign a few documents that they need originals of.

The almost heart attack is over and I'm grateful to my SAG rep for following up on the status of the project. So to all your actors out there, your union does work for you:-)

I love my actors and I would never mess with their union. Despite what Christine may have said on one of the earlier blogs, WE LOVE SAG.

xoxo,
Lucy

Our Cast - Part II - Love Song (Dirty Virgin's Gig)

Onahoua & The Fabulous Miss Wendy

Onahoua, The Fabulous Miss Wendy & Gerry - Where's Justin??

Onahoua & The Fabulous Miss Wendy

Onahoua


We are waiting on additional pics because apparently someone has all the pics of David Villar (Dustin). You can scroll down and see him with ME. Yes, I know, I'm the envy of all the girls but if you ask nicely, he'll hug you & pose for a picture with you too:-)

I have a hot pic of Justin taking his shirt off but I should ask him if it's ok to post yet another picture of him w/out a shirt - what do you say Justin?

xoxo,
Lucy

Our Cast - Love 10 to 1 (The first story) Jenny & her girlfriends

Ashley, Jesse, Shireen & Cazzie

Ashley, Jesse, Shireen & Cazzie

Jesse, Shireen & Cazzie

Christine directs the ladies



xoxo,
Lucy

It's All In The Starzzzz!

Christine is a Pisces; Lucy, Laura and about 75% of the Love 10 to 1 cast & crew are bullish (Taurus). Here's what 2008 holds for Christine, Lucy & Laura (at least according to the cosmos). Not a Pisces or a Taurus? See what the stars have in store for you in 2008. http://www.astrology.com/year/

Taurus
OVERVIEW: Grounded and practical Taurus will experience extra boosts of optimism and find time to bring creative projects to the forefront, this year. Your personal needs will be met the more you tune into your spiritual side, and your growth will be directly connected with your ability to accept your deep philosophical transformation. You will continue to work out how you can use your creative side to improve your finances.
Methodically organizing your perceptions as they come to you will enhance your career. Weighing choices carefully as they arise before making decisions will be very important, this year. Take advantage of this expansive time and act upon your desire to enroll in new classes. You could greatly benefit by finishing that degree or get that certificate you've been working on. Likewise, educational trips and romantic vacations exploring different philosophies and arts will give you insight and help you jumpstart your projects and articulate new ideas. You derive nourishment and balance taking sojourns to the mountains or lakeside retreats. You will also benefit by sharing the creative wisdom you have acquired, and see results as your ideas are folded into mainstream values.
This is a good time to follow that urge to express your deep inner changes in your personal growth and publish or write your own books. You enjoy sharing your musical talents, and creating a new musical piece is a very strong possibility. You can be very successful in expressing your higher principles, whether it is work related or community oriented. Expect monetary returns when you put your ideas into practice.

CAREER: You will spend most of this year exercising your creativity and helping others, which will bring you great financial rewards and success. A high-minded and productive energy will focus your emotional sensitivity to the needs of your co-workers and associates. Your expansive ideas will serve humanity in a bigger way through understanding your own basic needs. You find, as you channel your creative talents, you easily come upon opportunities to be of service to others.

You need to continually work on clearly communicating and promoting your ideas and surrounding yourself with a team of people to support them. You are a hard worker and expect others to help and do their share. With all of these gifts, a position or power or promotion is likely. In this leadership position, you will find a platform for teaching others how to succeed. By the end of the year, all of these changes will lead to the financial rewards you seek, leaving you in a much more secure financial position.

Pisces
OVERVIEW: Pisces thrives through creative transportation and unique social experiences. There will be changes in the way you develop your inner-self, this year. Your ability to multitask will continue, as you become involved in more humanitarian projects. You have tremendous vitality and courage, and a healthy sense of who you are. You usually put your best foot forward, and are possessed by an innate charm and magnetism. You love being physically active, usually with others. You learn to take more responsibility by being diplomatic and tactful.
Your capacity for childlike wonder is a wonderful creative outlet. Sometimes, you may feel an unconscious pull toward an objective or goal that you do not fully understand. You also may be tempted to participate in many activities just to be involved for the social aspects of being around fun-loving people. Your task is to attempt to make conscious choices in these areas, and to become more aware of your true objectives based on your own values and goals, independent from the approval of others. Find happiness by connecting with your higher self, and by helping people to move closer together.

CAREER: You are very attracted by variety in your career and enjoy having a profession in the arts. You have a natural grace and compassion working with people, and they appreciate and respect your help and wisdom. Your creative imagination needs to be indulged when you take the time to meditate and recharge your emotional energy. You love expanding your consciousness and passionately desire to bring your higher ideals and visionary philosophy to mainstream.
Travel and the exploration of your utopian ideals help to bring your vision and work to the world. You have a great passion for using your dreams to reflect truths about reality and a natural ability to teach and share with others. This year will be about learning the best ways to direct this energy to help others. Your insight is grounded in reality and you create harmony in your work, mainly because of having the same purpose and visions as those you collaborate with.
For this reason, it is important that the people you surround yourself with share a collective vision and goal. By the end of the year, you may go through many internal changes in the course of pursuing your vision. You are a real powerhouse, and enjoy being your own boss.

Gratitude & Reflection

For me, December has always been a time for reflection and a time to write down all I am thankful for. I am grateful every day for all I have, but at Christmas I have always taken stock of my good fortune and I make an extra special effort to let the universe know how appreciative I truly am. I was raised Catholic so no pc bs from me, I LOVE CHRISTMAS and I also love St. Pattie’s day but that’s more from being a NYer and loving the color green than anything religious, oh and Halloween, those are my favorite holidays but Christmas is by far, my favorite. One of the things I’m most grateful for is the fact that we FINALLY started shooting. I am grateful for all the people who contributed to getting us here. The support of our friends and family was invaluable and our cast and crew are an amazing and talented group of people. I will forever be grateful for everybody’s support and encouragement.

So this being a blog about our film, I wanted to share with you what this film means to me, the story rather than the making of. Someone asked me what the three stories mean to me and if I can relate to the characters, especially the ones I didn’t write. The answer is yes, I can relate to Jenny as much as I can relate to Shane and as much as I can relate to Jim (Laura’s and my version of him). My friend was not surprised that I related to characters I wrote but found it odd that I would be as passionate about characters I didn’t write. I explained to her that the appeal of the film is that the characters are universal and can speak to everybody because these characters want what we want.

There are three stories that make up Love 10 to 1. The film delves into the lives of three individuals who all want the same thing, LOVE. It’s about the people they come in contact with, and the coincidences that bind them. Even though they live in this big city, they cross paths with each other, frequent the same places and on occasion, interact with the same people.



Jenny is constantly surrounded by friends, family and strangers, yet, there’s something missing. For me, this first story represents the vast world we live in and our quest for happiness.



While Shane’s life as an up and coming rock star has her interacting with a bigger world than Jenny’s, she limits her personal life to people that she trusts; her band, her manager and her roommate. It represents the smaller world we create for ourselves. This story is about realizing that sometimes, what’s missing is usually right in your own back yard.



By the time we get to the last story about Jim, Shane’s guitar player, the world is even smaller, much more personal and raw. When Jim, the groupie magnet randomly meets Jenny, the 29 year old virgin they both come to realize that while their lives and experiences are substantially different, neither can pass up what could be a rare chance for a heartfelt connection. It’s about carpe diem, seizing that moment and staying there for as long as you can.



For me, the film is about opening yourself to the possibilities that the universe sends your way. It’s about being aware of opportunities and realizing that most of the times, what you want most has always been there. It’s about accepting those rare encounters when they are presented to you and seizing that moment. People who come from a different place, physically and emotional can get along and even fall in love. A relationship with a foundation built on tolerance, compassion, and understanding can lead to a lifetime of happiness no matter what your bliss is.

So with this sappy sentiment, I hope you all have a Great Holiday, a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Kwanzaa and a Fantabulous Festivus.

xoxo,
Lucy

In Case You Are Wondering What We Look Like

Christine, Lucy, Shireen & Laura

Who Cares How Much It Costs!

“Who cares how much it costs, you’re doing it Lucy, this is something you’ve been trying to get off the ground for years” a quote from my friend Bob (an actor and future director). This was his reply to my bitching about how much $$ I’ve spent to shoot two days of my film. He’s right though. I’m so grateful that I’m one of the lucky few who actually gets to pursue their dreams. Christine and I have had this conversation before, usually after we bitch about $$. This is how we justify all the money we are spending on following our dreams and achieving our goals.



I need to come up with the rest of my funding to finish shooting in March. I’ll also need money for post, traveling to festivals, and of course marketing. However, for right now I’ll be happy to get money to finish shooting in March. I need to have ½ the money by mid January and then the other half by mid February. I want to have all my $$ in the bank by mid February in order to shoot in March. There’s no way I’m going at it not knowing where the money is coming from like this last round. The funny thing is that the money came, very last minute but it came. I will spare myself that headache. I do want to have the film shot by mid April and then it’s off to editing.

Speaking of editing, we’ve been having a hard time finding someone good to work within our budget. We can’t afford one editor to do all three shorts. Laura was going to ask for a favor from an editor friends and see if he could give her a somewhat affordable rate. That hasn’t panned out too well so at this point, at least Laura and I are planning on doing our own rough cuts and then handing that to an editor to polish.

My good friend Tara Veneruso who runs MoviesByWomen and The Edit Studio is kind enough to let me use her space in her spare time so I can learn to edit. It’s something I’ve been putting off for a while but I feel strongly that directors should learn to edit. Not that they should edit their own films but it’s a skill you should have.

I’ll be at the mercy of my friends and family again and hopefully they’ll be as generous as they were the last time.

Maybe I should buy a money tree. Here’s to fundraising and learning to edit.

Lucy

A forward motion...

Although there is a lot of work to be done on the film, I feel a sense of forward motion and completion.

I have now had the chance to work with all three, amazing, creative, smart, talented, fun, but very different directors. We have shot almost all but 30 percent of the film from my understanding (I could be wrong) but that's what it feels like. I have gone through an experience that has changed my perspective on film making and acting as a whole.

All three of these ladies have a very specific idea of what they want and I think they are going about it in such a positive and collective manner. It can not be easy to constantly get what you want but whether or not Christine, Lucy and Laura are they are making the cast, crew and entire production team, in my opinion, feel like that is the case.

I am excited to see what comes of the footage we have shot thus far and eager to start work again in March. Until then...happy and healthy holidays.

JBK

Sunday

Sunday was the last day for me. I could not take any more time off from work. The production wraped today at The Pleasure Chest in WeHo.

Yesterday was a VERY challenging day. Three directors, three scenes, one tiny location, 2.5 hours to shoot per director.

We each have a scene at a radio station. So we decided that if we all trimmed our scenes down to under 3 pages we could get it done. Christine had 2 pages and two actors, Laura had, I guess 3 pages and two actors and I had 3 1/2 pages and 5 actors.

Laura went hand held, Christine and I each had dolly shots.

The room was tiny.



Everybody did AMAZING job lighting, rigging, etc. We were running late. Brian Sorbo, King of the Gaffers, told us they were running a bit behind and because Laura was going first, he didn’t want her to be penalized. It was sweet of him but we wouldn’t have done that.



Laura and I took turns downloading footage and Christine read the role of Jim on Laura's piece. Jim's voice will be added later. Everybody went above and beyond to make sure that the game of Director Musical Chairs went smoothly. I have to admit, that for a moment, it seemed like I was not going to get to shoot. I was worried because I had more pages than Laura and Christine and I had more actors to deal with.



I LOVE MY ACTORS. I had rehearsed the scene with Onahoua and Justin but I never got a chance to rehearse with Chris and Bach. Chris and Bach were playing the same characters in Christine’s and Laura’s pieces so I knew that by the time it got to me, they’d be very comfortable. The first take was ok, and by the 3rd take it was flawless. Onahoua and Justin have amazing chemistry as do Chris and Bach. Bringing the four of them together, plus Mari Marks who plays the band manager made it look like a real band, being interviewed by real radio djs. The dialogue flowed and it sounded like one of those morning shows.



I am so grateful for our crew. They worked their butts off to make sure I got what I needed. We went over time, which totally sucked but everyone was extremely gracious about it and I will forever be thankful.

Logan Williams who owns Reel Suite was a great host. He was so generous to allow us to come into his space. At the end of the night we all pitched in to make sure the place was just as we found it. I took great pride in sweeping the rug at studio and I even got to go up to the roof to help Lynn and Jeff take off the tarp that covered the outside window. Lynn and Jeff were laughing at me because I was wearing the flashlight on my head. What can I say, I love to dork out.

Being up on a rooftop at such close proximity to the freeway was very liberating. I felt like the King of the World up there. Yes, I said King!

I gave everyone such a big hug at the end of the night, those were the best hugs ever. Thank you so much to everyone for sticking with us.

Lucy

ps
Pics taken by Logan Williams

Indie Filmmaking at its Chaotic Best

I finally got a chance to look at some of the "dailies" with Leah last night. The footage looks fantastic. Leah and I looked at each other and said, "We have a film". Our actors are gorgeous and talented, and they have great chemistry together.

On Sunday, we shot (no pun intended) the BJ scene. No, this isn't porn, no nudity was involved. But we had to make it look as real as possible. We had to do this scene on a shortened schedule because we were at a private residence and needed to wrap by 10pm. With minutes to go, we had to figure out how to get some "stuff" onto Jenny's hair. Let me just say that shampoo/lotion/water was involved, along with a straw, and some projectile action. We only had one or two opportunities to get this right, because once the "mixture" gets onto Shireen's hair, we wouldn't be able to do a retake. With perfect timing on Justin's and Shireen's part, we got it on the second "shot". After I yelled "cut", we all bursted out laughing. This scene promises to give the "hair gel" scene in "There's Something About Mary" a run for the money.



Saturday was the Silverlake party scene. We were shooting up in the hills in Sherman Oaks, it was freezing, and the patio heater that I got the day before didn't work. Ashley, who plays "Layla", wore a sexy mini dress and must have been freezing her a** off, but had no complaints. Eddie, Shireen's husband, made a cameo appearance as "Francis", the smelly boy. We couldn't have found a more perfect actor for this role. We didn't have as many extras as we had hoped, but it ended up working out fine with some tweaking of the shotlist. My family helped out with catering as well as extra work and P2 download.



I hope to make more movies with bigger budgets, bigger crew, and enough money to pay for extras. But this time around, with extremely limited resources, the thing that makes our film so much more is the support of our crew who are willing to accept a lower rate (or even for no pay) and still give us 100%, and our friends and family who are willing to endure the bitter cold (literally) to help us make our dreams a reality. And this is what indie filmmaking is all about.

The Healthy Alternative 2 the drinking game

Because getting shitfaced and hitting a bong are not my idea of fun - I've never done either one! I'll propose an alternative to Laura's drinking game. Today, Laura, the crew and I made an additional appearance at the Silver Lake party scene, so more chances to either play the drinking game or get in shape.

The rules would go something like this:
1. If you see Christine, you have to do 10 sit ups.
2. Jenna - 10 pushups
3. Laura - 10 pelvic tilts
4. Lynn - somersault and 10 jumping jacks
5. Me (Lucy) - 10 Tae Bo kicks (on each leg)

Watch the film 3-5 times per week and you will be in great shape in no time. If you'd like to speed up getting in shape, may I suggest the production diet. Christine and I will elaborate on that later.

Lucy

We've created a drinking game

It's true. I haven't come up with a name for it yet, but it has to do with how many times you see the same crew members over and over again as our background.

The rules would go something like this:
1. If you see Christine, you have to do one shot.
2. Jenna - two shots
3. Me - chug your beer
4. Lynn - somersault and take three shots
5. Lucy - bong hit





i guarantee you'll be absolutely shitfaced within the first fifteen minutes. the bright side is since we're shooting most of Lucy's in March, we'll have enough time to gather a whole new group of extras, so at least you'll have a little down time to sober up in between Love 10 to 1 and Diving Lessons.










Here's the other hilarious thing about the behind the camera gang being extras. Our actors are so gorgeous, so well made up, so sexily dressed...and then there's the rest of us. Indie filmmaking is exhausting, and we've become a haggard bunch, dressed in t-shirts and tennis shoes and scraggily hair. Yesterday I even saw Dominik's walkie earpiece in the distance. (Even he succumbed to my pleading for bodies, god bless our little German). Thank god for editing.

I haven't seen Leah in the film yet. I'll have to work on her. I know she wants to maintain some semblance of professionalism on this shoot. If you see her in the movie, the rule would probably involve a wacked out sexual position and a beer funnel bong thing. What is that called? I was not in a sorority.

"My legs have more stubbles than his face."

I just directed the first two days of my vignette over the past couple days. Time was tight, due to the lighting challenges of each location. On Sunday, we shot at an office location. Because there were a lot of reflective windows and we were dealing with two cameras, we found ourselves battling camera/boom reflections in our shots. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to fit in Lucy's scenes on this day. Other than the time issues, I thought the day went well--our actors were fantastic and looked hot on camera (thanks to their parents' genes and of course, our talented crew's hard work).

Yesterday we shot Jenny's dating sequence. We were on a shortened schedule because the restaurant opened at 5pm (and we had to be out by 4:30p), so we were working on a 10.5 hour day rather than a 12 hour day. We were able to shoot all the dates that Jenny goes on, and Shireen (who plays Jenny) had to change into seven different outfits over several different periods of time. I told my actors to feel free to ad lib some of the lines so that it would really feel like they were on a date. However, this will likely cause some continuity issues in editing. I was aware of this and thought that it would be okay because we were using two cameras. For this day, the two cameras were definitely a time-saver. I'm glad that my actors improv'ed some of their lines because they came up with some funny stuff.

I also wanted to get shots of the Thai waitresses at the restaurant commenting on Jenny's dates. Because of the limited time, we weren't able to get shots that established their location vis a vis Jenny and her dates, even though we did get a chance to shoot the waitresses. So it's not clear if I will eventually be able to use this footage. I hope so. Laura helped me with the lines, and she had some funny dialogue. So if you're wondering why the title of this blog is "My legs have more stubbles than his face"--all I can say is, let's hope that makes it into the film!

Tomorrow and Thursday are the big club scenes days. Lucy will be directing tomorrow and Laura will be directing on Thursday. We're hoping that we'll have enough extras to make this look realistic. Otherwise, all our crew will have to jump in and be extras!