Lucy called and said that she knew someone who has the adaptor that can read the P2 cards, but this woman lives in Marina del Rey. So after she dropped off the walkies, she drove all the way back to Marina del Rey to pick up the adaptor. Day 2 and we were in the same stressful and entirely desperate position of figuring out how to download our footage. Luckily, we had a number of extra P2 cards.
So we set up production central in one of the rooms in the retirement home, next to the reception area, where we plan to shoot later on. Shortly thereafter, the residents start to drop by and asked about the shoot and when they could stop by to be the extras. I find out that at least 12 women had signed up to be extras. Yay! I tried to recruit one of the women for a speaking role and she immediately agreed. Double yay! I asked Lisa to help her rehearse the lines, because at this point I needed to leave to shoot the first scene of the day: the confrontation between Jenny, Ma and Grandma.
The scene among Ma, Grandma and Jenny is a very special scene for me. To me, it represents three generations of Asian American women, each with their own personalities and histories, and their relationships to one another. It is hard to describe the magic that happened in that room that day for me, so I won't even try (especially because my brain is completely fried). All I can say is that to have Takayo, Emily and Shireen in the same scene together was just awesome, and humbling. What talent!
During a break, Suzi, the most wonderful make-up artist EVER, tells me that downstairs, the elderly women residents who wanted to be extras in this film started fighting over the speaking roles. Yes, a throwdown at the retirement center! So the two women who stopped by earlier in the day decided to drop out, because they both got mad at one another. The one who didn't get the speaking role accused the other of trying to steal the part. Real life behind the scenes drama!
I check in with Lucy re: P2 cards. The adaptor that she picked up in Marina del Rey didn't work!!!! Arggggggg.... So Lucy and Lisa start calling people again, to see who had a laptop we could borrow and/or extra P2 cards. Finally, the situation became dire. We were running out of cards and nowhere to download. Lisa was about to drive to Samy's to pick up 4 additional 8G cards at $50/card. Yikes!!! Brian, our DP, came downstairs and looked at the P2 store again (or original solution to the issue). To our surprise and joy, Brian figured out a way to make it work on the laptop!!!! WHEW!!!!! P2 problem solved!
Coming up next... Retirement Home Sex Scene with Grandma...to be continued...
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