The Sweet End to the Marathon

This morning was glorious . . . I slept in until 11:30. Since we already got temple footage Saturday morning, nothing was on the agenda this morning, so I was more than happy to turn my cell phone alarm off and drift back into sleep. We attended the Talbert’s family ward and afterward we ate lunch and rushed over to the Fykes’ household for an interview. President Fykes is part of the temple presidency for the San Antonio temple, and has a long history with San Antonio and Corpus Christi. After that we headed to Bro. Hernandez’s house for the last interview of the day. He was the first Hispanic bishop in San Antonio. That was a great interview because you could tell that he had great love for the area and the church, he shared his testimony in Spanish, and even though I couldn’t understand his words, I could understand the strong Spirit that was there. We ended the evening and weekend with a laid back late dinner of biscuits and gravy and watermelons at the Talbert’s, said our good bye’s and now we’re heading back on the road to Austin. (It’s about 10:45 right now and I’m writing this on my laptop on a word doc.) Overall, we filmed 6 interviews this weekend (which is twice the amount of interviews we had prior to this weekend). This was an incredible jump ahead in our production. Now I have the first day of school to look forward to this week . . . Ugh.

Conguering the Day of Doom

I am so tired right now, we had a full action packed day, with one thing after another, it was hugely productive, let me tell you more about it . . . This morning we had a appointment with the Boyd's ut that fell through due to schedule conflicts, so we ended up going to the temple grounds instead, and I got some beautiful shots. That place just has such a serene feeling once you enter the grounds. But it was around 10 in the morning so the sun was just high enough to hide behind the angel moroni at the perfect angle. AFter that we had our first interview of the day at 12. We were interviewing the Sternekurts. Now, keep in mind we interviewed 4 homes today, when we usually interview just one, so this was quite a feat today, and I won't go into each one in detail because I'm really tired right now and don't want to. Sorry. One thing that really helped our setup is that we had C-stands to hold the lighting instead of mic stands, if you don't know what I'm talking about, C-stands are alot better, sturdier, and efficient-er. After the Sternekurts we went to the Lomas's, then the Golightly's then the Boyd's (we resceduled them for 8pm). It was basically one interview after the other: arrive, set-up, interview, take-down, drive, and repeat. Ashley's friend from San An, Bonnie, helped us with the interviews today and it made our set-up really fast and efficient. And through it all, we had a good time to, Mark observed this evening that a group of people can have a great time doing productive things, as opposed to having a great time and doing nothing productive. Uh . . . yeah, it makes sense, just think about it a little longer. We treated ourselves at the end of the day by eating at the famed HENRY'S PUFFY TACOS!!!!!! It was awesome, I mean, the food was fine, but the actual experience of being there? Incredible. We then returned to Ashley's house after a 14 hour day of filming. Mark further treated himself to a pedicure from Kerrie and Kayla Talbert. His toe-nails are red now . . . I do not sponsor this type of behavior

The Long Weekend: Day 1

Alright, so right now its 1:00 in the morning and I am sitting in Kerri Talbert's room (Ashley's sister) in San Antonio, Ashley is asleep on the bed, and Mark and Rodd are dead on the floor . . . like they are actually dead . . . no I'm serious. Well, we drove in the depths of downtown San An at around 8, we were planning on taking some balcony shots from the high tower downtown, but that's been put on hold; we need to go through the proper channels. Things were a little frustrating at first because nothing seemed to go the way we planned (which is something you'd think we would get used to). However, we persisted and ended up getting some really cool shots of the downtown streets and along the riverwalk. The night stretched on and needless to say we were all exhausted by the time we were heading to Ashley's house. I am really tired, and we have a early morning and a full day ahead of us tomorrow. Man, tomorrow is something that we have never experienced before--4 interviews in one day! We'll see how it turns out!

Double Header of Doom

Oh wow there is so much to tell, and not enough blog to tell it . . . even though blogs can go forever . . . right? Well, yesterday I filmed the last two sonnets of my "Series of Sonnets". I was looking forward to this day because I would meet some new talent, I would have fun making a couple of movies, and I would be wrapping up this project. It has been so fun coming up with different ideas, and discovering new tricks to help illustrate Shakespeare's poetry, but it has also been stressful and sometimes frustrating. I wasn't looking forward to this day because I didn't feel as prepared as I wanted to. And when a director isn't prepared, well, chaos ensues or nothing ensues.
Let's flashback to earlier last week, I had an actress lined up for "Sonnet 116", she was excited to be in it, but it turned out that our schedules never lined up and she would be leaving Austin the day before I would be filming, so I contacted a friend who would be the replacement, but her schedule was packed full all that day and week. It was just a few days from shooting and I was without a cast, I was pretty panicky and I mentioned my dilemna over g-chat with my friend/web designer Zane. He said, well, there's an intern that works in my office that has done some acting, do you want me to contact her? YES!!! I met Lene over g-chat and she was more than willing to step in for the role. Great blessing. Well, Saturday came quickly, and that day was scheduled full of Sonnet filming euphoria. I got up at like 6:45 that morning and started getting my mind set for the day. The crew (Arthur Kendrick and Dan Jones) showed up at 9 am, and we started to set up, Mark Sanderson was playing the love interest and Lene Lay was to play Shakespeare. Lene showed up with a smile and energy that helped the shoot. As a director, one of my worries is the morale of the cast and crew, and it always helps me when they outwardly show that they are having a good time. She was fun and easy to work with and its awesome that she showed up at the last minute to save our butts. As the morning drew towards noon our last section of filming 116 took us to downtown Austin, 6th and Congress. And, I've gotta admit, I always feel cool when I'm operating expensive equipment, and people stop and look to see what you're doing. "Yeah, we're shooting a film, excuse us". There was this funny shot where Mark and Lene had to stay in an embrace on the street corner for like 2 min. straight (was Mark looking forward to it? You'll have to ask him, but yes). I was rather amused, cause people would walk by and not know what was going on. I don't know if that makes me a bad director by being amused when I put my actors in weird situations, but if that's the case, then I'm a bad director.
We finished shooting 116 by lunch, Lene left, Mark stayed on to help with crew and we grabbed some Jamba Juice and Conan's pizza to gear up for the afternoon shoot of "Sonnet 60". This was the one that I felt unprepared for. So the crew and I looked at the sonnet over lunch and discussed some ideas that we could do. One idea Mark had was to shoot on a spinning carousel at a playground. The sonnet's them is about time, and circles come to mind, so that would make sense. We picked up William Jackson, who would be playing Shakespeare, and shot at my house, on a carousel at a local playground (which turned out awesome) and then at another park where I was hoping to shoot at a brook, but when we got to it, the brook was dry! I was greatly disappointed because that really eliminated alot of shots that I had planned. The shoot ended with just William and I taking different shots of him around town, and I'll have to see if I need additional footage when I cut it together, is that okay William?
But overall, a long day yet a successful day, we got a lot done, and I see the light at the end of the tunnel, now we'll see how editing goes!

Getting back in the swing of things

It's been a couple weeks since our last interview so we were excited to get back into action with the documentary. The core group was there (Rodd, Mark, Ashley, and myself), and we had some Stauffer's lasagna at Ashley's apt. before heading out. (I love that stuff!) Instead of driving down to San An, we went local this time, and interviewed an Austin resident named Ted Limb. He was friendly, cool, and laid back as we set up lighting and sound in his front room. Good thing too, because the set up took a little longer than I wanted, I had to get back in the swing of things, it's amazing what two weeks can do to you! But the lighting looked good, and things were ready to go. Brother Limb offered an interesting perspective on Texas LDS history because instead of being a native of San Antonio, he is a native to Corpus Christi. Why interview him, you may ask? Well, Corpus was once a part of the San Antonio Stake, so we were able to get a view from one of the outskirts of the early Texas church. Corpus Christi became its own stake eventually, and Bro. Limb was the first Eagle Scout and first missionary to come from the Corpus Christi stake. Near the end of the interview I really appreciated a remark he made when he noted that the San Antonio Temple is often referred to the "SA" Temple, and instead of thinking that "SA" stands for San An, he likes to refer to it as the "South Austin" temple. He then became rather emotional as he shared his deep gratitude for the temple and it being so close to him. Overall--a good day. Now we're gearing up for the ultimate San An long weekend marathon of power coming up this Friday!