We wrapped The Night Caller yesterday. It was a pretty low key day. All we had left were scenes with me and there weren’t that many. We did a lot of cool shots and some hand held stuff. The little girl and mom stopped by to grab something they forgot and brought Armenian pizza. I’m sure there is an actual name for it, but that’s what they called it. It was yummy- it’s like a flat bread with a meat and spices and stuff.

They are going to take the footage from the Red and then film it on 35mm off a monitor to see what it looks like. They wanted to test the technique, so they figured they’d make a film while they were at it. They’ll likely get it all edited first though. I think it will be a sweet, though creepy little film.

Today we shot all the scenes that only have me and the little girl. We were both equally sleepy, so there was less game playing all around. We managed to get everything done a bit early. I even had some time to doze off while they were resetting the room. The little girl did really well today, even though she was tired too. And it was nice to see that her mom was normal and not some weirdo stage mom type of lady. Like you felt that the little girl really enjoyed herself instead of having some parent pushing them into it.

The funny thing about having a kid on set is that you have to pay more attention to what you say. Like normally people will be swearing like sailors, but you have to come up with alternative expletives when a kid’s around, as well as avoiding certain topics -ie sex related stuff, etc.- unless you can disguise the conversation using words she wouldn’t know.

We finished around 7pm so I still made it to the tail end of some friends’ BBQ. Happy 4th of July!

We started shooting The Night Caller today. Seemed like everything went well. The kitchen was really small, so it was comedically tight in there for the first couple shots. Then we moved to the dining room, which was much roomier. Between takes the little girl playing my daughter liked to come up with games. Many of them didn’t really make sense. She liked Truth or Dare, which consisted of her whispering questions or dares to me repeatedly because i couldn’t hear her. She mostly dared me to call the other actor a nerd and/or loser and her truth questions consisted of asking us if we liked a boy/girl. She’s seven. It’s sort of adorable. She also had bizarre stories about some friend she hates that ruined her birthday party. I remember having friends I didn’t like. I’m glad I outgrew that. Now I don’t waste my time with jerks.
I’m not great with kids, but I tried. I’ve never played a mom before so hopefully I seemed mom-like.

We finished the first section today up to when the husband leaves, so tomorrow it’s just me and the girl. We’re hoping we can finish her stuff tomorrow so they won’t have to come back down Monday.

Monday we finished shooting My Personal Demon. It was postponed a week but luckily I flew back to LA pretty early on Memorial Day, so we could get the rest of my scenes that day.

We started with the scene in the park where the demon throws a water in my face. It was breezy and a bit chilly in the shade, so we didn’t go full force until we did my closeup. And boy, did we ever go full force. It looked amazing and hilarious. No one could figure out how he even got all the water out of the bottle at once like that. I was looking the other way and then sploosh! Like I was hit by a wave. Good honest reaction there! So then I had to maintain some wetness on my face for the rest of it, but it wasn’t for very long. I stayed a bit damp the rest of the day since I had a few layers of clothes- dress, undershirt, bra- held a lot of the moisture for a while. After the park we went to a house and did a quick scene in the backyard and then we were done. I think the contest deadline for the short is the end of June, so they should have enough time to finish it by then. Should be really funny. Lot of physical comedy and witty dialog.

That’s my answer to “What did you do yesterday?”

I went up to the valley to shoot some scenes for My Personal Demon.  It’s a morning after a one-night-stand sort of thing so It was basically us in our underwear and then I put my dress back on and walk out of the room.  Not particularly titillating or risqué, but technically in my underwear.  I was actually wearing a tank top and boy-short style underwear, so about as un-revealing as you can be without actually wearing normal clothes.  As they were setting up the first shot the DP was like- “Something is blowing out the camera- oh, it’s your legs.”  I was tooo white for the camera!  So we just covered them up for that shot. Hilarious!  Seriously though, my legs are pale as hell.  My arms and face have some color due to driving around and such, but my legs don’t have that exposure very often.

They day was running behind so we ended up not getting one of the scenes that day.  We will either pick it up next weekend or cut it.  It’s not super essential to the plot, just added funny.  I guess it will depend on if they can use that apartment again and if there is time.  I felt bad for the other actor who had to wait forever because they switched the schedule and moved my scenes up to catch the daylight in the bedroom since the living room stuff didn’t need daylight, plus they had already set up in there for the earlier scenes.  He was a really good sport about it though.

We have more locations to get to next week, so it will probably be more of a time crunch with all the moves.  I’m not sure what their deadline is since it’s for a contest, but i’ll be out of town Memorial Day weekend, so hopefully we’ll be able to get all my scenes done before then.  It’s a fun shoot since I get to work with my friend John finally.  He plays the demon.

Friday I went down to Long Beach for a Cal State thesis shoot. The story is an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and I got to be the Mad Hatter analogue. It was super fun and they were really efficient. It was on 16mm, and they didn’t want to waste film. We were able to rehearse before each take so we would hit it in one or two takes. Me and the March Hare analogue got to do a wee bit of improv which was fun. She also does stand-up so she was hilarious all day. The set was just one room, but it wasn’t very big so we would go outside when they were setting up each shot. There wasn’t room otherwise and it got really warm in there. They had the lights and a fog machine and then no AC or fan going. Luckily the weather was really nice and comfortable all day so we enjoyed the down time just chatting outside.

The guy who lived there had 2 cats and one of them kept meowing a lot. It just wanted attention- which I was happy to give when I could go to the other room. Eventually the cats fell asleep so we didn’t need to worry about the sound anymore. They were so cute. I am a cat person.

I ended up finishing earlier than I thought. Kudos to those guys for quick set ups and keeping on schedule. It was an excellent one day shoot. I got to be a weirdo and the director was really happy with they way everything went. They think it should be finished by the fall. At least they hope as long as post goes smoothly.

Yesterday and today I was on set for a CSUN thesis, Tree of Knowledge. It’s a really cool project. They’re doing motion capture and I think they are going to shoot it for 3D, at least the 3D animation part. I played the supporting character at the beginning and end of the short. It was written for a guy, but it works either way. I was so glad they called me.

We shot in Burbank yesterday at an orthopedic doctor’s office. When I got there they were about to shoot the doctor and the main girl. I recognized the actor from The Matrix and The Marine, and more importantly my friend Donna’s grad thesis from a few years ago. I asked him about it and he confirmed. Small world! He has the best voice. He was super nice too. The crew was great and friendly. Things were running behind so I had more time to wait, but there was always someone to talk to, or I’d go watch the monitor. They are shooting on the Red, so it’s lovely. It just took longer to light than they would have liked, so some shots were cut. The makeup artist did a great job.   I go over to the director and the DP and they’re like- ‘um, she looks too pretty. Can you make her look more strung out?’ So we go back and she adds dark circles over the makeup she used to cover up my natural dark circles. He he. We’re supposed to be in rehab, in case you’re wondering. I got started shooting in the afternoon but we got all the stuff we needed. There were a few that can be faked elsewhere because they were inserts. The girl they cast in the lead was lovely, so I was not jealous. (well, I’m a little jealous she gets to do the motion caption, but not like sad about it.)

Last night I had people over and ended up staying up ridiculously late. Like 4am. Luckily the exterior shots are the same day in the story, so dark circles were the way to go. I also didn’t have a call until 11am, so I could sleep a bit later.
We went to the Pasadena library. They have this enormous, gorgeous tree with massive roots. The main prop is a dragon fruit which is a crazy looking fruit. I didn’t end up trying it. They say it is similar to kiwi.

I left before they finished, so hopefully they got all the shots they needed. I think these are the two main live-action shoot days. The rest will be mo-cap. The director said they may end up making an animated version of me if they end up finding a place to use it, which would be rad!

I had a great time this weekend. It’ll take a while to finish, but I think it’s going to be a really cool innovative little film.