action!

I was too exhausted to write yesterday, so todays post will be about two days.

First, we went to the director's (Rafi's) moms house. she lives there with her second husband who is an architect, in a beautiful house. In the story, it's the house belonging to the guy who was an a*hole on the first day of shooting, in the video store where Henry, the artist, works.

Henry and Diff follow a car into the gated community. I thought maybe that was unrealistic, and asked the prop master if that wasn't unrealistic, and he said it's common for people to do that in Puerto Rico a lot and it's not that suspicious. Hopefully viewers in other countries won't think that it's unrealistic.

shooting was difficult because not only did it rain and for continuity we had to pat the car dry without cleaning it, but we were also shooting a violent scene in Rafi's mom's house. Diff and Henry creep down the stairs by the pool, and break in to the office. They filled a hallway and the office with mist so that the flash lights that they were carrying would look more dramatic. Diff toughens henry up, and they do their thing, find money, and head out. Then the daughter, who looks about 14 years old because of her height, but is actually 17, screams "Daddy! Daddy!" and then Diff elbows her in the face.

Rafi's mom was not only trying to keep her house in order, which is understandable, as you have a huge careless crew in your house, but she began to feel negatively towards the scene that was being filmed. Rafi didn't want to put his mother through that, and so we cut the close-up shot of the girls glass of milk breaking on the floor. We also didn't shoot the girl more than twice.

I understand this resistance completely. It can be emotionally draining to film certain scenes, perhaps bringing back bad memories, or maybe just filling your house with bad vibes. After the dramatic shoot was over, we burned incense to clear it out.

For many reasons that day, I wasn't very inspired to work. Usually, following my coworkers around on set isn't awkward and i can make it seem like I'm just going along with them. But with the architecture of the house being kind of convoluted, and my coworkers being very erratic, following them around made me feel like a lost puppy. so I stopped, and talked with Jane and Estefania for most of the time, until it became evident that we were cleaning up the house, at which point I began to help.

Next day: The next scene we shot was in the parking lot. Revenge is taken on the ex husband who violated Paola's space, and possibly her body but i'm not sure about that, as it was a super closed set that day.


Two stunt doubles came in and taught Henry and the ex (samuel) how to punch and be punched, kicked and be kicked. It was a very physical day, and oscar was a real champ. This seemed like his niche. His physicality was very becoming of him. I was given the mission of finding something to make his throat feel better, as it was getting soar. I found him some warm milk and a lemon. Then later on he dealt with having a sprained ankle, and ran well despite it. Trooper man.

Henry hides out and waits for samuel to come out of the elevator, and walk down the parking lot ramp, at which point he jumps out, punches him in the stomach, and proceeds to beat the crap out of him. Diff helps a little bit, but it's mainly Henry, being egged on by Diff. This is bloody samuel, smiling with Frances, one of the producers, after he's done with his scenes.

I only watched for a little bit, and it was exciting and painful looking at first, but it didn't require much acting. It was more like dancing the same moves over and over, and so it got quite boring and so after I finished painting a white wall green/grey, I went up to base camp and read a few pages of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

They kept moving the set around, but back and forth! It didn't make any sense. They started at the bottom of the set, and then rehearsed a scene, then they moved to the top of the ramp and filmed a scene. Then they moved to the bottom of the ramp again, and filmed that initially rehearsed scene. Then they moved to the middle of the ramp, and filmed Henry punching samuel in the face, and blood spraying all over the camera lens (a glass covered it, of course.) Then we moved back to the top of the ramp and filmed them running away from flashing lights representing a security guard. Then we went back to the bottom of the ramp and filmed them running away from the security guard. Then we went back to the top of the ramp to film them arguing in the staircase as the security guard calls for back up and tends to samuel.

Why all the moving around? I don't know. Estefania seems to think it's to keep the crew busy and make them feel useful.

In the midst of all of that, though, something very funny happened which I may call the highlight of my day.

We were shooting the scene at the bottom of the ramp. Diff and Henry were to finish kicking samuels ass with a final kick in the face. The security guard is to come driving in with her golf cart and her orange beacon of safety and security. she rushes to the helpless man, calls for back up, and begins to tend to him.

How this played out, though, was priceless. First take: Henry pushes samuel to the floor, kicks him in the face. The security guard makes her presence known and Henry and Diff run away. The security guard hops out of her car, smiling and excited, looks at the cameras and runs to the victim.

I was watching all this unfold with Jane, who looks at me and breaks out into song:

"He's dead, he's dead, he's very very dead! The bad guys went and hit his head. He's dead, he's dead, he's dead! Oh, goodness look at all the blood he's shed! He's dead, he's dead, he's dead!"

she did a little musical jig.