Family Business

We’ve begun our third and final week of shooting on Dismal. I really should have been better about documenting every day of it here, but with the shoot, plus the regular job, plus the move into the new house, well, I just didn’t.

Anyway, let me tell you a story that explains how it’s been going.

There’s a scene where Croaker knocks Bill out by the water, and Bill falls in. Now, this water is nasty, dirty, spooky swamp water, full of bugs and snakes and critters and That Which Shan’t Be Named.

Because of that, the grips had rigged a platform for Greg Lee (playing Bill) to fall onto. Easy. He falls out of frame, we foley a splash and cut to a shot of Croaker dragging a wet Bill onto the bank -– and it would have been good.

But no, Greg wants more than that. Greg wants to be real. Greg wants to take the dive.

So here’s this handsome young actor from Hollywood, who just finished up work on a nice drama in plush Hawaii, taking a faceplant into who knows what, without being asked to do so, all in the hopes of making this film as good as it can be. (Minutes later, by the way, we found a water moccasin a few feet from where he splashed in…)

This is exactly the attitude of every single person working on this thing. Make-up and wardrobe scramble to make changes from one look to another to accommodate a wish to juggle the schedule. Grips lug tons of equipment through the forest in intense heat all day long. Actors bust their ass in the heat and muck for far less money than they’re worth. PAs do every single thing asked, and a lot that’s not asked, to help out. The art department somehow creates an amazing world in the middle of nowhere with just about no money and far too few helpers. One guy, Wes, who’s not even on the show, comes in to grip for free on his day off from another project and builds a bridge through a particularly muddy area on his own time and with his own materials. The investors, who have already so graciously trusted us with their money, are sad that they weren’t able to do more to pitch in. All the other departments, including post, are doing similar stuff.

A visitor to the set said to me, after watching the cast and crew work, “That’s some family you got there.”

Indeed.

Thanks fam.