Yin For Your Yang

So we’re on day three of Dismal’s principal photography. Couldn’t be more excited.

We’ve got a great crew who all are committed to making this a hell of a movie. No one’s getting paid much money, either, and they’re working outside, in intense heat, with ticks and biting flies and all sorts of things. But man are those locations beautiful.

The three lead actors have really impressed me. When we were casting we relied heavily on the feelings we got from these guys. We didn’t have the time or resources to do a lot of reads with them so we had to trust our guts.

The guts have paid off.

William Gregory Lee is nailing the arrogant ignorance of Bill. Scott Miles has the everyman integrity of Matt locked up. And Richard Riehle is definitely bringing the creep with Croaker. (Go ahead, IMDB or Google them –- you know you want to. By the way, on IMDB, Scott is listed as Scott Miles (II).)

Goddamn it’s exciting to see these guys bring the script to life.

We are of course dealing with all the production headaches that come with any shoot. We had to cut some scenes that I loved because shooting them became unfeasible. I’ve had to adjust a lot of action to fit the locations and context.

And I’ve been having to be at work fulltime, so I haven’t been able to be on set much yet. This is killing me. Yes, I’m the screenwriter –- but I’m also a producer. And since I’m a producer with a ton of experience in fixing things on the fly, who happened to write the script… I really need to be there when adjustment decisions have to be made on set.

I have a few days of vacation coming to me, so I’m gonna pick the five weekdays that I think shooting is most important and be on set for them. Those, plus the three weekend days, plus stuff before and after work is going to have to be it.

Makes me understand what Greg’s going through over at the Web of Lies and Deceit, as he hears of discussions going on about his script, without him involved as a producer.

Frustrating.

To go along with the exciting.

But everyone needs a little yin for their yang.