Day Three

We were up at the crack of dawn packing and getting ready to move the entire company two hours down the road to our next location. I started regretting the extra beer or two I had last night. As a thank you, we took Scott, the owner of the Home Cafe, to his local watering hole and bought him a few rounds. It all quickly escalated into more rounds. I escaped at Midnight, but not before at least 5 rounds.
Today, we shoot the driving scenes with James and Nathan in Dusty "driving." We basically put the car on a trailer and tow it down the road. This allows the actors to perform while not worrying about driving. Our road is a lonely stretch of tarmac between highway 200 and I-15. It sees little traffic save for the random Harley and farm truck, perfect for shooting. We owned the road with official flaggers on either end of our mile and half stretch. Our trailer is about 6 feet wider than a standard trailer. We've made a poor man's process trailer adding wings that stretch out from either side making a platform for Doug to operate the camera from. Tom, the sound man, stays in the tow vehicle and monitors his wireless mics from a safe distance. I hide in the back seat so I can listen to the performance and give input where needed.

As we headed down the road to location, this morning, the weather didn't look great. Over cast skies with smoke mixed in wasn't our preferred look for the day. We'd hoped for sunny, clear weather. You could tell it was smokey when the sun poked through the clouds and cast the ominous orange glow over everything. The sun did make a showing now and then while we shot.

Today, we had my Uncle Chuck on board with his son Jake. They were the tow rig/process trailer guys and in charge of moving the whole shooting match down the road. My Uncle has years of experience operating heavy machinery making him the perfect candidate to drive. He moved that trailer around with no problems...like a pro.
We shot for most of the day, but got shut down a little early. The clouds really starting moving in around 5 p.m. and made the day turn into evening faster than we expected. We were able to finish most of the shooting we had planned. The rest of the work that went un-shot will have to be picked up in the second unit work next week.
At the end of the day, we all rolled down the road to Lincoln. Home of the Unibomber. Oddly enough, the guy that owns the hotel we are staying in owns the land where Ted Kazinski lived and cranked out his manifesto.

Tomorrow, we shoot in Helmville. Let's hope the weather is sunny and the smoke is gone! Thanks go to Pete Fromm for the photos.