After picking up another cast member we had everyone at Short Sugar's Barbecue in Reidsville NC at 8 AM the following morning to film the final scene of the movie: George Lucas and Rick McCallum in a red convertible at Mel's Drive-In from "American Graffiti". After getting that done we had to... we just had to... take this photo of Chad in his George Lucas costume, in the same pose that Lucas is in while directing Ron Howard in a famous photo from "American Graffiti"...
We returned to our main set and filmed from 10:30 that morning until 6 that evening, then did one final take (it's taken us two months to figure out what this one character should be saying during a certain event). With that, the bulk of our filming is done: apart from a number of minor scenes that won't require much preparation for, "Forcery" is in the can. And I haven't slept this good in a looooong time :-)
I'll be doing some updates here as "Forcery" enters post-productions but in the meantime, enjoy some production stills that we took during Saturday's filming.
An Observation: You obviously have such wonderful friends, the way they're helping you out with this project.
ReplyDeleteA question: When you shot at that BBQ place, was it closed or open during your shoot? Because in that photo with "Lucas" sitting under the counter, theres someone wearing an orange outfit. A customer of the place or one of your crew?
Hey, "newest cast member" Darla looks cute. Who is she? Single? Age? And what part does she play?
Another question: Does the real life George Lucas know anything about this production of yours? If he doesn't, are you going to tell him? :-)
You fed your actors???? A good producer lets his actors starve. Out of four projects I was an extra on, I was fed only one meal on one of them for an all day 12 hour shoot.
It's weird: this whole thing started out as a joke, like a "yeah that's be funny if it someone did it" three years ago. Most of this time it was set to be like a Saturday Nite Live-style sketch. It's now MUCH bigger than we had set out to make it, is going to involve just about every kind of special effect (apart from stop-motion animation) there is, and a MUCH stronger cast than we thought we could have. Melody was the fourth person we cast as Frannie (the others had to leave because of scheduling conflicts, relocation etc.) When everyone sees her performance in this... they are going to be **stunned**. We knew nothing about her when we first found her, had cast her almost out of our own desperation. There's no doubt in my mind that, with all due respect to the other fine ladies we looked at, but Melody was the only one who could have pulled this off so brilliantly. And we've forged some real friendships because of this experience: if we weren't friends before this started, we sure are now! Livelong friends, even.
ReplyDeleteShort Sugar's opens at either 6 or 7 in the mornings, but the drive-in doesn't start until 11. Dave, the owner of Short Sugar's (and possessor of the most valuable brain on the planet given how he has the recipe for Short Sugar's Barbecue Sauce locked inside it) was very generous in letting us use that part of the place before it got busy. When we finished with that we went in and took the photo (that had been an idea for some time actually) and the whole crew got some breakfast. Suffice it to say, "George Lucas" turned heads all over the place :-P
Darla is a super-sweet young lady who goes to our church. She's also a very good actress (she came recommended by our pastor... who also appears inside of Ed's truck while Ed and Chad play Rick McCallum and George Lucas in the pastor's red convertible). Won't spill the beans on her role just yet but if you've ever seen "Misery" you can probably make a good guess as to what she's doing in the final scene (as well as why we chose to portray Mel's Drive-In). Is she single? Well, she's fifteen but as to how single... better ask her father :-)
We have it on very good authority that if the REAL George Lucas does not know about our production yet, that he certainly can be notified about it through VERY high-level channels (and that's all I'm saying about that). We'd love to send him a DVD of it, which will include the docu/mockumentary we're making along with a gag reel. And Ed had the idea of sending him the Mel's apron signed by all the cast and crew.
As for letting them starve... well, our two principles came from some distance one-way, on no less than four trips each to our shooting location to make this, for no pay (fan films like this can't see a profit: this has been strictly a labor of love). Feeding and housing them while they've been here is the *least* that I could do. Make a movie, get people as good as these and you find out soon how thankful you become to have their help on it :-) We still haven't done our wrap party yet though. For a special occassion like that, I'm thinking of frying some turkeys.