Sunday, February 21
7:00pm - Screening at the Downtown Independent Theater
9:00pm - After party upstairs in the bar. DJ: Jacob Safari
9:30pm - Special visit by the Kogi Korean BBQ Taco Truck (tbd)

Advance copies of the DVD will be on sale for a special price!

Movie Tickets are $10 at the door.

Water heater and filter for 1400 gallon tank.

Red camera.

Boom is sending sound to camera and out to video village.

Peter has everything under control.

Rockstar Matt Gulley spent the whole shoot in the water with the actors, adjusting lights. Here, he and Peter and making some fine tune adjustments to the set…

Actors find their places…

Chuck sets the camera…

And the shoot looks a little something like this.

And this.

And this.

That’s a wrap!

PS - For an actor’s perspective on the shoot, watch Greg Fellow’s behind the scenes footage of AIR:

And you can see Greg’s “Part Two” video below (the first 48 seconds don’t have to do with AIR):

By dawn, base camp is built on wooden pallets in the mud.

More wooden pallets lead up to set.

There is no electricity on site. So the entire set is run off of three gennies.

300 feet of bates cables lead power up to set.

Chuck’s office.

A 12×12 is thrown over the container to block sunlight.

Set, from the outside. I’ll take you inside in the next post.

Paul Sloan, heading to set.

Jon Stokes (me), Brandon Scott. The shoot is a success because the actors and crew stay in amazing spirits.

Pete Sestina (2nd Second AD) and Jon Stokes (me). We have a dynamite crew - everyone is great at their jobs and I am thrilled.

Wardobe Designer Ali Kahn is on hand to test outfits and Property Master Pallas Erdrich is on hand testing everything from flashlights to dry ice.

Cinematographer Chuck teaches actor Greg Fellows to light the flare while Jon Stokes (me) and Sound Mixer Kevin Sorensen look on.

Greg Fellows, Paul Sloan (playing dead), and Brandon Scott. Rehearsing actors is one of my favorite parts of the whole process. And these guys give their all in rehearsal, which makes it really fun and rewarding.

Running through every beat. Rehearsal is so valuable because on set there are a million other things to think about - it’s best if the actors have a muscle memory for their role by the time they step on set.

We clean the yard to make it safe for crew.  Then, with rain all week, we must lay a brick path through the mud so crew can move equipment without getting stuck.

Randy Wayne, producing.

Jon Stokes, directing.

Look at this beautiful brick path. I’ve found my calling!

Randy, be careful!

There’s an 80% chance of rain for this weekend’s shoot. I’m checking the weather like I check Facebook. Randy and I cover the container roof in plastic tarp to waterproof it, and then cover the tarp in heavy blankets to soundproof it. We have no idea if this will work, so we budget for a few back up plans and hope for the best.

Charlie plasma-torches support beams across a six foot section of the container.

Peter clears out the space to begin hanging aluminum mesh.  He also does a lot of math to figure out how much weight and pressure the water will exert.

Peter drops in lumber against the welded bars, and begins hanging aluminum to shape the cave.

The aluminum is screwed into the iron container, which Peter reinforces with several tons of concrete and dirt.  Then Peter fits the inside of the cave with a heavy, waterproof liner.

Chuck and Peter spray foaming. It is freezing cold in the mountains at night. We’re working off of Peter’s flashlight.

11pm on Friday night.  Foam party!

These are my hands at my ballroom dance competition the day after spray-foaming. My poor dance partner had to hold these crusty hands.

Lesson learned: gloves.  The only way to get spray foam off your hands is sandpaper.

Production Designer Michael Barton puts in three coats of paint in three tints to texture the cave walls.

Finally, a fiberglass resin layer is added to water-proof the paint. The resin is toxic so Peter and I have to wear a protective suit with an oxygen mask to apply the coat. I wish I had a picture of this - the outfit is post-apocalyptic.

Spray foam, $200.  Waterproof cave, priceless.

Peter fills the cave with 1400 gallons of water off a water truck and fills two 750 gallon water tanks for standby. If you peek inside the container you can see the cave set.

Six soldiers are trapped in a cave. The water level is rising and oxygen is running out. In order to survive long enough to be rescued, the soldiers begin killing each other off, one by one.

The shoot is technically challenging but I think we’ve raised enough money to see us through production. To see if this shoot is possible, Cinematographer Chuck and Producer Peter and I location scouted an equipment yard up in the Verdugo Mountains.

Chuck, in a contemplative pose…

The trick is we need to build a cave that can gradually fill with water. This proves to be much more complicated than I imagined when writing the script. For one thing, this equipment yard has no running water. So we need to figure out how to move 3,000 gallons of water to this location, and then find a place to put it.

Chuck and Peter in deep thought.

We have a few ideas. My main goal is to get this set built well before production, to give us as much time as possible to test camera and lighting.  We need to make sure this is feasible before we drag a crew up here and put them in the water!

Can we fit a cave in a flat bed?

It’s been an amazing journey.  From three weeks of pre-production, to three weeks of filming, to a year of post-production, and now six months playing festivals.  I don’t think any of us imagined that this tiny movie we filmed in one location would someday be playing in a theater or for sale in a video store.  It’s a fun ride!

(Above) Actor Kelly Perine and I trim his afro wig for the short.  The wig was necessary for a gag, and it took a lot of finesse to make the wig look believable.

(Above) Cinematographer Chuck DeRosa and Electrician Ian Carr set up the Red Cam.  This camera is unbelievably great.

(Above) Actor Kelly Perine marking his own slate.

(Above) Actor Steve Fite, inside a nest of lighting equipment.  It looks like a conceptual art piece.

(Above) Actor Steve Fite, getting set up for the next take.

(Above) Actor Steve Fite’s extreme close up.  I like this pic because I shot it in color and it looks black and white.