FEATURE: The Old Livingston House - A Family Adventure Comedy

Meet & Greet, and Coke Machine's house

Meet & Greet, and Coke Machine's house

On Thursday the 18th the Fruitland Park Library had a Meet & greet for our cast and crew. I spoke about taking my novel and turning it into a screenplay and shooting the movie, then we had Q&A with entire cast. It was fantastic, we had over a hundred people show up.

On Friday we moved our production to Coke Machine's house. Bubba Baker is playing the part of Coke Machine, he has been in Bad Boy's ll, Twenty Bucks, Ace ventura, Pet Detective, Cool Runnings, and a few other movies along with some television. It is great to have someone with his experience on the set, and he is very down to earth and helpful for a first time director.

In one shot as the bikers walk toward Coke Machine's house, his wife 'Screw Loose Sue', comes out on the porch. She is upset, so our actress put her hands on her hips, as we shot from behind the bikers. This gave me an idea, and when we shot her over the shoulder, I placed the camera just above her hip, allowing the triangle of her arm to frame the two bikers. It turned out to be a very cool shot and something we were not expecting.

It was a very busy week but now we don't have anything scheduled until next Saturday. Time to take a break and work on editing. Our next shoot is at the local Harley Davidson Dealership. If Screw Loose Sue don't get us thrown out, I believe everything should go great.
 
Two locations in one day

Two locations in one day

Saturday we shot two locations, one a Harley Davidson dealership, and two, a lawyers office. There was a thousand ways this could have went wrong, but by Saturday night I was very happy. My joints were hurting, I was tired and hungry, but very happy.

We had made arrangements with the people at Gator Harley, several weeks ago, but when we stopped by last week we ended up talking to a different person and I would not have been surprised if we didn't get ran out of there when we arrived with our cast and crew. We had nine people all together. My PA/ boom grip, Craig and I walked in and began setting things up while my wife, "The Producer" went and spoke with one of the salesmen. I kept waiting for Sherri to come and tell us to pack it up, but our actors began arriving and before I knew it, we were shooting. The people at Gator Harley in Leesburg could not have been nicer. Saturday was a busy day for them, and we approached everyone who ended up in our shots to sign a release and no one refused. We asked management if they could turn off the music while we were there, and also if we could get up on the second floor where the offices are so we could shoot down on the show room floor as our bikers entered. I also wanted an extra for one shot and we used one of there sales girls. They could not have been any cooler.

I try not to do two locations on the same day, but due to scheduling sometimes it makes a lot of sense.

We arrived at the lawyers office around 3pm and began blacking out the windows with plastic sheeting. We had a night scene where our two bikes, Coke Machine and Tattoo Todd, along with Coke Machines wife, attack our lawyer with a volleyball net. It is one of our action scenes and was going to take some rehearsing. This locations was a true blessing. We called and set up an appointment to see if we could use the exterior months ago, but got lucky and were given total access. I wondered how Brett, (the real lawyer) would feel when the bikers try to kidnap Max, (the actor laywer) in his conference room. When we did our first take and Brett laughed, I knew we were gonna be alright.

It was a long day, but everyone had a good time and we ended up with some really nice shots. I have two montages to shoot, and hope to get them both this week. Things are finally turning green again here in Central Florida, so we shouldn't have a problem.
 
Screen Grabs Old Livingston House

Screen Grabs Old Livingston House

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Screen grabs

Screen grabs

I don't know why I can't display my screen grabs. I have them in photobucket. This is how I did it the first time but I'm not having any luck this time. Any suggestions?
 
pirate40 said:
I don't know why I can't display my screen grabs. I have them in photobucket. This is how I did it the first time but I'm not having any luck this time. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

post the actual link to the images in here, and lets see what they look like.
 
Shooting montages

Shooting montages

This week we shot two montages. One with Cory on a bicycle and one with him and Summer following the treasure map on foot. They each took about six hours, mostly driving from one location to the next, jump out, set up the camera, ride or walk by a few times, jump back in the car and off we would go.

The footage for each one ended up being about 40minutes long, and after editing they came out at around two minutes each. A lot of time went into scouting out the locations and gaining permission to shoot at some of them. They came out great and was well worth the effort. I plan to post one of them on our Facebook page soon.

Today and tomorrow we are shooting at the Dam Diner which will be Barney's Burger Barn in our story. I am playing the part of Barney (a small part) and this will be our first experience with extras. I'm sure everything will go exactly as we have planned. I'm sire that has been said on the movie set a million times, lol.
 
I have a rough cut of our teens following the treasure map montage, with the music we are going to use. I have posted the clip on our Facebook page. Just search Old Livingston House if you are on Facebook.
 
Wendnesday and Thursday we spent shooting scenes at "Barney's Burger Barn". It was our first time with several extras. The first day we had about 15 and things went pretty smooth. It was also my first time as an actor, I play the part of Barny, it is a small part but I thought it would be fun to be in the movie. I had lines with the young lady playing Taylor, a waitress. I don't see my performance winning an academy, it probably wouldn't do much for me getting into SAG either. Not that I would want to, but it came out alright.

The second day at "Barney's we had 19 extras and things didn't seem to have went as well. Not sure why, I'm just happy that we don't have a bunch of scenes with extras. What we shot look really good, but thing were awful hectic.

Friday and Saturday we shot at Max St. Johns law office, (I still can't believe that we found a lawyer that would allow us to use his office) These ended up being two of the best days yet. One of our main scenes involves Max in a fight with "Screw Loose Sue. She has a fishing net as a weapon and he grabs a blue marlin off of the wall to fight back with. I took some time to get it rehearsed so that it looked real, and they were able to deliver their lines at the same time. Once again, thank god for great actors. (Also for us not damaging anything.) Everyone was drained by the end of the day but I could not be happier about what we have on tape. (I'm sure the real lawyer is happy to, not about the footage, but about us being done with that location.)

Shooting again on Wednesday at the Old Livingston House itself. Should be a blast because it will be our first day there.
 
Night shoot

Night shoot

On Wednesday we did our first outdoor night scene. We lit with two china balls and a 100 watt shop light aimed through a white umbrella. We had about a 20'X30' area I was trying to light and it looks terrific. I was shocked at how good it looked. I will post screen grabs from the shoot when I pull some.

We have two locations planned for tomorrow, the bikers cabin and at The Burger Barn, again with extras. You never know how that might go. Not to mention all the fun two locations in one day is.

Yesterday I met with Robert Cohen, he is a very talented local musician and studied film score at UCLA. His teacher (I forget his name) was the man who scored films for Mel Brooks. After watching about 45 minutes of our footage (some edited, some not) Robert has agreed to score our movie just because he loves doing it and he like what he saw. Plus I had given him a copy of the book the movie is based on, and he loved the story. This was very good news, yeah us!!
 
Awesome. By the way, have you learned how "fun" it is to work with extras?

It makes you appreciate having professionals sometimes.
 
Yes, I have experienced how much 'fun' it is to work with extras. I think a good piece of advice for new film makers is to not schedule scenes with extras in the beginning of you shoot. If I would have had extras on my fist day, it might have been my last day. The odd part about it is, I can't really put my finger on why it is so difficult. Maybe it is a number of reasons. Still I would suggest to other first time directors to save all this 'fun' for later in your shoot after you have developed a rhythm. Not that it's any easier, but maybe not as frustrating.
 
Yeah, we did exactly that. We shot in a sequence of difficulty.. basically the first stuff we did was the most simple shots with the least amount of actors/crew. then move onto more complicated stuff as we got into the swing. Extras comes with a whole slew of extra logistics issues, because if they aren't experienced, its very hard to get them to do what you tell them to do. Most of the time, the issues we've had with using them haven't been "on camera" problems, but basically just keeping them from wandering off when you need them.
 
We had our second night shoot on Wednesday and things went well. My mother and sister came to the shoot, you know things are going right when have an audience and they laugh when you call cut. Well at least when you are making a comedy. A drama, probably not a good sign.

On Thursday we put the camera on the tripod and put it in my truck. We had the bikers follow us around while we got shots of them riding. Also did a scene in the woods where Tatto Todd get tangled up in a spider web. He did it great the very first time. Then I looked and realized I had not hit the record button. Not a good feeling. But the good news is we caught it before we left the location. We had to string up more fake spider webbing and shoot it again.

We were planning a shoot Saturday but had to cancel because one of the actors had to work his real job, I hope to catch it on Monday.

We have now shot about 30 days, and have about 10 left.
 
Shot some bike riding scenes last week. One in day light, one in the dark. I would like to say things went great, which they should have at this point, and being such an easy couple of shots. BUT.... to begin with our leading actor went and got a haircut, and they cut a lot. So instead of shooting we were off the the beauty supply shop for hair extensions. They did not have any, BUT ....we found a wig that was close to the right length and color. Luckily we have a hair stylist who lives next door, and she was able to cut it into a near perfect match. So much for the actors reading their contract.

Our night shot of the two teens riding there bicycles came out really nice. I built a frame in the back of my pick up truck and placed a 16 foot aluminum beam out the back, it kind of resembled a tow truck. We hung a 16" china ball and our mic from the boom and placed the tripod in the back of the truck. We looked a little like the Beverly Hillbillies going down the street. BUT ....it was dark and no one could see the truck very well. The shots from this set up turned out really well.

We also shot the ending scene of the movie on Saturday. In this scene our two teens are given a pair of diamond earrings for Summer, and a 1965 Mustang for Cory. I had the idea of having the car drive over the camera so we could get a cool shot, BUT.... there was a spoiler on the front of the Mustang that hung down too low. So we grabbed a shovel, dug a hole, lined it with a bath mat, and set the camera in it. Once again, on set it looked pretty cheesy, BUT.... the footage turned out great.

This weekend we will be shooting with a live raccoon, what could possible go wrong there, right? We are down to about two weeks of shooting left, and talk of a second movie has already began. Plus I have been given the opportunity to write a script for a murder mystery dinner theater group. I have also written a song for the movie and the young lady play Summer is going to sing it. She came over the other night and worked on it and now we have to go into the studio and record it.
 
Gotta love that.

When my actors came to the auditions one of the first questions we asked was..

"Do you plan to change your appearance in the next 6 months"

and even though they said "no".. no matter how hard you try to control it, someone is going to go and do something like that.. whether on purpose or by accident. In our experience, one of my leads had her mom trim her dead ends.. and she ended up trimming WAY too much. However, she has one of those "messy" hairstyles and we hadn't started filming yet.. so it didn't harm anything.

I wish I could say we only had two weeks left.. shooting only on weekends, and only when everyone is available makes this a time consuming process.
 
Not been a good couple of weeks

Not been a good couple of weeks

We have had some bad news as of late. We had to develop what appeared to be a computer for our movie, the young man that did the art work for our game passed away. Not sure of the cause but he was only 27. Also my mother went in for a major operation, she is 88 and recovering slowly.

We have had three days of shooting since my last update. The first one went terrible, we did not get anything done because I could not function.
Things improved on the next two shoots and we were able to press forward. I have a couple of reshoots to do, and a some little bits and pieces yet to pick up. Our final full day of shooting will be this Saturday. I am truly going to miss seeing everyone.

Editing is coming along nicely, but looks like we are going to run a bit long. Somewhere around 2 hours and 10 minutes. I hear this is normal for the first cut. Which seems a bit odd because not much else has been normal on our funny little movie.

Got word today that mom is being moved to a rehab center after about 7 days in the hospital. It's been rough going but things are looking up. Thanks to everyone involved in our production for standing by me through this.
 
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