Friday was an off day. We had to do it, legally, but we also really needed it. Let me explain that legal thing first, for those of you that don’t know the ins and outs of SAG agreements. According to our agreement with SAG, none of our actors could work more than 5 days in a row. Which was no problem for everyone except Matt, who was the lead, and was in basically every scene of the film. So, we had to take a break, and because of when we could get locations, Friday ended up having to be our off day, and we had to shoot Saturday and Sunday.
This was where things got interesting. You plan things months and months in advance, but sometimes things just end up waiting til the last minute. Which happened here. Because it was threatening to rain all day Saturday and Sunday, our two big outdoor dance scene days, we didn’t know where we were going to be able to shoot (either Sony on their main street or Raleigh Studios, where Marvel shoots all their stuff (they were shooting Thor there at the time)). So, when we wrapped on Thursday, this was the scene:
“Hey guys, are we going to shoot on Saturday?”
“We’ll let you know.”
“Ok... do you know where we’re going to shoot on Saturday?”
“We’ll let you know.”
Which was frustrating for us, because it was really the best we could do. With all of our prep and all the thousands of hours we put into it, we just didn’t know. As it turned out, through some really great stuff that happened last minute (we were very blessed), we were able to secure Raleigh Studios. Basically, we were able to use their Main Street, with the Panavision crane (that they donated to us), with our own generator (saving a ton of money), with a rain day for no extra charge the next week if it happened to rain us out on Saturday. Everything that we needed. It worked out really well. We also decided to take a giant leap of faith and shoot on Saturday even though it was supposed to pour. We just kind of felt like that’s what we were supposed to do, so we risked it.
And it was pouring when we got up at 4 (we were shooting at 6 am down in Manhattan Beach, which is like an hour from Burbank)... not what we were hoping for. And yet, when we got to Manhattan Beach, it was barely even sprinkling. Crazy. So, we immediately got going and shot one of the scenes we had to shoot. Awesome. Things were going well. The dancers were starting to arrive, and so we began to shoot the closeups of the dialogue during one of the musical scenes. We got through that also... things were going really well. And then we realized that Matt had been wearing his hoodie (which he should not have been wearing) through the entire 2nd scene we’d shot. All of that was now unusable. It’s just one of those things that no one (including me) noticed when we were doing it. So, we quickly ran out and reshot that stuff... and it really started to rain again. But, we got through 2 scenes, which is better than none.
So, we all waited inside. Sarah, our amazing choreographer, ran through the dances with all of the dancers inside. After an hour or two, it was really coming down and the forecast didn’t call for it to die down anytime soon. So, we spoke to the very nice people at Raleigh Studios, and they agreed to count this day as a half day... and we could shoot the other half on the next Friday for no extra charge. Which was very kind of them. Obviously, that wasn’t the best solution for us, however, as it involved an extra day of shooting (which means more money as far as food and crew goes), and it would mess up a couple of our actors’ schedules. But, better than nothing. So, we decided to try and shoot all that was left the next day, and if we couldn’t get through all of it, we could always shoot on Sunday.
Did we make it? Find out next time!! If you want to. No pressure.
