5AM - My alarm clock ring. I grab my i-phone to turn it off and notice I got a text. It's Stacey. We talked on the phone last week and she has offered to make herself available this week-end, since I have not yet secured another shooter. Now I see her text: She is sick as a dog with stomach flue and puking her head off.

A telephone call later confirms my fears: Stacey is out of commission. She sounds HORRIBLE and can barely talk. No way is she going to be able to shoot today.  

7AM - I pull in front of Jerry's house. This week-end we are supposed to film the pivotal "Letter" scene. The hotrod girl working on her deuce and stumbling upon Johnny's 1955 letter by accident. I have given myself two days to film this because I am filming a lot slower now that I have to be on both side of the camera at the same time (more or less LOL). Losing a day of shooting is going to be something that I will not be able to recover from easlily and will cause a collapsing domino effect of the worst kind. As you will see in the next few blogs.  X 2

THE GARAGE SET

My garage being in a total state of disarray since we worked on the deuce, I have asked jerry to land me his immaculate, 50's artifact engorged garage, which is PER-FECT in every way.

Except for one thing:

8AM - "Jerry, your garage is way too big for that girl. I don't want the audience to think she is rich, cause she is not. We need to turn your 4 car garage (well, actually five car garage) in a normal two car garage."

Jerry scratches his head... "How are we gonna do that?" We pick each other's brains for a while when suddenly his light blub goes ON "TILT" ... Jerry remembers that a few years ago a friend gave him a very large tarp, and he has never used it once. It must be around here somewhere and maybe we could hang it to create a wall. Sounds like music to my ears.

10AM - Jerry's nice friend Michael arrives to help us. Just in time to fight the many spiders that are crawling out of the tarp Jerry and I are carefully unrolling... Wow! That thing is HUGE. Nice color and textture too... It is very heavy,a high quality, fabric type tarp. I think it is going to work out great.

Below: Michael and Jerry unfold the huge tarp, which measures 30 feet square.

One down, one billion to go. Our next task is to create a fake wall. We witness yet another DOS miracle: It was like it was all meant to be. The tarp has eyelets that match exactely the space between the bolts that hold Jerry's garage wall together. All we have to do is unbolt, slide the bolt back through the tarp's eyelet and the tarp is hanging per-fec-tly. As a matter of fact it looked so perfect that the next day one of our volunteers leaned on the "wall" unaware it was fake... And almost fell over LOL

THE SET

I now create a two car garage set, carefully selecting the items the hotrod girl would be likely to have in it, including of course a huge tool box, air compressor, jack, radio, workbench, grinder etc etc... Basically whatever I have in my garage... Plus a few 50's memorabilia items such as a red gas pump and a large vintage Coca Cola machine. Jerry has a lot of Coca Cola items and I am sooo happy that Coca Cola gave me permission to depict their brand in my film because we can use all of Jerry's cool props now.  We really have a blast putting everything together. When done, the garage looks so real I instantly feel at home in it.

It is now noon. We get some subway sandwhiches and chow down, sitting in the grass in front of Jerry's house. Meanwhile, Jerry has had to move all his classic cars out of the garage and parked them on the street. They are stopping traffic. People pull over, get out of their cars and start snapping photos . Yep, hotrods and classic cars have that effect on everyone!

Below: All of Jerry's cars were used in the film, and today they are hanging out together reminiscing of our flashback shoots...

2PM - I don't have a shooter. I have called all my buddies but on such a short notice none of them are available. The good news however is that God is sending help my way. One of my fellow dvx users members "coincidentally" just sent me a PM, telling me how much he has been enjoying following my filmmaker's thread for the last year on that forum and offering his help. His timing could not have been more perfect. So he is coming tomorrow, with his son, and his crane , to help me behind the camera.

HALLELLUYA!!!!!!!

Meanwhile I hate to waste a day so I decide we should try to film something, what the heck, maybe a few pick up shots and see how it goes. Michael is a photographer and although he has never been behind a camera I figure it is worth a shot (or should I say 30 shots LOL)  He courageouly accepts the challenge.

RETURN FROM THE DRAGSTRIP

I am missing a shot to link the dragstrip scene to the box scene. I want to show the hotrod girl driving back and pulling into her garage. Jerry's street is nice, with a nice hump at the top, so I can emmerge  on the horizon as I drive over that hump, which makes for a nice shot. I want it to be fall / winter in the modern days so I instruct Jerry to help me gather a lot of dead leaves and we lay them all on the road.

Following which we have to litterally stop traffic so the cars don't distrub the leaves when they drive on them. It's a small residential street but Murphy's law says that as soon as I plan to film on it, EVERYONE and their mothers will be driving on it - ALL AT THE SAME TIME . Finally we roll. I am tearing ass down the street, sending the leaves flying as I pass by the camera I then hit the brakes hard and skid to a semi halt, just before the driveway. Three takes later we have nailed it. So far so good.

The next shot is another story altogether. Michael is sweating bullets. I am asking the impossible from him: To do a pan with a focal adjustment smoothly and on his own. All in all he does well but none of the pan are smooth enough for my liking. Meanwhile Jerry has to hit the garage remote just in time to open the door just enough so that I can drive under it when I rech the garage, up the driveway. I don't want the girl to slow down... The timing must be perfect. Thirty takes later we finally have one that is good. Jerry's neighbor must be sick of hearing my loud hotrod driving up the driveway then backing out, over and over and over and over again...

Below: Michael is sweating bullets trying to get the shot.

7PM - The sun is now really low on the horizon so we break for food again and then we set up the next shot which is a night shot.

Below: I film samples and watch them to make sure the framing and lighting are what I want.

We have a GO!

Another challenging shot involving a pan up and going from a close up on my wheel up to my face, with a focal adjustment. I really feel bad for Michael. Meanwhile Jerry is holding the boom and busy monitoring neighborhood activity. We have to stop a lot because of bikers roaming the streets on Saturday nights. There is a nice tavern a block away so we can hear them very well ... Of course there are also crickets. I used to love crickets... Not anymore. I have to have a man to man (or should I say woman to cricket) talk with one of them, and get him to shut up.

"I AM FILMING GOSH DARN IT!!! GO 'CRICKET' SOMEWHERE ELSE!"

I am able to subdue the loud mouth (or should I say loud legs???LOL) and we are finally able to get the shot and film the dialogue. I am once again working in a vaccuum, talking on my cell to someone who... Is not there and does not exist.  Story of my life LOL....

11PM - We fold. I have to drive all the way back to West Hills now. The deuce is going to spend the night here at Jerry's, in Inglewood... The deuce and I rarely part so this feel real strange.

But I know he is in good company since his good ol' buddy "Challenger" is staring at him eye to eye... Ironical, when you think that the two cars in the film, are rivals and mortal enemies.

below" The Deuce of Spades and Challenger are squaring off again LOL

As I walked away from my deuce that night, I could not help but feel I was leaving a part of me behind... And feel sad about it.

See you tomorrow my love!