If I get that shovel in my hands, I'm just gonna kill all of you and go back to sleep.

On Friday, I woke up way earlier than necessary.  Again, because my body needed Zyrtec.  I killed some time by watching Oscar's Greatest Moments, which was a VHS showcasing like two hours of highlights from the Academy Awards ceremonies of the years 1971 to 1991.  I saw lots of great moments, including Madonna's live performance of "Sooner or Later," which won for Best Song.  In fact, I think Dick Tracy still holds the Academy Award record for most wins for a comic book movie.  When I went to the Dolly house, Phoebe was watching Up again.  For the past several days, Up had been playing on a loop in the red room because certain parts of it hold Phoebe's attention.

For lunch, we ordered sandwiches from Sam's Pizza and Restaurant.  I ordered a grilled chicken sub, specifying that I didn't want onions (which I hate) or lettuce/tomatoes (which I only like on cold sandwiches).  What I never anticipated is that it would come filled with not just chicken, but pickles and hot peppers.  It was spicy, but amazing.  In some ways, I feel like a part of me is still trying to eat that sandwich.  Later that night, people were watching The Sword in the Stone.  I walked in at some point and we watched some bonus cartoons that came on the disc, as well as trailers for a lot of shitty direct-to-video Disney garbage.  I was disgusted, but too tired to do anything beyond sitting there and watching it.

We reshot Carl smoking the cigarette.  This time he didn't vomit for two hours.  But he could have if he wanted to, because he was now officially wrapped.  Then we went out into the field and shot the second fire scene, where we really burned all the stuff you see being burned in the movie.  It was fun.  Chris brought us out some beers, which was a mistake, because we ran out of beer long before the night was over.  We ended up wrapping pretty early, with designs on regrouping at sunrise to do the last four scenes we needed out in the woods.

I filled this break time by drinking some more beers as Carl and I helped Ian, Heppe, Mike, and Marco reload the grip truck.  Then I just chilled in the dining room.  People stopped by for snacks and went to sleep.  I watched the season premiere of The Office.  It was a laugh riot.  Then, when it was time for everyone to wake up and shoot the last four scenes, I got REALLY FUCKING TIRED.  I just wanted to go to sleep.  My body was demanding 8 hours of uninterrupted defragmentation.  I laid down for 15 minutes.  I don't think it helped.

As we convened in the woods, I longed for the sweet respite of death.  Then Brett sent me to go park the Cobalt back at Waterhole Cove.  I did this, then rode a bicycle back to the woods, which kinda woke me up a little.  I don't care how sleepy you are, if you ride a wobbly bike that's too small for you alongside a bunch of speeding trucks on a country road, your brain will start firing helpful chemicals.  We shot Dolly in the woods.  I reminded Brett of a scene he was going to cut and we ended up shooting it.  The key scene (literally).  You in the future of course know whether or not it made the final cut.  The last scene shot for the movie was the main character running, which was also the case with Brett's previous movie.

When we finished shooting, I dragged myself to the Harry house, slept for a half hour, and then it was time to go to the airport.  God dammit.

I was really hungry on the way to Dulles, so when we stopped for gas, I bought a big tube of Cheddar Cheese Pringles.  I ate half of it, and when we got to Dulles, didn't know what to do with it, so I stuck it in the bag I was checking.  Carl and I had a lunch of airport Chipotle as we discussed global warming, and then it was time to board.  We sat near the front of the plane, on opposite aisle seats.  Brett had put us in opposite aisle seats because he thought it would be funny.  Before takeoff, I tested out the chat feature by chatting with Carl.  Here is our chat log:

5D: bigdpitch  Has joined this chat session
5C: CoolGuy3  Has joined this chat session
5D: bigdpitch  im bored
5C: CoolGuy3  was up
5D: bigdpitch  this is boring
5C: CoolGuy3  the lady in front f me is guaranteed to tilt her seat back

As soon as Carl said this, I looked over and the lady in front of him slammed her seat back.  It was amazing.  I made myself a super long playlist and slept for four hours.  And when I say slept, I mean sat in uncomfortable stiffness as people walking down the aisle kept knocking me awake.  And though I don't think my state during these four hours could be classified as fully conscious, I do vividly remember hearing the songs from the playlist.  Had this been a window seat, I might have been able to really rest.  Although I was just unconscious enough that I was not bothered by the ongoing turbulence.  I woke up for the last hour.  The two guys next to me took this opportunity to go to the bathroom (they apparently held it in while I appeared to sleep).  I then ordered a Coke on the touchscreen.  It arrived several minutes later, watered down in a cup of ice.  I wish there was a way to order the whole can.  I want a whole can of Coke, okay?  Maybe next time I'll just order a bunch of cups at once.  As we made our final approach, a steward asked me to "power down my camera."  Lest the flight go down in flames.

What sucks is that Virgin America gave me so much music to choose from, I made a tremendous playlist in alphabetical order, and when we landed, I was only up to Michael Jackson, coincidentally the same song I was listening to when my previous flight landed.  I'll never be able to listen to the back end of their catalogue, unless I happen to fly Virgin again someday.  But I have so many miles with American Airlines.  Oh well, who gives a shit.

When I got home, my brother told me it had been pretty cool in LA, like long sleeve weather, but for some reason it got way hot as soon as I arrived.  The next few days would be the hottest ever, with Monday (9/27)'s 113 degrees breaking the previous Los Angeles heat record set on June 26, 1990.  When my Zirtec wore off on Sunday, my allergies came back full force.  Apparently all my clothes were covered in whatever Maryland pollen I'm super allergic to.  I was forced to wash all my clothes all over again.  For that reason, and also because the tube of Pringles exploded inside the bag.

-Diego

How is it that you're the weirdest person I've ever met in my entire life?

So the hope was to sleep all day Thursday and wake up just before breakfast at 6pm for our night shoot.  I instead woke up in the early afternoon, because my body was on a schedule that superseded the sleep schedule-- my Zyrtec schedule.  Since I am allergic to Maryland, if I don't have a Zyrtec daily, my body mutates into a screaming terror and I burst into a pile of crud.

Schatz was already gone.  Chris drove him out into a field and took care of him.  He says in the very end, he was peaceful.  We silently made our own peace and moved on.

Since this was the second-to-last shooting day, things started running a lot more intensely.  There were no more call sheets.  We just kinda remembered all the scenes we still needed to shoot.  In anticipation of our departure, food and supply runs stopped.  We had to start getting creative with what we were snacking on.  Bread slices were folded for half-sandwiches.  The Internet was scoured to find out how they make toilet wine in prison.  And just about everything got dipped in Nutella.  I never had Nutella before this shoot.  It's like peanut butter, but it's technically an Italian hazelnut spread with cocoa mixed in.  When life starts getting heavy, just grab something in the kitchen and put some Nutella on it.

We also found out that all the water flowing out of the pipes is coming from a well.  And when they run out, they'll have to just dig another well.  I could sense this was too much reality for some of us.

On this night, we shot one of the most important scenes in the movie.  The inciting incident.  Or the turning point.  I don't remember all that McKee bullshit.  It's the thingie that happens.  We thought it would be a bitch to shoot, but it came together really naturally.  I think I was drinking Diet Cokes to stay alert.  Brett had coffee for the first time in a long time and it made him crazy.  He was running around kicking the air, going "Look at this old man, Shields!  He can kick high!"  We also had a Jiffy Pop making competition where the only winner was chaos.

Then we went out to the docks and waited for the sun to rise, so it could light our goddamn dock scene.  It took like an hour, so we did what any group of 20-somethings would do when faced with an hour of darkness on a windy dock.  We listened to Guns 'N Roses and ate Doritos.

-Diego

Ally Sheedy. All day.

Breakfast call on Wednesday was noon.  At one point, Brett and Anne were like, "Where is everybody?"  Schatz looked up from his laptop and said, "When I went to sleep at 3:30, they were still up playing ping pong."  Now, here was a conflict.  Obviously Schatz needed to be punished for his snitching.  But by telling everyone that he was a snitch, would that make me a snitch?  I wasn't sure what to do.  I ended up letting everyone know.  Let's just say that when we got up the next day, Schatz was no longer a concern.

The first scene we shot was the one where John's relative Charlie helps Dolly with her bag.  Minutes before shooting, Brett told Heppe he was playing Charlie.  It was later observed that referring to Heppe as Charlie was humorous, because a large old man in town during our fun bar-hopping Sunday had ribbed Heppe about being a "Vietmanese" (which he is not).  Then some car stuff was shot.  Lots of down time between things.  We also shot a long bit in the back kitchen involving Dolly and Jim.  And I ain't talkin' about the scene where she makes him a sandwich.  You know what I'm saying.  It was intense.

There was some good stuff on this day.  Our dinner was pizza from Sam's Pizza and Restaurant on Talbot Street.  This was like the best pizza of all time.  We also watched a couple of oddly lame episodes of ALF.  That night, we had to force ourselves to stay up as late as possible to switch back to vampire schedule.  We did so with reheated pizza and liquor, which didn't quite help with the staying awake part.  But we did have a very long, in-depth convo about which babes we like, and what we might do to get next to them.

For the most part, things run okay on this set.  But I do have moments of frustration.  For example, there are many times when stuff is close to shooting and everyone's talking, and I will try to assemble order in the room, but nobody is listening.  Then, like five minutes later, I'll be saying something and someone will shush me or somehow indicate that I'm being disruptive.  Where were you five minutes ago, chump?  Something similar happened on this night.  I ended up calling Brett an asshole and he dismissed me from the room for the entire shooting of the scene, even though I had been trying to get the actors to run through the scene for several minutes.  I ended up playing Tetris in my bedroom for 90 minutes, after which Chris came to get me.  I didn't enjoy my time out.  I would rather have been helping make the movie.  But I did score over 5 million points.  You would have to play FOREVER to beat that.

-Diego

Can I talk to you for a second?

On Tuesday morning, we went to Target to get the usual provisions.  I purchased a new pair of jeans (to replace the ones destroyed on Sunday).  It took me a few tries to find ones in an acceptable style and color.  There's many designs, including carpenter pants that have lots of pockets and strappy things.  But I doubt real carpenters are buying their work clothes at Target.  Let's call these what they are.  Pretend Carpenters.  I decided not to be that guy.  I just kinda wanna fit in.  This Target is less than two years old (basically the same age as Phoebe).  It's in the town of Easton about 18 miles away, and the short trips we make there are the only thing keeping me in touch with civilization.

 

Living in Los Angeles, there are advertisements for everything everywhere.  I'm never not looking at a billboard or bus stop poster for a thousand different TV shows that will probably be canceled within the year.  I'm constantly aware of exactly what movies are coming out in theatres and on video, and all day long in the back of my head, I have an ongoing list of what I'm going to see next.  Out here in this rural part of Maryland, there's no advertisements for anything, except a bunch of different names that want me to vote for them for sheriff or something.  I have no idea what movies are in theatres right now.  Though I kinda prefer it this way, it's still not ideal.  I don't like living in a big city, nor do I like being far away from the movies.  I guess the ideal living situation for me, in terms of everything, is nearby.

Shooting went fine.  One shot required an L-shaped path of apple boxes for Priscilla to walk on, because Carl is 17 feet tall.  Later on, Anne put a lot of woman's make-up on Carl's face, and then showed us how to work the player piano.  You stick a scroll in and pump the pedals and it plays music for you.  This was the thing before mp3 players.

 

I wish the other people on here blogged more.

-Diego

I like this beer we're drinking, but it's getting me intoxicated though.

On Monday, Brett got mad at us and took away the house wifi for a while. It was more of a symbolic punishment, because there's a wifi signal coming from the property caretaker's house right next to us. Nevertheless, it was not a pleasant morning. But things got resolved later on.

We reshot a Jim/Dolly phone call because Brett realized the tone of it was all wrong. I believe I was having an allergy attack during the original shoot, so I took his word for it. This time, Carl was able to say the Jim lines opposite Priscilla, and she was able to put some her fun 'tude into her delivery. Then we did some boring indoor stuff, and the Spanish phone call scenes, with me temping as the Spanish voice. As he occasionally will do when he is unsatisfied with the page, Brett had us improv a little bit, to take the convo into new realms. I think we did.

After real dinner (a DELICIOUS chicken in a lemony sauce with rice and brocco), we shot the fake Jim/Dolly dinner, where they re-ate the same thing. You never realize how disproportionately sized two people are more than when you have to frame them together in a camera shot.

At the end of the night, we shot Jim smoking a cigarette on the front porch. I had emailed Carl ten days earlier and told him, "Your character smokes, so start practicing. Maybe take up smoking for real." Not only did he not practice before flying out, he also didn't practice while here, even though half the people here smoke. The cigarette he smoked in the scene was apparently his first ever cigarette. It was an American Spirit. For several minutes, Marco rolled as different people shouted directions to make the smoking look better in the shot. "Inhale longer!" "Exhale faster!" "Make the smoke more visible!"

I suppose the proper way to do this would have been to have Carl smoke an herbal cigarette, but this is rock 'n roll guerrilla style fuck you independent filmmaking. We're putting our lives on the line for the sake of entertainment. When Carl finished, he sat down on the steps and informed us he was done. He spent the next few hours puking the two dinners he ate earlier that night. I believe he decided that would be his last ever cigarette. Little did he know we would end up reshooting the scene later that week.

-Diego

This was a terrible idea.

On Sunday, we had a break from shooting. I really wanted to go to Talbot St. down at St. Michael's and check out all those shops, but different people kept using the car the whole day, to go to the movies to see The Town, or to drive to Baltimore, so I never got a chance. What I ended up doing was tagging along to a local tiki bar on the water. And since we had no car, the five of us went by golf cart.

Cheeseburgers, tuna steak, crab balls. Free popcorn. Awesome drinks. I tried a local brew called St. Michael's. There was a dude playing guitar. Lots of dogs running around for us to pet. And we chatted with a cool bartender named Sarah. She helped us ask a guy if we could charge our golf cart off one of their outlets, and he said yes.

After drinking for a while, we rode back home in the golf cart. When I went inside, I noticed there was a giant hole down the front of my jeans. Like, if my underwear folded just right, you could see my dong. I think it happened when I almost fell off the golf cart on the way back. This was my only pair of jeans. Anyway, later on, I went outside and found Carl, Chris, and Priscilla getting ready to kayak in the bay. Chris and Priscilla were in a two-person kayak and Carl was in a regular one. As I pushed them off, Anne asked me if I wanted to kayak. I said sure. She set me up with a small kayak called The Loon. I was irrationally scared of tipping over, even though the bay is like only about 8 feet deep. As Carl Chris Priscilla paddled way out toward the ocean, I went around in circles and realized my legs were going numb. So I grabbed on to a dock on someone else's property, got the feeling back in my legs, and paddled against the current back to Waterhole Cove. Then I pulled my shit up and went back inside. I enjoyed kayaking. I'd do it again. But could I get like a kayak that has like things on the side so it doesn't tip over? I would TOTES go in that.

That night, after an amazing steak dinner and whipped cream/berry dessert, we took the golf cart back down to the cool bar. This time, there was like seven of us. When we got there, it was empty and they were closing up, but Sarah invited us to hop into her van and come with her to another bar in St. Michael's. Four of us went. It was awesome. We met a lot of strange and interesting people and got a brief glimpse into the quiet night life around here. I drank another local brew called C-Street. And when I asked Sarah how one might go about getting a shot of a deer (for the movie), she drove us on to her friend's property and told us she sees "hella deer" there any time she comes and offered to hook it up for us to shoot there. She also bought us shots and arranged a ride for us halfway through the evening in the town's "rape shuffle" van, even though it was the guy's day off. Sarah is the absolute coolest.

Brett would later tell me that he's just gonna cut the deer shot because it's not a priority and he's still worried about the schedule. Which sucks, because it would've been cool to meet up with Sarah again and stick Marco in a field by himself, drenched in deer piss and surrounded by salt licks.

At the end of the night, Mike and Ian, back from their mysterious Baltimore excursion, came to pick the four of us up in the 2-door Cobalt. And to make sure we all fit, Ian rode home in the trunk. It was a cool button for one of the best days eva.

-Diego

Not for ska.

Yesterday was the first day of shooting for Carl Fieler in the role of Jim. We got up a couple hours early and went to Target to buy his wardrobe and stuff. Snap decisions being made mere hours before being immortalized in film forever.

Since we were missing breakfast, we drove thru Chick-fil-A. Carl was momentarily panicked that it might be Sunday and Chick-fil-A would be closed. We agreed that wanting to go to Chick-fil-A and then realizing it's Sunday is the worst feeling imaginable. It's worse than impregnating an underage girl. At least in terms of how your life is affected. The Chick-fil-A was awesome. I am thankful to Brett and to God for the Chick-fil-A. I don't need many things in life to be content, but Chick-fil-A is one of them.

When we got back, we did some Dolly/Jim scenes. We realized that our 4-takes-or-less groove was gone. This was because there were now so many people in the house (for the dinner scene that night) and they kept accidentally interfering with the absolute silence we needed for our whisper-quiet dialogue scene. I realized Chris and I were really stressing about this, but it turned out the schedule left a lot of buffer space, and we finished with plenty of time.

While waiting for our real dinner/fake dinner party scene, we watched a shit-ton of old theme songs on YouTube, and, again, I'm sorry to rock your entire reality, but the television theme song as an art form peaked in the 90's. To have your skull reformatted, check out the full theme for Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

Then we ate dinner for real. It was really good. We ate exactly what you see us eating on screen. Then, we shot ourselves pretending to eat and talk during dinner. Brett had had this idea that Schatz would talk to Dolly about chess for a really long time and it would be funny, so we shot that first. Then we turned it around and did my side of the table. I was going to improvise something after asking Dolly how she knew John, but Brett did NOT want it to be funny. I ended up telling different amusing anecdotes about how I met John in every take. To my surprise, Brett loved it. Turns out funny anecdotes were okay. For realism, I was drinking the entire time.

After shooting was over, we prepared for our day off by staying up and drinking while I cranked more 90's dance hits. Some people played N64, but I couldn't handle it. I never had an N64 growing up. I went from SNES to PlayStation. So.

Oh, and the big thing that went horribly wrong (mentioned in the previous blog)? Why, it was just the dessert. "Disaster pudding," they called it, which is when a cake goes wrong and you just eat the fucked up cake. But it was delicious. Very nice.

-Diego

Caught in the Rain (aka Silent Scream)

Yesterday we started with more simple Dolly stuff. We've found a groove where we never seem to go any longer than 4 takes, if that. I've seen a surprising amount of setups that only rolled for one take before moving on. I think part of that is that the cast and crew rarely make mistakes. And the other part is the creeping panic of falling behind schedule. In the middle of Dolly opening doors and looking under couches, Priscilla had to do a very intense scene by herself. She seemed to pull it off like it was no big deal. Right on.

We had some down time before we switched to night scenes. Marco tried to take a nap, but only slept for about 15 minutes. That sounds really awful. I'm sure that, after the 15-minute nap, when he realized he had to get up and keep doing stuff, he experienced true unadulterated dissatisfaction with life. Where nothing makes sense and you just need to escape. Just start fresh. At one point, I played some Real McCoy and En Vogue on YouTube. Phoebe, who was not in the best mood, came over and danced. She had some killer moves, especially considering "Don't Let Go (Love)" has such a slow tempo. Priscilla also rocked it out. The art of the music video peaked in the 90's and has ever since been on a decline that's produced some interesting but ultimately pointless material. Don't get mad at me for telling you the truth.

Then we shot a scene where something is lit on fire, then stomped out on a porch where lit embers can fall between the wooden slats of the floor. Mike and I watched as countless gnats flew into the lights to their deaths, creating a sort of smoke show for our observation.

Some of Anne's family members drove in throughout the day in preparation for the big dinner scene tomorrow. At the end of the day, Ben and Jen arrived from D.C. with Carl, who will start his week-long portrayal of Jim tomorrow. While Anne was making fake blood for one of the scenes, Carl volunteered that he's had experience making both fake blood and fake diarrhea for the awesome show he works on. That will actually come in handy for the scene where a character has literally shit himself. I showed him where the snacks and beer are. He should be okay.

The last setup of the night was the scene that Chris and I were discussing the night before (see earlier blog). A mere 24 hours later, we were shooting it, and Brett had Chris help direct it. Brett is pleased with this scene. He thinks it's the rug that ties the room together. I heard him remark to Priscilla that he's so happy with the footage he's getting, he just wants to blow his brains out. Tonight I will be performing one of the brief exchanges in the dinner scene. I hope it goes well, although, if you are reading this in the future, you know that something ended up going horribly wrong tonight. But more on that in tomorrow's blog.

-Diego

Another Night

Here is some more deleted material from the 2007 original first draft of "The Waterhole Cove Murders." Though it was one of the first things to be excised, this sequence originally took place near the end of the film:

INT. RED ROOM - DAY

Dolly opens the door. She finds a man standing there, in a hat and suit.

MAN
Good morning. I'm a private investigator. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.

DOLLY
Regarding what?

MAN
Missing person.

The man hands her a photo of Jim.

MAN
His name's Jim Wheeler. He's from Chicago. Been missing since last week.

Dolly stares at the picture, then hands it back.

DOLLY
Haven't seen him.

MAN
Is it okay if I come in?

INT. DINING ROOM - DAY

Dolly and the man sit at the table. The man points at the spot where Jim died.

MAN
Is that...

Dolly stares at the man, waiting for him to finish.

MAN
What is that?

DOLLY
(cold)
What is what?

MAN
Is it... Persian?

DOLLY
Oh, I don't know.

The man smiles.

MAN
It's nice.

DOLLY
You say this man is from Chicago?

MAN
Yes, ma'am.

DOLLY
So why would he be here?

MAN
No clue, to be honest. He told his fiancée he was visiting with a friend, but his Internet history shows he bought an airline ticket here and looked up directions to this address.

Dolly feigns incredulity.

DOLLY
Wow.

MAN
Has anyone been by in the past week?

DOLLY
Uh... not really. It's been pretty quiet.

MAN
I was looking around earlier, and I found something...

The man feels around his pockets and pulls out a small object.

MAN
Is this yours?

He's holding up a key.

DOLLY
N--- yes, I think that is mine.

MAN
Which door does it go to?

Dolly thinks for a second.

DOLLY
Maybe it's not mine. Where did you find it?

MAN
Out back. You wanna test it on any doors?

DOLLY
It's okay.

The man stares at the key and puts it back in his pocket. He doesn't speak for a while. Then:

MAN
Can I tell you what I think?

Dolly slightly nods. She's not blinking.

MAN
I think this guy just wanted to disappear. He made up some story and left a bogus trail so that his fiancée wouldn't find him. Between you and me, she's a bit of a pill.

Dolly still doesn't say anything.

MAN
She also said he spoke frequently of suicide. I think he just wanted out.

DOLLY
Sorry to hear that.

The man nods silently. After a moment, Dolly stands. The man looks up at her.

DOLLY
I'm sorry, can I get you something before you go? Water?

MAN
You know, I would love a piece of pie.

Dolly tentatively walks into the kitchen.

DOLLY
Pie...

INT. KITCHEN - DUSK

Dolly consults a cookbook as she mixes things in a bowl.

INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHT

Dolly stands at the kitchen doorway.

DOLLY
It's just cooling.

The man smiles.

INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHT

Dolly watches the man eat a slice of pie. He eats the whole thing in silence.

INT. RED ROOM - NIGHT

Dolly opens the front door for the man.

MAN
Oh... it's night out.

Dolly looks puzzled.

MAN
I walked here. I'm not sure if I can find my motel in the dark... can't remember where...

DOLLY
(short)
Do you need a ride?

MAN
Oh no, ma'am. I don't want to be any trouble. I refuse.

Dolly continues holding open the door. The man doesn't leave.

INT. GUEST BEDROOM - NIGHT

Dolly turns on the light.

DOLLY
The bathroom is down the hall. Kitchen is... downstairs...

The man sits on the bed and tests the mattress.

EXT. HOUSE - DAY

The next morning.

INT. DOLLY'S BEDROOM - DAY

Dolly wakes up. She hears a splash outside. She looks out the window and sees the man swimming in the pool.

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

Dolly stands in the kitchen with her arms crossed. The man walks in wearing a robe. He pokes around the pantry, looking for a good cereal.

INT. DINING ROOM - DAY

Sitting at the table, Dolly watches the man eat some cereal very slowly. He looks around the room, admiring the decor. Then, he takes a sip of coffee.

INT. RED ROOM - DAY

Dolly is holding open the door for the man.

MAN
Well, thanks again for your time. And the pie.

Dolly nods.

MAN
So do you think I'm right, about Jim committing suicide? Do you think it could be anything else?

DOLLY
I don't know.

MAN
I'm trying to think.

The man thinks for a bit, then steps out and walks very slowly down the trail away from Waterhole Cove. Dolly watches him leave.

DOLLY
What the fuck.

This is like water to me.

So yesterday we shot the John scenes with Mike Diaz as John. He was very good in the role. Brett was having orgasms over how good. Chris was the sound man. As a result of this recasting, an unseen, almost imperceptibly implied subplot was conceived by Chris. Brett whispered it to Mike before the scenes were shot, and later let Priscilla in on it. I wonder if anyone will perceive it in the final cut. If you've seen the movie and still don't know what I'm talking about, ask Brett about it.

During the shooting of the first scene, Brett noted that Mike looked like Matthew Fox. I blurted out a Lost quote, then realized it would be funny if I kept doing really lame Lost quotes until Brett asked me to stop, so I could respond with "Don't tell me what I can't do," which is obviously a John Locke quote. I did this and it worked, but the line didn't really seem to land with anyone but me. I guess what matters is that I enjoyed the humor of it, and everyone who didn't can go fuck themselves.

During a quick laundry room shoot, I was eating chips while they were setting up. These are "mac and cheese" flavored chips. They don't taste like anything but potato chips. But they're still good and everything. Brett looked over and said, "Don't be eating chips during the take." Yeah, I know. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production. I've directed, produced, and edited a bunch of shorts. I'm aware that eating chips during a take can fuck up the sound, because then you have to edit out the sound of chips being eaten. Obviously, if we're looking at the main character in a laundry room, and she's searching for a cleaner, it wouldn't make narrative sense to hear a separate person eating chips in the same room, especially if it's been established that she's the only person in the house. So, right, I know to stop eating the chips when Marco and Mike start rolling.

The next few scenes are a blur to me. I was having a major major allergy attack, and spent some time outside trying to calm down. Whenever I get these allergy attacks, it's like torture. I can't think straight. Maybe it has something to do with the nasal cavity's connection to the brain. I seem to recall a bizarre conversation taking place in the next room about a shot that was shaky, but that we apparently weren't doing a second take of. I only heard part of the conversation, but I remember thinking that I was in hell. Just unable to escape from my allergy-filled skull, which was filled with fragments of a nonsensical conversation about a fucking ridiculous problem between two people who were just really irritated with each other about something stupid. I think if I had been tip-top, it would have all seemed more manageable.

I was snacking throughout the day because I realized that the brief moments when I was chewing and swallowing were sort of respites from my allergies. And the meals today were super bizarre. Breakfast was french toast, but they were waffled. It was waffled french toast. And then dinner was tiny pasta shells mixed with muzzarell, tomatoes, and turkey meatballs. These meals were tasty. But also strange. My stomach is perpetually like, "Where the fuck are you?"

Then we shot some more stuff, like when Dolly finds Jim's butt. Carl's not here yet, so I believe we used Mike's butt as a double. No one will be able to tell in the final cut. After that, a couple more John scenes. Then some nighttime Dolly bedroom stuff upstairs. I'm really happy that we did that without ever waking Phoebe, who was asleep upstairs the whole time. This crew works hard, plays hard, and does so completely without waking the sleeping psychopath.

At one point last night, we had to shoot a quick thing of Dolly putting empties away in the kitchen, during the bit where she and Jim are drinking. Brett needed empties, so he said we had to drink the beers. This made more sense than pouring them down the drain. They were warm. Of course they were warm, because there's only three gigantic refrigerators in the main kitchen. But they were Michelob Ultras, which I enjoy, so I drank four. Which kinda sucked, because I had also just finished drinking a Mountain Dew. The shot was done before I drank the third and fourth ones, but I had to drink them anyway, because they were already open. Brett and Chris enjoyed the company of "Drunk Diego." But that wasn't really me drunk. That was me after four Mich Ultras. All it did, I suppose, was sort of intoxicate me so that my behavior was modified. You call that drunk? I mean, that's the real me, if you were to make me drink a substance that clears my head and sort of curbs my crippling unmedicated depression and obsessive inner monologue. If that's what you call "drunk," then shit. I dunno. It was fine.

All day, Brett was stressing about making the schedule. We're locked in to finish this picture in a total of 18 days, because everyone already has their plane ticket home. So for the entire shoot today, Brett was cutting scenes left and right. When they were setting up for the last scene, Chris asked me if I thought we were losing too much. I said that we've lost some moments that would have been nice, like scene 87/88 (or, the vomit/mirror scene, previously seen in The Comedian at The Friday), but we haven't lost anything crucial. Chris said he thought the movie might be missing an extra something, and he described to me the type of feeling he would want to evoke. We discussed it and arrived at a concept that I thought sounded like a great, memorable moment. I told him it definitely needed to be one of the last things we see. When we wrapped for the night and Brett came downstairs, Chris pitched the scene. Brett loved it. He said it could be the thing that really ties the film together. You've seen the movie, so you may have an idea which scene we're talking about. It's not a big thing. But hopefully, it's as haunting as we imagine it. We're shooting it tonight.

-Diego

You're pretty sure that you're wrong.

Yesterday we shot a bunch of outdoor shit. This involved going slightly off-site to a woodsy part of the property that was like a long trail that led to someone else's property. Chris prepared a bag lunch of sandwiches, jalapeño poppers, and waffle fries. It was weird. We then shot a bunch of golf cart stuff in this woodsy area.

At one point, a woman drove down the trail, rolled down her window, and said, "What's up?" I was about to answer her, but I wasn't sure if there was something specific Brett would have me say, so I deferred to him. Brett was very short with the woman, informing her we were shooting a movie. She informed us this was private property. Brett said that's right, and it's part of the Waterhole Cove property. She said it's not. He said, "I'm pretty sure that it is." She responded, "You're pretty sure that you're wrong." It was like a debate with Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Brett told her we were only gonna be a few more minutes. I threw in an, "Is that okay?" and she was all whatever. But she was not pleased. As she drove by Mike, who was a little further down the road, she said, "You're really really tresspassing." Later, Anne informed us that it is Waterhole Cove property, and that lady was fucked in the head (my words, not hers). Brett also marveled at the fact that she was driving a Lexus Hybrid.

The next day, Anne would speak to the owner and discover there had been a misunderstanding. The Waterhole Cove property only covers part of that trail, and I think we were technically on their land when we were shooting. But the guy was really cool and said we could shoot there if we wanted.

Another thing that happened is that Brett recast the role of John, which shoots today. Brett had cast himself a while ago, but on the eve of the John scenes, decided he ultimately didn't want to do it, so he asked Mike Diaz if he wanted to do it. Mike Diaz is our sound guy. He is a tall, handsome, super cool man. On those scenes, Chris will do sound. Chris might have the most credits in this film. Brett also asked me if I wanted to play a dinner guest in the dinner scene, or possibly another character who appears later in the movie. I chose dinner guest, because I would get to write a brief exchange to have with Dolly. I love the opportunity to contribute to the movie in this way. You don't care.

Brett has been talking about Bugsy a lot on set. He recently rewatched it and will not stop describing scenes and repeating quotes from it. This perturbs me because I haven't seen it yet. I don't like to hear people describing a movie that I want to see. Whether the descriptions are "major plot spoilers" or not doesn't matter to me. I know it came out in 1991, but I don't like to impose statutes. I'm HAPPY that he likes this movie so much. It gives me PLEASURE to see how much joy it brings him. But I hope he stops talking about it soon!

At the end of the night, we went to Target and got some necessary things, including Robert Altman's Popeye, and seasons 1 & 2 of ALF. There were tiny bugs in the car from when we were in the woods earlier, so we had to drive really fast with the windows down to create a vacuum that would blow all the bugs out. After Target, we drove all over creation, stopping at gas stations this way and that to ask where we could buy some fucking beer. It's like dry as a bone out here. Finally, we found a liquor store, and they were fully loaded. When we got home, we watched some ALFs, including one that reunited the cast of Gilligan's Island (in an extended ALF dream sequence) 20 years after that show's demise. Halfway through, Brett received a video chat from McNeil-Jones.

Then I went to sleep. The allergies are really taking a toll. I don't know how much longer I can go on. I can feel the bloodlust returning. The moon will be full on the 23rd. By then, I won't be able to stop it.

-Diego