The treadmill scene - notice who's cheating
Getting ready to shoot the kitchen scene
The video game scene
Businessman scene
Jeff and Dustin discussing angles and lighting
Shooting the party scene
Walking the hallway for the 89th time
These students are really, really bored
Shooting the cybercafe scene
Me with Jeff Kubach
Hope you all had a great Christmas! We did, and also worked like crazy to get this whole video set up. I was glad to have a reason to pause in the middle of the craziness to be quiet with my family remembering God’s greatest gift to us in Jesus.
After New Year’s we kicked into high gear. Donna and I found actors and locations (which seemed to change by the day!), got all the props, shopped for clothes and organized costuming, and Donna made an incredible spread sheet of where everyone needed to be when with what. She even figured out a plan to feed everyone. You go, Donna! In the end, we shot nine scenes involving about 65 people in five locations which was just a little crazy considering that every time we changed venues we had to tear down and set up all the lighting and camera gear. Thanks so much to Horizons Studios for outfitting us with the camera tracks and jib and lighting – it was a blessing!
Thursday I picked the director, Jeff Kubach, up from the airport and we went and got all the equipment and scouted all the locations so he could plan his angles. I’d sent him pictures for the planning, but it’s much easier to do it in person. That night we finished going over and planning the storyboards and got all our gear loaded up along with the props and clothing and makeup, etc.
Friday we started at 8 am with the gym scene, shooting on treadmills for about four hours – more time than I’ve spent on a treadmill in two years combined. 🙂 Then we shot the kitchen scene. What you can’t see is my mom laying on the floor behind the island trying to catch that plate that Roger is throwing. We try to minimize mayhem. Then onto the video gaming scene. Finally, we set up at Long Street Studio where we got to stay for the next three scenes which was awesome – we were very tired of moving by then. We shot the business man scene and then the shots of the band alone and called it a night around 12:30am.
Saturday we came back to Long Street around 8am and started the prep for the party scene. We had another 60ish people show up at 8:30 and everyone started helping by blowing up 400 balloons and creating a lot of confetti. We shot the party scene for about 4 hours, and that’s a lot of partying! Then we all had lunch and cleaned up confetti that was EVERYWHERE!!
We tore down and headed to the campus coffee shop run by Xenos Christian Fellowship. We were so grateful to them and to Long Street for donating their locations – they were just perfect and it was such a blessing to us. We shot the hallway scenes all afternoon there, and then the library scene in their fireside room. Finally, after they closed that night we took over the coffee house and shot the cybercafe scene. Everything ran beautifully that night, and we actually finished early around 10pm. We were all exhausted, but we had so much fun!
Then the next morning I did worship at my church and went over footage with Jeff before taking him to the airport that evening. I can’t wait for the final edits – I’m always anxious to see if these things I have in my head will come out the way I picture them, and I think this one will be better! Jeff does an incredible job, and I’m blessed to work with him. Can’t wait to share it with you!