We had an efficient two-hour shoot today at my good friend Heather Johnstone's house in Ipswich (of course). She has a very pretty bungalow with a living room that worked perfectly for Erika's living room / studio. The call was for Geoff and Theadora along with their dazzling smiles, a few cue cards, an ovulation chart (which will probably float around in trunk of my car for the next few weeks until someone sees it and I have to explain myself), and a well-worn North Shore map with a bright red line that's to show Libby's route into town.
"Do I have the hots for Erika?" "No, just Marybeth." It was once again time for Silent Sam to shine.
David couldn't make it to the shoot so I got to do the slating and clapping (very exciting - I really think David and I should have a clap-off). The actors did a nice job with their quick lines, except when Garrett wagged his bum and made Erika break out in laughter (outtakes). I loved the way Erika jumped off her chair and put her face in the camera to announce Libby's arrival to town and the bigger news of her being single. She ate that news up like it was a handful of Margaret's chocolate chip cookies.
I can't describe how it feels to see my written work come to life. I mean, it's all out of order and in snips and snaps, dribs and drabs, but the anticipation of seeing the final product grows more and more every day. (No pressure, Garrett.)
And then I go spell "broccoli" wrong on the one of the lunch cue cards. I'll be sure to point it out to you in the DVD commentary. How embarrassing. I seriously had a difficult time writing words on poster board. I probably messed up five pieces of board before getting it right. With a thick permanent black magic marker in hand (no delete key, no spell check, obviously), I'd start out the first word "Tuesday" and write "TUED..." Agh!! BROCCILI. Who the heck spells it like that? I could have written BROCOLLI. Thank goodness words like "vacuum" or "accommodate" didn't need to be written out.
Another classic moment was being asked how I met Heather.
Response: Book Club.
Nah, it's not autobiographical at ALL.
Heather was so kind to let us use her living room as a location. She also took the photos of the day. She has great hopes that her chair will some day be famous.
The most genuine moment of the day which I'm sure will the take that is used is when Sam unfolds the map that shows Libby's route. It's backwards, then upside down, Erika all the while egging him on and trying to tell him to fix it. Well, the last take just kept going and going. Wait, it's upside down again. And backwards. Now just backwards. If we kept it all in it would take up half the show. But it was funny and cute and, best of all, real.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Ladies Night at the Ipswich Inn
Upon arriving at the Ipswich Inn on Wednesday, August 22 around 5pm, none of us expected there to be no power in the house! Has a TV show ever been made by candlelight? Always first. The power was restored slowly room by room, luckily the living room being one of the first. It was the setting of the Book Club scene, with Erika at the helm and three garden clogged "housewives" and a hot Marybeth, or shall we say "Marybreasts," at her side. (Funny how a fumbled word "accidentally" slips out and is never, ever forgotten).
Christine and Carolyn started the make-up by the natural light through the windows and thank goodness by the time the sun started to set, eventually had lights in the dining room turned make-up central. We decided to shoot Janine's scene first since it was a brief scene with "Erika's Mom" on a phone. We crammed about ten people into a bedroom on the third floor (The Ipswich Chronicle's reporter and photographer, me, David and his loud clapping hands, Walt/Husband 1 who stopped by to check the production out, Garrett of course, Janine of course, and, that was enough. Only 7. Felt like at least 10. Maybe it was David's brilliant clapping.)
By the time we got back downstairs the lights were 95% restored (except for the bathroom) and just about everyone had arrived and was going through the make up assembly line. Leila Girard, Emily Kulik, and Diane Henderson were all wearing their sport bras and stretchy pants, and heinous fake Crocs while Maria Mogavero as Marybeth had on a fabulous short skirt, low cut shirt, and high heels. Splendid.
Garrett got the ladies settled on the couch and started shooting. There really wasn't much room to stand behind him or off to the sides so there was lots of back and forth between watching, grabbing a sandwich, telling the even-at-a-whisper-his-voice-boomed guest with the name of a famous Mike Myers Saturday Night Live skit character to be quiet, then being hushed myself a few times (sorry!), telling the guest to keep his voice down a few more times (does "quiet on the set" mean nothing to you??) all while apologizing profusely to the innkeeper Ray (who is so awesome by the way, let's see if he lets us back into this Inn a few more times...).
We got through the ladies scene, into Silent Sam's shots behind the camera (what comic relief Geoff brought to the group!), and a few more shots of the ladies from Sam's POV, then it was a wrap at about 10:45pm. I am so impressed with Garrett's organization and management of the scenes. He so knows what he's doing (why wouldn't he?), the angles he needs to shoot and reshoot, he's so level-headed, I feel so lucky to have him on board. Equally as talented in working with the actors is Debra who is amazing at keeping the energy levels high, keeping the subtext flowing, and really making the actors deliver lines like they're their own. While getting ready and running lines she had them sing them like an opera which was totally hysterical. The utter catttiness of the "The doctor's got the night off?" "How's that diet you're on" exchange sung like, I don't know, La Boheme.
Classic.
We are so lucky to have the Inn as a location. It really is a perfect place. We got to shoot in the living room, get ready and hang out in the dining room (except it'll be interesting to see who pops up in the mirror that reflected back into the living room...), kept all the food in the kitchen (mmm. Margaret's cookies), and yeah, it just worked so well. Thank you Ray. We'll be back. :-)
Christine and Carolyn started the make-up by the natural light through the windows and thank goodness by the time the sun started to set, eventually had lights in the dining room turned make-up central. We decided to shoot Janine's scene first since it was a brief scene with "Erika's Mom" on a phone. We crammed about ten people into a bedroom on the third floor (The Ipswich Chronicle's reporter and photographer, me, David and his loud clapping hands, Walt/Husband 1 who stopped by to check the production out, Garrett of course, Janine of course, and, that was enough. Only 7. Felt like at least 10. Maybe it was David's brilliant clapping.)
By the time we got back downstairs the lights were 95% restored (except for the bathroom) and just about everyone had arrived and was going through the make up assembly line. Leila Girard, Emily Kulik, and Diane Henderson were all wearing their sport bras and stretchy pants, and heinous fake Crocs while Maria Mogavero as Marybeth had on a fabulous short skirt, low cut shirt, and high heels. Splendid.
Garrett got the ladies settled on the couch and started shooting. There really wasn't much room to stand behind him or off to the sides so there was lots of back and forth between watching, grabbing a sandwich, telling the even-at-a-whisper-his-voice-boomed guest with the name of a famous Mike Myers Saturday Night Live skit character to be quiet, then being hushed myself a few times (sorry!), telling the guest to keep his voice down a few more times (does "quiet on the set" mean nothing to you??) all while apologizing profusely to the innkeeper Ray (who is so awesome by the way, let's see if he lets us back into this Inn a few more times...).
We got through the ladies scene, into Silent Sam's shots behind the camera (what comic relief Geoff brought to the group!), and a few more shots of the ladies from Sam's POV, then it was a wrap at about 10:45pm. I am so impressed with Garrett's organization and management of the scenes. He so knows what he's doing (why wouldn't he?), the angles he needs to shoot and reshoot, he's so level-headed, I feel so lucky to have him on board. Equally as talented in working with the actors is Debra who is amazing at keeping the energy levels high, keeping the subtext flowing, and really making the actors deliver lines like they're their own. While getting ready and running lines she had them sing them like an opera which was totally hysterical. The utter catttiness of the "The doctor's got the night off?" "How's that diet you're on" exchange sung like, I don't know, La Boheme.
Classic.
We are so lucky to have the Inn as a location. It really is a perfect place. We got to shoot in the living room, get ready and hang out in the dining room (except it'll be interesting to see who pops up in the mirror that reflected back into the living room...), kept all the food in the kitchen (mmm. Margaret's cookies), and yeah, it just worked so well. Thank you Ray. We'll be back. :-)
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
And we're off!
Sunday, August 19th, was the first shoot for Everyone's Business. We all arrived at the Whipple House in Ipswich MA by 8:45am. I was armed with bagels and a Box o' Joe. The scene we were to shoot was where Libby arrives at the historic house she's to manage as her new job in the small town of Appleton. What she doesn't expect when she arrives with a suitcase in tow, is to find "someone" already living there. Erika Lamarre plays Libby, the new girl in town, and Susan Lombardi-Verticelli plays Jane Haley, resident ghost.
Director Debra Crosby, Director of Photography Garrett Williams, Consultant David Mauriello, and me, Alison Taylor, the Screenwriter now Producer, Prop Master, Craft Services, Wardrobe Consultant and Location Scout were all on-board to get the day started. A slow start, true, with make-up to be done and a costume to be pieced together (Oh we could have had quite the skin-baring sultry ghost), we were finally ready to roll about 10:30am.
We met our make-up artists Christine Caggiano and Carolyn Booker for the first time and they did an excellent job. They also kept me company while Garrett did his thing. We shot the exteriors of the Whipple House with Libby bumbling along on a seashell walkway in heels, pulling her suitcase, carrying a box and a lamp. A city girl looking a bit out of place indeed. Perfect.
Garrett shot her from the back heading up to the house as well as from a window upstairs. The Whipple House care taker, Judy Hallberg, was so kind to let us use the house and to set up shop in her own living room in the back.
We then moved over to the Bradstreet Ell, a little kiss of a house, and shot the "interior" within a 10x10 room. Garrett made it work by capturing the scene tightly from both inside the house and outside. Erika and Susan did a fabulous job with the relatively short scene and seemed to have a lot of fun doing it!
As it got toward 1pm, though, everyone was starting to get a bit tired. Tours were starting over at the Whipple House and between motorcycle parades and the beach shuttle zooming by, a few extra takes had to be done in order to get clear audio. Darn traffic!
It was a terrific start, an amazing moment for me to see the script come to life, and I can't wait for the next scene we're shooting at the Ipswich B&B. It's Ladies Night, whoo hoo! Seven actresses and Geoff, our Silent Sam. Should be a fun night. I have the ugly garden clogs ready for the "housewives" and designed a book cover for "Dumped at the Corner of Love & Hate" complete with fake reviews from Oprah, JK, and John Deere.
Til then...
“Dumped at the Corner of Love & Hate is filled with humor, intelligence, and downright sassiness. If were to write one more Harry Potter book, Hermione would be sure to have this on her bookshelf alongside Make-up for Muggles.” — J.K. Rowling
Director Debra Crosby, Director of Photography Garrett Williams, Consultant David Mauriello, and me, Alison Taylor, the Screenwriter now Producer, Prop Master, Craft Services, Wardrobe Consultant and Location Scout were all on-board to get the day started. A slow start, true, with make-up to be done and a costume to be pieced together (Oh we could have had quite the skin-baring sultry ghost), we were finally ready to roll about 10:30am.
We met our make-up artists Christine Caggiano and Carolyn Booker for the first time and they did an excellent job. They also kept me company while Garrett did his thing. We shot the exteriors of the Whipple House with Libby bumbling along on a seashell walkway in heels, pulling her suitcase, carrying a box and a lamp. A city girl looking a bit out of place indeed. Perfect.
Garrett shot her from the back heading up to the house as well as from a window upstairs. The Whipple House care taker, Judy Hallberg, was so kind to let us use the house and to set up shop in her own living room in the back.
We then moved over to the Bradstreet Ell, a little kiss of a house, and shot the "interior" within a 10x10 room. Garrett made it work by capturing the scene tightly from both inside the house and outside. Erika and Susan did a fabulous job with the relatively short scene and seemed to have a lot of fun doing it!
As it got toward 1pm, though, everyone was starting to get a bit tired. Tours were starting over at the Whipple House and between motorcycle parades and the beach shuttle zooming by, a few extra takes had to be done in order to get clear audio. Darn traffic!
It was a terrific start, an amazing moment for me to see the script come to life, and I can't wait for the next scene we're shooting at the Ipswich B&B. It's Ladies Night, whoo hoo! Seven actresses and Geoff, our Silent Sam. Should be a fun night. I have the ugly garden clogs ready for the "housewives" and designed a book cover for "Dumped at the Corner of Love & Hate" complete with fake reviews from Oprah, JK, and John Deere.Til then...
“Dumped at the Corner of Love & Hate is filled with humor, intelligence, and downright sassiness. If were to write one more Harry Potter book, Hermione would be sure to have this on her bookshelf alongside Make-up for Muggles.” — J.K. Rowling
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