5-Day Film Shoot Day 2 - UPDATED

Sunday marked the second day of shooting on the short film. I had a workshop to teach in the afternoon, so I was only around during the morning to finish my shots, but it was a lot of fun. We went out to someone’s house in Southampton, PA, and he is a WWII re-enactor. He has a basement full of uniforms and supplies, a working jeep, a machine gun emplacement, and even an air cannon to simulate explosions. Using a bug sprayer as a mini fog machine, we shot scenes for a little mini-action sequence on a French battlefield in 1944. The single coolest part was the air cannon. Adam and I ran away from the camera, we hit our mark, and then we jumped forward into the air and to the ground. As soon as we jumped, Mike set off the air cannon that blew debris into the air and a blast of smoke covered us up. When Adam and I stood up, we got a round of applause from the extras playing WWII soldiers. It was a fantastic feeling, even on such a small scale as this. Sure, I may have banged up my shoulder a little bit, but that's a small price to pay. The shot looked awesome on the little monitor on the camera, so I can't wait to see it on the big screen.

We had a little bit of trouble finding our location which led to a little time crunch while we were there, but overall it was a smooth day. The WWII re-enactors were really good about their part, setting up the machine gun and moving the Jeep whenever we needed them to. They had the enthusiasm and the energy to keep running up and down a little hill take after take. We were using a mosquito fogger to give the place a smoky appearance, the clouds of war blowing across the land.

One setup had us running behind the three American GIs, up a little path between two bushes, emerging into the main section of the backyard. The first time we did the shot, the GIs ran forward, Adam and I ran along behind them. As we got up around the corner and Rob called the "cut," the GI's all turned around to face me. I was looking at them through a heavy mist of smoke, all of them in full gear, breathing heavy, the Army Jeep behind them, the machine gun emplacement off to the right.... It was a pretty amazing sight, and it actually felt like we had travelled in time a bit (as per the idea of our movie.) On just this small scale, it was wild. On a bigger scale, it has to be exceptional.