Rising to the Challenge...(the nightmare shoot.)

Behind the scenes shot of Steve Matos

We are entrepreneurs.  We run our own business during the week and film Shotgun Mythos on the weekends.  As such, though, we don't have the benefit of regular paychecks.  Sometimes clients are late paying, or skip out all together which leaves us in a bind when it comes for funding for the show.   When that happens we can either throw up our hands in frustration, or move on and come up with a creative solution.

This week was a definite 'think on your feet" adventure.  We do most of our filming in our studio, but there are some scenes which require a setting that we do not have here.  This weekend we were scheduled to be at a rustic cabin on Saturday, and an old hospital on Sunday.  But Mother Nature has plans of her worn.  Early in the week we got a call from the owner of the cabin, saying that the road up the mountain was iced over and impassable.  Nuts.  Ok, onto Plan B.  Looks like we will be in the studio on Saturday anyway.  But I need furniture to fit the location...and no budget for it.  Then a fortuitous message comes in.  An associate of Marcus' has a storage unit full of furniture which he is willing to donate to the show.  Our saving grace!!  So Friday found me on the road for 8 hours, driving a moving truck to get the furniture and get everything set up for Saturday's shoot.  

Filming Saturday went beautifully, and everyone excited about Sunday's shoot.  The county recently built a new state-of-the-art hospital facility, and is in the process of turning the old one into a business center.  But for now, it still has the look of an old hospital.  (And you can imagine how much fun the actors had when they discovered the morgue!)  We also were excited that an old house was also part of the hospital property, and we could use it to get the exteriors that we had planned to get at the cabin.  Everything was falling into place.  But apparently Mother Nature did not get the memo.  After a week of 40 and 50 degree weather, the temperature dipped into the low 20s, with bitter, gusting wind on Sunday.  Not a problem, except that three of our scenes had to be filmed outdoors.  We showed up to shoot, and to the actors' credit, they all braved the elements, and delivered great performances in spite of the weather.  Nate Nelson was up on a roof in short sleeves, in spite of the chill, because that was how his character would operate.  Steve Matos came in, scouted the location, moved the scene of one gunfight into a more sheltered courtyard and it came together beautifully.  

Which just left the problem of the wind on the exterior scenes.  Anyone who has tried to film outdoors with high winds knows what a mess that makes of your audio.  We had made a homemade dead cat for the microphone, but weren't sure it would be enough.  (Instructions below, in case you need one!)   But we figured that if we got the footage, we could always lay in the audio later.  Imagine my surprise when I got a message from Clint saying "your dead cat rocks!!"  (If anyone ever read my messages, they would wonder what kind of psycho family we have here!)  So apparently the audio worked fine.  

Which just left the interior fight scene.  We have two little kids (our own) who were scheduled to be in this scene.  But of course, by the time we were ready to film this scene, the kids were done.  They wanted no part of it, and there is nothing like uncooperative toddlers to make filming a challenge.  After half a dozen trips up and down the elevator to try to get what he needed, Clint finally looked at me and said, "Just walk away."  We did.  Apparently he got the shots he needed because after 30+ hours of editing the scene this week, he is grinning like the Cheshire Cat.  

So while I hope to never have another weekend of filming like this one, at least it came together, and will be a bonding point for the cast...they will watch those scenes and laugh, remembering that it was so cold that Marcus didn't realize he had two fingers on the trigger instead of one.  

***On Dead Cats:  If you don't have a dead cat for your mic for outdoor shoots, they cost about $10 to make, and can save your shoot if the wind gets high.  There are quite a few online tutorials that show you how to make these.  We followed this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDD5dsLSkPc and it worked great!