Filming - Day 1

Today's shoot took longer than expected, but I think it was worth it. We shot all the interview sequences, which provide the narrative backbone of the film. Every member of the cast appeared on camera today. A lot of time had to be spent moving equipment from place to place so the interviews weren't visually identical, but once the cameras started rolling things went fairly smoothly.

It's interesting. The two older members of the cast, Dr. Odom and my dad, seemed much more natural in front of the camera from the get-go. I'm not sure if this is due to their personalities or if they've just lived long enough to know how to relax and let things flow when they know they're going to be watched by other people.

Don't get me wrong - the other members of the cast turned out fine. It just took more takes and it was a bigger challenge directing them. I guess that's a good thing though. It allowed me to really focus on the technicalities of their performance and practice explaining what I needed them to change between takes.

Right now, my biggest concern is that the film is going to run way too long for the festival. We've got a lot of great material, and the vast majority of it will wind up on the cutting room floor until the finalized "director's cut." I knew that would be the case from the beginning, but we might end up having to cut much more than expected for it to clock in at under 5 minutes. Maybe even a whole character! We'll see. It'll depend on how filming goes tomorrow and Sunday.

Tomorrow we'll hopefully be able to get all the exterior scenes in the can. Then on Sunday we'll shoot the last remaining interior sequence. It should be fun. It'll be less structured, with more improv and handheld stuff. Hopefully that will make things easier rather than harder.