The Crew Call for the very first shooting day of “Arrangements” was at 8 a.m. up in Glen Alba Gardens in Ben Lomond. This left me in a unique position: Alas, as hard as I looked, there was no position on the call sheet for “Writer.”

But I kid. Besides, I was heading down to the Santa Cruz area that morning with a lot of stuff the production was going to need, like a spare HD camera and the prop vehicle, the ‘56 Chevy Panel Delivery. My business partner was already in Santa Cruz with our camera jib, slate, and an HD monitor. Of course, driving a 51-year-old truck any distance means you’re going at the pace the truck wants to go, and I didn’t make it to the set ’til well after 10.

The amount of purposeful activity on the set was almost overwhelming. There was a core production team, Chip the director, Matthew the DP and Irene the script supervisor. The art department composed of Summer and Antonia placed furniture and improvised madly. Hair and makeup people took over the guest cottage and worked on the principal actors. A very impressive showing of experienced, talented folks, volunteers all. (It exemplifies exactly what Dan said earlier about the WGA strike: Making movies is so much fun most people will do it for free. Enthusiastically. With great care and professionalism as well.)

And the cast! Wow! They looked their parts, and approached the material with that subtle mix of humor and seriousness the script called for. Chad Davies plays Bill, the lead character, a fine actor who shares some unexpected perspective with his character. Gina Marie Young is Kayla, bringing not just youthful energy and good looks to the character, but an unexpected sense of elegance. Kimberly Parrish, a woman who’s audition reading nearly made everyone cry, is Cassie, Bill’s wife.

The prize for gung-ho effort for a one-line character goes to Carlo Matteucci, the Oakland actor playing Terry, Kayla’s musician boyfriend. He not only came all the way to Ben Lomond for the part, he had airbrushed tribal-art tattoos applied on his arms and neck. Really sold the character. It required him to shave his forearms.

The shoot was scheduled to take all weekend and covered about five script pages. Saturday’s setups were comprised of some smaller, one-on-one scenes, and Sunday’s shots revolved around a large outdoor party with lots of extras. I got to get into the action on Sunday when we came up a bit short in the extras department. My bit was to hang out behind the bar and pretend to mix drinks.

It’s difficult to describe just how odd a sensation it is to be on the set of something you wrote. The first thing is just something I resolved from the outset: this is Chip’s movie now, and I’m going to try to keep out of his way, help where help is needed and just observe. The doozy of a cold I started to pick up the second day helped in this area– I loitered outside the sets, sneezing and blowing my nose.

I suppose my job on set was “Location Liaison:” I initally set up the producer with the location, so I took it upon myself to keep tabs on what the owners needed and the filmmaker’s requests.

The owners also provided a lavish craft service to the shoot. Coffee was in plentiful supply; lunches were sumptuous, with home-made chili, corn chowder, coffeecake and lemon squares. It’s the easiest thing to skimp on in a shot, but there is an undeniable sense of satisfaction and camaraderie that comes from the shared meal on location. Like the hard-won beers drunk on the roof in The Shawshank Redemption, I could tell everyone involved, all the volunteer cast and crew, took a well-deserved moment to feel like the Hollywood Pros they all, but for geography, were.

When it was over for the weekend, The strange sensation still had not left me. My characters were being pieced together, take by take; when the film was finished they would achieve that ephemeral thing, screen life. Chip and company were weaving that illusory reality that looks so effortless on screen, but takes so much to achieve.

The production goes on: Shooting continued in downtown Santa Cruz on Monday, where the end-caps of the script were shot. The next shooting day is coming up this Saturday, outdoor scenes and the driving sequence involving the Panel Delivery. I’ll be there for that.

–Skot C.

Here are some images from the shoot, courtesy of Mark R. Davis, the de facto location photographer.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Acting, General, Hosts, Motion Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.