I was originally going to post the shooting days in chronological order, but it seems to make sense to write about the most recent happenings and then appending the other days ASAP. I’m hoping to be able to write two fairly comprehensive blog posts and have them both up tonight.

With knowledge that the day was going to be extremely hot, 100°F, we were prepared to deal with the weather. On arrival to the set, our casting director had brought us doughnuts for breakfast, they were scrumptious. We had plenty of water for the cast and crew, and by day’s end there was still some left over. No one collapsed from heat stroke, and I think the worst case were some mild cases of sunburn.

The shoot went well, there was a lot of dialogue heavy scenes that we were being filmed and I actually got to use my script supervisor role. There was even George’s family dog, Cerberus, on set to give it his all. We had to take frequent water breaks to prevent dehydration, but those usually came when the camera started getting too hot, or at the end of each dialogue block. It was very encouraging to see the camera was giving out before the actors were.

During lunch was our only major snag, when the Bel-Air (or Biddle-mobile as it’s so lovingly known) stopped working at the middle of an intersection. Even worse, our protagonist was in it! Mailo and I went to save him. Fortunately, Mailo’s truck is inspector gadget and has freaking everything in it. It’s essentially a mobile tool shed. It even has soap (orange, which I am totally getting when I get back to MI), water, and towel for drying your hands. A variety of socket wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, etc. as well as an air compressor to operate the pneumatic drill. I’ve learned a lot about tools and such these last two weeks. We successfully towed and rescued our accountant supreme before he got too tan or worse, sunburned. Only to continue filming in the pounding sunlight.

I brought Oatmeal to the shoot, and he was very excited. He got to sit in the Bel-Air, use the camera a bit, and even took a picture with our star! He was so happy. It was cute.

After the actual filming, we set off to populate our barn with some apricot bins to make it look more rustic. One of the actors’ boy came with us, and was picking some apricots from the trees as we were figuring out how to load up the 20 or so bins that we needed. Everyone was a bit shocked that I had never had a fresh apricot before, so I had a couple. They were delicious! I like fruits with fuzzy skins, and even though these apricots weren’t really ripe yet, they were still yummy in my tummy. As we were getting ready to leave I also spotted a jackrabbit! Mailo scared it away before I could get a picture, but it had these big ‘ol ears, and at first I was a bit taken aback by it because we don’t have them (as far as I know) in MI. My first reaction was jackalope, but then I remembered those aren’t real. But man that jackrabbit had really long ears.

After unloading the apricot bins, half of the crew went back to get a couple more, while Mailo was fixing his brother-in-law’s tractor. They fixed it, and I was given a straw hat and instructed on how to drive it. The day before, Nick Walker was telling him how if the tractor got fixed they had to get the city boy on it to drive it! It was a lot a fun, I only kept it in first gear, and I kind of regret not shifting to a higher gear. But I can now say I’ve driven in California, and also that I’ve driven a tractor in California. Lot of firsts this day. I am going to try to upload the video of me driving it as well but for now here’s a picture!

Anyways I look forward to more filming, and I will keep you all updated!