Day 19 Shooting- Alley

I dropped the ballroom dream sequence and settled on something weird that evolved from a strange dream.  Detective Elliot wakes up to something slithering around in his bed.  He peeks over the covers and sees it slipping out the door and disappearing down the hall.  He follows it out the door and finds his entire living room covered in yellow police tape- like spider webs.  He thinks about his gun in the bedroom and goes back to get it, discovering a line of police tape coiling around it. He leaves the gun behind. That idea was just an excuse to leave Elliot weaponless when he gets to the alley, but mostly to avoid getting arrested or shot from a hypothetical cop that might hit us up for a permit…it didn’t happen, by why risk getting into serious shit?  The gas powered BBgun looks real enough and we’d be screwed.

Anyway, Elliot steps outdoors, ends up in an alley, finds a body covered in a bloody sheet and gets attacked by more police tape hiding underneath.  It wraps around him and soon enough Elliot is mummified,  A mysterious figure emerges from the darkness and stabs a helpless Elliot in the gut.  Blood red caution tape spills out of the wound, plopping at his feet and Elliot starts to fall to his knees.  End of dream.

I some how managed to get a few extra helping hands for Sunday Morning.  The always reliable Casey, Turen (who would appear in the scene as the mysterious knife guy) Stu (playing Elliot) and Amanda (a spunky youngster from Arclight that I’ve recently befriended)

Stu picked me up and we grabbed some supplies from the Hollywood Toy and Costume shop- blood, yellow and red tape, but we passed on the fake looking retracting knife.  Turen could just fake it with his pocketknife.  Casey was outside waiting for us and we walked together to Famima, Turen arriving shortly after.  Quick bite to eat and watched an angry homeless woman harass people on the street.  She was kicking and punching and stomping behind strangers, throwing stuff- just this dirty angry tornado harassing everything in its path.  We were tempted to film her for the rest of the day because the way she was going about it was hilarious.

I didn’t buy Amanda a sandwich because she said she was going to make pancakes before we picked her up…but she didn’t. (what an exciting journal entry!)  So she was probably hungry when we picked her up, but she said she was fine and kept refusing to eat.  Amanda didn’t know Stu or Turen and Turen didn’t know Casey, but everyone formed a quick camaraderie in the car, and it turned out to be a merry bunch.

Downtown was a nightmare.  First up we discovered some USC film stole my alley I had scouted out, it was gated off and the real pisser was that they were not even using the alley- they just blocked it off!  So things looked hopeless, but I figure we might as well scout out another alley.  Stu had to get gas first, but fnding a gas station downtown was another challenge- he ended up paying around 3.70 a gallon..  More bad vibes.  Then we decided to park in a 5.00 garage and we should’ve known it was a bad omen to see a dude outside, beating his 5.00 parking sign and yelling, "5 dollar parking!"  Inside was worse, in truly crammed quarters they wanted to bury the car in the back where it would be mercilessly triple parked and blocked in.   The mexican lady was rude and sneered, "Give me five dollars" and I wish we got the fuck out then, but another stupid car had already blocked us in already.  Of course  a couple blocks away there was another 5 dollar parking structure with no jerkoffs and plenty of room.

Amanda carried the anatomically deprived blow-up doll (placed under a sheet later to simulate a body outline) which she promptly named Phillip and genuinely enjoyed carrying- it was still wrapped up in police tape from the last photo shoot Stu and I did in the alley.  Casey had the fire truck sheets draped over his shoulder.  We went into this downtown market and huddled at a table outside.  I convinced Amadna to let me buy her some food inside and at the same time hit the bathroom.  Inside was buzzing with activity and we couldn’t find the bathroom after circling the place, but then the helpful coffee lady directed us to the basement level.

Turen and I discovered not one but TWO security guys inside the bathroom stopping potential poopers in their tracks to cough up 25 cents, which they put in a metal box.  Of course Turen started to rant about how pissing was an unstoppable force, not a privilege and I was blowing off steam too.

"What a great job."

We got Amanda’s pizza and regrouped at the outside table and the bathroom experience became about 5 minutes of joke material.  I really should’ve pissed in that metal box.

There should be an automated message in the stalls, "If you’d like to take a piss, PRESS 1, if you’d like to take a shit, PRESS 2. Please insert an additional 25 cents for your shit.  If you’d like to mask the sounds of your explosive diarrehea with new age music, insert 1 dollar.  We also have AC/DC."

"Better go with the AC/DC."

"Whenever I step foot in a bathroom and hear the strains of AC/DC I get the fuck out quick."

We walked for awhile and found a mediocre alley that would work, but then a couple blocks further we spotted a wall with a lot of wildlife attached to it and something in the corner promised something bleak and interesting.

The perfect alley.  Excellent backdrop too- stout buildings with crazy fans poking out of the tenants windows and just a real gritty feel to the surroundings.  We planted the body by a dumpster and Casey dressed the blood stain with fresh blood.  Got some low angle shots of Stu walking towards the body.

Turen took over snapshot duty and gave the little Sony Cybershot some exercise.  He really got into it and the camera rotated over to Amanda too.

We were right by this parking structure, but no one bothered us.  Occasionally a werido would walk near us, but never past us.  A surveillance camera was feeding my anxiety, but then we rationalized that it was by the elevator and according to the elevator’s hours it was closed anyway, so the camera probably wasn’t functioning.  It was a Sunday after all.

We took bathroom breaks- it took Stu a good 45 minutes to find it and come back, so in the mean time we got shots of the police tape shooting out from beneath the sheet.  Well before that we got shots of something moving underneath which prompts Elliot to start walking backwards and that’s when the tape would shoot out in the following shot.  Amanda lay down on the ground out-of-frame and extended her arm underneath the sheet and she simply moved her hand across to execute a snake-like movement. 

A limping pigeon (Limping Pigeon Productions anyone?) hobbled by and I wasted about a minute of footage directing it and capturing its natural brilliance.  We were joking about pigeons earlier because there were about five hundred flanking the USC film, hanging out at the newstand- probably paid more than my actors.  The pigeon slowly limped its way to the dead body and for a second I thought it was going to start pecking at the blood stain which would’ve been truly disgusting, but instead it just inspected and limped away.

"Cut-perfect!" I yelled and about 10 seconds later the pigeon flew away like nothing was wrong with it.

"Faker!"

"That pigeon was a great actor."

For the money shot of the snake-tape striking, Turen tied a piece of black thread to the end and then pulled the string over my shoulder, so that when he yanked it the tape came bolting out from the sheet and striking right past the camera like a spring-loaded snake out of a can of peanuts.  We tried it several times and got a different angle.  Then Turen and I took a bathroom break.  We found a bathroom inside a hotel, but we had to go through another Famima sandwich shop to get to it and then grab a key from a security dude.  Turen took a nasty shit, courtesy of a Famima sandwich…really could’ve used that AC/DC.

Stu was in the alley when we got back so we started doing more special efffects.  We wrapped the tape around his arm and yanked it off for the shot, so that when it’s played in reverse it’ll look like the tape leaped out and wrapped around his arm.  We did the same thing with his leg too and Stu of course had to react backwards, which seems like an easy concept to grasp, but it’s extremely difficult to execute.

Turen suggested we shoot in regular fashion and just pull the tape through several of Stu’s coat compartments, which also worked for the close-ups.

We got enough shots and now it was time to mummify Stu.  Amanda took a bathroom break with me and when we got back Stu looked insane, almost completely covered.  So surreal in the alley, the lighting was different now because the sun went down and we had the orange glow of an overhead light- worked in our favor though,  Luckily, I got a few shots that could make the transition smoothe, but I was a little bummed we didn’t get to shoot the whole thing in daylight. 

Stu couldn’t move for about 90 minutes.  We got all of Turen’s shots stabbing him.  Turen tried several expressions, smiling, completely blank and then wild-eyed.  I was a little freaked that Turen had the blade drawn for the shots, but he only pressed the side of the blade against Stu.  Then he would yank out a strip of red Caution tape from Stu’s midsection, but it looked kind of stupid.  The close-ups of the Caution tape spilling out were really great though, seemed strangely graphic in the light too.

We wrapped about a quarter to 7- I think we started shooting around 1:30-2, so it was a long day.  Really really fu though- great company.  I’m sure Stu was aching as much as me the next day.  Casey was going to be late for work, but he assured us they wouldn’t care- he works with me at Arclght andf it was a cash handler shift, but they had plenty of help in the office already.

"I might even stop at Amoeba and get a cd."

Stu dropped everyone off and we setlled on an Arbys dinner- Beef and Cheddar style.  They had Cheesecake poppers…weird.

I canceled the movie night and let everyone know it would definitely be sold out- No Country For Old Men was dong sold out shows all weekend at Arclight.  Fantastic movie by the way.

Extremely satisfying experience despite a truly annoying first couple of hours in Downtown Los Angeles.  The good company took it above and beyond.