We are extremely excited to share our wedding plans with family and friends. Please click through the links to learn about us and our plans.
About Us
About the bride
Lisa has lived in Raleigh since birth. She went to college at N.C. State University and now works for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Her hobbies include writing screenplays, canoeing with Dean, picnicking, walks around the park, tennis, and relaxing on the beach.
About the groom
Dean works as a software developer for BOWE BELL & HOWELL for the last 14 years. Dean has many hobbies, including running social groups. Dean has lived in 5 states and ended up in North Carolina in the early 80s. Dean went to college at UNC Greensboro and moved back to the Raleigh area after college.
How we met
Dean was Organizer of The Raleigh-Durham Singles Meetup group. The 20s/30s had a Happy Hour event at Tavola Rossa (now the Crabtree Tavern) and Lisa attend as her first event. Lisa was very excited to meet Dean and spent the evening smiling and standing near him, trying to talk to him all night long. Lisa was unusually outgoing and her efforts were noticed by Dean. After months of attending events, Dean scheduled one event that only Lisa signed up for and attended. The event was a dinner event at Neo Asia, so even thought is was a singles event, it felt like a date. When they finished eating, they stepped outside and it was snowing. There was a very awkward moment as to what Lisa and Dean should do next. Lisa wanted to kiss Dean, Dean wasn’t sure what to do. So, after they said goodnight, Dean asked Lisa out on a date for Valentine’s Day and Lisa gladly said, “Yes”.
Our Proposal
Date of event
8/14/2010
How we got engaged
Since Dean and Lisa had already agreed on getting married, it was up to Dean to surprise Lisa with an engagement.
Dean and Lisa started going on picnics in the spring and one of the first places they had a picnic was the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. The Museum of Art has a “art trail” that contains large sculptures, including a set of three rings made from the dirt that they stand on. Near this sculpture is where Lisa and Dean had their picnic. Dean’s plan was to have a picnic at the same spot and pop the question to Lisa.
Dean first had to convince Lisa to go to the Museum, so he told her it would be a good time for him to meet the Maid of Honor, Louisa, and for her to meet the Best Man, Jason. Louisa and her husband were to meet Dean and Lisa at the Art Museum at 11:30 am. Meanwhile, Dean had Jason and another friend Adam, setup a picnic basket and blanket near one of the rings. Dean had bought a big white wicker picnic basket and had champagne and a small radio playing inside of it. Adam would take pictures of Lisa and Dean walking down the trail to the picnic basket. Jason also brought rose pedals to throw on the blanket.
After a little delay and convincing Lisa not to go into the museum, Dean told Lisa, Louisa and her husband David that they were waiting on Jason to arrive. He then suggested that they walk down to where Lisa and he had their picnic. As they walked down the trail, Dean tried to distract the rest of the group so they wouldn’t see Jason start the music and Adam taking photos. As we got closer to the ring, they noticed Adam and Jason, but thought that they were a photography group. When Dean tried to walk Lisa to the picnic blanket, Lisa wouldn’t go, because she thought it was someone else’s picnic. So, Dean had to open the picnic basket to reveal the ring box. After moving Lisa around to a better camera angle, Dean proposed :
Lisa,
I want to have all of my picnics with you.
I want to spend all my time on the beach with you.
I want to take all my hikes in the woods with you.
I want to have all my new adventures with you.
Will you marry me?
Lisa nodded her head and mumbled “Yes” through her tears of joy. Dean opened champagne for everyone and the toasted the celebration.
Lisa and Dean spent the next 15 minutes taking photos and then the entire group went to the Art Museum restaurant Iris for lunch. The hostess gave the group champagne.
Ceremony
Information for our guests
The ceremony will be a private ceremony for just family. Lisa and Dean want a small and simple ceremony, but will provide a reception party for all of their friends after the wedding.
The ceremony will be at North River United Methodist Church, which is the home church of Dean’s oldest sister, Jenny, and her family. Dean’s oldest niece Jacyln is getting married on the 9th, which is why Dean and Lisa chose the perfect date of 10/10/10 for their wedding day.
Driving directions
North River United Methodist Church is in Beaufort, NC. It is located on Highway 70, just outside of town.
Wedding Party
Our wedding party
The very small wedding party consists of Louisa as the Maid of Honor and Jason as the Best Man.
The Maid of Honor
Louisa Dang has been friends with Lisa since their days in the English department at NCSU. Louisa worked for the department’s literary journal, and Lisa worked down the hall in the academic affairs office. Both were students of creative writing, and their love of writing was the foundation of their friendship. Louisa is now married to a great guy named David in Burlington and they now have a beautiful baby daughter Fiona. Lisa and Louisa often bounce story ideas off each other. Louisa is working on her mystery novel.
The Best Man
Jason has been Dean’s best friend every since Dean arrived in North Carolina at the end of Dean’s 4th grade year. Jason found out that there was a new family in the neighborhood, so he went over to proclaim his standing in the neighbor pecking order. Unfortunately for Jason, Dean didn’t care an ounce of who Jason thought he was. They were best friends ever since. Jason and Dean were a awesome football and basketball duo, dominating the neighborhood at the sports. Through middle school, high school and college, Jason and Dean kept in touch and remained friends, even while attending different schools. They shared residences after returning back to Raleigh and through thin and thick (lately thick) have been good friends. Therefor, it is no wonder why Dean would choose his oldest and best friend as his Best Man.
Honeymoon
About our honeymoon
Lisa loves the beach. Dean loves to go on a cruise. Lisa and Dean’s honeymoon will be on a cruise in the Caribbean. They will spend 5 nights traveling from Miami to the Grand Turks and then on to the Bahamas aboard the Carnival ship Destiny.
Last night Chris, Lisa and I traveled to Greensboro to the Carousel Cinemas to view our little creation. When we arrived, the parking lot was fairly full and there was a long line to get tickets. My guess is that they didn’t start selling tickets until 6:30 pm, so there was a little slowness, because the line started moving along after a little bit. We got our tickets for the 48 Hour Film Project and went into the theater to find seats. It was a crowded house in the theater and we ended up sitting way up near the top. I noticed that the group of teenage boys that I talked to at the assignment party were sitting behind us. After some announcements from Iris, the city organizer, the film started.
I know there really weren’t that many things that came up before the first movie, but waiting to see your own film on the big screen does make time go slower. After a 48 Hour Film Project short film and a bunch of ‘thanks to our sponsors’, we saw the 2 films that did not make the deadline. The first film was a western, that was supposed to be another genre, I think. Anyway, it was very well done and I was worried that ‘The Compromise’ would look extremely amateurish in comparison. Then the second film played, which was a computer animation film that wasn’t animated very well and had a bunch of uncomfortable pauses between the lines. Unfortunately for the team that created it, I think the audience were laughing at how bad it was and not any of a possible comic nature. The third film was done very well, and received one of my three votes. It was a horror movie about people degenerating into mindless zombies. Most of the dialog was done as narration, which probably made things easy. At this point, I was thinking that my film seemed awfully short compared to the others. Another filmed played that made everyone go “what the?” because it seemed like two films put together and didn’t seem to have a flowing script. Finally it was time for ‘The Compromise’.
As the other films started, it seemed like the applause was much louder, I’m putting it down to who brought the most friends to see their movies. It was the three of us way up in the top seats and three others way down at the front. So, no real way to get a crazy group yelling at the top of their lungs. As the film played, the audience was first shocked by the lack of opening credits. I heard a good comment about our outside shot of the trailer and then a few laughs here and there throughout the film. Since our film ended as quickly as it started, I think that caught the audience off guard, they were expecting the long credits like the previous films. The did laugh at the “Thanks for the dumplings” part. Someone behind me asked if it was my film and then said that he thought the screenwriting was great.
The rest of the movies played with a couple more amateur efforts like ours and a couple more that were very well done. One was so well done that it didn’t seem possible that they did all the writing, filming and special effects in the 48 hour period. The other film that got one of my votes was a dream film where the husband and wife battled each other in their dreams for their perfect dream, but in the end helped their daughter fight one of her toys in the daughter’s dream. Of all the other films presented After the last movie played, the directors were asked down to do a Q&A session. Only about 4 questions were asked and two of them were aimed at the group whose film didn’t seem to fit in the 48 hour time period. The group claimed they started writing as soon as they got notice of their genre from the one person who went to the assignment party and that they filmed all night long and finished at 1 pm on Saturday. I don’t think anyone bought it, since they had drama as a genre and they did a horror film.
After the questions, they asked anyone to talk about any projects, which is when I noticed that Tara-Nicole and Kerry were sitting in the front row. When everything was done I walked over to them to say ‘hi’ and catch up. Josh was also in the audience with his family, so it was a mini crew and cast reunion. We discussed the possibility of re-shooting scenes to fix some errors and then shooting some extra scenes to bring the story line together. Hopefully we can do that and provide a complete version of the film. Jenny-Lynn sent a couple of photos to a friend and provide the movie poster at the top of this post. Below is the film we submitted, slightly enhanced beyond what the audience saw, because Chris wanted to fix sound and tone issue. Enjoy.
Starting on Friday (June 11th) I began my participation in The 48 Hour Film Project in Greensboro. The 48 Hour Film Project has been going on for about 8 years and happens all across the country and in Asia and Europe. The idea is to get people interested in making movies by having a contest where the movie is written, filmed, edited and turned back in within a 48 hour time period, hence the title. To make sure that people don’t shoot the film in advance and submit it at the contest deadline, there are certain elements that are required to be in the film. On top of that, each team randomly draws a genre for their film. All the teams have to use the same elements, which consist of a character name and occupation, a prop and a line. Teams can be as small as one person to as big as hundreds. The length of the film, including the credits, has to be no longer than 7 minutes long. Having just started doing films, this was going to be a big challenge for RTP – Let’s Make a Movie team.
The contest started at 7 pm on Friday, so I had to get to downtown Greensboro by 6 pm to register. When I arrived, parking was a little slim, so I parked down the street a good bit, because I thought the building address was 320 S. Elm, but it was 520 S. Elm. Luckily for me, I had plenty of time. The registration place was like being in a basement and it was crowded. There were 35 teams competing in Greensboro. I talked to a group of teenage boys who were also doing their first 48 Hour Film Project movie. Because of the crowd, it seemed a little chaotic and disorganized. At one point, they told people to make sure we had tickets for the right team. The teenagers looked at me in the same confused look that I had about figuring that out. However, we did have the right tickets for the team we were on, Team A. After a few announcements, we were allowed to draw our movie genres. The teenagers pulled “Buddy Movie”, then another team pulled “Film La Femme” and I pulled “Road Movie”. Before heading to Greensboro, I managed to recruit three actors to the team. Three female actors. So, we were really hoping to get the female centered genre “Film La Femme” or the “Buddy Movie”. Since Chris, the editor/camera man/owner of the shooting location, had setups to mount a camera to a vehicle, we were also hoping to get the “Road Movie”. Apparently it was my lucky drawing day, we got the “Road Movie”.
After each of the groups drew their genres, they read out the elements. For a character; Marla Dockery, Professional Organizer/ Clutter Coach. For the prop; a bandanna. For the line; “You think you know everything.” As soon as I got the elements and knew that they had finished making annoucements, I headed out the door with the other eager teams. On the way to the car I called Chris and Lisa to get everyone started brainstorming on ideas. As I was driving down the road, I came up with an idea of having a final line of “You think you know everything, but my hair is blue.” The mother of the youngest of the actresses called to tell me that they were running late and I asked her if she wouldn’t mind turning Tara-Nicole’s hair blue. She let me know that she would pick up some blue hair extensions and would see me later that night. I continued down the road to Chris’s house in Efland thinking about lines and possible a story line.
When I arrived Chris told me that the group had been brainstorming and had some ideas. They like the idea o f using Chris’s camper as part of the movie, so we went from there. I took some of Lisa’s script she sent and started trying to incorporate the elements into the film. Everybody else either went to bed, headed home or to temporary lodging near by. Jenny-Lynn and Tara-Nicole showed up just before midnight and I recruited her as the 3 adult female actress to replace one that couldn’t make it back on Saturday. Jenny-Lynn provided some Gatorade towards the effort and headed to the hotel. After midnight, it was just me on the script and Chris messing around with camera stuff. I was worrying about having enough lines of dialog and a proper build up to the final line. Chris assured me that I had plenty of lines and we started working on the storyboarding. By the time we were done, it was 3 am. I headed to the couch and tried to get some sleep with Erik serenading me with the soft sounds of snoring.
Wake up time was before 7 am, because we had a call at 7:30 am. Chris and I zoomed out to Wal-Mart to get some snacks and other odds and ends, trying to get back before the actors and crew showed up, but didn’t. I sat down with actors and started going over the lines and Chris started setting up the shooting equipment. We sent out one crew to get the road shots as the rest did the busy work. The practice was going fairly well and the actors really like the lines. Kerry and Laurie seemed a little type cast for the roles, but it was purely by accident. After having to send out the camera crew 2 more times to get the road shots, the trailer was ready for some run practices on the set. When the crew got back from the last shooting of the road, we took a lunch break as the actors got their makeup ready.
During story-boarding, we ended up having 50 shots. To make things difficult, the trailer wasn’t very large, so we were limited at how we could take the shots. Because I purposely left the stability chucks off of the trailer to provide a dramatic effect, only the actors, camera and microphone could be in the trailer during shooting. Chris setup a remote director’s station so that I could see what was in the shot while sitting under a shelter outside. To communicate, I had a walkie-talkie and another one was placed on the counter with a bunch of junk around it, which basically meant it was now prop in the movie.
Based on the timing codes, we started shooting at 2 pm. We took the outside shots with Lee as ‘Harold’ first, so we wouldn’t have to worry about lighting. We then begin to shoot scenes from one shot location and then the next, but after too long, we were just trying to get all the shots in. Then the storm hit. The rain started with a few drops, but then picked up to a down pour in no time at all. We stopped filming for a few minutes until the sound wasn’t noticeable in the trailer. The rain was very noticeable under the shelters outside of the trailer. We had to use two umbrellas under the shelter to keep the equipment dry. The rain didn’t last extremely long and we wrapped up shooting just after 7:30 and had some pizza that Erik went to get. Chris and I had planned on stopping shooting at 8 pm, because we figured the light would be useless at that time and it would give us plenty of time to sleep before editing began. After taking a few crew and cast photos, we said goodbye and thanks and let everyone who could go head on back to their homes.
At 5:30 am on Sunday, we started getting Erik and Josh around to start working on editing. We needed new road shots because the ones taken on Saturday didn’t work well. While Chris matched up the scenes that Josh and he labeled the night before, Erik and I went through some sounds to find intro music. After narrowing it down to what I was looking for, let him go to find something. Josh had been our boom operator and foley artist on Saturday. I sent him outside for a little bit to get outside noise that was used for the shot of the trailer on the side of the road. When he was finished with that, he joined Erik to pick out the opening sound track as Chris and I continued to go through the scenes to line up audio and to shorten the movie to less than 7 minutes. We had to cut a few lines, which was unfortunate, because they helped with the story. By 2 pm, Chris had everything lined up and started tweaking things with the sound and coloring. I had Josh and Erik make some crash noises and then took Josh back home when we were sure he had nothing left to do.
I had planned on leaving at 5:30 pm to give myself plenty of time to reach Greensboro before the 7:30 pm deadline. However, we had some issues with creating and testing the Quicktime move. Also, we decided to put the trailer back in its place before leaving. By the time I was headed out the door, I thought I might get there late. To make things a little more dicey, my transmission had been having issues, so I had Erik follow as a back-up vehicle if I broke down. Another thunderstorm during the afternoon also created some concern about traffic on the way, but it was mostly smooth sailing. I found a parking spot right near the door of the drop-off place and went in to give my documents and movie with 13 minutes to spare. Because I wasn’t sure if the Quicktime movie worked, I waited until they pulled it up on their computer before leaving. While I was sitting there listening to movie geeks critique opening credits of professional movies, the team leader from the teenagers team showed up to hear some very disappointing news. He was there before the deadline, but his movies was too long, which meant the team was disqualified.
The movie will be played on Wednesday and I’m nervous about the audience reaction. When we are about finished, Chris made a statement that they will ask why we made a pilot for a television show.
Besides remember to bring some ear plugs, there are a few things I would have liked to do differently.
Stick to the schedule
We had planned to start shooting earlier, but we didn’t get any shots in until after 2 pm. For the most part, we did stick to the schedule, but if we started shooting earlier, we could have gotten more shots in. The more shots, the more to work with.
Record the practice
The actresses were a bunch of fun and they did a whole bunch of ad-libbing between practicing
Have a Director’s Assistance
I really needed 1 or 2 people who were there during the story-boarding to keep track of the scenes. We missed one scene, but due to the length, we would have had to cut it anyway. Having people coming in afterward, made it too hard them to figure out the shots.
Let the actors continue on
Since we had 50 scenes figured out and we thought we were going to shoot multiple shots of the same scene, I cut the actors after they finished with certain lines. Next time, I will let them go as long as they could remember the lines.
As part of my non-singleness, I decided to get involved in the movie business to support Lisa’s screen writing hobby. It’s her hobby until she sells one, but she is now published. I’m trying to get her to link her blog to the site she is published on. Anyway, I joined the Meetup group called The RTP “Let’s Make a Movie” Meetup Group. As far as I know, it is the only “Let’s Make a Movie” Meetup group, until June 3, 2010, when someone started one on the west coast. The RTP group was founded April 10, 2006, which makes it almost ancient in Meetup history. The original group managed to make one spoof commercial film and things seemed to fall apart. A couple of other people tried to keep the group alive, but nothing came of the meetings…. then I enter.
I decide to change the focus of the group from collaborative screen writing, to “Producer” focused work. Instead of the group deciding on the script, writers (like my Lisa) would submit scripts and then “Producers” would decide if they would make it into a movie. This cuts out probably a big part of issues caused with a group making a movie. Once you have one person as the head and a script to follow, then those who want to that particular project can jump on board and others can wait until another project pops up. Also, this method allows for multiple projects to happen, as each Producer is responsible for their own project and the group isn’t wrapped up in just a single thing at a time.
The site also hadn’t been update since the latest changes to the Meetup software, so I went through and cleaned up the forums and made changes to the About pages and other areas of the site. I even changed the “Rated ‘R’” logo to a movie slate clap(per) board. Even though it wasn’t about “Rated ‘R’” movies, I couldn’t accept the logo as appropriate for the group. Also, the new icon I found fit well with the color scheme I chose for the site. Another update was to give some people titles: writer, editor, sound , camera, actor, actress. The titles would help Producers and Directors find talent for their projects.
Well, after those changes went into place, I set forth to create a monthly meeting and try to get interest going in the group again. There were a few people who started paying attention to the site again, but with it being pretty much dead for a year, there wasn’t much hope of getting the 200+ members back, so I removed all the dead weight as we focused on our first film. The first film was shot last Saturday. It is a short film called “The Rapper and The Poet” and is basically a short poem about a rapper and poet debating the difference between the two. We shot the film on an unmarked trail in Umstead Park, which required a little leg work to get a permit for. But of course, as the Producer/Director, I was missing an important piece of equipment. So, I quickly made my own movie slate clapper board. I did a search and even found an Instructable for creating one.
Materials
scrap piece of wood in a rectangular shape
scrap piece of wood same material as fist piece, but just skinny and long
scrap square piece of wood twice the height of the clapper piece
blackboard paint and paint brush (only item I had to go purchase)
flat white spray paint
painters tape
3 metal screws and bolts
drill with 3/8 inch bit
How I Built It
Since I didn’t have a lot of time, I just used some scrap wood and screws that I had in my shed. I didn’t even cut the main board, even though it was longer than the clapper part of the board. I spent 2 days painting the front and back of the board. I put 2 coats on the front and just one every where else, so that the board wasn’t showing.
I cut a notch out of the clapper piece, to allow for it to move up.
I held the clapper piece to the square holder piece and drilled 1 (one) hole through both at the same time. I made sure that one side of the both pieces lined up. You can then stick 1(one) of the screws in the hole to keep the pieces together.
I then held the board piece to the square holder, making sure that the clapper lined up straight with the board and drilled 2 (two) holes into the board, like the number 2 die side.
Using an image of a basic clapper board, I tapped over all the places I wanted to remain black. I tried very carefully to keep the same space between each of the angled lines of the clapper and the spot above the clapper. I used some scrap cardboard pieces to cover the big areas.
I spray painted the rest of the board. After drying for a few hours, I removed the tape.
I noticed that some paint particles got under the taped areas, so I painted the main areas with more blackboard tape.
Final touches were to add the Meetup stickers.
The movie slate clapper board is over-sized. I’m guessing normal ones are about half the size. A good reason for being half the size, is so that all the information gets into the shot. I bought some chalk for the wording. A box of 12 pieces was about 80 cents, so I bought a box of colored and a box of white. Because I didn’t sand the board down, the chalk didn’t write very smoothly. However, it was still pretty clear. And having the board as big as it was, it was easy to write big letters. I used one of my plastic containers to hold the chalk and a rag to wipe the chalk off. It worked great.
It took us from just after 10 am to almost 2 pm to get all the shots done for our 5 minute film. We took about 4 takes for each shot and some extra shots to get expressions and such. Now, it is all about the editors. As part of the group project, we are giving anyone who wants to be an editor a copy of the raw footage. They will have until mid or end of July to take that raw footage and create a film. We will have a “Premiere Night” for The Rapper and The Poet to show everyone’s efforts. Until then, we are participating in The 48 Hour Film Project in Greensboro this weekend.
About a few weeks ago, while I was searching for preparedness food, I came across the blog Adventures in Self Reliance. Adventures in Self Reliance is about a stay-at-home mom out west who blogs about her efforts in farming and other activities that allow her family to not rely on the hubbub of the modern world. Okay, probably not exactly how she would phrase it. Some people would phrase it as a blog about being able to survive after everything goes to pot. Regardless, she posts information about the food and other things in a very straight forward manner. And, as far as I can tell, she’s doing the best job on the web of actually comparing preparedness foods. On top of the reviews, she apparently gets freebies from the companies that provide the items. I entered the Dinner Pack Giveaway from Augason Farms Plus Super Sale when I first found the blog. I added her blog to my RSS feed and saw that she announced the winner. But, she also had an old post about canning tomatoes linked below the giveaway announcement.
Back before moving to North Cackalacky, my family lived in small towns on acres of land. We had horses, chickens, and plenty of cats and dogs among our other pets. We also always had a garden. In Indiana, we had 3 gardens and a grape vine. I don’t actually remember getting any grapes off of the vine that were ripe, we always went for the snake tongues and not so ready sour grapes. I still have some what of a sour tongue today. The biggest garden was a potato garden, the second largest one was the pumpkin, zucchini and other melons and gourds with sunflowers lining the side. My Shetland pony, Nubby, would crawl under the fence to that garden and eat the pumpkins. A very cleaver, but bad pony. The smallest garden was a general vegetable and fruit garden. With everything from strawberries to corn. Today my parents only keep one garden with a wide variety of items, including some Loganberry bushes that I bought them. The small garden also produced tomatoes. Tomatoes are God’s favorite weed, since they will grow anywhere and you usually get more than you plan for. While reading through Adventures in Self Reliance’s post on canning tomatoes, memories came back of my own experience in canning tomatoes. It was a “yeah, that’s how I remember it” moment. The only difference was, we kept the tomatoes whole. My oldest sister gave me a jar of ketchup that she made, so I guess the family is upgrading their own recipes.
Since I live in a townhouse surrounded by trees, it hasn’t been easy getting anything beyond house plants to grow. Maybe when my brother finally gets his family settled back here, he’ll get a place big enough for a garden and we can try growing stuff again. Meanwhile, we’ll just have to help out up at Brigadoon Farm of Hastings once a year in the summer.
Last night Chris, Lisa and I traveled to Greensboro to the 
The contest started at 7 pm on Friday, so I had to get to downtown Greensboro by 6 pm to register. When I arrived, parking was a little slim, so I parked down the street a good bit, because I thought the building address was 320 S. Elm, but it was 520 S. Elm. Luckily for me, I had plenty of time. The registration place was like being in a basement and it was crowded. There were 35 teams competing in Greensboro. I talked to a group of teenage boys who were also doing their first 48 Hour Film Project movie. Because of the crowd, it seemed a little chaotic and disorganized. At one point, they told people to make sure we had tickets for the right team. The teenagers looked at me in the same confused look that I had about figuring that out. However, we did have the right tickets for the team we were on, Team A. After a few announcements, we were allowed to draw our movie genres. The teenagers pulled “Buddy Movie”, then another team pulled “Film La Femme” and I pulled “Road Movie”. Before heading to Greensboro, I managed to recruit three actors to the team. Three female actors. So, we were really hoping to get the female centered genre “Film La Femme” or the “Buddy Movie”. Since Chris, the editor/camera man/owner of the shooting location, had setups to mount a camera to a vehicle, we were also hoping to get the “Road Movie”. Apparently it was my lucky drawing day, we got the “Road Movie”.
After each of the groups drew their genres, they read out the elements. For a character; Marla Dockery, Professional Organizer/ Clutter Coach. For the prop; a bandanna. For the line; “You think you know everything.” As soon as I got the elements and knew that they had finished making annoucements, I headed out the door with the other eager teams. On the way to the car I called Chris and Lisa to get everyone started brainstorming on ideas. As I was driving down the road, I came up with an idea of having a final line of “You think you know everything, but my hair is blue.” The mother of the youngest of the actresses called to tell me that they were running late and I asked her if she wouldn’t mind turning Tara-Nicole’s hair blue. She let me know that she would pick up some blue hair extensions and would see me later that night. I continued down the road to Chris’s house in Efland thinking about lines and possible a story line.
Wake up time was before 7 am, because we had a call at 7:30 am. Chris and I zoomed out to Wal-Mart to get some snacks and other odds and ends, trying to get back before the actors and crew showed up, but didn’t. I sat down with actors and started going over the lines and Chris started setting up the shooting equipment. We sent out one crew to get the road shots as the rest did the busy work. The practice was going fairly well and the actors really like the lines. Kerry and Laurie seemed a little type cast for the roles, but it was purely by accident. After having to send out the camera crew 2 more times to get the road shots, the trailer was ready for some run practices on the set. When the crew got back from the last shooting of the road, we took a lunch break as the actors got their makeup ready.
During story-boarding, we ended up having 50 shots. To make things difficult, the trailer wasn’t very large, so we were limited at how we could take the shots. Because I purposely left the stability chucks off of the trailer to provide a dramatic effect, only the actors, camera and microphone could be in the trailer during shooting. Chris setup a remote director’s station so that I could see what was in the shot while sitting under a shelter outside. To communicate, I had a walkie-talkie and another one was placed on the counter with a bunch of junk around it, which basically meant it was now prop in the movie.
At 5:30 am on Sunday, we started getting Erik and Josh around to start working on editing. We needed new road shots because the ones taken on Saturday didn’t work well. While Chris matched up the scenes that Josh and he labeled the night before, Erik and I went through some sounds to find intro music. After narrowing it down to what I was looking for, let him go to find something. Josh had been our boom operator and foley artist on Saturday. I sent him outside for a little bit to get outside noise that was used for the shot of the trailer on the side of the road. When he was finished with that, he joined Erik to pick out the opening sound track as Chris and I continued to go through the scenes to line up audio and to shorten the movie to less than 7 minutes. We had to cut a few lines, which was unfortunate, because they helped with the story. By 2 pm, Chris had everything lined up and started tweaking things with the sound and coloring. I had Josh and Erik make some crash noises and then took Josh back home when we were sure he had nothing left to do.
About a few weeks ago, while I was searching for preparedness food, I came across the blog 
