Improvisation: Bagels and Lepers

Falling behind

To pay the bills, I've been doing some art department work on a FedEx commercial. I start on an IKEA commercial next Monday, and that should take me into the first or second week of December. I haven't had time to shoot or edit anything. I'd say that 80 to 90 percent of the film has been shot, so I'm not THAT worried. I was hoping to have a rough cut ready for Tribeca at the end of December, but that's no longer possible.

RA

1st still

I've been editing, the last couple of days, and I thought I'd put up a still. I've only gone through the "hotel" tapes, but I'm happy with the way everything turned out.

Erik is up for a role on a soap, so we had to put off shooting for a week, or so. I can't wait to get back at it.

RA

The (Not-so) Best Western

We finished shooting at the hotel early this morning. I couldn't be happier to be out of there. It was much smaller than I had anticipated. I really felt restricted, with what I could do. I felt like I was shooting the same thing over and over again. We actually changed a scene's location, from the hotel to the streets of Manhattan, just so we could be out of there faster.

It was a tough first three days of shooting. The lack of sleep, caffeine and fast food finally caught up to Erik. We had to cancel today's shoot, because he was under the weather. I think we all needed a day off.

The look of the film, so far, is a different from what I was originally going for. I've been shooting hand-held and using a lot of ECU's. It's just much more intimate this way. It also feels a little uncomfortable.