beast. films

Our final weekend of shooting is done!

Holy MOLY everyone!  What a weekend!

The last few days have been about 15 hours long.  Exhausting, but wonderful.  I’ve written a lot about shooting on set so far, but there’s a lot more that goes on before and after that may be a lot rougher than what happens before the AD yells “action” and a director yells “cut”.  For example, the first time this occured was at about 9am on Friday, but Kevin and I bussed up to New York from DC on Wednesday just to get the ball rolling.  We started by renting the van to carry all of the equipment on Thursday morning.  Of course, when we got there, we were met with “your van is gone, someone else rented it,” even though it was reserved.  I didn’t tell the guy that he was unoriginal and that Seinfeld already did that one.  BUT, he just gave us a 16 foot truck instead of a van for no extra cost, which was nice, except for the fact that it meant we had to be driving a 16 foot truck around Manhattan for a weekend (much easier than it sounds).

From there, we picked up all of our lighting equipment, and brought it over to our office location in Brooklyn where we’d be shooting the following day.  We used the opportunity to unload all of our lights a day early to save time the next morning.  We checked out the huge, barren office.  This brought us back to Manhattan, where we decided we had to make a Staples/thrift store run to make it a huge, busy office.  We had to split up for this, because we also had to run to Jersey City to pick up our camera.  About four hours later, we were set to shoot in the morning.

All our office scenes were shot Friday morning.  It was a lot of fun because we had this giant office to ourselves, and were able to populate it with some really great extras and supplies to make it work exactly the way we wanted.  That last sentence sort of unintentionally equates supplies with extras.  I’m sorry.  Our extras were all really good.  They made shooting even more fun.  The office supplies did not.  I mean, post-it notes and index cards are fun, but only to a certain extent.  Anyway, the office scenes look great.  We actually started the day shooting perhaps the most climactic scene in the movie, which was really interesting, because the rest of the day was spent shooting scenes that led up to it.  Again, TJ was brilliant, and so were all our other actors.  Joe was phenomenal.  These were his showcase scenes and he nailed every one of them.  He and TJ worked really well together (both are very experienced and talented improvisers).

After the office, we shot our subway flashback scene, which was a lot of fun.  This is when Kevin, Paul and I have our cameos, so that was cool too.  The footage from this scene looks really incredible.  Gus made it look so awesome.

So, we packed everything up, left the truck in Brooklyn (no parking in Manhattan), and headed back.  I wrote my expense report for the day and took what I’ll call a nap, because each night this weekend we slept for about three hours.  Then it was wake up time.  We split up to get the truck in Brooklyn and bring it back to Manhattan, so we could shoot all our apartment scenes.  The apartment belongs to a friend of ours, so trying to set up in his place at 7am while trying not to wake his roommates was pretty difficult.  It didn’t work.  They were really nice about us being there and completely invading their place though.

We started the apartment scenes by trashing the place, shooting a scene after Charlie trashes his apartment, cleaning up the place, and then shooting “clean apartment” scenes.  Again, footage looks amazing.  I can’t wait to put some of this stuff up here so everyone can see it.  Sunday was no different.  Hang on, yes it was.  We got to shoot in the most hilarious office I’ve ever been in.  Our parole office is one with fake wood paneled walls with completed puzzles framed and hung on them, along with huge American flags hung everywhere.  It was perfect.  Yes, the scenes are funny, but not necessarily more so than the office in which they take place.  That’s all I’m saying.  Also, Bobby Moynihan and Emily Axford came shoot their cameos there.  Both were so funny, and a lot of fun to have on set.

Sunday night, at about 7:30, halfway into the most disappointing Super Bowl of all time (try being a Pats fan in New York city on that day) we were done.  It was an incredible feeling to have worked so hard with so many great people and actually pull it off the way we did.  Every single cast and crew member worked so well on this project.  We were so lucky.  Or maybe just good at assembling a great cast and crew.  I don’t know.  Either way, we succeeded more than we ever could have hoped.  We have a still extremely long road ahead of us with post production and beyond, but for now, we can proudly say that production for “On Parole” has officially completed.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our supporters who donated to the project.  We are still fund raising as hard as ever, and still need more support as much as ever, but without this support we never could have come close to accomplishing what we’ve accomplished in these last three weeks.  So thank you, so much.  And don’t worry, everyone’s contributions went to good use.  By this I mean, not only was it spent wisely, but it was all spent.  Our budget was extremely tight, and now we are broke again.

So fund raising begins once more!  If anyone is interested in being a part of this project, PLEASE check out our donation page and at least consider donating.  And of course, check back here for production stills, cast/crew info, and footage very soon!  This website is about to blow up!