Day 6

We are now, in theory, halfway done with shooting Water's Edge. Today was a bit frustrating for me; in fact the most frustrating of the shooting days so far.

One of our actors, Larry Laverty, has flown in from California at his own expense. He bunked down at the house we shot at last night; but Russ had to go pick him up, which added an extra hour to his trip. That meant that Mark and I had to find Bandera on our own from Canyon Lake. It turned out to be surprisingly easy.

The Bandera County Sheriff's Department opened up their offices to us, and a cute guy named Kerry was in charge of keeping us in line. I tried to get him in front of the camera, but he was too shy. Anyway, we had Matt (aka Royse) on location to shoot his scene, but didn't have the white van we needed. I saw one at a Baptist church across the street, and Russ and I went to talk to the pastor about using it--but it wouldn't have been available until late afternoon.

Craig (aka Officer Wallace) had to work until 1 o'clock to save his job (he is a construction contractor on the side), so we got in and shot our scene with Jerry (aka County Coroner Gerald) and Sherry (aka Karyn), because it was the only scene wherein all the actors had arrived. While that was in progress, I sent Johnny Quest out to find a white van we could use, and he came through, as always! So, after finishing the shot with Jerry, we did Matt's, which worked out very well. One of the deputies named Lalio, who was also rather cute--and a former film student--acted as our jailer. We finished just as Craig pulled up.

The biggest frustration began after that. Robin did not have a shot breakdown for today, so Russ and I took the initiative and blocked out our next scene. It would have looked great, but Robin insisted that she wanted Karyn plopping down on a curb instead of a bench. She and Russ spent two hours trying to get their blocking figured out.

After they shot the master scene, an air conditioner kicked on, and they were trying wait it out before getting coverage. Before we finished, Kerry told us that he had to lock up the offices in an hour. That sent us scrambling for another location. Once again, it was JQ to the rescue. He convinced the Bandera Chamber of Commerce to stay late and let us use their offices. Even though Patricia Moore of the BCOC said she would be happy to stay as late as necessary, I don't think she realized we would be shooting until 11:30 pm.

Also today, screwed up and didn't tell one of our actresses that we had changed the shoot time from 8am to noon; so she arrived in Bandera (from San Antonio) too early. She was not too upset though, since her mother lives there, so she stopped in for a visit.

Now, if I could just find my notebook that had my script, strip boards, and contact information.