Mrs. Darcy

Today started out great, with Tessa giving me gummy bears and a note to "Mrs. Darcy". There's an inside joke with that, but short version of the story, that was the perfect beginning.

We arrived on set and immediately work began. I basically run around looking at everything, answering questions, working with actors, approving whatever else, and so forth. It gets a bit hectic, really. Filming began and things ran smoothly, and let me tell you, I timed out something so perfectly it's amazing: a phone call where the phone needs to start ringing right as the camera locks off. And it was great. Things ran relatively smoothly at the beginning, and then because it started raining, that changed. But we managed, and finished out the first few scenes we filmed today with good results. And a lot of takes. Olivia was way on her game today too with all the timing she was doing. I have no clue how she does it, but she does. And she's good.

Then came the kitchen. Oh man. STRESS. This scene was really important and long and a lot of important things happen in it, so it took a lot to really get it right on all levels. But we did! And, we even wrapped a little ahead of schedule. That's pretty impressive. Yay! Probably my favorite part of the kitchen scene was this cute little interaction between Shannon and Phil (Lycia and Dad) where she jokes about burning the bunnies and he throws a chocolate chip at her. That was his idea, and it worked out so well--made the relationship between them feel more real and less forced or staged. The acting in that scene was super impressive to me; at times I felt that I wasn't watching a movie but standing on the edge of a real family's interaction and that at any second I could say something and enter into the action. Before this film, I'd never experienced that, never felt like I was watching real life rather than a scene someone had written and people were now acting. I ended up trusting Lee entirely on what the kitchen shots looked like and not letting myself watching anything but the acting. That might be why I was able to feel so much about the acting.

This film has been challenging me in a lot of ways, but one of the reasons why today was so stressful for me is because I forced myself to trust in my crew a lot more than I would have liked to. Generally I don't like trusting people with how I feel (if I'm not in a good mood) or with creative things. This film has become my life, and it's hard for me to relinquish control and trust someone else for how the shot looks, how the sound is, and so forth. I pretty much handed full control over to Lee today as to what the shots look like, aside from watching a few things for timing purposes (like when to motion to Olivia to call Lycia's phone or when to have Nathaniel open his eyes at the end.) But time and time again this crew has proven that they are worthy of every bit of my trust--I just need to allow myself to rely on them because they'll make sure that everything is good.

Every day is a new learning experience for me, whether it's on or off the set.