Summer Camp Meets "When We're Grown Up"

For me (the producer) today feels just like summer camp for a years' work of school and headache. Production is the fun part for me - where I can "sit back" and watch the film come to life before my eyes! As far as the work I'm actually doing on set, I've been answering basic questions about the film from crew members, standing in as location liason and 2nd AD, updating the budget, taking behind-the-scenes photos and video, and trying to boost crew morale as much as I can. Fortunately, the crew's morale only needs a limited amount of boosting. In fact, I heard them singing together earlier - that warmed my heart. :)

It's amazing just how much good food on set can motivate a crew! We've pulled out all the stops and even have Starbucks coffee! I want to give a HUGE shout out to Mrs. Meiners' for opening her house for us and providing lunch, as well as to Mr. Cipkowski for catering dinner! On behalf of the crew, THANK YOU!!!

My adventures so far? I'd say most notably, I climbed up on the roof with a couple grips to check out the lighting through the skylight into the bathroom for one of the first scenes of the film. Then it started to rain! While it has put us behind 30 minutes, things are still moving along.

The rain has not made the porch where most of us have been contained (as well as where we've kept food) still a comfortable, dry space. Actually, the weather has been SUCH a blessing, because even in mid-November, I am sitting outside after 7pm when the sun has long gone, and don't even need a jacket! Indian summer has definitely hit at the right time. We have 3 more hours scheduled, will probably be here another 4-5, then it's off to various crew members' houses to stay the night and head to Elizabethtown to scout our hospital tomorrow morning!

Quotes!

The quotes I've gleaned so far from the production... Feel free to add your own either as comments or in a new post!

"Have you ever been to the upstairs of my house?" "No, but I've thought about it" - Zach Meiners and Elisa Platillero

"We had a rooster going through puberty..." - Zach Meiners

"Someone tell Don Mink to take a hike a mile down the road."- Olivia Wardwell

"I just Greeked a toilet" - Art Dept

"That's really uncomfortable, what you're doing to me" - Molly Hoy

"You can pee, as long as you do it in 8oz increments" - Nathaniel Glass

"I'm going to employ situational leadership. And I'll show you situational leadership" (smacks him on the head)

"Someone turn OFF Don Mink!" - Olivia Wardwell

"Do you need anything? Can I give you a massage?" "...later" *wink wink* - Elisa Platillero and Olivia Wardwell

"I don't need a rape whistle, I've got a rape call." Olivia Wardwell to Jen Silver

I hope this is the right place to post this.

So.
I am Chelsea Babcock.
I am an electrician.
I took notes.

DAY 1 - CHIMERA
MORNING SHOOT :
I turned my lights off at 11pm last night. I'm guessing I fell asleep around midnight.
Alarm set for 6:50am.

Arrived on set @ 7:35am.

First shot printed @ 9:05am.

9:18am - On my second cup of coffee. A little jittery!

9:25am - I can definitely feel the coffee, there is no doubt about that!

9:35am - Elisa wants Producer to be an anagram for Awesome.
However, "Producer" lacks an a, w, s, and m.
It is, however, an anagram for "Rudecrop", "Poreducr", "Crudpore", "Dupecrro", "Copuderr", "Errcoupd", and "Rerocupd".

9:54am - I whip my hair back and forth.

9:57am - Room tone

10:15am - Wrap for morning shooting.

10:20am(approx) - Left set.

Lol, I'm not very eloquent. My mind finds things easier to organize if they're in a outline format, so thats how my posts will probably be. And I'm kinda tired, and still super jittery from the coffee. WHEEEE CAFFEINE!

At this moment.

I am at this moment sitting in a green room.

Pretty Epic.

First time, but super excited.

Need I say more :)

They Call Me the Muffin (wo)Man

Greetings! - your producer here.

Some of you may be wondering how I spend my time when I'm not crunching numbers for the budget, creating deadlines for pre-production, hiring crew, planning meetings, solving problems as they arise, or working with the director and department heads to make sure they have everything they need for production. Well...

I make muffins! (With the help of my sweet roommates and friends)

Among the unexpected shifts that have happened throughout pre-production was the promotion of our UPM, Tessa, to also be in charge of craft services. With just a week before production, she swiftly pulled food resources together for our shoot today. To ease some of the burden, my roommate and I offered to bake the main breakfast offering - muffins! I've never shopped for ingredients in such large quantities. My roommate and I wandered the baking aisle in Wal-Mart thinking "how many pounds of flour do you think would be enough for 20 cups?"

20 CUPS of flour?!??! Yes, feeding a crew is that epic.

We made 3 varities of muffins, estimating about 48 servings of each, which meant a normal batch of muffins times 12! Among them were lemon-poppyseed muffins, chocolate chip, and banana. Check out the photo on the left, that's just 1/3 of the total batter we whipped out.

So how long did all this craziness take? I think we set a record. Over 150 muffins in 4 hours.

I never realized how vital it was to have food on set until I started working on larger productions, but when it is the only way you can pay your volunteer crew for their work, if you don't have food, you lose your crew fast.

If nothing else, when this production is said and done the crew will not be able to say that they went hungry on set! And don't worry, with an early call this morning, we were sure to provide coffee as well.

Finally, I want to give props to my crew for showing up on a SATURDAY MORNING at 7:30am with great attitudes! You guys are awesome!

First day on set...fantastic

I am sitting in the green room right now and Olivia just screamed, "Quiet on set!" which is, ironically enough, not very quiet. And she told us that she wasn't much for yelling. She lied.

The morning started out with me not waking up to my alarm (my apologies to my roommate who did). I was pretty groggy until I stepped outside, and it happened to be freezing. As I walked across the front lawn of Kresge I heard a large crash from the front porch of Pike; I found out later that this was Tessa. What a good Samaritan I was--totally just kept walking. I arrived promptly at Corbitt at 7:09 to find the doors locked at the department heads all huddled in a car for warmth. There wasn't any room left in the car. Awesome. So the rest of us stood on the porch and ate muffins that Elisa made last night. Let's just say she is really, really proud of those muffins.

As soon as Security opened the building, a mad rush began. We, the art department, frantically worked to "Greek" everything. Essentially this means that we had to cover up every label and every logo of anything that anyone could see--in the control room. We definitely used lots of tape and finished the job in 23 minutes. Yes, Olivia timed us. Then, we all made fun of Eric as Kristen did his make-up. I'm thoroughly convinced that he enjoyed the make-up process very much. Especially the lipstick.

We kicked off just a few minutes behind schedule and they are now shooting. Now there is a pattern of talking, then hushed whispers, then talking, then hushed whispers as we hear "Quiet on set!" then "Cut!" over and over again.

"Print!" That was followed by a chorus of cheers. Everyone seems pretty happy. I like this. We should do it more often.

Haha, we will.

Never Before

I remember sitting at my desk the night I got the application to apply to be apart of this film. I made a crazy decision, dropping the play I was working on with hopes I would be apart of this. You have no idea how excited I was to actually get something back! I had never done props before on this large of a scale and never before had I done a film. I was nervous that first meeting but also super excited.

It's been a lot of work and there is still more to come but I've had so much fun doing. And honestly, I never though I would even get to do something like this as a freshman.

Last night was especially cool for me because I got to see a lot of how it was really done. It was cool getting to talk to some different people and learn about the set.

Saturday is going to be a lot of work but probably more fun than I've had in a long time. I have a passion for film-making and I can't believe I'm finally getting to put it to use.

Thanks for having faith in me!

Can't wait for the filming to begin!