Girls Will Be Girls 2012

Additional shooting day 2

Well today someone was almost killed, sorta-kinda.  

For the past few months I have been working nonstop on GWBG 2012 — first editing like mad to make the Sundance-rejects-us-anyway deadline, and then, once that was revealed to be impossible, getting the new material ready for these reshoots.  In the process a lot of my usual pastimes have fallen away, for instance retiring into the living room at night to drink alone in the dark read.  Over time at least one of the dogs decided this meant the living room was “outside” and started peeing in there, which I noticed one day when there was liquid under some decorative glass olive oil shipping containers I keep on the fireplace.  There is also a light switch I never use nearby that I didn’t even know controls an electrical outlet on my fireplace I also never use until our amazing new volunteer Garrett tried to turn on the house lights as night fell.  He hit that light switch thinking, wildly, that it would turn on lights.  Instead the entire fireplace started vibrating as the hidden dog pee pooled between the electrical outlet and the olive oil container sitting on it became charged, and then transferred that charge to everything around it — ending quite dramatically with the olive oil bottle breaking.  No one was hurt, though the room was full of an acrid smoke for a time comprised of whatever chemicals went into the manufacture of glass a hundred years ago for us all to breathe.  I’m sure we’ll be fine!

We got all sorts of great material yesterday.  All we’re getting are little scenes here and there that either clarify a story point or repair a production lapse on my part the first time around, for instance close-ups with the wrong eyeline and zzzzzzzzz.  Anyway I’ve gone from cautiously optimistic to dangerously overconfident, because the new stuff is turning out really well.

More tomorrow…

Additional shooting day 1

Today was the first of four days of additional shooting for GWBG2012.  Everyone kept saying “can you believe it’s been a year…” and I would bristle and correct them that it had only been ten and a half months.  But yes, there’s no excuse for taking this long to finish a little drag movie.

It was a lot of fun, all of us together again.  We never had a wrap party because we’re really cheap there aren’t enough of us to fill a party.  Also:  Not all of us were back together.  Some of our old crew got jobs (whatever those are) since last time.   And there are no Coco scenes in the new material, so Clinton wasn’t here either.  

Clinton did however record the new GWBG theme song with Jeffrey and Jack over at the composer’s studio this evening, so no one was completely left out.

The scenes themselves were fun, but unfortunately no one was accidentally killed so there’s not much to report.  Or maybe there were interesting stories unfolding all around me and I’m just a really bad blogger.  I don’t really know what to look for.  It’s a weird experience making these films.  I wake up and make coffee and do my little routines and then suddenly a small horde descends on my place.  You can’t beat the convenience, if nothing else.  And I don’t know if it’s because it’s in my home and with my friends that it feels so little like “real” work.  I do know this:  I may or may not be good for much in the larger scheme of things, but I am good at directing “Girls Will Be Girls” films.  And I feel lucky to now and then have that opportunity.  

Your Thanksgiving Weekend GWBG 2012 Update

It’s been a long time since I wrote one of these “making of” posts, probably because most the things going on in the making of GWBG2012 are long processes like editing and effects work about which there’s not much to say.  Also sloth.  Another big part of why I haven’t is pure sloth on my part.

Editing is going well, albeit in a frustratingly slow, dull-dull-dull way.  Our plan had been to get some kind of cut together by the Sundance deadline in August.  SPOILER ALERT:  We did not make that deadline.  It wasn’t even close.  Part of the reason is that I put off editing for a few months after the shoot, because between it, prepping for it, and writing the thing, it had been a long time since I’d done anything to try to earn a living.  So first I had to work on a few potentially income-generating things.  Funny story:  None of them came to anything!   Another factor though was that editing revealed a few places where the writing could have been clearer, and others where it turns out that shot I accidentally didn’t press “record” on is kinda important after all.  So we’ll be doing a little reshooting, and the earliest time the actors were all available was early December.  

I think it’s important to get all this time-stamped as the official story today, so when Sundance announces their line-up it won’t look like they didn’t let us in so we came up with some lame cover story.  As you can see, my priorities are dialed in perfectly.  It’s anyone’s guess whether a sequel ever had a shot of getting into Sundance, but their Park City at Midnight umbrella was big enough to include the first film, so you never know.  Mainly Sundance meant so much to us I wanted to at least try.  And the film will be ready in time to play at Sundance, if they could get over that little hitch about wanting to see it ahead of time.  Hear that, Sundance?  Oh lordy that was desperate.

One good thing about the reshoots will be that I can actually blog about some production days this time around.  Again, my priorities?  Right.  On.   But in fairness those days are a lot more interesting than the ones where I mostly grind my teeth while my wheezing computer churns for ninety seconds before showing me my most recent two-frame trim.

In other news, people have continued to send in remote cameos, though you’d never know it from this blog because I got kind of behind on posting stills from online.  Why?  Anyone?  Yes, you in the back, that’s correct:  More sloth.  Nevertheless we really appreciate everyone taking the time; they’re truly one of the high points of the new film.  What other movie features footage sent in by the audience?  Well, okay, there have been a couple of those “on this day” films already.  But what other, um, narrative movie?  Answer me that.  There’s still time to do one if you are interested, too.  They’ll all be included in the final movie in ways I don’t want to give away just yet but are pretty cool.

We also had a little fundraiser to pay for the post production and reshoots, which was a big success.  What was especially touching in retrospect was that people showed up even though it meant sitting through the first film again, which they’d all seen and probably more than once.  Some of the big laugh lines therefore got applause instead, which was gratifying and strange all at once.  I have no idea how widespread enthusiasm for (or even awareness of) “Girls Will Be Girls” is, but if the cast and I were very, very selective about where we spent our time we could convince ourselves it was the gay Star Wars or something.  Which come to think may not be great news for the decade-later sequel, sorry!  Anyway, a sincere thank you to all who attended, and an especially-sincere one to whoever bought the fake breasts Jack wore in the first film in the silent auction (which was only silent if you don’t count all the people exclaiming “gross!”) 

More soon…