THAT'S A WRAP!

We shoot through the night on our last two days of filming. Our second to last day starts out sunny and the view from where we are shooting is breathtaking. By the next day, the weather has turned and it's cold and raining. So we started out in mud and we will end up in mud. The finale of the movie will be shot on our last night, in continuity - more or less - so that should be fun. Charles Widmore is still with us and will be until the end.

When I leave the house at 4pm, it's been a sunny day but there's big raindrops falling now and again as I walk to the car. I guess it could rain. The weather forecast was for a lot of rain. I am driving down the road to the bridge when I realize that it's so windy all of a sudden, that there's branch bits all over the road and flying through the air. Something hard hits the roof of my van and gives me a good start. Not sure what it was... probably a branch. Up ahead I see a wall of rain and as I drive into it, it's a deluge. It doesn't let up the whole 15 minute drive to work and when I park and get into my coat and a disposable rain poncho, I walk over to the catering truck to see it closed up tight and nothing much on the tables. Apparently the wind blew away the plates and cups etc. So now we have to knock on the shuttered window, they open it a small crack, and place our order. It's Eggs Benny day. Eggs Blackstone for me, hard yolk please and crispy bacon. We have to climb into the back of the supply truck to get our drinks - OJ for me - and cutlery etc. where everything has been placed to keep it from blowing away again. Apparently a big branch fell from a tree and narrowly missed the truck right before I got there.

As I am setting up my work area in the tent, I hear a huge crack and look up just in time to see a big tree fall down on the hill right beside where we will film. The lighting guys are in there, putting up some big lights. Thankfully, no one was near the tree when it fell.

Eventually the wind dies down and the rain steadies to a drizzle and we methodically make our way through the scenes we need to shoot. There's a lot of huge puddles where we need to place the cast and picture vehicle so the guys set to digging through the high bits to let the water run away and then some pea gravel is brought in to cover the mud and fill the holes. It works great to keep the picture area clean. But there's a big hole dug for one scene and it sure is muddy down there. The actors have to climb in and out of it and, during a fight scene, Alan (Charles Widmore) has to fall into it. Of course, a stuntman will do the actual fall but then Alan will have to lie in the cold, wet mud for a few takes. The life of an actor is not all glamour!

At about 3am I can tell everyone is tired as the silliness starts. Kim, the DP, has started a game where you think of a movie title and insert the word Moai (pronounced mow-i) into it (there are Easter Island type Moai heads in our story and we are shooting those tonight). Some of the ones he comes up with are Me, Moaiself and Irene; Bridge on the River Moai; There's Something About Moai. The camera op comes up with Moai Five-0 and the director's contribution is Three Men and a Moai. I get into it and come up with The Color of Moai; Steel Moaignolias, and Helen of Moai. The one that gets me laughing so hard I have tears rolling down my cheeks is when Kim comes back into the tent from lighting, sits down and says, "The Little Moaimaid". The next day while preparing the continuity 'Script Bible' for the editor, I create a page to slip into the front cover with the best selections splashed across the page with some Moai heads in the background.

We wrap at 5:33, or 29:33 as we call it, and as soon as my paperwork is done I go to the camera truck to have a drink with the camera department. We end up talking and laughing for two hours and I don't get home until after 8am. Thankfully, there is no internet - I guess we lost it in the wind - and so I have nothing to keep me from falling into bed. I sleep like the dead for three and a half hours and then get up so that I will be able to sleep tonight. The rest of the day is spent prepping the Script Bible and running a few errands. I have to buy some groceries again, something I don't need to do while working. And I need to buy an engagement gift for my friend's daughter as she got engaged on Sunday. My youngest is going to be a bridesmaid!!

can't reveal the title - thus blurred