Sisu Production Journal: Raul's Take: Day 04: Sukanen Museum

by Raul Viceral, Assistant Director

Sleepy. So sleeeeeeeeepy.

Yet, we feel somewhat mildly refreshed as we head out for Day 4 of the Sisu shoot. Yesterday was a lo-o-o-ong day that ended at around 3:30 in the morning. Luckily, C says today should be a "light day." So far she's said that about every day.

Weren't we just unloading the car a couple hours ago?

We all met up at the university and loaded up the equipment and props and were on the road to Moose Jaw by 6:30. Kali was already there and had breakfast waiting for us.

This must be the place.

We all had breakfast and traded stories about the shoot yesterday and about how much (or little) sleep we got this morning.

C can't sit still for a second, she's got too much to do!

These shoot days have been INCREDIBLY planned. Kudos to C and Dauminique on their wonderful organizational skills! Without them all of the shots would've taken 2 or 3 times the length it's taken.

"Okay, tell the Snowbirds they can fly over any time between
10:15 and 10:25 am and 4:05 and 4:20 pm."

Once the crew was done eating, Kevin and Kristine got to work on dressing the general store. We have two scenes we need to shoot in there today, one set in the 1910's and the other set in the 1930's.

Brian and Kevin having a terrible time during breakfast.

Jonathan and his dad, Sylvain, were on their way to the airport to fly back home to Ottawa when they dropped by to say goodbye. We got all of Jonathan's shots last night and on Day 2 at Estlin so he was cleared to go home. His spirit and enthusiasm was great to have on set and we're all sure he's going to be a famous movie actor some day. Thanks Jonathan, see you at Sundance!

We can all say we knew you when you were just a little guy.

Our crew is slowly growing from day to day. Today Lorne Fries (no relation to Megan Fries who plays Mama), who plays Marge's husband Troy, and Gerry Paul, who plays the threshing machine salesman later on in the film, volunteered to come out and help with set dressing and PA-ing. Kristine did a great job supervising the set dressing of the store.

"What are '15 barrels of Django Djuice?'"

Kevin, who took his 2 weeks of vacation time with the RCMP to help out on set, helped take down the old museum products and replace them with our fake products.

"Hey this 80-year old can of spinach still looks good."

Here are a couple of the fake products I designed. Moxie brand black pepper and Django Djangerson's extra-strenth baking soda. Dauminique and Don pasted the print outs onto long single pieces of foamcore for easy set up and removal. Genius.

With products like these, it's a wonder they survived the 30's and 40's.

Once all the products were in place, the set didn't look too bad! It actually looks like a functioning general store!

Do you have any 20-mule team Borax?

While the set dressers worked, Andrew and Trevor came in and started setting up lights. As the assistant director, they'd check with me for camera placement and camera angle and actor marks, then they'd light the scene based on that.

"You want me to stick this light where?"

While the general store was getting set up, the actors were getting ready for makeup and costumes. Brian Dueck, who plays Vic Markula -Tom's best and only friend in the movie, is another wonderfully talented actor. He's appeared several times with speaking roles in the locally made hit TV series Corner Gas as well as Moccasin Flats. He also blew us away during auditions and we all had fun having him on set.

Brian and Don go over their lines.

Clara does her best to make Brian look good.

When everything was just about ready in the general store, we called for the director and on-screen talent.

Let's do this thing!

C first had to shore up Brian's haircut. There's no detail overlooked on one of C's films.

"Your haircutting skills come highly recommended by Jonathan."

Mark Claxton, who plays Lloyd the storekeeper, had two different mustaches he had to sport. But the mustaches were cheap stage mustaches and were quite a handful to make look real.

"Your mustache trimming skills come highly recommended by Jonathan."

This scene is set in the 1910's and is when Tom and Vic meet for the first time. Again, C's work with the actors during the workshops paid off immensely.

C studies the scene one last time as the actors run through their lines.

"Weren't there space aliens in this scene? I cut it? Oh okay."

The scene went great and Don and Mark and Brian were excellent. After we wrapped that scene, it was time for lunch. Kristine and the set dressers were eating lunch while we were shooting so they could be setting up for the 1930's version of Lloyd's store while we ate.

Kali kickin' it with D and Mark.

Don and Andrew taking a minute to enjoy some lunch.

While everyone was eating, I snuck over to the grandstand field and saw the guys setting up the threshing machine which we'll hopefully be shooting on Monday. Next week the museum is having their annual Threshing Bee so Paul had arranged to have the thresher up and running a week early so C could use it in her film. Sweet! Hopefully it doesn't rain or they won't be able to operate it.

How fast does that thing do the quarter mile you think?

Meanwhile the crew is busy setting up the store for the next scene.

Trojan condoms... hmmm... did they have Trojans in the 40's?

While the set was being prepped, the actors were getting into their costumes and made up to look 20 years older.

Clara works her magic!

In this scene, Tom isn't actually present but is astral traveling from his hospital bed listening in on their conversation. So C wanted Don in his hospital gown and looking like old Tom. I boarded the shot to have Tom standing in front of the window to give him an eerie silhouetted look.

C and Don talk about the scene while Andrew gets the camera ready.

Mark's mustache was an ongoing challenge to keep under control!

Lili's thinking, "God, I'm glad I'm not a director."

This day, especially this scene, was one of our favorites to shoot. As well as being talented actors, Mark is an improv comedian and Brian had done some stand up comedy too, add to that Lili's great personality and her infectious laugh on top of the crew's lack of sleep, and you've got one hilarious movie set!

Simply hilarious!

They even brought a smile to Old Tom's face!

C and I still fanatsize about starting up a sitcom show staring these three and Don. The thought of going to work with these fun, talented people every day would be awesome!

"You call this work?"

Alas, we finally wrapped the scene and the general store. What a great set! Mark, Lili and Brian were wrapped for the day, but Don had a couple more scenes to shoot, so he was off to wardrobe and makeup yet again!

The next scene was in a small prairie house around the corner from the store and next to the church. While we were shooting the general store scene, Kristine and Kevin were here dressing this set.

Andrew focuses the camera on Lori, who plays Katja in Tom's imagination.

Once we started shooting here, Kristine and Kevin headed back over to the store to clean up and put everything back the way it was. Such a great process!

We were a bit behind schedule and lighting this scene presented its own challenges which put us further behind. We eventually lost our sunlight and Geoff, who came to join us again after he got off work, had to simulate late evening light in the house.

Ahhh, movie magic.

That scene finally wrapped and Lori was free to head home. But not us! We still had one more scene to shoot, the threshing machine drawing scene. This scene is supposed to take place at night, but the room was pretty cramped and lighting it believably took some finessing.

Don stands by as Trevor, Andrew and Geoff light the scene.

This scene was one of those strokes of inspiration I had while C and I were cooking dinner many months ago. C liked it and wrote it into the script and I boarded it. It was exciting to see it finally come to life. I hope it turns out.

C and Don discuss the blocking of the scene.

When we finished that scene the day was a wrap! Whew, another long one. It was 12:30am by the time we wrapped and it'd be 2 or 3am by the time we all got home to our beds.

You know the routine, pack it up and haul it home!

After a quick production meeting where we talked about what will happen tomorrow --another 7am calltime, uuuugh!-- we all piled our tired butts into our vehicles and headed back to Regina and C's studio.