C's Take: Day 11: Back to Estlin

This is a very light day. We have a small mobile crew, and most of the day will consist of B-Roll. We have only one scene to shoot at the end of the day, but even that has no dialogue and is mostly long shots, so when the day dawns beautiful and clear we all relax and get ready to enjoy our final day of shooting this summer. We're all ready for the shoot to end; Raul has the flu and the rest of us are just barely hanging on after the past ten days of insanity.

The first shot is Constable Fisk's car on the road to visit Tom. The door should say "R.C.M.P." so we'll have to be careful not to shoot from the side.

Perfect angle. What a beauty!

This is really the shot I wanted. Richard, the officer who keeps the car in top shape for the Police department, was a great sport, driving back and forth on the gravel road for a few takes.

Constable Fisk on a nice Sunday drive...

The car got tired of it pretty quickly, though, and went into vapor lock.

What's 'vapor lock' mean? It means: lights, camera, PUSH!

After we finished the tenth take pushing the car 100 meters towards Andrew who never did quite get the shot he wanted, Richard started it up and drove it back to Regina. Ha ha, Richard! Funny! Dauminique, Kevin and Kristine had showed up in the meantime with lunch, so we took a little break and ate, then got some B-Roll of Tom's 600-mile walk from Minnesota to Saskatchewan.

"Take a step to your right. No, too far. A baby step back - hold it, ok now just a nudge to your right - there! There! Good. And....action."

"Hello, Mama? I find faster way to get to Canada."

"Walking, 600 miles. What was I thinking? Car much faster. More comfortable, too."

As the sun drew lower in the sky we wrapped up our B-Roll shoot and met the Wee Haul Trucking crew with their flatbed trailer and truck on a lonely stretch of dirt road behind the old school house in Estlin. This is the scene in the 1970's where the ship is raised up and taken to her new home south of Moose Jaw. I wanted -- yes, of course -- another magic hour shot. So we took our time setting up and were ready to go when we got our light. The ship will be composited into the shot as a CG element in post production; the red sandbags should help with lining it up with the truck.

In addition to the CG shot of the ship and the truck, I wanted some footage of Tom sliding along in front of the prairie sky, so the last shot of the whole summer was pretty surreal.

"You guys steady?"

"I've got Don... and... ACTION! Go truck!"

Awesome.

It was a very pretty ending to an amazing eleven days. We packed up our light gear and went back to Regina for a well-earned meal and some beer.

The cast and crew and friends of the film have been amazing. For me it was the experience of a lifetime. Thank you to everyone who made it all happen.

Now comes the unglamorous part: returning all the gear, costumes, props, and other equipment we borrowed, cleaning up my studio (my studio mate Barb was incredibly patient throughout the process) and recover enough to start post production.

School starts in four days.

Until next time, Sisu!