Raul's Take: Day 05: Sukanen Museum

by Raul Viceral, Assistant Director

Uuuh. Another 7am calltime. Another couple hours sleep. And only 6 more days of this. After today that is.

Same routine. Up early, arrange storyboards in the order we want to get the shots, collect all camera batteries that have been recharging for the last few hours since we got home, eat some breakfast and then out the door.

Today C found the completed ships' wheel that Chris St. Amand has been working on sitting in her studio. The prop is finished even though the wheel is unfinished, in the movie Tom never really finishes it. We strapped it to the car and took it with us.

Not a great shot of the wheel but it is way cool.

Today was another "light" day of shooting. For the past week Paul, the president of the museum, had been trying to get a horse and buggy team for one of C's shots. Good ol' Paul came through again! He managed to secure two Percheron horses and a buggy for the end of the Tom Meets Vic scene we shot yesterday. Was that yesterday?

So far the horses have been the most uncooperative actors we've had on set.

Brian, who plays Vic, is supposed to ride off with Tom, but first Brian needed a quick lesson on how to drive a horse team.

"Remember to let the clutch out slowly."

The horse team was awesome. It was another one of C's dream shots that she wanted in her movie but wasn't sure if she'd get a chance. The crew always says this is the highest production value of any movie with a budget of $7500 (Canadian!).

The only problem was, when we'd want to do another take, the horses had to circle around the buildings and then have to be finagled back onto their marks. What was supposed to be a half hour shot ended up taking 2-1/2 hours! Doh! The first scene of the day and suddenly we were WAY behind schedule.

C rides along as the buggy circles around for another take.

Check it out! I finally got my cameo (somewhat) in the movie. Part of this shot is Old Tom in his hospital gown is supposed to step into frame and watch himself and Vic ride away. So after getting a few takes of Don climbing into the buggy, he changed into his hospital gown and I got to stand in as his double. Ha ha ha!

Is a Filipino Tom Sukanen so hard to believe? Come on!

Once we wrapped the riding away shot, it was off to the big red barn for the Pork Packing Scene. C got to drive the horse team over there, something she said she'd never done before. Cool!

Andrew seems pretty excited about it too.

C said to me, "You got to play in the blacksmith forge, so I get to drive the horse team." Sounds fair to me.

She even got them up to a pretty brisk trot too!

These things are hard to parallel park though.

In this scene Tom and Vic have just butchered a whole pig. We don't actually show the pig, but there's supposed to be a lot of blood. At first C thought the table we were going to use was going to be bare wood, so she was afraid stage blood wouldn't look real enough. So she got a local butcher shop to give her almost 2 pints of pigs blood, which sat in our freezer at home for a week. Blech!

Yes that's real pig's blood! And man did it ever stink!

Luckily Don didn't have to cover his hands with the real blood. C had Clara bring over some stage blood.

C helps Don put on fake blood.

"Hey Vic, you see where I put Soft Scrub?"

It was around this time when C's film professor, Gerald Saul, and his wife, Margarette, and their son, William, stopped by to see how things were going. Gerald and William had also come by the set when we were in Estlin.

No need to see your access passes, you're welcomed guests!

The horse and buggy scene had put us so far behind, we were still shooting the Pork scene when the extras started showing up for the Post-Threshing Party scene.

Extras, or 'background talent,' wait patiently in the breakroom.

One problem we faced often at the museum, besides the intermittent sun and clouds and lack of electrical power and planes flying over and cars and trucks driving by on the nearby highway, was not shooting buildings in the background that we've already seen in other scenes.

We used a lot of up shots and down shots to exclude any buildings or modern tractors from the background.

R: "I'm so sleepy. Can I please take a nap!"

Once we got all of the shots with horses in them, C let the nice people go home. Thanks horse people! But we still had some close-ups of the actors. Professor Saul lended a hand by nudging the buggy every once in a while to make it seem like there were horses still hitched to it.

What do we put in the credits? 'Gerald Saul - Horse stand in'?

We finally wrapped the Pork Scene and still had the Finnish Boss scene to shoot in the blacksmith shop. We were falling further and further behind. We need to get to the Party scene right before sunset to get that golden hour lighting. If we don't, the sun will set and we simply don't have enough lights or power to light the party sufficiently.

Back in the blacksmith shop, but this time, it's doubling as an 1898 Finnish shipyard!

Meanwhile, wardrobe and makeup were up to their eyeballs in background talent. They had to have everyone ready by the time C wrapped in the blacksmith shop. This was Clara and Candace's busiest day!

"We've run out of bee suits! What do we do!"

I took this time to go check on the dogs. We tried keeping them at the kennel at the Pet Cetera in Regina one of the days during the shoot but they seemed pretty freaked out and were shaking when I went to pick them up. Lili, the actor playing Marge, even offered to let us keep them at her house while we shot which worked out well for a few days. But we were getting home so late and leaving so early that it was just easier to bring them with us to Moose Jaw.

I know it doesn't seem very humane but we keep them on leashes with the car doors open and I move the car into shade whenever they get any sun. They did seem much happier.

"Hey when do we get to be in the movie!"

C and the crew were wrapping up the Finnish Boss scene while the extras, all dressed and ready to stand around in the background, got a quick lesson on the two-step and the polka. Yeeee haaaaaw!

Have any of you heard of the TV show, So You Think You Can Dance?

They were having such a good time that I had to run over from the blacksmith shop and ask them to keep it down while we were shooting! Hee hee.

The Finnish Boss scene was wrapped and it was finally time for the Post Threshing Party! Our crack crew of set dressers were already at work setting up the tables, plates, chairs and pies. Meanwhile C took a few minutes to talk to the two gentlemen who were going to play the fiddle and the guitar during the party scene.

"Have you guys played Fiddler Hero? You gotta try it! It's so much fun!"

While the set dressers were putting on the finishing touches, the crew and actors got a few minutes for a quick supper.

Paul, Don and Brian enjoying their chili.

Whenever there was a few minutes to move the camera or rearrange the set, some of us got to take short naps.

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

We started with long shots of general party fun. Andrew and Trevor went up to the second floor window to get these shots. Reconize that porch? Kristine, Kevin, Dauminique and I painted that a couple weeks ago. Still looks good.

"I keep hearing someone yelling 'Freebird'."

C gives the talent some direction before we start rolling.

Lili and Kevin (foreground) trade pie recipes while Andrew shoots from the roof of the porch.

The party scene was a lot of fun to shoot. It was kind'a hectic and frantic as C just let the extras act like they were at a party and we ran around shooting different things.

Just before Andrew and Trevor were trampled by the mosh pit.

Everyone did a great job and the whole scene I think will turn out great. All the extras -er background talent- were very patient and professional and took C's direction very well. Thanks again to Wayne Slinn for rounding up these wonderful people.

"Okay here's where Tom stage dives off the porch, so everyone bunch closer together!"

When we got all of the shots of the party goers, C let them go home, but we still had reverse shots of Tom and Vic to shoot. Unfortunately we had lost a lot of our light.

Vic walking up to the porch to make a speech.

The sun finally went down but luckily we were able to get all the shots but one, a close up of Tom looking uncomfortable at the party. C's hoping we can get that on our make-up day on Saturday.

The other shot we missed was one from the second day out in Estlin. We ran out of light then and didn't get shots of Tom calling out to his son Taivo. While the rest of us packed up the equipment, C, Andrew, Trevor and Don tried to get that shot. C's not sure if it's going to look right though.

"Tom has lunch scene, take 53."

Once they were done, everthing was packed up and we headed back to Regina.

Today we wrapped at a more merciful hour, about 10:30. And we actually unloaded everything and got home by midnight. Sweet! AND calltime tomorrow isn't until 1pm when the guys fire up the threshing machine for us.

Enough! I'm going to bed.

Until next time... zzzzzzz.

R-