Trailer -- day two
Topic: Trailer

Location #1: Underground parking garage, Burbank
Location #2: Michael Caruso's loft, Downtown Los Angeles

Today, we filmed the opening sequence. This is probably the most ambitious part of the trailer, because it features one of the bad guys throwing a car at our hero.

How will we accomplish this? Well, that's Rob's department. This scene does not appear in the script. It is Rob's brainchild, and he immediately started devising ways as to how to pull off the effect.

In the real world, i.e. if we were filming the feature and had much more money, we would more than likely farm out these types of effects to a boutique effects company. For two reasons: 1) they would have more experience and 2) Rob would be busy enough editing the darn thing. But for the trailer, the effect only needs to last a couple of seconds, plus we don't have the funds needed to bring in additional help. So this all hangs on Rob, and if you've seen the helicopter in the Day:11 short (it was CGI), then you should be pretty confident of how good the effect will look once Rob's done with it.

Drake and his goons might very well be the stars of the show. They get to pick up cars, beat people up, and generally act like nasty people, all the while keeping their outfits nearly immaculate. Get blood on Drake's suit and he'll be vigorously wiping it clean as soon as he can get his hands on a cleaning agent.

That's all I'll disclose for this part of the shoot, because I don't want to give much away.

The next part of the shoot, back at Michael's loft, consisted of only a couple of quick scenes, one with Drake and his henchmen, the other with Donovan chasing Drake.

Today, I got my first taste of what guerrilla filmmaking can consist of. We did not get permission to shoot in the building across the street, so we told the security guard that Barb was a fashion photographer who wanted to shoot a quick shot of the three young men in nice suits. That wasn't too hard to believe ... Michael, John, and Jay were decked out rather nicely and it is more than conceivable that we could have been conducting a fashion shoot.

Of course, very few fashion shoots would feature a model with cuts on his face (Drake), but it's L.A. ... anything is possible.