Last week was such a stress inducing week. It seemed everything was going smoothly until the week of shooting. Three days prior to shooting I get a call from my DP that we don't have lights (Maybe I should have mentioned to you all that shooting was scheduled for Sat & Sun) and we would need to try to scramble up something quick. I have never rented equipment before as this is my first rodeo and was absolutely clueless as how to go about acquiring this equipment.
I was psyched when I saw a company that rents what we needed for a reasonable price and after a call and email I had the owner of the company email me the paperwork. He did inform me that the lights would be available at or around 3pm Sat. (cutting it really close as my call times were set to 3pm, based on availability of the location we were scheduled to shoot at) You know what? let me back up for a second to set the tone of where my head was at on that particular day. Wednesday was a horrible horrible day. I had some morning misfortunes, a pinched nerve in my upper back which was making it painful to just breath and a migraine the size of Texas.
Flash forward to when I get the news that evening while at work to say I was through would be an understatement. Sat. comes and I contact the owner of the lights and he informs me that he is on set and should be available at or around 5pm. I tell him that is too late, but I have some scenes set for Saturday night that we were to film and he says that would work. I contact my actors who were scheduled to shoot that afternoon and tell them that we have moved it to Sunday. They're okay with this and are such good sports. At 6pm we arrive to the location where we were to film the interior apartments scenes and after 45 mins of trying to unlock the door we realize that the owner gave us the wrong key and to top it off the owner of the lights seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth and I will have to move everything to Sunday which I was trying to avoid doing in the first place. I contacted all my actors and crew. and informed them of the new schedule and that I will send out new call sheets that evening.
At this point I felt so discouraged and the thought of calling it all off came across my mind twice. Not to mention that after a week of beautiful weather LA decided to rain on my parade literally. It was nasty cold rainy weather all that day. At about 9pm that evening as I was looking so defeated, my wife turns to me and says maybe it just wasn't meant for us to film on that particular day. This is the reason I love her so much, she is not only very supportive but wise and brutally honest. I finally decide to call it a night and get home at 11pm all the while worrying how I will procure some lights before the morning and before I can even send out a revised call sheet. I get a brainstorm that in hindsight I'm pissed I didn't have earlier. I put out an ad on craigslist for lights. 15 minutes later I get a phone call from Francisco Bulgarelli who has the lights we need and is available on a short notice. Not only will he provide the lights, but he is an experience gaffer which I totally never thought about had I rented the lights in the first place. We come to an agreement and 10 mins later I am sending out new callsheets to both cast and crew.
That night, I slept like I didn't have a care in the world.
Sunday morning rolls around and it's no longer raining. The Sun is out the birds are chirping and I have a full day of shooting ahead. Let's fast forward. Everyone makes their call times, Francisco is a godsend and works well with the DP Jacob and our sound guy Jon, that I'm in total amazement. The entire cast showed up prepared, on time on book and ready to work. Later that evening while we were walking to the next location I turn and give my wife the biggest hug in the history of hugs and tells her she was absolutely right. We wrapped at 11pm and I can honestly say that I am so thankful and appreciative off all the individuals who came together and rolled with the punches to make this a reality!!!
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