These boots are made for talkin'

We went to Cheyenne today, where we were in search of some boots. By that I mean, these eight-foot tall painted boots that were scattered throughout the city. Dan and Brian went to talk to the boot guy and took forever. Apparently, he gave them a pretty thorough rundown of the boot spectacle. We got clearance to shoot at one of the boots, after digging it out from a couple feet of snow. Shortly after that, Brian and I roamed the residential streets of Cheyenne to shoot a scene in which Ronnie thinks she knows where her friend lives, but of course does not. I don’t know if we picked the worst neighborhood in Cheyenne, or maybe it was a neighborhood with a police station nearby, but I’ve never seen so many po-po in one area. Since it was just me and Brian in the car, we would take turns holding the camera. Needless to say, it’s not the safest thing for the driver (Brian) to be holding a big ‘ol camera and driving at the same time, so we were constantly on guard for the po-po. I’m thinking that might have been a little illegal. Just a little, though.

After Cheyenne, we booked over to Laramie to shoot some more scenes. After Laramie, we all decided that we would drive as far as we could that night, and shoot for getting to Ogden before morning. Well, Red Bull does wonders, but not miracles. We ended up stopping at Evanston to get some rest. Ogden tomorrow! Everyone is really excited about having some sort of base camp.

Lemonade from lemons

So we get up ungodly early with the intention of hitting the road early and making time to Ogallala. This little weather debacle has singlehandedly put us a day and a half behind schedule already.

At the freeway on ramp, a gate. Closed. Still.

We go as far west as we can, stop at Shoemaker's truck stop (the parking lot of which is filled with more truck than I've seen in my life) and we wait. We have breakfast (if you can call it that--Brian's breakfast burrito is covered with this orange, plastic-y stuff loosely called 'cheese'). We get permission to shoot a couple scenes in the parking lot...and modify the script so that Shawn's thwarted by the winter weather in his westward trek. How smart we are. :)

The weather's clearing, but word on the street is that the interstate won't be open until sometime after noon. It's about 9am. We decide to head west anyway, using the US highway, which has a lovely layer of pocked ice on it, and make it about 15 miles before there's a line of semis and a state trooper turning us away. We end up in Minden, NE, where we shoot a scene of Ronnie having lunch at the Pizza Kitchen (thanks for the free lunch!) and more shots of her walking.

We then head west again on county roads and US Highways, finally getting to the freeway at about 4pm when they open it. Remarkably, the pavement is dry and nary a flake of snow on the road. How do they do that?

We arrive in Ogallala in the evening, shoot a couple of the motel scenes, then head to bed. Early day tomorrow to finish up the scenes and move on to Wyoming. We made up a little bit of time by getting what we could in the storm, and are confident that we'll be able to knock off some great shots and catch up once we get to Utah.

Not so lazy days at the lazy K

Wow. Brian struck gold on this one. After locating and scouting Ogallala's Lazy K Motel via Google Earth and nothing more, we finally arrived, and man, oh, man was it a treat. A classic 50s motel with outdoor in-ground pool, and more character and atmosphere than Maxwellton Braes.

Rooms were cheap, and we picked up two. One in which to stage gear, one in which to shoot. Kat and I in one room, Brian and Leann in the other. Post-it notes from management were all over the rooms. Everywhere. Makes one wonder what kind of freaks stay at the place if they need all of those instructions.

We shot a couple scenes, and Brian and I had a 'tone' when I suggested shotlists or storyboards. It's all good though, we managed to clarify what we each wanted and are looking forward to finishing up the room interiors in the morning before we hit the road for Wyoming.

Day one

Well, after a very exciting and fun weekend with my buddies from Survivor, I was forced to wake up at 3:30am to get on the road at 4:30am. Yikes. That was rough. I had to style my new hairdo “Ronnie” style. Which means, Brian wanted my character to have bangs, so yesterday I cut my hair. Ronnie is a small-town girl, not very hip, slightly cowgirlish, and Brian thought bangs would capture that. Bangs and some curl. Yee-ha.

Brian and I met Dan and Kat (Dan the Producer, and Kat , who is also in the film and would serve as a “grip” for most of the film) at the Park and Ride on I-43 and Layton. We surveyed the food that Dan bought from Sam’s Club the day before, and grabbed some oranges and Goldfish for the road. We made sure our walkies worked, and were on our way.

I slept a little. Go figure! When I woke up, Brian and I shot a little bit in the car, and we all stopped somewhere to shoot a scene in which Shawn (formerly Dolan and played by Brian) eats alone at a diner. Kat and I were hungry already, so after Brian finished his scene, we chowed down his omelet and hash browns. Yummy.

Well, wouldn’t you know. We rolled into Omaha around 4:00 and it was snowing. Pretty hard. We started to see signs on the Interstate indicating that the Interstate was closed ahead. We pulled off and tried to find a place to see what the deal was, but ended up driving in one big circle, so we drove a little further until Lincoln, Nebraska, where the Interstate was shut down. So, we pulled off and found a hotel, lugged all our gear in, and pretty much crashed for the night. Ok, so we’re a little bit behind, but the plan is to wake up super early and make up some lost time. Until tomorrow…

Dark FREAKIN' Thirty

Even though the van was preloaded, and I was able to buy myself an extra hour of sleep, I still rolled out of bed at a time I barely knew existed to drive out to Waukesha to pick up Kat (playing Sereya). With the requisite stop at *$$ for coffee. They're the only place on earth open for coffee at that ungodly hour.

Met Brian and Leann at the Park and Ride lot, swapped a couple things between cars, got them a walkie for inter-vehicular communications and hit the road.

By mid-morning we were in Brooklyn, IA at a soon-to-be defunct gas station/truck stop with a smoky, run down diner attached. The head cashier let us shoot a couple scenes of Shawn en route to Ogden (one of them replacing our lunch in Omaha scene), and then we were off again. Found another dinky Iowa town where we shot some of the scenes of Ronnie walking. I also filled my back tire 'cause it was looking a little soft, and noticed a small tear in the sidewall. Not a good thing at the beginning of a 1500 mile roadtrip.

Blasted through the rest of Iowa, into Nebraska and then hit snow somewhere between Omaha and Lincoln. Called the Lazy K in Ogallala to give them an ETA, and I was advised that the interstate was closed west of Lincoln. Managed to book a hotel in Lincoln and we pulled off the road about 4pm. Visibility was poor, cars and trucks were in the ditch everywhere, and we got checked in and unloaded.

Found a great little service station in Lincoln where I got two new tires on my car. No more blowout worries. And they put three guys on my vehicle, getting me in and out in about 15 minutes. Talk about service.

March 14th

Thank you all for coming to the party and/or donating on-line. You've all been so generous and supportive...I am very grateful to have such good friends and family. This is a small personal film and I'm happy that I could include so many people from my life. We're over the $3000 dollar mark and that is huge. Huge.

I spent the day tightening the script and some location scouting using Google Earth. We are shooting in Ogallala, Cheyenne, Laramie, Rock Springs, Morgan, Ogden, Huntsville, Park City and the Bonneville Salt Flats.

All right, I am going to get back to work.
Take care,
b

One week to go!

Can't say I've ever blogged before. And I don't really care for that word. Blog. Sounds a little fat. Anyway, we're leaving a week from tomorrow and the energy is high. I've been busy working on my character and honing the wild side in me. One of the things that Brian demands from his actors is to create a total and full character...from the way she walks, to what foods she likes, to what grade school was like for her -- even though those factors may never come into play in the script. It's very helpful in knowing how your character would react to various elements. So I've been busy, and expect to be even busier this week when we continue with intense rehearsals. I've also been working on wardrobe, as my character is from Wyoming and has a slight 'cowgirl' edge to her. Tomorrow I'm meeting with Poppy from Tall Poppies, Ltd. to go over some jewelry ideas. Poppy is custom-making a necklace for me, just for this film! (And we thank her!)

On that note, I also want to put my thank out there to all my friends (and family!) who showed up to our fundraising event, AND to those who couldn't make it, but donated on the web anyway.

Your support is appreciated far more than you will ever know...

The week between

Here it is, a week after our fundraiser and a little over a week between the time we leave on the shoot. I'm still reeling from the fundraiser, with over $1500 raised in one fell swoop, with money still trickling in on the website from donations and DVD presales, and am grateful for all of our friends, relatives and acquantences who've helped us raised close to $3000 for this endeavor.

Of course, with a week before we roll out of town, a week in which to do all of our pre-production, I'm not less than a little frazzled. Gotta work out all of our details, from mapping the route to coordinating locations, to locking in equipment rentals and actors.

It's all good, though. It'll be an exciting ride, the script's getting better every day, and we're all anticipating a wonderful end product.