The Beginning

01/06/09 12:03am

Ok…. So this is my first journal entry for The Mercury Cycle. Wow, where do I begin we officially “start” tomorrow (or later this morning) however, in actuality we started many many months ago. I am not going to talk about pre production much, I am just going to say that it has been quite an experience. I have learned a lot of things, and have had some good an bad moments. Forget all that jazz, now we start principle photography.

Today was a busy day for me. I am extremely nervous for this whole movie, I know a can do it, and I know it is my calling in life but, like anything exiting and new in life this is a worrisome time for me. I am directing, everything falls on me, everyone hides behind me, so I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. But I'm exited to do it. As I said today was busy busy; I started off by making sure most of my equipment was packed an ready to go, then I got some last minute errands done, re-printed the script and bought some organizational stuff for my directors notes.

The real main problem today was we received the news that Meghan Magner’s (Lana) father is in the hospital. So there was some question as to whether she would be able to make it to the shoots in NY or not. It was a tense day, I had calls back and forth with Meghan and Vinny, and Brianne, we were all trying to sort this problem out. I wanted to make sure that we adapted to best suit our actress, and ultimately come to compromise that would benefit both parties. It was not until later at night that I became really worried…

I received a random call from a random number in CT and it was some lady who asked for me and then put me on hold. A few minutes later she came back on a told me she was just talking to Vinny and then said she would call me back… very weird. I immediately got a call from Vin explaining that that was Meghan’s mother and she had apparently bitched Vin out saying that Meghan couldn’t do the movie and all this shit. So we all got very worried and later on I got in touch with Meghan and we smoothed it all out, I was assured that Meghan would pull through for us and we just needed to work the scheduling out. I sent her over to Brianne and they talked it over for a while. Then Brianne called me and it came down to this: Meghan wanted the most possible time off on the weekend so she could be with her father at the hospital. After looking at the schedule for a while and mulling over possible ideas we came to the conclusion that nothing would work… until I found it.

We didn’t have to change anything, I saw a gap in the already made schedule that allowed Meghan to go home early Saturday and spend time with her father. Brianne called Meghan up and it all worked out. Crisis averted! I just want to say it is really awesome having Brianne on board and my 1st AD. It is a huge help to have her input and insight of the schedule to help me make the tough decisions. I then talked to Zach for a while about the shot list for NY, and we smoothed some stuff out with that. Everything is looking awesome for the shots, and Zach did a really awesome job putting the shots in alphanumeric order, in terms of lighting setups and stuff. Zach is 100% on his shit and I am so grateful I have his “eye” and insight on board to make this movie.

All in all the day came to an end and now I am writing these words. Looking back on it, today was really the first time we all really worked as a team in unison; we had a crisis, everyone who needed to did there part, and it worked out. I was figuring out the logistics talking with Meghan, Vin and Brianne, then Brianne worked on re-tooling the schedule, meanwhile Vin and Vikki were busy making plans for a worst case scenario (making new Craig’s List entries for Lana’s role, just in case) and in the end everything had a “flow” and we found a solution to the problem… opportunity and it all worked out.