Production Week Two: A day at the Crowfoot's

Wow. All I can say is wow. I will get to why in a minute.

We covered quite a bit of unusual set ups today. Crowfoot is a widower, so we needed to generate memories today through home video. The actors improv-ed all the home video footage and actually handled the camera themselves.

With that, we had 2 set ups at the park with Allison McGowan (Nadine Crowfoot) and Laron Wilson (Joseph Crowfoot), and 2 at “Frank & Rosie’s” house. Here we see (from the left) Kayla Maestas (Kayla Crowfoot), Niki Pace (Rosie Crowfoot) and Allison McGowan enjoying a break during set prep for the upcoming night scenes.

After lunch, two of the scenes were night scenes, so we draped off the windows. The scenes were far more formal since they were scripted. As you can see by the pictures, no easy feat! Brian Gerber, from One World Media Productions played spider-man by draping off this kitchen window which is a good 15 feet up. Helping him was our 1st AD Todd McGowan, making sure he didn’t fall (folks, don’t try this at home!). Looking on was Corinne Maestas, the director’s (my) daughter - who is one of Joseph Crowfoot‘s four nieces.

Laron Wilson and Albert Huerta (Frank Crowfoot) playing brothers, rehearse their lines, and the scene was extremely tender. The temp today was in the high ninety’s, and we had no real ventilation with the windows being taped off and we had to keep the air-conditioning off because of sound. So everyone was so professional and really pushed it beyond any limit we could have hoped for.

Amazing day. The children were fantastic and very natural. The actors, what can I say… with the quality of performance I’ve seen, we’re on our way to a very great movie. Plus, it was fun. Extremely fun.

Thank you to everyone who has come out- Haley Pardo (Haley Crowfoot), and her mother Heather Taylor- what fantastic people. Haley is quite talented, so don’t be surprised to see her become famous some day, and Heather pitched right in to help with so much of the behind the scenes stuff and for toughing out the rough scenes. Quite extraordinary to be sure.

Thank you to Allison McGowan for her charm, wit and inventiveness, Katherine Joan Taylor for her flair and complete immersion into her role, Niki Pace for her gracefulness and incredible sense of timing, Albert Huerta for his tender-heartedness and the ability to bring forth an empathy like no other, Laron Wilson for his utmost professionalism - man you rock!, my three daughters Kayla, Corinne and Sarah, who amazed everyone with how natural they were and how willing they were to take direction and have fun with the long day.

A great big huge thanks to the crew- Tracy Smith for his steady experience and guiding hand, Brian Gerber for his ingenuity and daring-do (and for using his head- literally- see right), Todd McGowan for his humorous tenacity and willingness to do the dirty jobs, Jennie Finlayson for her enthusiasm and willingness to do the mundane jobs, and last, and certainly not least, my wife Charlotte Maestas for feeding the crew, baby-wrangling, set-prep and putting up with me :) and she did this all with only four hours of sleep.

And with that, wow.

We had a scheduling change, so there will be no shoot next week. Our next shoot is the office scene on August 19th.

J.Maestas
Writer/Director "Corner of the Mind's Eye"
Lost Skies Productions/Black Hawk Entertainment
http://www.lostskies.com