We’re on the front page of the Foothills Focus today! I will come back and update with a link to their site when they update their webpage, but for now what I hear is that it’s front page, with color photos. Whoo-hoo!

Did we mention we rocked an article on the first inside page of the Peoria Times a few weeks ago too (Apr 10th)? We’ve got Cori knockin out all the newspapers to gain awareness…Cori did you know we’ve got the New York Times next on your list? :-)

[edit: Daniel was able to post the PDF of the paper until they update their site with the actual article - click the image to see the whole thing and read it!]

[edit: Yay! They’ve updated their site so now we have an article with photos up! http://www.thefoothillsfocus.com/050609-AnthemMovie.asp]

Guest blogger Joy (Assistant Director) here to add a quick note about last Saturday’s shoot. We went down to Glendale to get that “small-town” feel we want for the end of the film (where the bus makes it’s final stop). Cori knocked it out of the park with two locations that had THE BEST ‘film customer service’ we’ve had so far. The first is an awesome military surplus store (militaryitems.com) that doubled as a pawn shop for our purposes. The second is…oh wait…that’s a spoiler and I can’t tell ya. You’ll just have to wait and see the movie!

How do you have the best ‘film customer service’ you might ask? If you’re the owner and are okay with closing your doors a few hours early. If you don’t mind a crew of 9 descending on your tiny (and I mean, one-person-wide aisles) store with lights, cameras, and other miscellaneous equipment. If you offer up your back office as a hair/makeup/food station. If you offer to take down signs in your windows, move customers out of the shot, and keep asking if there’s anything else we need help with, then yeah, you’re definitely on our FAVORITES list.

Difficulties in the midst of all that helpfulness? Well, we did have to wrestle with reflections on windows, which was pretty annoying. Annie at times had a brick wall showing over her face, or a green truck. We finally brought in some lights to squelch the annoyance (and light her up!) and it was on with the scene. Mitchell’s hair did not want to behave, which means that it WAS behaving. It’s supposed to be all rumpled and stick up, but it kept fluffing down and being all nice. What?! A handful of gel or two knocked it out.

All in all, probably one of the easiest shoots we’ve had so far. Only two more days of shooting left everyone!

Ok maybe they aren’t “crying”, but I did hear that people are “drinking” away their sadness now that Life In Transit is coming to an end. Yes it’s hard to believe but it’s true. We have only 2 weekends left of filming. We’ve already said farewell to some cast members along the way. We are more than 3/4 done. One big happy dysfunctional family. It feels good to know we are loved. :)

No but seriously, it means a lot as a film company to know that the actors enjoy working with you and people want to be a part of your crew. Not just because we can brag to family and friends that people like us, but because we want to make a difference with our movies. If people like you then they’ll want to support you and that’s how we bring about change.

A lot of people will say that in the end its the movie that changes people but really, making the movie changes everyone involved in creating it. We become temporary family and we look out for each other. Well I’m choosing to believe someone is looking out for me, but I’m just the writer….. We also know, somewhere in the back of our minds, that eventually those friendships can fade and we can loose touch of that “togetherness.” Maybe that’s what we should really be “crying about.” Hopefully that won’t happen. If we all just exchange addresses we can send each other Christmas cards….

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In talking to Laura Durant this past weekend I found out a few tricks she used to help get a reaction from Mitchell when he comes across her and Gino in a scene where they are having what we’ve started calling a “moment.” We call it this because we truly don’t know what it is. We want to put across an idea without really having the follow through of the idea. Don’t ask me this was Daniel’s little input into the script. No offense D, but every time people are confused by a script thing I have to tell them it was your idea. Cuz it usually was. ;)

Anyway Laura made use of different body parts for each take. After all if you did the same thing each time it wouldn’t work right? I heard there was a middle finger and some “flashing” involved. Well it worked! Mitchell turned all shades of red and they ended up getting the reaction they were looking for. Whatever would we do without LD and her rock star status?

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It’s pretty certain that one of our youngest cast members has a crush on his babysitter and his “pretend” mom. But who wouldn’t have a crush on someone whose name starts with “J”? Jessica was Collin’s first crush and you might be asking yourself, “Whose Jessica?” she’s the cute teenager walking around every once in a while taking photos of us when we aren’t watching.

We hope that one day her photography will take off for her as that’s her dream however in the meantime we are taking advantage of her dedication to VerticalBlu. She has been working with us for about 6 months and pretty much takes care of all our myspace needs including adding friends and advertising what we are up to so people stay interested in Life In Transit. She is also has the side job of watching Daniel’s kids when he and his wife need a night out. Say hi to her next time you see her cuz she’s feeling pretty bad about not being able to be at all the shoots. I feel her pain.

When Jessica and Diego aren’t on set Jennifer becomes Collin’s new play date. Talk about your mother issues… you have a crush on your pretend mom. Don’t even get me started… The poor kid. Collin isn’t the only one suffering. After finding out that the last girl who had a kid in one of our movies got pregnant after filming, Jennifer is walking around wondering what she’s gotten herself into. That is if you believe that life imitates art. At the time she isn’t planning on having kids but still seems to have them on her mind. Now we are all confused… I guess we’ll see down the road. In the meantime, it truly is awesome that their relationship behind the scenes comes out on camera. It’s always a bit unnerving when you have a child actor because you want them to connect with the actors they are working with. It can be hard to tell during rehearsals if that will happen or not. We got lucky with both Collin and Austin as well as Katrina and Jenn that it all worked out. And no one is denying how cute those two are on set when they don’t think people are watching. Great job “kids”!