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!