Two weeks...

It's May 2nd now, which means we are exactly two weeks away from the start of the production! Things are really falling into place nicely, which means that this is the first weekend in awhile that we haven't been running around trying to do all sorts of fun movie related tasks.

This week, we made arrangements for our "Aidan", Cory Driscoll, to fly into Los Angeles from Jacksonville. He'll be here for almost two weeks while we complete our first round of shooting. I know everyone is really excited about him coming.

Last weekend, we finally found our John & Cheryl Spencer (Jack's parents, for those of you who aren't keeping track of character names) which finalizes our principal cast. We've also added a few awesome people to our crew, who will be a tremendous help as we get into actual production.

That's all for now- keep checking back. As we get into production, this blog will be exploding with updates!

Waiting is the hardest part... or was it movie making?

So I am sitting here wrapping up the final touches on my end of the producer's team.  What is it that I do for the production Claire?  Well, at this stage of the game, Michelle, Jermaine and Dan have things pretty well wrapped up.  So most of what I can offer is from the tech side.  In the coming posts, I am going to take you on a behind the scenes look at some of the TECH OF CLAIRE.  

But for now, I just wanted to drop in, say hello, and more importantly, say "thank you"!  Thank you for donating in these tough economic times, thank you for following our progress on Facebook, IndieGoGo and on the Claire blog; and thank you for your support and well wishes!

I'll have more to say as we approach production - and even more to say as we approach post production and my role becomes more relevant.  Until then, stay tuned for more production stills, behind the scenes footage and other little Claire tid-bits... maybe even a little swag give away contest!   Cheers!

Picking Up Steam

I'm going to pepper this entry with pretty pictures we've taken even if they have nothing to do with my current post because, let's face it, these are easier to get through if you have pictures.

(Jennifer Baute as "Claire")

Things are going very well for us. We've set shoot dates for May 16th/17th and 23/24th. These are a bigger deal for us than other shoot dates for a few reasons.

Cory Driscoll, who plays Aidan and lives in Florida, is coming out to L.A. for about a week and a half and we'll be shooting many of the major scenes with his character, including those at the Foster Bowl (Amphitheater) and the Ventura Pier. We're getting Cory's scenes in large chunks, so hopefully it will only take two or three visits to get him wrapped out. Aidan is a major character, so that's tricky.

("The Foster Bowl" Amphitheater)

(The Ventura Pier)

Also, we'll be shooting all the scenes involving Jack's father, who is not yet cast. Michelle has been spending her days pouring over LA Casting to find people to audition for John Spencer and I have rented out the NoHo Actor's Studio in order to read them this Sunday. (Side note, if you know any non-SAG 40-Something "sporty dad" types that might be interested, please send them our way.)

(Michelle is taking all the set pictures so far, so I took the liberty of creating this mock-up so she can feel included in the photos here.)

Tonight Dave and Jermaine will be meeting with Michelle and myself at our place (Michelle is making banana bread) to go over any last minute things we need to look into before our 3 weeks of prep kicks into high gear.

(Jermaine (left) and Dave (right) because I know you wanted to make sure they were as sexy as I described.)

Austin and Kelsey will be meeting up with Jermaine and Dave to take a look at their places. Jermaine's room will more than likely become our Jack's Bedroom set, and Dave's house will become 'Jack's House'. We're stoked to have finally decided on these locations, even if they were right in front of us the whole time, because finding Jack's House has reportedly been keeping Jermaine up at night.

(Austin working her camera voodoo)

Hopefully we will find our John Spencer on Sunday and the last major piece of prepro before these shoot dates will have fallen into place before we get entirely into paperwork and scheduling and just generally spending lots of money (ugh).

(Me... "directing" Aidan... while Austin makes sure the camera continues to work it's magic)

Also, Aidan Bristow, who plays 'Jack' was fitted for his cast on Monday. Jack has a broken arm for the entirety of our story, so it was nice to get that important bit of prop making underway. I wasn't there for it, but I heard it was a blast.

(Aidan being fitted for his cast by the Illusion Man himself, Mr. Scott Connor)

Also, yes, we have an actor named Aidan and character named Aidan. This will get confusing at some point, so you'll probably have to read closely. Strangely, this 'actors and characters with the same names, but not played by the same person' thing has pretty much happened to me on two other movies, so it's becoming an odd trend.

Oh yes, and Mike Kangaju is playing 'Mike Fisher', so just calling him 'Mike' will make life a little easier, I suppose.

We're hoping to cut a trailer together once these May weekends have been completed and with this trailer, drum up additional funding to complete the more expensive school scenes in the later Summer. If you've got a few bucks to spare, don't be afraid to head on over to our IndieGoGo site and chip in. We'll love ya for it.

I suppose that wraps it up for this entry. More to come soon. (That's what he said.)

Weekend #1

I wanted to start off this blog by discussing our first attempts at making Claire, what went wrong, and why this attempt is going a million times better and then some.

I'm a little exhausted from this weekend's festivities, so I'm going to save that post for another day. Instead I'm going to briefly go over what was our first full weekend of work on the movie.

On Saturday, a skeleton crew (consisting of myself, Dan, and Austin) ventured up to Ventura to shoot a small scene with Aidan (our "Jack") as well as get some stills and an interview for our "behind the scenes" footage. We first shot by the Ventura Pier, and it was a gorgeous day out (if not too windy). Aidan did a small interview where he discussed his reasons for wanting to be in the film and how the character of Jack resonated with him.
Afterwards, we went by the Community Memorial Hospital of San Buenaventura (if that's not a ridiculously long name for a hospital, I don't know what is!), where we shot the scene where Jack comes across Clarie's roadside cross. From the footage I've seen so far, it looks BEAUTIFUL. We picked a fabulous day to start shooting, and I'm excited to see how the scene looks in it's entirety!

The crew dropped off Aidan at work in West Hollywood, rejoiced over some delicious In 'n Out, and then went to Dave (our 3rd producer) and Vivian's house, where we shot some more producer interviews. Look for this installement sometime this week- I make my first appearance discussing my interest in working on Claire.


Today, we shot some more digital images of Jennifer (our "Claire") for the film. As you can see from the top image, they look awesome. She's comes out beautiful in pictures and is fabulous to work with.

Things are really getting off the ground here- I'm exicted for what lies ahead!