Morgan, Greg and I thought it would be beneficial for the project to film on a day during Spring Break. I completely agreed. The original plan was to film early on, like at noon, to late in the evening, but for unforeseen reasons that didn't happen. It wasn't all bad though. I got to drive some early in the day and go to the hardware store, and got a ride to UWM later in the day. When Greg and I finally got to Morgan's, it was obvious everyone was looking forward to today, because, they got to wear make-up! Seriously, if I've learned anything, the best way to make an actor happy is make-up, fake blood, or both, if your shoot calls for it.
When we got to Morgan's we got right to work. Morgan showed us her face paint designs and I agreed and she got to work. It was decided to use an off white color for the base instead of white in hopes the faces won't come out over exposed. I was weary having had bad issues with mixing of any amounts of black into white, but she seemed confident, so I grabbed her ukuelele and let her do her thing. Greg, for whatever reason, was way too excited to have face paint on. So Greg washed his face and Morgan went at it. She was like a seasoned pro at face paint. It was really neat to see. We even filmed parts of it for posterity.
As Morgan worked Matt, her boyfriend, and I were fooling around with different instruments. I mainly stuck to the uke, but he played a bit of guitar and a keyboard hooked up to a distortion peddle and was playing a song he wrote that moment called "Greg". I really wish we would have recorded it.
After the face paint was applied to both actors, Morgan recorded a cover song while sitting in the bathroom. Greg was filming it. She performed it on the uke. I wish I could remember it, but I can't. I'm sure she'll sing it for us again. We then went outside for a photo shoot. They look amazing. My favorites can be seen below.
We then had to take Matt to work. This was one of the fun parts of the day. Picture this, if you will. Two harlequin's, a guy with film equipment on his lap and another guy all driving in a car together, listening to the Unicorns, acting like nothing is happening, while on the East Side. Good stuff. We got some odd looks, which was amazing.
Finally, we got to the park where we planned to film. I was a little worried Greg was going to scare the shit out of the kids playing on the playground. He was taking it upon himself to be as weird and creepy as possible. As I was setting up, Greg and Morgan went over the actions of the scene and tried to pantomime and even broke out in song once or twice. Greg seriously could have a career in it. He's scary good as being a desperate harlequin. The time of the day was perfect. The sun was beginning to set, the park was near empty, and it wasn't too cold. That won't show up on film, but it's nice for us. We then began to film. I wanted this footage to be good. I did match-on-action, shot-reverse-shot, and even close-ups! I did everything, minus use the light meter, to make this look good. I've really began to hate the light meter. The tool that is supposed to make life easier for us has actually screwed me over more than it's helped. So I don't use it. Sorry Rob, sorry Ken. I know if you guys read this you'll not like it, but whatever. It's my film!
Filming went great, but then we were really hungry. Evidence is that Morgan was driving like a woman possessed. Neither decided to take off the face paint when we went to Panera for dinner. I got a chicken and bacon Dijon panini and some lemonade. I recommend it. Afterwards we decided to call it a day. We were going to film the climax of the film, but we were all kinda tired, Greg wanted to see his girlfriend, and I had a guitar at home crying from lack of attention. So, we decided to call it a day.
When I got home I noticed Morgan uploaded the images from the day. Upon seeing them I contacted my friend Steffani, a good photographer and artist, to design a movie poster for this. She did, and you can see it below. Visit her website, which is also below. Thanks for reading.
Steffani Kasulke's website
Yes, the official title is now Commedia dell'arte, and here's the song that inspired it.
"I Don't Wanna Grow Up" - Tom Waits
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