Night At The Bridge

Long before the weather forecast, I just knew in my bones that it would rain the night we shot the bridge scene. Sure enough, the rain didn't let up once. But it sure looks great on film.

The bridge we found is waaaaay out in Harrison. It took Jim n' I about an hour to drive out there, while it took all our Vancouver friends over two. But man, what an absolutely perfect bridge! 

We were all kinda worried that it'd be an especially hard day on DG, as he had flown to Chicago at 1 a.m. the night before and returned to Vancouver by 1:00 p.m. Friday afternoon. Word around set was that his visit to the Oprah show was pretty anticlimactic. He felt they were making too big a deal about the 25th anniversary of a movie. Fair enough.

Despite his travels, he seemed to be in a pretty good mood, fighting through his exhaustion with smiles n' laughter, and calling everyone "baby" the way he always does. "I'm feelin' good, baby. Thank you." (For the record, not every day has been filled with smiles n' laughter, so we were all very relieved...)

Typically we start early in the day, but for the bridge shoot, we didn't begin until 3:00. (Although most of us arrived between 1:30 - 2:00 to prepare.) I learned that it doesn't matter what time a shoot begins, catering still begins the day with breakfast. I already had bowl of cereal in the morning, but I was wise to save myself so I still had room for a small Tropic Thunder smoothy, a lil' bowl of fruit salad n' cottage cheese, a breakfast quesadilla, and self-squeezed O.J.  (I swear, this makes up for all the skipped meals and shit we've been eating for the last month pre-shoot.)

After breakfast, Jim informed me that we had our own trailer at the circus... well, kinda. There was a room set up for us in a large trailer. It had a small bed and TV and our own bathroom. (BTW, the circus is where all the trucks n' trailers are parked.)

This picture shows you half of the circus. There are about five or six more trailers you can't see here.

We dropped all our crap off, and then I decided to take a walk around the gorgeous mossy woods. Unfortunately, I was disgusted to discover that there was TONS of garbage thrown into the ditch by the fishermen who frequent the area. So I grabbed a garbage bag n' gloves n' started cleaning. The only stuff I didn't clean up were the fish heads n' guts tossed there earlier in the day. Effin' gross. 

By the time I was done cleaning, our Splinter Unit B has started shooting. These are small background things that aren't necessary for Jim to direct. Like a clip that'll be on the news, or a quick shot of cars on the road, etc. 

As you can see, the smoke machine was already rolling, trying to get the sky all nice n' foggy to diffuse the light and make things moody later on. 

Meanwhile, Unit A was busy rigging a camera on to the side of Don's car. 

Because it was so rainy, I spent most of my time in the tent, chatting with the wardrobe and make-up ladies. It's so weird, because we've only just finished our first week of shooting, and it feels like I've known some of these people for years. I guess when you spent hours, upon hours, upon hours sitting around shooting the breeze, you get to know everyone pretty quick.

Also, being outside all day (or in this case, night), huddled around a heater, trying to escape the elements beneath the tent, there's an instant camaraderie that develops that almost feels like summer camp.  I guess that's the best way to describe it. DG, who was sitting next to me, joked, "So is this how you like to spend your Friday night?"  I guess he doesn't realize that I don't exactly have a happenin' social life, and that this was actually the most awesome Friday night I've had in a long time. ;) 

Anyhow, here is my view from inside the tent. 

You'll notice in the monitor on the top picture, one of our PA's is holding a stop sign. Traffic was released across the bridge every 3 - 10 minutes (depending on how often cars came by...) In one instance, we had to quickly wrap the shot and clear the road, because in one of the waiting cars, a woman was having a baby. Gawd, I hope they didn't keep her waiting long!

With all the smoke and lights, the bridge really looked amazing. And as nifty as it looks in our own amateur pics, it looks especially cinematic on screen. (As you can kinda see by looking again at the monitor in the photo above.)

This is the last shot of the night, where they put the camera on the hood of the car. 

We were out there until after 3:00 a.m., but it was sooo worth it. For our hardest night that many of us were almost dreading, it ended up being the most fun by far. :)