Wrapping Presence

Today felt like the smoothest day on set of 'em all. I don't think I saw any stressed out faces. Or at least not as many as one usually sees. It was a good day, and yet a bit of a sad-ish day knowing that tomorrow is our last night on set. It's gonna be a big night with a huge stunt to pull off... as well as a cameo for me. *gasp!*

Over these last nineteen days, I've been hoping to get out of this particular cameo by inserting myself into another scene somewhere. But the bookstore was too tight for any extras, and today's science fair scene had too many extras as it was. So here we are approaching Day 20, and I'm still stuck with the role I wanted to avoid. Eek! At least I'm in good company, as Jim will be doing his cameo in the same scene. Not to mention, quite a few members of our crew as well as friends n' family have bravely made an appearance, so I guess I should take the opportunity to have my place too. I just really didn't want to do this particular one, which involves looking directly into the camera. *cringe*

Besides my fear of looking into the camera, I also have to kind of act for this scene. I have never taken a drama class before and can't perform to save my life. Fortunately, the scene requires me to be scared, so hopefully I won't have to try too hard. Plus, with Jim being the director, I'm sure he'll let me make my quick appearance and then dart out of frame, instead of holding still in front of the camera for anything longer than two seconds.

I guess if I reaaaally wanted to get out of it, I could take comfort in knowing that technically I am already in one scene... except that I'm half obstructed, sitting in the shadows, and the camera passes by me very quickly. In other words, you can't see me at all. Ha. I guess that isn't much of a cameo is it?

Anyway, it's now or never, so I guess I'll do one thing a day that scares me and give it a try.

We're expecting to wrap the day around 2:30ish a.m., I think. Then after a good sleep-in on Tuesday, we're going to swing by the office, where Jim will check in on the editing process and I'm gonna get one of our fabulous make-up artists, Ashley, to purty me up. Fun, fun!

Afterwards, we'll check into our hotel, probably meet up with some folks downtown for a round at a bar owned by one of our crew, and then head off to the private wrap party from 7:00 til midnight.  I believe I overheard something about DG's flight leaving on Tuesday before the party, but I know that everyone else will be there.  I'm really looking forward to it. We've had such an awesome cast n' crew of people working on this movie. I will definitely miss some of 'em, that's for sure.

THEN, Wednesday, we head back to Maple Ridge, pack our bags and head off to a little sea-side B n' B. We had been trying to find a pet-friendly place that didn't require us to travel too far. But our wonderful neighbours upstairs have generously offered to kitty-sit and also provided us with a brochure to a gorgeous little retreat by the beach in Port Moody. Nice n' close, but still remote enough. Our room will have it's own hot tub, sauna n' fireplace. Sounds like a slice o' heaven. PoMo is also apparently the "City of the Arts", so I think it'll be a groovy, yet mellow place to visit. So, so, sooo looking forward to it.

I also told Jim to put his 'out of office' assistant on, so there is no pressure to check emails. And even though I haven't worked nearly as hard as him, I think I'm gonna take a bit of a hiatus from the computer as well. I have a painting I need to finish (Suzie, I apologize that I have not touched your painting in the last two months), a naked sketch book I need to fill by January 15th (How's yours coming, Lins?), and some reading to do, (much thanks to one of my new friends Gurjit who lent me his copy of "The Power of Now", which interestingly enough, has outlined a few exercises that I've actually been doing over these last few years. Very neat. Now, if I can only get Mr. Thinks Too Much to take the time to read this book too! ;)

All that being said, we will bring out laptop because I'll probably want to catch up on a few lingering hours of contract work at some point.... maybe. Unless I do it as soon as we get back. (Hi Nick!) But really, I just want us to be as disconnected to everything as possible.

Speaking of which, I'm gonna shut down now and take a bath. I could barely sleep a wink last night, and so I'm ready to crash. My internal clock was all messed up, and my mind was piecing together plot points for the next screenplay I want to write (which will likely be a solo endeavour... ) But more on that at another time.