{"id":77,"date":"2007-10-29T11:06:33","date_gmt":"2007-10-29T18:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/falcon\/index.php\/2007\/10\/29\/dare-production-diary-day-6\/"},"modified":"2008-10-29T12:44:34","modified_gmt":"2008-10-29T19:44:34","slug":"dare-production-diary-day-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/?p=77","title":{"rendered":"“DARE” Production Diary – Day 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week had passed since the campfire shoot, and I knew we needed to get the shots for the chicken game and Wood\u2019s reveal. \"\u201cDARE\u201d<\/a>BRAXTON BOND said he was available that weekend and would do whatever I needed him to do to finish the film. I called my best friend BOOMASTER and asked for his help. He also agreed.<\/p>\n

First thing I needed was the convertible, again. ADAM the producer gave me the original rental agreement from Enterprise, and I called them to see if they still had the car. Oddly enough, convertibles aren\u2019t that popular as rentals in southern California, as it\u2019s often too hot to drive them with the top down. <\/p>\n

The girl I talked to said what I expected: she didn\u2019t know if the car I wanted was still there. They keep them in rotation. I gave her the original lease number and license plate, but that did no good. I\u2019d have to make an appointment to rent a car, then look around the lot when I got there to see if they still had it.<\/p>\n

We were shooting this on a Sunday afternoon, and CVK was going with me to pick up the car so he could drive mine back. On the way there, I called again: could you please tell me if the car is there, so in case it isn\u2019t, I don\u2019t have to waste my time driving all the way to LAX?<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, no. You\u2019ll just have to look around the lot when you get here,\u201d a young man said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, all right\u2026\u201d I gave in, but CVK grabbed the phone out of my hand.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cDARE\u201d<\/a>\u201cLook,\u201d he said sternly, \u201cwe need the car for a fashion shoot. She (!) wants that specific car. We rented it last week. If you don\u2019t have it, I don\u2019t want to waste my time coming down there, because we won\u2019t want another car, only that one, and we\u2019ll have to start looking elsewhere. Now do you have it or not?\u201d He described the car\u2019s make and model. \u201cThank you,\u201d he said, hanging up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have it,\u201d he smiled. \u201cIf you give them a story, a specific reason for wanting it, then they usually make more of an effort to find out.\u201d Hats off to my honey.<\/p>\n

We pulled into the lot, and I saw the car sitting next to a silver Sebring convertible. The customer rep told CVK to go and get the keys out of the Mustang while I filled out the paperwork. Soon, we were on our way home.<\/p>\n

Let me just say that I love convertibles. There\u2019s nothing like driving a car with no roof, feeling the wind in your face. I love it. Next, it was into Hollywood to pick up Boomaster, who pleaded with me to put the top up, but I refused. Friend or no friend, this was the first convertible I\u2019d been in since I shot HOW TO SEDUCE A STRAIGHT MAN earlier this year, and my own little convertible years before that. You can put on a cap or slather on some sunscreen, but I was driving it with the top down!<\/p>\n

I had asked Braxton if we could use his car for the other car in the game of chicken, and he said yes, so I told him we\u2019d meet him at his house at 1:00. About 15 minutes later, he text-messaged me, asking for my address. I told him we were meeting him at his house, and he texted me again for my address, which I gave him.<\/p>\n

As Boo and I were heading for Braxton\u2019s place, I called him to find out if we\u2019d passed the street, because we were having trouble finding it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, Jett,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019m just a couple of minutes from your house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d I exclaimed. \u201cBraxton, I told you we were meeting you at YOUR house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOhmygod,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry! I\u2019m mixed up!\u201d<\/p>\n

I told him to stay put, and we\u2019d be there in 20 minutes. I called CVK to let Braxton in so he didn\u2019t have to sit in his car, but he was out shopping.<\/p>\n

When we arrived at my house, Braxton apologized again for the misunderstanding. I said it was okay, but it had put us back 30 minutes, and we had to drive all the way back to Palmdale to the original location (I couldn\u2019t think of any other place that was closer with long, straight, flat desert roads with no traffic and little population).<\/p>\n

On the way, I explained in more detail to Boomaster what I wanted: I would sit in the passenger seat of the convertible next to Braxton, while Boo drove my car (Braxton decided we couldn\u2019t use his, after all). The convertible would be at one end of the long stretch of road, and my car would be at the other. We would drive on the wrong side of the road, while Boo drove on the correct side, so that we were on a collision course with each other. When we got within close (but safe) range, Boo would simply swerve into the other lane, passing us, then back into the correct lane, after which we would get into OUR correct lane. Simple.<\/p>\n

We had two safety signals that would abort the take: 1. If there was another car behind Boo that we couldn\u2019t see, he would flash his headlights, and we would get back into our proper lane. 2. If there was a car behind us, even though Boo would see it, we\u2019d still signal an aborted take by simply getting back into our own lane. It sounds complicated, but it really was easy to understand and relatively safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is a stunt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right, and if we do it correctly, it\u2019ll look great. The important thing is, we can only do it twice. I don\u2019t want anyone tipping off the cops or the road commissioner that we\u2019re shooting something, even though we\u2019re not surrounded by huge RVs and grip trucks to give us away this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once there, Boo and Braxton went over the safety signals again while I prepped my camera. We decided to shoot on 140th St., which was long and straight but also paved, something the other road was not.<\/p>\n

We got in position. Boo started toward us, and Braxton and I got in the left lane toward him. With lots of road to spare, I shot through the windshield as Boo swerved to miss us, and as he did\u2014I saw a black convertible behind him! He had not signaled us! Now, in the novel \u201cWatership Down\u201d, death comes to the rabbits in the form of a black hare, so on that hot Sunday road, it struck me that it might be fitting for me to die in a silver convertible hitting a black convertible head-on!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m making the whole thing out to be more dramatic than it actually was, however. That\u2019s the nature of blog-writing, I suppose. The black car was quite far down the road, and we returned to our lane with lots of distance to spare.<\/p>\n

I told the guys to go back to their starting positions, and this time I filmed from the side of the road. It looked pretty cool. From my angle, the space looked a lot shorter and very dramatic.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to do another one?\u201d Boomaster asked me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019d better vamoose,\u201d I said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to get caught, and there\u2019s a house nearby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s do one more, quickly,\u201d he said, and giddy with excitement as I was, I agreed. We shot one more take with me in the passenger seat, and as Boo got close to us, I zoomed in, which made for a dizzying take. I almost panicked, as the shot actually made me think for a split second that we were going to crash.<\/p>\n

We high-tailed it out of there, and I rode with Braxton half of the way back, getting shots of him driving and some scenery. We talked about the business and his desire for more exposure. He had done 7 movies, he said, and none of them were released yet. He wanted the cover of a magazine and some layouts, too. I told him it would come, but he needed to be patient. Magazines take months for pictures to come out. It would happen.<\/p>\n

We pulled over at Escondido Canyon Road, and I got back in the car with Boo. I wanted to get what I saw as Braxton\u2019s \u201creveal\u201d shot in the film, in other words, the first shot in the movie where we see him. With Boo driving, we pulled up alongside the convertible. I started the shot with a closeup of the rear wheel, then we accelerated slightly so the camera would dolly alongside the car up to Braxton\u2019s face. It was difficult to match the speeds, and I was getting frustrated with Boo, plus we were blocking traffic on the two-lane road. To their credit, no one was honking at us. Maybe they saw we were shooting a film, as I was clearly hanging out the window, camera in hand.<\/p>\n

We got several takes until I was happy, and we returned home. Hugs all around, and Braxton left, then I took Boomaster to his apartment. On the way back, I realized that CVK had work the next morning, so how would I return the car? With a heavy heart, I understood that the car had to go back that very night, and after dinner, we both drove back to Enterprise and turned it in.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cDARE\u201d<\/a>On the way home, it occurred to me that I\u2019d left the film\u2019s cherries air freshener dangling from the convertible\u2019s rear view mirror, and that made me even sadder.<\/p>\n

So now all that was left was to shoot the first scene in the subway station with Psycho Sam and Darren, and production would be over. But an e-mail I\u2019d receive from Adam in 2 weeks would throw a monkey wrench into those plans.<\/p>\n

To be continued\u2026<\/p>\n

JBK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week had passed since the campfire shoot, and I knew we needed to get the shots for the chicken game and Wood\u2019s reveal. BRAXTON BOND said he was available that weekend and would do whatever I needed him to do to finish the film. I called my best friend BOOMASTER and asked for his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogroll","category-in-production","category-new-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pauedl-1f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.falconstudios.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}