The Mystery of the Phantom Barbershop

Friday, August 10th started off with a fun little diversion I have affectionately come to call the "Frantic search for entry to the Barbershop". Unfortunately, the owner forgot we were filming that evening and locked the place up. Rebekah and I went there and spoke with neighbors, other store owners...anyone that could give us the guy's home phone number. No luck. All that separated us from filming our one (very) important scene was a thin layer of painted glass...so brittle...

In any event, no hard feelings. We were denied the pleasure of seeing our attendant character on film (played by the clearly very understanding Sarah, all the way from Rhode Island in her 2005 Mustang...), but we can reschedule. We went on to film some transitional scenes with Barney and Harv.

"Walking scenes"...they tend to be a tedious but necessary evil for getting the story from here to there. Sure, they provide a perfectly appropriate nesting ground for music...but it almost always seems like a cop out or filler. Chuck and I tried to find some interesting locations and framing choices, and I think we did an ok job. We finally got a chance to use the old mill area near the tracks in malden. Nice angular structures and moody (existing) lighting gave us a sort of noir-ish feel that doesn't feel put on (as the buildings themselves could believably exist in almost any decade from the last 100 years or so). Plus, I won that bet where I said I would get Chuck to lay on the street with a towel and a camera. I didn't care one bit about that shot...it's just a power-thing with me. One-hundred percent ego. I don't care who knows. That'll be $5, anonymous bar patron.

As a side note, I had put together a rough 18-minute edit (very unpolished) on DVD for some of the crew. I found myself hesitant to show it to the lead actors. I had read somewhere that actors often avoid watching "dailies", as they feel it may affect their subsequent performances or make them start second-guessing certain abstract aspects of the characters. Ultimately we all decided to watch the footage. We'll see next week if the actors were affected by it and if they decide to spontaneously change sexes of their respective characters...or play them as trees.

More later...
Mike