Two hours or so we got all our zombies done up, and they looked pretty awesome. We got out to shoot and by the time we got around to needing the zombies, we were already 2 hours behind schedule - I still don't know how that all happened. And then the torrential downpour began. I was really hoping being the woods would lessen it a bit, but not even slightly.
I tried getting some footage, but the rain was too distracting, I was worried about the camera getting fried and balancing a small umbrella over it, on top of being way behind schedule - it was just too much. We could've toughed it out and tried shooting something, but there was the risk of destroying the camera - and then we would've been screwed, over and done - and then there was the possibility the footage would've been unusable anyway because of the rush, so it all could've just been a waste of time. So I cancelled it.
I've never had to cancel a shoot like this before and I'll admit, I wasn't even vaguely fine with the idea. I was put in a shit mood for the rest of the day. The one thing I've always prided myself in was that I've always been extremely aware of wasting people's time, to the point where it does distract me as I'm working. I hate it. I think filmmakers who just fuck about and waste their actors (who are usually volunteers locally) time, are absolute assholes - whether it be on purpose or out of ignorance. You can't do that to people who are giving you their free time, it just means you don't appreciate the effort their putting forth or are too wrapped up in yourself to care about it. People will always have to be waiting around of course, but if they have to because you're too busy thinking only of yourself or you can't schedule for shit, it's just wrong.
I'm still not happy with it, I don't care we didn't get the footage, although it would've been nice, it's just having brought all those people out, spent all that time in makeup only to turn around and tell them to go home - it sucks.
So, the positive side of all this. I have more time to prep the location change - since the original shotlist was based on a location we're no longer using, I now have time to go over it all and adjust things for the better. Always a plus, that's the lesson I learned from last year, Even if you tank on a shoot, figure out what went wrong first and just make sure it either doesn't happen again and find a way to make it even better next time.
Everything's done and ready to go, I just now have time to sort more stuff out, think of streamlining things, just making it better in general for next time.
Here's most of the folks who came out, seeing this feels like looking a group picture of people who were lost at sea on some doomed voyage. Well, it's not that bad. but sort of.
It was fun though, up until it all went to shit and I tried to keep in a good mood about it, but I don't think I was doing a very good job of it.
And here's some of the zombies.
This was to be our last day, I had some minor shots with a couple people to pick up and a fight scene to do later, it would've been so awesome to make it over that last hurdle without any of the issues we had last year, but this day managed to screw all that up.
So, we're looking to September 15th and hoping for the best. The long range forecast looks decent, not exactly a warm day, but it won't be a long one. I'm hoping at least a half hour to 45 minute can be trimmed off the schedule if what little footage we got yesterday works out.
And I'll leave you with this, I finally got the more or less final poster created for the movie:
I not going to bother with a line of the day since we really didn't shoot much dialog.
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