The Re-shoots

The Summer has passed.  We’ve had a wrap party at the lead actor’s house.

The Cinematographer cut a trailer, and so did I.

The cut slowly takes shape as the months pass, and the team works on the 48hr film project again. This time, we come away with nothing.

I’m feeling restless about the movie. By the time we have a rough cut together, I’ve  decided that we need more footage. This was something that I didn’t do with AMPHETAMINE. Once we were done with pickups, that was it.

Not this time. This time, we’re getting everything that we need.

It’s been a long year, though, and a lot has changed. For one thing, we have no money in the budget. The Pinzgauer isn’t running, so we won’t have a transport vehicle. Actors have put on weight. Somebody has moved into our Production House.

I won’t go into the gory details, but relationships have began and ended among the crew, with the predictable result of everybody feeling a little weird.

When I break the news about the re-shoots, people are somewhat less than enthusiastic, but it’s gotta be done.

We get the production gears rolling again, figure out ways to get more money, and somehow get the bus moving again.



DECEMBER 9 2006
Day 32
St. Clair, MO

We just spent the last few days getting our new production house in order. It’s a real shit hole.

There’s no heat, no running water, hell, there’s no floor. (No, really; we have to put in a sub-floor) But there IS electricity and it’s free, so I won’t bitch too much.

On the bright side, our St. Clair production transport is provided by a Short Bus. Yes, that’s right, school bus for mentally handicapped children.

How fitting.

We’re re-shooting some critical scenes today, because they weren’t big enough last time out. This time it’s a different story. We have tons of vehicles and re-enactors, plus the Jib and track dolly.

It has snowed a few days before, but that works in our favor for today. Tomorrow is a different story.

We won’t have the Production Designer back for the re-shoots for one reason or another, and this makes us dangerously light on grips… but what the hell, the show must go on.

It’s a long day back after a long layoff, so everybody is a little rusty. We get through it and pull off a really complex day.

Since the Production House looks like something out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, nobody elects to spend the night.


DECEMBER 10 2006
Day 33
St. Clair, MO

Today was supposed to be day five for the Big Battle, but the snow takes care of that. Instead, I write a new scene, a battle that (obviously) takes place in the snow.

This was a long, ugly, frustrating day.

We have lots of explosions to set off, but unfortunately we only have two grips to do the work, and one of them has to be detailed to tear down our tent set from yesterday.

All day long I feel like I’m playing catch-up with myself, and at one point I come very, very close to decking the Cinematographer after we have a little exchange of words.

Of course, today is his Birthday, the second one spent on set (last year was Hell Night in the cabin) So what the hell.

We get through the day without blowing anyone up, so that’s a plus.


DECEMBER 16 2006
Day 34
St. Clair, MO

I believe that this is our FOURTH attempt to shoot this particular scene, a foxhole scene with our main cast and an Infantry line company.

Nothing major goes wrong today-the worst thing that had to be done was the bailing out of a couple of foxholes.

Well, I think the crew was feeling a little on edge, but we still get through the day.


DECEMBER 17 2006
Day 35
St. Clair, MO

We had another big day today It’s an additional fire-fight scene. Lots of Germans, Jib and dolly shots, etc.

We did more Pyro stuff today as well.

This was one of those shitty times where EVERYBODY in the crew is pissed at SOMEBODY… and I have to have many separate talks with people to smooth over bruised feelings.

Like I have time for this shit.

Well, tough, because unless I want the movie to fall apart here at the end, I gotta do what I gotta do.

Beyond the personal problems, it’s a real fucker of a day. We shoot a LOT of battle stuff, and I think pieces of four other unrelated scenes.

We get a lot accomplished, but it’s one of those days where I really hated being the guy in charge.

The day ends with an argument between me and the cinematographer.

He was pissed because I went off with the sound guy, and thought we were conspiring against him.

Sure, the sound guy was pissed at him, but the truth was, I just drug him further up the valley we were shooting in to get some good wild sound.

Movies. Huh.


JANUARY 6 2007
Day 36
St. Clair, MO

Big Battle, day five. I’m driving out to the set on a pitch-black early morning in the Jeep Commander that we’ve rented for the production this time around.

As I’m tooling down the highway, I’m thinking about how rough the re-shoots have been thus far. It makes me a little irritated.

Then I notice my left hand is tingling.

It spreads up my entire arm, and it suddenly becomes hard to breathe.

I’m gasping for air, and things begin to go in and out of focus.

I try to shrug it off, but then I get to thinking about the chest pains I’ve been having throughout the week.

Oh, shit, I’m having a heart attack.

I pull off the highway into a Moto-Mart.

Not having a cell phone (I hate those things) I stagger inside and ask to use their telephone.

“You don’t look so good,” the lady behind the counter explains.

“Yeah, I’ve felt better, ” I reply.

First things first, I call the 1st AD

ME : Don’t panic, but I think I’m having a heart attack.

AD : OH MY GOD! WHERE ARE YOU?!

ME: Uh, at Moto-Mart in Eureka.

AD : I’ll be there in ten minutes!

ME : Great. Look, whatever happens, don’t cancel the shoot, OK?


Next, I call an Ambulance, and then I call my wife.

The ambulance quickly shows up and I get loaded into the back.

The 1st AD, DP, and 1st AC (assistant camera) arrive moments later, and I make them promise me to keep shooting no matter what.

” I won’t be too dead to come back and kick your asses,” I threaten them.

Kim, my wife (and also the head of wardrobe) meets me at the hospital, more than a little worried.

After running a series of tests, it turns out that no, I’m not having a heart attack, I’m just very, very stressed.

Ah, what a relief!

They release me and tell me to take it easy.

I point out that I will be twice as stressed sitting at home today than if I go out to the set.

More to the point, if I’m forced into going home, I’m just going to hitch-hike my way out to St. Clair anyway.


By 11:30, I’m in St. Clair.

Today turns out to be a great day. Lots of explosions, extras, re-enactors.

We accomplish everything we set out to do, and then some.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.


JANUARY 28 2007
Day 37
Desoto, MO

Back out in Desoto to grab some bits and pieces, B-roll, and one small scene I felt we needed to bridge two others.

It is SUPER COLD today. Our warming tent is long since gone, and the Army tent is still in the house in St. Clair, so we simply stand around and freeze.

One of the actors brought along his four-wheeler to transport people and gear up to the set.

I cut out a few inserts that I realize we don’t need after all, and after some shots of the actors playing dead bodies, we wrap.

I narrowly avoid getting my car stuck in the dirt (mud) road as I’m leaving, and that’s about the worst of it.

We can finally bid Desoto goodbye.


March 4, 2007
Day 38
St. Clair, MO

This is finally it. The end of production. No fanfare, no speech, just some bone-tired people ready to be done.

We’re shooting some blank-fire stuff with Germans, me being one of the people in front of the camera.

It’s crew and a couple of actors dressed up for this stuff… very appropriate for the last day of production.

Of course, when we’re nearly done, I trip over a stump or something and tear the shit out of my ankle.

I spend the last day limping around just like I started the damn movie, in utter misery.

As I limp off the hill into the setting sun, I feel like the last casualty of the war.

That’s OK, though.



Because I survived.







EPILOGUE


So there you have it. The long RHINELAND trek has come to an end. It’s taken me two years to get here, and I’m not the same person that I was when I started it. As tired as it may sound, it’s true.

It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

RHINELAND has slowly come to encompass nearly my entire life, and it has grown far larger than I ever would have imagined. Hard doesn’t even begin to describe what I’ve went through. Awe-inspiring, monumental, mind-numbing… those come a little closer. There were more times than I can count when I though the entire movie was catastrophically doomed.

But then, somehow, things worked out.

RHINELAND was kind of special like that. For every negative, there was a positive. For every disaster, an opportunity.

Despite all of the ups and downs, I had a great team along the way. They really kept it together, through the good times and the bad. I’m incredibly proud of them all.

My whole reason for making the movie changed. Instead of making this movie to simply make SHUFFLE, THIS became the end prize, the goal. I guess it was the goal all along, it just took me a while to see it.

SHUFFLE is still on the sixth draft and it may never see the light of day. If that was the sacrifice that had to be made to make RHINELAND, so be it.

I can’t really say that we’re done, though, since we’re still deep in post-production.

Hell, even when that’s done, the real work will only be beginning.

Festivals, distribution, the whole sordid mess of trying to market and sell your movie.

Which reminds me of AMPHETAMINE.

Yes, that got picked up by a distributor, who then sold it to a sub-distributor, who’s been sitting on it (along with several of Eric Stanze’s movies) for about two years now.

So in the end, it did me little or no good to get AMPHETAMINE picked up.

I cannot, will not, let RHINELAND suffer the same fate.

For some reason, though, I’m not that worried.

You see, with almost no resources, I’ve made a war movie. A WW2 movie, no less.

And it’s damn good.

Whatever happens, I’ve done what I set out to do.

If you can do that, you’ll always win in the end.


Thanks for reading.


Chris Grega
May 2007