ICEBREAKER, DAY OCHO

We are shooting at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis again today, this time with Sasha and Eric. Crew call is 10am, cast at 11am.

We had a late start today, which really sucks and hurt us bad at the end of the day. We also had a rain storm, but the delay came right at lunch so it didn't really hurt us too bad.

We had a Matthews Dolly and 75ft of dolly track to work with today. Setting that up was our first priority, and actually didn't consume too much time.

After that, we got Sasha, Haley (playing the hot mom) and Austin (playing the bratty kid, and also my son in real life) through make-up while we quickly blocked the scene out. Once we were set, this scene went vey smooth and turned out great.

We then moved on to a semi-complicated shot in one of the stairwells in the park. Sasha, Eric and Zeus start at the bottom and walk all the way to the top, all while delivering lines. I had to the pan the camera to follow them up the stairs and it was easier than I though (considering the camera and myself were positioned on a ledge). We had some audio issues and the scene may have to go through some ADR. Then the rain started coming down...

...I quickly grabbed out trash bags and everyone started shoving film equipment into them. Then everyone made a mad dash for the gazebo, which wasn't too far away. Nothing got damaged, thank GOD. We broke for lunch (thank you honey for the great food!!) and waited for the rain to stop.

About 45 minutes later, we were setting up the dolly and getting the motions down. The scene went great. Sasha and Eric did a great job and Ben our PM did a nice job pulling the dolly. A "Folk" concert of something started up in the gazebo and the park became busier, totally messing with our audio, so ADR is a must for this scene.

All in all, I think the day went well. We could have done without the late start (we really lost our light at the end) but what the hell, roll with the punches, right?

We're off for 2 weeks now, our next shooting date is July 16.

Stay tuned...

(not many pictures today, too much other stuff to do!)

ICEBREAKER, DAY 7

Today’s shoot is taking place in Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis. The scene calls for Sam & Tina to be sitting on a bench talking as several different types of men pass by.

Crew call is 10am. After lugging all the equipment from my Aztec and Eric Lee’s truck (Eric is helping with the generator and other duties today) we begin setting up. The location is simple- a park bench with the park in the background.

The generator is not quitest in the least. We decide that the best location for it is down a stairwell. We lug it down and Eric implements the ICEBREAKER NOISEBUSTER (patent pending) that he built which will act as a noise filter. It worked great. The generator was totally inaudible from where we were shooting. We ran the power cords up through the woods and we were in business.

At 11:00 one of our featured extras, Brad Hatzenbeller (playing sexy GQ guy) showed up followed by Dawn Brodey (Tina) and Emily Fradenburgh (Sam). Nicole got them through make-up while we were blocking and shortly thereafter we were ready to shoot.

The shoot went very smooth. Everything was in place. The weather was awesome and the crew was dead on. Our fetured extras did a bang up job, Brad as "GQ guy" and Henry Cho as "Married Man" with his dog Sam. Thanks guys!

I can’t wait for everyone to see Chad in his cameo. It is hilarious. Stay tuned.

There was a homeless guy with a boom-box wandering around wearing a shirt that he had written: FUCK BU$H on. I had to bribe him with ice for his alchoholic beverage in a McDonald’s cup that he was carrying aorund so that he would leave us alone.

Like I said, the shoot couldn’t have gone better. Here’s to hoping that Day 8 (also at the park) goes as well as Day 7. Good job everyone!!!

IceBreaker Production…Day 6

Day 6 is at Whiskey Junction in Minneapolis. Call time is 0100. Chad and I start the day by stopping by Whiskey Junction to do some last minute blocking. Once we figure out what we are doing we head over to Minnihaha Park to check it out (day 7 & 8 is set there). We figure some stuff out and head down to Old Chicago for a bite to eat. Our next destination is Cub Foods in Bloomington where we pick up two jugs of white grape juice, a two jugs of cranberry juice, some V8 and 6 six packs of non-alcoholic beer for the shoot. We must have looked like some real party animals with that cart full of stuff.

We went back to Chad’s to chill for a few hours and Eric Lee showed up. We watched the Clerks II trailer and Eric ran some lines for the nights scene. I tried to sleep a little but couldn’t. At about 11:30 my brother Joe showed up and we loaded up the rest of the gear. We had one more stop, the SA, to pick up pop, ice and sugar-free Red Bull. J

We arrived at Whiskey Junction a little after 12:00am. Shortly thereafter the "Trolls" showed up (Jack, Jim & Tommy) and Jim Westcott (our extras wrangler). We backed the Aztec right up to the bar and everyone unloaded the gear.

We wanted to get a lot of stuff with the extras right away, so we began with a dolly shot of the Jack, Jim, Tommy and the bartender gal looking at Gary walk up to Major League Babe (MLB). Funny, funny shit.

I don’t want to give away too much regarding what we had the extras doing, but trust me- this is some real funny ass shit. Look for a cameo by Jay, our beloved PA in the opening scene.
Thanks to all the extras, they did a bang up job. And I can’t complain that we didn’t have enough hot chicks on set. Man O Man.

Tiffany Ogle (MLB in IceBreaker and in real life) did an awesome job. Her and her friends hung in there for nearly the entire shoot and didn’t bitch once. Tiffany even operated the camera for one shot, she nearly showed me up!

The crew did a great job considering the late hours. I didn’t see Chad slow down for even a second. We over booked ourselves going into it (we knew there was a good chance we wouldn’t make our day). We got about half of the shots done that we needed to…but they are great shots. We didn’t really linger on any one scene, things just took time.

Thanks to the whole cast and crew for putting up with the hours and schedule overrun. Some actors didn’t get utilized and I apologize. We are however starting to work more smoothly with each other which can only make things better.

We have scheduled another date for the location, and I think the film will be better because of it. Stay tuned for day 7…

IceBreaker Production, Day 4

Today (June 4th, 2006) we are filming at two locations. First in Bloomington at Chad's apartment which is doubling as Gary's apartment. Then we are moving over to Randy and Mary's house in St. Paul which is doubling as Kevin's (master thespian Justin Barnett) house for the BBQ scene.

Call time for Bloomington is 0700 hours. We are working with a new Boom Operator today, and he was right on time along with Brian, our Sound Engineer. Next to show up is Narayanan, our script supervisor. Our PA Sarah has been called into work so she is unable to help out today, which is cool because as the day progresses the apartment gets hotter and hotter and more crowded and crowded. We got everything setup and Ben our PM showed up and had to jet over to Eden Prairie to pick up the make-up from Nicole who was unable to attend the shoot. When he got back, Sasha arrived and we began blocking/dressing the scene. Eric Lee (playing...Eric) was also on hand for the shoot. The scene calls for Gary (Sasha) and Eric to be talking on the phone as Sasha walks around his apartment. In order for the timing to be spot on, we actually had Sasha and Eric call each other and play the scene out on the phone. At first we placed Eric outside in my car but the interference on the lav mic was too great. So we stuck Eric on the can in Chad's sweltering bathroom, with the door closed and a large quilt hung over the shower rod to act as a sound baffle. Eric got a little warm in there.

We gelled the lights with CTB and improvised a quick jib with two tripods and we were off shooting. Chad's apartment isn't tiny, but with 8 men, 3 lights (2000W combined), no AC and 90 degrees outside (not to mention all the other gear) it got hot...real hot...and quick. Between each take it was a mad dash to shut the lights off, flip the AC on and swing the patio door open. We shot there from 7 am until 2 pm (7 hours!!). Oh, I forgot to mention that my back was still fucked and I was walking with a cane.

After wrapping the apartment scene, we had planned on filming a quick scene with Gary driving around talking on his cell phone. With the call time of he BBQ scene being 2:00pm, and it already being 2:00 pm, we scrapped the plan and decided to pick it up at another time (Dam, we missed our first day). On the way over to Randy and Mary's we swung by Korte's Grocery Store (from the grocery store rejection!) to pick up some hotdogs and burgers for lunch and for the scene.

When we arrived to the location, Justin Barnett (Kevin) Joe Thompson (Joe), Andy Kraft (Roach), Keri Bunkers (Lyndsey and make-up for today), Sasha and Eric were all ready to go. The location was great, a nice spacious deck. We got setup and eveyone had a quick bite to eat. We quickly blocked and dressed the scene. We shot a master and some cutaways. When all was said and done, we were wrapped and packed at 7:00pm (so, about 5 hours at the location. 12 hours for the day). The stuff we got was great-very very funny stuff- it was just mild pain in the ass getting it. Don't get me wrong, it was still better than any day at my day job, just not as efficient as we could have been. After the shoot I headed over to my dad's house to pick up the dolly for the next day. I was home and in bed by 12:00am.

5 hours later my alarm clock started beeping and guess what? It's day 5 of the IceBreaker shoot!

IceBreaker Production, Day 5

Day 5 (June 5th, 2006) was shot at three locations, all at St Thomas in St Paul. Call time is 0800 and we will start with Sasha in the church singing with all the mom's, dad's, old folks, kids, etc. We were going to Dolly out on Sasha to reveal all of the people surrounding him, but by 0900 hours we had about 10 extras show up to fill the entire church. We had the extras get ready and practice the song with the organist and the cantor while we decided what to do. We were already having problems with the dolly (not enough track- Eric was PAing for us today so he was running around campus trying to gather wood for some extended track). We eventually scrapped the idea for the dolly shot and went with a static shot of Sasha surrounded by our extras. My mom and Chad's mom flanked him, with our dad's on either side of their resoectives wives. As a little bit of an in-joke, we placed Jane Hammil (playing Karen, Sam's mom) behind Sasha in the pew. I knew my mom would ham it up and she did, and Chad's mom was flirting with Sasha too. It was a great, hilarious shot. We got a few cutaways (the cross, windows, etc.) and we wrapped the church.

After a quick lunch on campus we moved over to the library for a rejection montage shot with Sasha and Chad's sister. It was a simple dolly shot and it went very smoothly. I think we did 4 takes, but we nailed it on the first try.

We then lugged all the equipment over to the gymnasium for Emily's (Sam) "Rebound" portion of her monologue. We set this up and did a few takes. Easy suff. Eric almost pegged Emily in the head, but no matter, we got the shot and it looked good. This was a wrap for the day.

We had a quick location scout at one of the campus housign buildings and we booked it for the end of August. We will be using it for Keith's apartment. All in all it was a great day, a little more efficient than the previous. Up next is Whiskey Junction on the 12th for the opening scene. See you in a week.

IceBreaker Production Day 3 + The Joy of Back Pain

Well, this should have been posted a few days ago, but I was on the brink of death (well, not really). On Monday, May 29th, at about 1430 hours, I began experiencing the worst pain of my life in the lower left portion of my back- for no apparent reason. Sure I sodded my lawn on Saturday and Had a pretty strenuous film shoot on Sunday- maybe it all caught up with me. Regardless, I had my Dad help me into his SUV (I could barely walk) and drive me to the ER. After a lame-ass examination by Dr. Doolittle he gave some weak-ass pain killers and a muscle relaxant not even strong enough for a wuss like Chad. I went home and gingerly sat down on the couch, unable to move. I did not sleep much that night. The next morning I though, Fuck this, I'm going to the clinic. Just so you know how much pain I was in, I NEVER go to the doctor for ANYTHING. I don't even have a regular physician that I see, which is probably why I had to go back so many times. Anyway, I went to the clinic and saw Dr. Wood (seriously). Well Dr. Wood is a jackass. All he did was give me a poorly photo-copied page of back exercises. I can't even move on my own and this guy is giving me back exercises...thanks Doc. At this point I couldn't believe what was going on. It felt like a searing hot knife was being jabbed into my kidney and nobody cared. I asked if he could check it out further- maybe an x-ray or something. Nope, Dr. Wood said that it was most likely a "strain of some sort" that "will probably go away in time". Go away in time? How much time Dr. Wood? "It's hard to say". Okay, I am no medical guru by any means, but I'm pretty sure that when a doctor is talking like this that either A) he has no clue what the fuck is going on, or B) he is late for his tee time and he wants me to clam up and get out. There is a letter going to the Faribault ER/Clinic stating my displeasure with there program as we speak. So, I went home in pain, sat around in pain, made my wife get me things, etc. I called the Northfield Clinic, a little further away-but with an excellent track record, and made an appointment immediately. I went in and saw Dr. Wright (my new physician I might add) and he actually examined me, did some x-rays and all that jazz. He determined that it was possibly a strain but also possibly...gulp...a kidney stone. He was going to get some other opinions on the x-ray and get back to me. Sounds pretty professional. He gives me a steroid that will reduce the tension and swelling and...sweet jesus...VICODIN! This made everything better. About 20 minutes after the pills, I felt awesome. Not 100%, but the pain was dramatically less. I got the call from Dr Wright later and he informed me that it was not a kidney stone (YES!) but that one of my lower back discs had decided to take a part time job pinching one of my nerves (the bastard). The disc was slightly out of place, not enough for surgery, but hopefully something physical therapy could fix. Anyway, I am feeling better, not great (I need to walk with a fucking cane, I looke like a stroke victim), but better. If this whole therapy thing doesn't work out then they are going to have to fillet me like a fish and pin the fucker in there. Oh well, that's my excuse. Now one with the more interesting shit-

Day 3 (May 28th, Sunday) started at 9:00 pm at Korte's Supermarket in St Paul. A couple hours before the shoot, Chad and I swung by Randy and Mary's to check out the deck and do some quick blocking for next weekend. We then swung by Korte's for some more quick blocking (we had 2 setups in mind) and left with 5 setups now scheduled. Then we cruised over to Longfellows and found that we had to change our game plan a bit there due to the ridges in the floor. He decided on a swish pan. We jetted back over to Korte's and got there at about 8:45. A few of the extras and Tim (an associate producer) were there ready to go. We unloaded the equipment and began setting up. At 9:20 my brother Joe showed up- he is helping with grip/PA shit tonight. At 9:30 my sister Katie and her boyfriend Joel showed up. Katie is playing the girl in the grocery store scene. We got her through make-up (Nicole Mulder rocks, she does such an awesome job) and Sasha showed up. The other extras trickled in and we began to do some blocking. I tried to talk to all of the extras- what an awesome group, and I apologize if I didn't say hi or thanks. At about 10:00 I hit the make-up chair for my cameo (my first time in make up). A little after 10:00 we had the first take done. The crew moved like a well oiled machine tonight- we nailed 5 setups between 10:00 and about 11:45. My cameo was fun, I nearly broke an entire display of jam and I got to push Sasha. We even had shots with children- and a stunt. Chad was running camera this shoot so while they were shooting I was coordinating with Matthew for the next location and getting the gear and store cleaned up. Everything went extremely well at the store- Sasha had a couple bumps and bruises, as did a bottle od salad dressing and two apples (thanks to Korte's for donating them, and the countless rolls of paper towels!).

After all was packed and ready to go, we headed over to Longfellow Grill in Minneapolis. The extras and Tim and Matthew were there, as well as Emily (Sam) who made the location possible (Thanks Emily). We setup rather quickly but our actress for this scene was a no show. Luckily, one of our beautiful extras was able to step in and nail the part. The shoot called for two swish pans- one starting on the bartender and swishing to the girl, and one swishing from the bartender ending on the girl. It was a difficult move, but we nailed it in about 10 takes. We edited it together on set and the cut was seamless. We packed up and that was the day. When we got back to Chad's place, we cut together the grocery store scene and laughed our balls off.

Thanks to everyone, once again a superb job on everyone's behalf. I want to send a special shout out to my brother Joe, who came down from St Cloud to help out, and to my sister Katie (who has never acted before) for being a trooper and to Joel and our other extras for hanging out and doing what they do. Ben, Narayanan, Sarah, Nick, Brian, Nicole, Matthew, Jeremy, Tim, Mary, Randy, Sasha, Emily, Chad- thanks for everything. This was the funnest shoot to date.

*Once again, sorry for spelling/grammatical errors- F U for noticing them

Paul Gleason

1944-2006

Nobody played a prick like this guy.