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