Eye - Ah - Gate 2010

Well, I DID end up in hospital last night (agh!), after two Claritin, my eye kept getting worse to the point where the whites of my eyes were starting to get puss (eww) and starting to bulge out (puke!). Therefore, off I went and god bless the little old doctor on call as she looked in my left EAR, weighed me, checked my reflexes and that was that! She then wanted to give me a Claritin to which I reminded her I had already taken two (she forgot – woops!) and then proceeded to give me something else. Now I have a prescription for 4 meds and my eye IS feeling a lot better so maybe there is method to her madness??!! Eye-ah-gate 2010 is almost over as I still have some swelling but the puss is gone (hurrah) as is the bulge (whoopee!)

Anyhow, today began with an 8:00am meeting with Catherine (my producer), Gary (my production manager) and Daz (my location manager). Catherine was concerned that the location that we fell in love with was too far away to shoot. Travel time would have been 2.5 hours there and back and with only a 10-hour day, it would have been tricky. I tried to get around it by having a shorter second day with a reduced unit, but that was not an option either (waaa!). Therefore it was back to the drawing board and Daz and I were sent out to re comb the local towns for the perfect houses!

The first batch we looked at were track houses (nooo!), but then we found a few quirky looking ones that I was starting to think would have to make do when I received word that Barrie Osborne was at the office and wanted to have a word! When Barrie beckons, one goes!

Barrie was AWSOME – so full of knowledge and wisdom! He gave me quite a few pointers (which shall remain secrets until the films are completed!) and really boosted my confidence. He said that the key to a good movie is a great script and fantastic actors. He then pointed out that he thought my script was funny and a great read so he said I had that base covered (check!) and to concentrate now on getting my cast locked.

I will be able to tell you tomorrow if I have officially locked Granny and it looks as though we found Nanna today (yippee!). James is a done deal so now we just need our dear hipster Sean and we will be cooking with gas! There is a rather large open casting call tomorrow for Sean, so I have a feeling that we will find him.

Barrie then had to jet away to some exotic locals, but he left me thinking about a lot of things… one of them was not to compromise on the houses for Nanna and Granny (well compromise a bit, as he too said I should not go to Alexandria). Therefore it was back in the car with good old Daz.

We re visited many of the same places that we did before, but this time kept a much more open mind and low and behold we found our homes! 

Nanna’s home is even inhabited by a wee Nanna who was SO cute I wanted to put her in the back of the car and bring her back to the US as my token souvenir! Not only that the street is straight and quiet AND there is an open lot across the street that will be large enough for our trucks, crew parking etc – Jackpot (cha ching!). It is still not locked as the neighbor house is a vacation rental property and we have yet to track down the owners but Daz says I should not have anything to worry about!

It was then back to the office

Daz found a prop wig from one of the other movies!

I did a once over with the script with Gary and then it was into a meeting with my production designer Ken and Amy my props & set dresser. Not sure what Ken has for breakfast each morning but he bounces off the walls and talks a million miles per minute – IT IS AMAZING. He has so many great ideas and his energy is infectious – he is working on everyone’s movies which is a good thing as otherwise someone would have the worlds greatest leg up! We went over everything and then took a trip to his warehouse where he has everything and anything you can imagine!

Amy and Ken had taken a lot of the selections out for me to see and approve which was great as I was really able to start seeing it all come together. Not only that, under an old blanket I saw a Vespa poking out. I took a look and it was awesome! 

I jokingly said to Ken that he should send it to the US for me when he turned and said “hey we should have Sean pull up on that” – which could not be any more perfect as this morning, Catherine had said due to budgetary reason we had to cut Sean’s car out of the script... but turns out that this Vespa is even better! Totally works with Sean’s hipster look and I am overjoyed!

Ken trying some of the fly fishing gear!

I left Kens warehouse in a great mood, as everything seems to finally be falling into place and I am feeling a lot more confident. I am sure that there is drama to come (aka I just found out that Saturday is a National holiday here in NZ – meaning the day before I shoot, the entire country is shut down so no last minute shopping or using vendors??!!). Not only that the weather forecast has rain for Sunday (agh) but we are ignoring all of that for now and going full steam ahead!

Choo choooooo!