Night Shoot Weirdness

The West Bottoms is a weird place to shoot a film.

For people not from Kansas City, the West Bottoms is an industrial part of town by the Missouri River.  It isn't the greatest place to be late at night, although it is slowly but surely being taken over by hipsters.  My own experience with the West Bottoms is that one time a crazy-eyed man holding a dying pigeon (which he referred to as his familiar) once offered to sell us PCP as we were setting up for a different shoot.  This time was a bit different.

The first thing I noticed was Storm posing near the alley.  Later we saw Winter Soldier, and then Psylocke.  Different photographers each time - three separate cosplayers decided tonight was the night to shoot in the West Bottoms.  Never mind that it was 90+ degrees and ungodly humid, they had shoots to do, dammit!

As we were setting up in the alley, the one we use at least once per episode, we noticed what looked like a stage on a bridge just outside the entrance to the alley.  "Huh," we thought.  "Hope that holds off or isn't too loud."

We set up the first shot, get one take, and then Psylocke wanders into frame.  So we hold, get one of the crew to go ask Psylocke to please give us a few minutes, she and the photographer are cool with it and do their shoot down the alley where we can't see them, and we move on.

So we get the first shot just fine, pack up and go around the corner to set up the second shot, get two takes, and are just about to start the third - I mean literally just about to start, I was in mid-slate when it happened - and the opening drumbeat to "Dancing With Myself" blares through the alley.  So we cut and try to figure out what we can shoot without audio.

And then extras begin to arrive.  I'm not complaining - when we get enough extras we're over the moon because getting people to come out for an unpaid gig in the heat, in the West Bottoms, at 10PM, who volunteers to do that?  Awesome people, that's who.  But we couldn't shoot anything with audio yet because of the noise.

We start to figure out what we can shoot without the noise being a problem, and for 20 minutes we're waiting for the guitar riff to happen so the song will actually start, but no, it's just 20 straight minutes of the opening drums.   We seriously were all going "And...now!  No.  And...NOW!  No?  And...NOW!" and the guitar NEVER STARTED.

Our actors arrive.  We decide to go ahead with their scene.  They're stage actors - they know how to project.  The guitar riff actually comes in and we all celebrate because MAYBE this means they'll be done soon.  More 80s music follows that song, but it's kind of fun to have music as we set up, and maybe we can sell it as a loud bar nearby.

We get the camera on the dolly and the actors in position, and just before we start the music gets EVEN LOUDER and a live Rod Stewart impersonator starts singing (if you can call it that - I'm not even remotely a Rod Stewart fan).  We stop, take a minute to breathe, position the boom just as close to the actors as humanly possibly, and try again.

Success!  We get the shot!  Now we're done with audio.  We position the extras and set up the next shot.  The Rod Stewart impersonator finishes his set and we get...speeches?

It's a wedding reception.

It's a wedding reception in 90+ heat, on a bridge, in the West Bottoms.

Fuck it.  Sure.  Do your thing, weird Rod Stewart-loving kids.

The night progresses.  The speeches turn back into loud 80s music.  We finish up with the extras, get our actor in special makeup in place, do his shots (no audio still), and on the last take of the last shot, we hear "Thank you!  Good night!" and silence.  Because timing.

We pack up and go home.  It was a long night.  But we got the scenes!  Episodes 4 and 5 are officially in production!

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