21 - 10 - 09 : The Blood Bond Saga (part 16)

Wheels of pain

To the old show business adage that you should never work with children or animals, I'd like to add 'motor vehicles'. Today was our first day filming on the roads, a relatively simple sequence in which we see a group of our antagonistic rebel soldiers taking a captured military officer to be executed in a rural stone house.

This marked the first time we took our newly outfitted camera truck into action.

The complicated logistics of the scene proved testing to all concerned.

The main problem was that the actor hired to play the driver of the rebel's vehicle (supposedly a professional driver with ten years experience) didn't seem to be able to follow directions. MB and our DP, Ross Clarkson, went over each shot in detail before they rolled, but there were still a lot of moving parts to coordinate.

Michael had picked out several locations for the car to pass through, but everything took much longer than anticipated, and frustrations mounted.

Though she didn't end up working that morning, Phoenix came out to set. Its illegal for anyone to look that good that early in the day!

She at least offered some moral support as the morning dragged on.

The threatened rain never came, but that was about the only good thing!

Rather than ride in one of the vehicles like a fifth wheel, I had decided to stay at the studio to work the 'business' end of the production, then join the crew to shoot another sequence (on in which our heroes 'borrow' a car) in the afternoon.

When I heard what a tough morning the team had experienced, I headed out for the set earlier than anticipated. I thought at least I could offer moral support, but, as it turned out, I ended up 2nd AD-ing the afternoon shoot.

The setting was a backstreet in the near-by town, and so there was a serious amount of crowd control required for every shot.

We start off with Tremayne and Deva running out of the badlands. There's something movie mythic about Michael Biehn running with a gun and a girl (looking tense...).

As I mentioned, the film is set in a fictitious Asian country, Purma, so we have to ensure that there's no overt Chinese signs or other kinds of writing visible in shot. Michael, as ever, was hands on with this.

To take some of the pressure of Michael, I asked exactly what he wanted for each shot. He'd day 'I know its not possible, but...', and then we'd try and make it possible.

As we positioned the locals, MB retired to his air-conditioned trailer (...not!)

It was also a heavy emotional scene for Phoe. Her character has just seen someone get killed (by Tremayne) for the first time.

I let Michael focus on directing her, and (with the help of our local 'minder') kept the shoot moving.

The scene called for Tremayne to find and hotwire a truck, and then have Deva drive it away. While he worked on crossing the cables convincingly, I watched on the monitor, and had to ask our director for 'just one more'.

I'm constantly impressed by Michael's ability to switch out of 'director' mode, and take on the character of Tremayne for the scene at hand.

Once we get the carjacking scene from all angles, we move to an alleyway leading off the backstreet. Ross goes handheld for some great shots of Tremayne and Deva running down an alley, looking for a suitable vehicle.

Given that we're 'stealing' these shots in a small area, we have to deal with the local residents walking in and out of shot. One little child kept wandering into view, and so I scooped him up and held him in my arms until we got the shot. He stayed surprisingly calm, considering he was being detained by a strange white man yelling 'action' and 'cut'!

At the end of the day, I was gratified when Michael said we had a bad morning and a great afternoon!

Next : Karmic convoy