Saturday, December 5th, 2009
The Last Day of Salad Days I have been producing/filming/directing/editing/writing a short series for the student film show. There are 5 episodes and a finale for the Film Club Premiere Night (December 7th at 7, SHS auditorium, FREE) and today we shot the last shot we needed for the finale. It wasn't epic really, just Carly filming the front of her house as I drove by. Thought the absolute last shot didn't give me a feeling of closure, looking back on the whole day makes me feel it really is over

I started at 7 something in the morning picking up Andy from her house. We picked up some doughnuts for the extras that would be arriving at 10 and headed to the school to meet Carly and Conor to film some dialogue scenes before Dave and the extras got there. Andy and I went to the entrance Tom the Amazing Custodian said would be open, but it would not budge. We circled the whole school knocking on all the doors in the freezing cold. Andy fidgeted with the door we originally came to and pulled the handle up to discover it wasn't locked, the handle went the other way.

We finally got inside and dropped the doughnuts and our other equipment in the auditorium. I got 2 boxes of the day old mello-cream each containing 2 dozen, Carly did also. We had about 96 doughnuts, not great planning and I myself only had one and I was tired of them. Conor arrived shortly after and we filmed some stuff in the halls of the empty school, very quietly because we were not technically supposed to be outside the auditorium.

After the AWESOME extras showed up, so did Dave and his sweet camera. We filmed some choir scenes and recorded a song Maggie made the lyrics to. It's so pretty and if this series has been worth anything, creating and hearing the song was totally it. We had some choir peeps in our crowd so they sang amazin backup. Andy figured out the melody on guitar, Conor made up the tune on piano, with Maggies lyrics and Carly's singing it was complete.

Madison did a great rendition of it also as her character Rochelle. Mrs.Elmore loaned us the SHS choir shirts, informally known by the choir kids as the pizza hut shirts. I called in a lot of favors to make this day happen and am very grateful for the staff and administration at my school cause they trust me not to blow up their auditorium.

After the extras and Dave left, we started the scene that is my favorite "Sweeded" scene I have accomplished to date. Sweeded is a term meaning the creating of an effect using no outside effect that is usually used to create the effect, like green screening the car windows to make it look like it is moving even though it is not. Carly only has her learners permit and cannot drive without her parents so to get around this we put the car in drive, turned it off and as I filmed and Carly and Conor sat in the car, Ally and Andy pushed. We were laughing so hard and a person even stopped by to see if we needed help. Conor left and we dropped Ally off. We went to Carly's house and filmed the last scenes. Her parents were very nice and let us use their front porch again for our silly filming.

Carly stayed home and Andy and I went to Clovers for lunch. I dropped by Film Club afterwards and fell asleep on the Film Club couch. As I drove home and watched the sun set and rise behind the dips of the road and buildings I thought about the day. It was an overall satisfactory day and included all out famous Salad Days events one last time.

Seeing Madison yell like a pre-madonna,
Andy chillin out in her hippy-alto persona Fawn,
Remembering the lyrics Conor forgot at home,
Recording a song with a choir that makes up in size and consistency with awesome,
Singing a last minute song we all end up liking in end,
Figuring out how we will film an impossible scene,
Making heartfelt and meaningful dialogue a few minutes before we shoot,
Working out the unintended awkwardness between Conor and Carly's characters,
Rushing around to make deadline
Trying to make all the extras eat the doughnuts so we don't have to,
Pointing out my spelling and grammar issues in the script
Making yet another object representing Helicopter Shooting Lighting-bolts at Dinosaurs in the early morning before the shoot,

And hanging out with all the great people who have put up with my surprise filming dates, hectic schedule, and over all stressed nature though this production.

Thank you all for this great experience,
now I just have to edit now till forever but still have it ready for premiere night and hope I didn't forget to get a voiceover... again.

"Salad Days" may be over, but mine are just beginning ^_^
~Allison