Still Climbing

I haven't made a post in about a week now because I was working last weekend. Some major and minor things have happened within the last seven days.

I talked with the marketing manager at The Foursome in Plymouth. Like the other conversations I've had with other business owners, part of the time was spent talking about the image of the business, and how it would be seen by the public through the film. Not negative, not positive, but just there as it is in the real world. We're shooting here Friday morning at 8:40am.

This morning my shooting schedule was approved by the owner at Tuttle's. I am very happy about that. We go there Friday afternoon for a brief shoot. My total shooting schedule is about 80% complete. It's getting done. Slowly, but it's getting done.

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To save money I changed the date of the shoot at Sunsets from Monday, September 12th to Wednesday, September 14th. The morning of the 14th we'll be shooting for roughly four to five hours with 4 scenes, totaling 7 pages. It's an outside shoot, which we haven't done yet, so I'm sure we'll run into various obstacles, mainly being weather: rain or wind. A good chunk of time takes place outside, so I'll be closely watching the weather as we approach this date.

As for the evening, I'm going to change the time if I can. As the days go by, the sunset is earlier and earlier. As of today the sun sets at 7:56, but on September 14th it will be at 7:28. That's a lot of time. I need to make sure I have the maximum amount of evening light as possible, but without the light changing in the frame. The first shot from Sunsets Restaurant patio will be on Alison (Courtney), as her back will be facing lake Minnetonka. We can shoot her side, possibly a wide two-shot, then come back around and shoot Harold (Peter). We're renting two 750w totas, plus a C-stand that can be hoisted up with a giant 36 x 40 inch bounce board that will angled down toward the action, with a light on that and a soft frost gel, just to give the sense of evening light just as the sun is going down.

The good thing about this shoot, is that the scene is brief, we've rehearsed it, so now it needs to be photographed. If it were a 10 page scene, I would be renting a second Canon 60D, just so I could shoot both sides at once. It's not that, so that's good.

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There are never again "production" photos on this blog. Here is one.

Last night we ran into some problems with the flashcard. It's a 16G, Class 6 card. Ideally we want to be shooting on Class 10. Finally today I went up to MicroCenter and picked up two of them. The MicroCenter brand is cheaper, but does the same thing. That was a $50 purchase. The nice thing about flashcards and the DSLR camera is that it tells you right away if there is a problem. An indicator bar pops up on the monitor and it can, sometimes, stop the recording. While annoying, it's a nice feature. If we were shooting DV tapes, we may be in the process of loading/editing the footage and suddenly find out that you have some random issue with the tape (i.e. dropped frames or time-code issues). One advantage of this camera.

10 minutes of downtime.

This is all for now.

Exhausting Day

It wasn't exhausting in the marathon runner sense, because that would be insane, and not how I would describe it at all. The day certainly started off tired, as I didn't get as much sleep last night as I would've liked. That's a problem of mine and it's controllable too, I don't have insomnia anymore. Anyway, good things happened today.

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Right away this morning I drove out to Sunsets in Wayzata. I don't have any pictures because I forgot the battery for my camera. Yup. What about my cell cam? Well, I didn't think about that. I met with the General Manager of Sunsets, such a nice lady. She's been at the restaurant for 20 years. I love the location; small area is very quaint, runs on its own time, nice breeze off the lake, it even reminds me of a New England type of setting. They are more than thrilled to help out. We're shooting at the restaurant on Monday, September 12th in the evening. I reserved three tables out on the patio. One table for the main action in the scene, then two tables next to it that I will fill with "extras", just so we're not getting in the way of actual customers. We're renting some small lights from LightsOn that will give me the ability to recreate a solid continuos sunset setting.

The whole entire night at Sunsets will be a bit nerve-wracking in some sense. We'll be putting on a show for the customers and anyone passing by. I've never been that much in the spotlight while working on a project, so it will for sure be a new experience. I'm actually not too worried about this. We'll go in, set-up the stuff, shoot the scene, break down the stuff, then get out. All from 7:00pm to about 9:30pm. I tend to schedule things overly long, just in case.

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Unfortunately things won't work out with my bank for shooting a lobby scene between Paul and Peter. It would have been perfect, but that's life. You can't always get what you want. The Bank Vice President did suggest a building near by on Old Country Road 15. It was mighty nice of him to think of the place, but as I drove through and looked at the building, it wasn't exactly what I'm looking for. The business that Peter works at is unspecified, but the lobby needs to be bright and up to date with its architecture. Also, preferably tile flooring and a dark stained wood trim around the area. We're still looking for this place.

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Tux shop. I had much luck with this location today. The Foursome: Men's Clothing, located in Plymouth on Vicksburg. The first thing I asked was for him to explain to me the process of finding a tux. He showed me the area in the building where they take the measurements of a customer, the books they look through, the designers, the mock-tux that the customer tries on as they size everything. It's going to look great. I talked with the owners Son then, and he thinks it will all work out. He just needs to talk to the person in marketing, then have her call me. They can't imagine there will be a problem. This will more than likely be shot at 9:00am on Friday, September 2nd. I ended up spending about 50 minutes in the store. Of course, because I am getting married and I happened to be in a tux place, I spent a little time looking at tuxes too.

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Phone booth at the golden valley shopping center. I think I originally received a wrong number for the Property Owner of this location. I talked with the original person I talked with, the sort of marketing manager of the shopping center. She gave me the number of the man I need to call. I was planning on doing that today, but then it didn't happen.

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That is all for now. Off to the Twins game in a bit! Until next time! 

Sunsets, Burke and 1st Day "Outtake"

Right away this morning I received a call from Harold, the actor playing Peter. He told me the wonderful news that Sunsets in Wayzata may possibly let us shoot a short scene out on their patio. He talked with a manager and the owner about us coming in, and they seemed more than thrilled about this idea. I hope this happens. I love the location, the style, everything. I've wanted to shoot something here for about ten years.

Photo via Sunsets Facebook Page

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Tonight was brief, but myself, Jeff and Earl accomplished a lot and worked more on Burke, and the Paul and Burke relationship. Burke is the most eccentric and flamboyant character in the whole production, so we've been slowly chipping away at who he is and why he is the way he is. While I don't produce character biographies anymore, like I attempted to do years ago, I shared my thoughts with Earl on possible scenarios that may explain Burke's happy-go-lucky behavior. Right now we're finding a balance between too much and too little, and during the last scene run-through tonight, I believe we found it. I don't want to say we nailed it, because to re-create everything exactly on the set as you did while rehearsing, will be next to impossible. We've found the spirit of the scenes, and that's important.

Rehearsals give the actors an opportunity to run the lines, but from a character blocking standpoint, that's an area we'll need to save for when we're about to shoot. I'm a big believer in actors receiving some amount of in-the-moment inner power from being in the room while shooting. The lighting, the atmosphere in general, the temp outside, time of day (and the time of day that it's supposed to be) all has to do with performance, and when we're just sitting on a couch or even just standing in my apartment, it's all great, but it's not fully developed until we can be in the real location.

Aside from running the scenes, we talked about the type of advertisement Burke might be running on tv to promote his bowling alley. We also decided that the slogan for Burke's Lanes would be "Why Aren't You On A League?" That's the comedy element of the entire storyline. His commercials would a 'bad local commercial' type of thing. VHS, maybe in-camera-editing, bad video toaster wipes from the early 90's, bad fonts, and Burke wearing a tacky suit with a bowling pin tie. Earl might find someone to produce this. It's nothing I will do because I am too busy with balancing work and this film. I hardly have time for my "real world" job as it is. I wish I could get a raise and vacation time. I think after almost 10 years of being a super loyal and passionate employee, I deserve something. That will never happen.

The below video is an example of the style I'm going for. It doesn't make sense for how up to date the bowling alley will be in the film, but it could be Burke's refusal to give up his first big ad. If anything, the bowling ad could be on in the background during another scene elsewhere. We could get away with it. They still run those old Pizza Hut commercials all the time. 

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Below is an "Outtake" from the first day of shooting: Scene 6, Take 3. A cellphone vibrated a few times off camera. At 1:30 you can hear the vibration. New obvious lesson: In addition to unplugging appliances and turning off the air, we gotta turn off phones too. I'm posting this so you can hear Jeff and the character of Paul for a short scene. I'm also posting this because while the phone did go off, the scene wasn't ruined, we all had a good chuckle about it. Jeff did a few more takes and that was that. Great stuff.





We now have an extended amount of time off from the film due to the fact that I will be working this entire weekend. I will get more fun stuff done tomorrow!

Eddie & Liz

This morning we worked on and talked about the Eddie scene over at John Andring's house. He lives about two minutes from my apartment, so the drive isn't too far. There is a rather big part that takes place in the neighborhood at night that is going to require a lot of planning and cooperation. It's going to be a tough scene, but I'm not trying to think about it yet. I should be thinking about it though, because I'd like to get ahold of two more cameras and with operators behind them. But enough of that, I'll post some photos from today:

Eddie's "Office" a.k.a that awesome creepy basement;
Night of the Hunter creepy.

In thinking about this sequence, it's been broken down into five parts. 1) Paul drives up to the house, scopes out the neighborhood 2) Paul rings doorbell, Eddie comes from the side 3) the two men talk in Eddie's "office", inside the basement 4) Paul talks with Kate, the lady in Eddie's living room, & 5) Eddie and Paul have final exchanges outside. 

This scene will be photographed on Wednesday, September 14th. Now all I need to do is find someone to play Kate. I'm fairly certain this won't be hard to cast, as several friends have already expressed interest in playing this brief character.

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At a little after 1:00pm, Jennifer showed up at my apartment. We ran through the first Liz and Paul scene for about 45 minutes or so, then we moved the action over to my parents house where we shot the scene. Even though another big scene that doesn't have anything to do with Liz will take place in the house, we shot in a living room. I shot it rather tight. We'll get away with it. 

So far with the production we seem to be averaging eight takes per scene. I think the most takes I ever did for anything project was 25. That's excessive, yet an idol of mine, Michael Mann, has been known to do maybe up to 100. That is nuts, and no-doubt wears the actors down.

After shooting one scene we rehearsed another part that will take place in the lobby of my apartment. 

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4 scenes shot, 96 more to go.

Tomorrow night we will either rehearse some stuff or shoot a few smaller Paul scenes. 

Rehearsal with the Four Friends

Today was the very first time Jeff, Harold, Rudy, Andy and myself ran through the two bigger scenes that involve the four best friends. The previous times we did it was without Andy because he hadn't been cast yet. Now today with Andy it was great to sit back and watch the entire thing unfold, and let me tell you, the chemistry amongst these four best friends since elementary school aura that's in the room feels authentic. As Harold said today, "You know when Justin really likes what he sees because he's off to the side, covering his mouth and almost giggling." That is true. I should probably not be near the action because I'll ruin it with my giddy excitement.

Rudy, Jeff, Harold and Andy

We've been developing a rather big scene three different ways, so now it's just finding the way it should be performed when the time comes to shoot it. I think we all figured out how it will be, but new things can happen on the day of photography. Wether it's talked about and rehearsed, a sudden improv moment or a happy accident of any other sort, it's something I welcome and embrace. 

Speaking of embracing a new idea, today we extended the intro to a scene by about a page of back and forth random chatter among the friends. If there is a "negative" side-affect to adding to too much to too many scenes, it's that the entire film could run a bit longer than originally thought. With the length you could suddenly be criticized for a "lack of focus". In general people will already probably view the finished film as something with a lack of focus. That's in part what I'm going for. So if these minute additional moments add to the whole losing focus debate, then I'm all for it.

The guys play with some cards . . .

'The Empire Strikes Back' cards. Sweeet.

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Tomorrow will be another good day. Rehearsing some scenes with John Andring in the morning, then Jennifer Prettyman in the afternoon -- possibly (probably) shooting at least one scene with her.

The amount of money raised continues to sit at $725, with a goal of $1,000. If you would like to donate $10, 20 or even 50 to this production, please click on the Donate button below.

1st Day of Photography & Rehearsal with Jasmine

Today was the first day of actual principal photography. The scenes were slight and there weren't going to be any problems, but a sense of nervousness was still at the surface. I hadn't really directed anything this big since I worked on my first feature, which was years ago; 2006 to be exact. So, yes, it's been a while. I suppose I did make my crazy Willow Creek retro film, which was a lot of hard work, but now it was about to get real again.

Like all movies, the set-up takes far more time than the actual shooting of the scenes. The scenes we shot during the day take place at night, so that meant all windows had to be blocked.

Work light stand, painters pole, chrome grip head, mic pole and foam board.

Oh yes, classy sh*t. 

Giant sheets of paper cover the windows.

I don't have any production photographs because I was too busy shooting my movie with the camera I use to take all these pictures. Sorry. Also, we just gosh darn forgot.

Today I had the help from Mike Wedel and Jenn Lillemo. Mike was responsible for recording and monitoring sound with the H4n (he also bought the beer we used in the first scene), while Jenn was responsible for the clapper (she also brought a plate of brownies for everyone today, plus she voiced two characters during scenes we shot with Jeff).

As you can see below, just because it's a clapper doesn't mean it can't be fun.

How much did we shoot today? 3.75 pages. 3 scenes down, 97 more to go. Now as I'm looking back at my schedule and what we shot, I'm realizing I skipped over a scene we were supposed to get. I had blocked out shooting time from 2:00pm to 5:45pm. We shot from 2:30 to 5:00. I felt accomplished, yet I forgot another scene. That's fine because tomorrow was supposed to be a 6 hour day of rehearsals and wardrobe discussions, but that has been cut back to 4 hours (give or take), so we can use that additional time to photograph one more scene. 

Speaking of tomorrow, two scenes we're running in the afternoon will be Burke scenes. Earlier in the day Earl sent me some links with awesome bowling ties for Burke. 

I love this. Burke is a bit flamboyant with his love for bowling. I can't blame him. Earl, being the awesome guy that he is, insists on buying his own wardrobe. What a guy!

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After photography we took a break and ate food at Pineda. That was not smart. We couldn't move we ate so much food. Jenn then went out to get coffee for everyone.

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This was the first day Jeff and Jasmine met each-other, but the meeting went very well. The two are open and have a lot of energy, so it wasn't awkward. Jasmine, being a non-actor, was very worried about rehearsals. I wasn't. We're working with a great group of actors, some have been at it for a while, while some just started, and others were curious about trying it out. It's nice and diverse. Everyone is very supportive. After all, we're all in this thing together. 

During the readings Jasmine was flirtatious, natural and low-key. She has nothing to be worried about. Yet it's not easy to read a written line out-loud in a way that's spontaneous. There needs to be an organic inflexion while reciting these words, yet everything is written, it's mostly calculated. It's not easy. At least I don't think it is, yet I'm not an actor. I don't know how they do what they do.  

I was very pleased after we ran through these scenes several times. We discussed various reasons for why the scenes take place, we took some stuff out and added some fun flavor in. We found the rhythm without over-doing it. These scenes won't be shot until the end of September, so we'll run over them again.

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Today was the first day of recording with the Zoom H4n. It's also my first experience with recording the audio separate from the video. Tonight I will upload all the sound and play around with syncing the two sources tomorrow night. I'll no doubt learn things along the way. I love audio and sound design, but I'm not entirely confident in that department. That's the primary reason we started with the scenes we shot. If we had to re-shoot them, at least they wouldn't be big back and forth multi-character scenes.

Until next time! 

Shooting Schedule, Photography and Lighting Kit

This evening I finally completed a partial shooting schedule for Nicotine. It was tough putting it together, but after weeks of trying to figure things out and many headaches, I wrote it out. It's partial, as I said, but that's mostly because we don't have a lock on all locations. I'm not stressing that fact either, because the major locations are a go, and the bowling alley is, as the owner told me Sunday morning, "A 90% sure thing." 


Because we all have jobs in the real world, the entire film will be photographed on the weekends. That was the most challenging thing to work out, because I want to finish the shoot in September, cutting it a long the way, polishing it up and do music in October, and screen it at the end of October, then hit some festivals whenever those festivals happen. That's my time frame, and it's completely doable, but that means some days will be non-stop action. The first full day of insanity will be September 10th. Day begins at 8:00am, with Day Wrap at 9:45pm. Of course the following day I didn't schedule anything until 2:00pm. 


What will  be a major factor in deciding the length of a day is the amount of "coverage" I plan on getting. If I ever learned anything useful from Peter Bogdanovich, it's that he doesn't do the traditional set-ups; he doesn't do the master, two-shot, close-up, etc, etc, etc. He just photographs what he needs. In theory that would work, but that's not the reality of this production. It's also not a minimalist production either, as far as the photography is concerned. It's somewhere in between I think. Soon I need to figure out exactly how it will be shot, because I need a sense of fluidity through camera movements and style, just so the entire film feels the same. A mismatch can work, but not with this one. I have rules for myself. One major rule: no handheld camera work. None. It's not only overdone by independent filmmakers, it's too easy of a manipulation. The entire thing will be on a tripod; however, the motions will be loose and freeing and floaty (maybe), but not handheld. 


Another rule I have is that I must not use blue unless there is true-to-the-eye atmospheric reason it would be in that particular tone. I tend to use a lot of blue tint in projects. I have for about 11 years now, actually. I blame Michael Mann's Heat and Sodebergh's Traffic. It's mostly used as an emotional tool;  loneliness, a sense of detachment from your surroundings, oxygen cut.

Bobby De Niro is in super deep thought. It's like he's drowning!

Mikey Douglas is chilly.

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Tonight I went to Ace Hardware to pick up four clamp-lamps w/ reflectors: Two 150watt and two 60watt for $40. It's my very own poor man's light kit. It will do the job, but at an extremely cheap price. The lighting for this film will be quite low-key and natural, nothing too fancy or overtly "lit". Too much theatrics with the lighting can ruin a perfectly good scene. Where's that balance? Of course if we're going for total realism, we could just light all scenes from the practical light locations; meaning the only light hitting the actors are from the actual light sources in any given room. This sometimes works, but mostly doesn't. Never over do it. Remain as natural as you can.

There will be times when I rent some 750w Tota lights from LightsOn for very specific scenes. That's yet another thing to keep in mind when designing a shooting schedule. If I know I need to rent lights, then I will plan to shoot other scenes over the weekend with those lights. The cost to rent a 750 w Tota is $12 a day. That's cheap. They will be used for creating intense direct morning and evening sun.

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That's all from me today. Gonna go watch tonight's Conan repeat in 30 minutes, then get to bed. A fun 13.5 hour day of work is tomorrow!

Morning Bowling

This morning the four friends in the film were all together for the first time. Where did we meet and what did we do? Tuttles and bowling. They have an amazing morning deal, by the way. Two games, shoes, and breakfast for $6.99. Why haven't I done this more in the past? Fantastic.

(the awesome video quality Blogger posts isn't too awesome. oh well)

Jeff focusing on the pins. "I'm gonna get you, sucka!"

Andy's about to kill some pins with his magic back-spinning ball of doom.

Harold and I chat a bit.

Rudy brought his daughter bowling today. Pretty much the cutest kid ever. We're going to have her play the pre-schooler Paul interacts with during a scene earlier on.

Hooray! She knocked down all the pins!

The idea of this morning was mainly for all of the guys to be together. Up until more recently we didn't have a John. It was difficult to find someone. We've been rehearsing scenes with only Jeff, Harold and Rudy, and I've been reading for John. But now we have him. Andy Josephson will be John, and even though we only went through two scenes today at the alley, I was impressed with Andy's readings of the lines. Very natural.

John is a character I compare to Fredo from The Godfather films -- yes, I know, it's mostly a very broad comparison, but I was influenced by many American and French gangster films and especially the four 'brothers' from The Godfather while writing Nicotine.  John is the runt of the litter really, vulnerable, with very few things to say, going with the flow of whatever was happening. That's partially why it was tough to locate a John. It's not a real meaty role, but there is a reason for his actions. There is one scene I wrote between John and Paul. It's a scene that hasn't really worked yet. We'd probably shoot that last. There's a lot of things the scene could be about, and I think I haven't quite found what the scene is supposed to be.

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Today was short. It's my fault really. I should have extended the rehearsal time out and at least read through the bigger scenes. I'm disappointed that I didn't encourage any further progress for today. We'll have Saturday to get everyone together again and run through the two big scenes.

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What's next? What I am going to try to do tonight is to make a very big shooting schedule. I have enough pieces together that I can really start to make this thing. Don't know about the Tux shop or a preschool yet, but I'm not terribly worried about those parts. Friday I will begin shooting a small scene with Jeff. Saturday we'll rehearse the bigger scenes with all the guys. Sunday we'll rehearse the scenes with John Andring, the man playing Eddie, at 10:30am, then at 1:30pm we'll rehearse the scenes with Jennifer Prettyman, the actress playing Liz. I will post her picture next week.

I have a bad headache now. What am I doing tonight? I'm thinking tonight I will chill with my fiance. That sounds awesome to me.

Until next time!

Oh yes, today I bowled my best first game in quite some time. I did a 191, then a 134. I really really didn't expect that to happen. See what happens when I bowl at Tuttles! Magic!

Fun Happens with Nicotine

Today at 1:00pm, Alison, the actress playing Courtney, was over for her first rehearsal and meeting with Jeff and Harold. The chemistry right away between her and Harold was natural and fun, and once we started working on the scenes between Courtney and Peter, it was elevated even more so. Often the way we start a scene is to develop about a half-page to a page worth of improv material, just so the beginning of the actual written dialog feels like it came from a real place, and didn't just suddenly start out of thin air.

Sc. 67, P. 61 to 66

Sc. 62, P. 59 to 60

After we went through some material we wandered outside to take some pictures. I'm in the process of collecting photos from Alison and Harold, mostly so I have extra background props to use at Courtney and Peter's house. The below picture will probably be something seen on the fridge. We took a few other pictures, but I'll save those for the film.

At about 3:00pm Alison was finished for the afternoon, then Harold and Jeff ran through the Peter and Paul scenes. Some of this stuff we haven't worked on since July, so it was very nice to go back to those first scenes we started with. It was a combination of remembering what we originally talked about and wrote down, then trying new things.

Oh my god, Jenn took a pic that includes me. The only picture I'll post of me, by the way.

Sc. 89, P. 89/90

This process has gone really well. To the point where we're definitely ready to shoot this dang movie. At  4:30 we finished for the day. Everyone was fairly exhausted, so Jenn ordered some Pizza Luce goodness. Garlic Mashed Potato and The Bear. Oh man, it was awesome.

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Tomorrow morning a bunch of us are going bowling at Tuttles, then we'll run over a few bowling scenes.  After that I will sit down and write out a good shoot schedule for September. I've been organizing most things to happen that month, with one weekend dedicated to photograph all the outside stuff. 

About to collapse, gotta get to bed. 

Nicotine Fun

As of right now we've raised $725. That is amazing. If you would like to donate to the production, please click the Donate button below!

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I talked with Tim Janke, an old High School friend who works at Tuttles. He will play the bartender in the film, which will be perfect since he does that sort of thing at the bowling alley. Perfect. He's totally willing to help us shoot a scene after operating hours; meaning 1:30am until 3:30am (or whenever, but we'll try to keep the shoot short.)

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Yesterday our new fancy audio recorder showed up. The H4n, a nice compact recorder that will give us great audio for the production. I haven't had a chance to really play with it yet, but I will hopefully have an opportunity tomorrow to do so.

Today I got a small inexpensive 7" portable monitor that will be attached to the top of the camera by a 1/4" shoe adapter (which was $7, and will be in the mail soon). Because this was a more frivolous purchase, I didn't use the money we've raised so for to buy the monitor, but rather my own.

The monitor will be especially nice for location shooting, just to have something a bit bigger to look at. I love the small swivel monitor on my Canon 60D, but there have been times during editing other projects when I realize that something I thought was fully in focus suddenly wasn't. It will be good for outdoor shooting too. I will be making a nice monitor hood to wrap around it though.

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Tonight we worked on some simple Paul and Lady scenes. Lady has a name which is mentioned once, and it's Mary. Jenn, my super awesome lady fiance will play this character. She's excited to play someone bitchy. What are these scenes? I'm not gonna tell you. Jeff and Jenn play well off of each-other.  These scenes are pretty much ready to be shot, so we'll be doing that next week. That's exciting. I'm eager to begin the actual production of Nicotine.

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After we ran through those scenes we went off to Ragstock and Unique Thrift Shop to find the wardrobe for the film. I'm dead-set on Paul having an obsession over polyester shirts. Whenever I can, I always wear polyester. Why do I love it so much? There's no big revelation or anything, but it's because of That 70's Show and how people used to ( and still do, to my amazement) call me Eric / Topher. That early attempt to see if this kind of clothing would work on me has translated into pure love of the material and style. Now I've spreading that love into my film. Ha. Suckers. 

During my first film there were wardrobe problems occasionally because of mis-communication. But this time everything will be far more organized and I will be in possession of the clothing. We'll also document all clothing of all the characters for the sake of continuity. 

Color palette is a subject  I will keep for a later blog perhaps, but I don't have too many restrictions with color. There's "complete realism" and "artistic film style" to battle when deciding on the clothing. If there is any realism in this film, we can't deny certain styles and patterns. People wear what they wear; friends don't call up each-other to see what colors they're wearing when going out. For the sake of the movie, there will be problems if we think like that. Some colors and styles may end up clashing on screen causing for an unwanted video effect; for example if we pick clothing with striped colored lines too close together, it will no-doubt be troubling on the eye when the film is screened on the big screen. 

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Tomorrow could potentially be a 6 or 7 hour day of rehearsals.  I will have more to report then. Gotta get some sleep. I'm exhausted.