2012 was actually a fairly busy year for Sine Fine Films. We filmed six short films in two
weekend shoots and one movie celebrating the 10th anniversary of The
Gift Bearer. So let’s break it
down and take a look:
The year began with finding out who would be available to film a
“reunion” episode of The Gift Bearer and writing a fitting script for the
event.
In the end only the actors
who played the original three Silverstone sisters – Christine Komiskey as
Atlanta, Morgan Thomas as Minerva, and Brittany Ann Whalen as Peri – were able
to attend, but we had a blast and a half filming modern frame plots and made-up
flashbacks! 
Unfortuantely we ended up filming the Victorian flashbacks on the
hottest day of filming ever. I
think I nearly killed the actors.
Luckily the frame plot scenes were filmed inside at Jen Weber and Bryan
Kieft’s lovely abode so there was air-conditioning for about half the filming
of the movie. The next day we
finished the flashback scenes in weather that was still hot but not quite so
bad (almost, but not quite). 
There were several actors from out of town who needed a place to crash
for the weekend. I figured since
the MacLeod farm is always breezy and nice that we could camp out. So we did…for the first night. We went to sleep very late (due to long
filming night) when it was still hot and sticky out but woke up to a strangely
chilly morning. Of course being
Illinois and summer the chill stuck around for all of five minutes. 
We spent the morning filming the first of three short films that were
part of a series of shorts called Fortunate Ones. The running theme is that
someone wishes for something, but when they get it they realize it’s not
actually what they want.
Faerie
Tale was the first to be filmed and starred the wonderfully talented Harmony
Komiskey as Emily, a girl who wants to be a fairy. When a real fairy shows up – played by Morgan Thomas – she
has to decide between becoming a real fairy or staying with her mother, played
by Harmony’s real mother - Christine Komiskey. 
Filming was early in the morning so it wasn’t too hot, but
there were some costume issues that ended up working out well. Overall short and fun to film.
We took a break for lunch, then headed to Kate’s CU residence to film
the next Fortunate Ones script – Forever.
Two people – Samantha played by Kate Weber and Ray played by Andrew
Thomas – wake up in a basement tied together with no memory of how they got
there. When the third person in
the room – Devon played by Brittany Ann Whalen – wakes up and freaks out they
discover Devon’s lover – played by Morgan Thomas – has granted her wish with
dire consequences. 
The whole thing
takes place in one scene in a basement, so we were happily cool and enjoyed quality
air-conditioning. However Kate and Drew were tied up for over an hour in a
cramped position and were a little sore, but were real troupers. Thank you Kate and Drew!
The evening finished up with filming the final scenes we still needed
for The Gift Bearer, during which it actually rained briefly (Illinois has
weird weather), then the cast and crew went out to dinner, and the Komiskey’s
departed. I couldn’t face another
night outside camping in the heat, so my parents (bless you both) let us all
crash at their place. We watched
footage until late into the night then sank into blissful, air-conditioned
sleep.
Brittany bid farewell in the morning and the rest of us got ready to
film the last of the three Fortunate Ones’ scripts – Magic-8. Heather – played by Kate Weber - is
unemployed, but waiting to hear from a couple of interviews when her best
friend Cathy – played by Rachel Anderson – brings her a birthday present: a
Magic-8 ball. To both Heather and
Cathy’s astonishment the ball seems to actually be able to predict the
future. 
Filming Magic-8 was easy
and fun. It was almost all filmed
indoors, with only two short scenes outside, so less heatstroke for everyone
involved. There were only two
actors and with four crew members – Assistant Director Morgan Thomas,
Production Assistant Andrew Thomas, me directing, and the brilliant and
wonderful Audio Engineer William Chrapcynski, the crew actually out numbered
the actors for once. Two of the
scenes were just Kate talking to a Magic-8 ball, so over all the filming was
fast and fun. The weekend shoot
was over and we all returned to our more or less normal lives.
I knew I wanted to film something else in the year and was thinking
about filming another Fortunate Ones movie in early November. When Epiphany Paris mentioned she
needed help writing and producing a short film based on an Edgar Allen Poe
story I offered to help.
She
wanted to film the same weekend I had been thinking about, so when it became
clear that the story was too complex to write quickly I offered up the
Fortunate Ones script I had been working on - Family Reunion. It’s a sweet story about trust and
having faith in the ones you love, and mending fences when that faith fails.
However it was 27 pages in the first draft and 24 in the second. And almost all
of it takes place at night with at least a dozen extras. We started preproduction on it and were
a week in before realizing that it just wasn’t going to happen because we
didn’t have the time, actors, or equipment to make it work. 
This was ten days before the shoot. At this point I had already set up a filming event and had
people committed to a film shoot, so I tried to write another script we could
film instead, that Epiphany would like and would still be able to use all the
actors that said they were coming.
When someone drives a couple hours or more to film for the weekend I
like to give them a named character and a few lines, so working everybody in
and coming up with a new story took a few days. I dashed out a script, another
Fortunate Ones called Sanctuary, but it was again too long – 24 pages – and I
was only able to trim it down to 16. 
It was a good idea but needed a lot of work and there wasn’t time for
rewrites. Now, I can film a 16
page script in two and a half days no problem, but I forgot that no one else speeds
through shooting with the careless disregard I have for such things as
equipment, sets, memorization, and good directing. Needless to say Virginia wanted to do a great job and make a
quality film so she wanted something that was five pages or less. We searched around from a public domain
script that fit the bill and I came up with the idea of doing a poem from Spoon
River Anthology. 
In the end she decided it was too much to do and not enough time to do
it in, but I still had people committed to the shoot and after all that
planning I didn’t want to cancel.
I liked the Spoon River thing and decided to film several of the
poem/monologues with various actors.
It was the perfect time of year for it and I was excited because I love
Spoon River Anthology. I had some
new actors lined up and the shooting schedule done, with script choices and
even costume designs all ready to go.
Then, three days before filming I discovered that I couldn’t get into my
mother’s costume units. Now, some people would shrug and do it in modern dress,
but these are about 19th century people and I don’t take kindly to
not using costumes when I consider then necessary, so I had to cancel the Spoon
River part of the shoot.
Three days before the shooting weekend and actors were dropping out of
shoot one after another so it would have made complete and total sense for me
to just throw up my hands and cancel the whole shoot. But I am not known for
having any sense. Besides, by this
point I was taking it as an epic challenge to film no matter what, obstacles be
damned! So I rounded up a list of
the actors still in the game and called them personally to find out who was
definetly going to be filming with us.
I had two or three actresses who could only film on Friday and only two
or three who could film on the other two days. I could have just written once script and shot it slowly and
called it a day, but no! That’s
not how I work!
I sat down and looked at my options. The only thing I knew for sure on the Wednesday before the
film shoot (which started on Friday) was that I had one girl, one guy, and a
teepee. So I wrote another
Fortunate Ones script – Only You.
I wrote it on Thursday night for the Saturday shoot, then wrote a script
for the friday night shoot based on an idea I had thought of years ago called
Goddess Anonymous – a self-help group for diminished deities. I had an idea third movie but it was
3am on Friday morning and I had two scripts to email to actors and a shoot to
prepare for.
Friday night we filmed Goddess Anonymous. Although the shoot started at 6pm, most of the actors warned
me ahead of time that they would be late, which ended up working out really
well in the end for shooting. I
had written the script for five actors, which was stupid because I knew I only
had four actors. So I was
scrambling to find another actress who could show up that night and jump into
the script blind. I’d like to say
it’s the first time I’ve asked that of someone but it’s not. Thankfully the absolutely amazing and
beautiful Nina Samii was able to show up halfway through the shoot (thanks
Nina!). 
There are some filming
days that are so much fun that you know you will never forget that day, the
shoot for GA was that way. Between
the carrot jokes, cupcake fails, and Jen memorizing a speech about blood, guts,
and gore using a song and dance it was one of the most fun shoots I have ever
had to pleasure to witness. If I
had any doubts that canceling the shoot would have been the right idea, they
went out the window that night.
So. Awesome.
Saturday we took our time filming Only You, with Brittany Ann Whalen and
Bryan Kieft performing and Syndi Eller as the assistant director. It was a fun,
relaxed shooting day that started just before noon and ended around 5pm when we
wrapped shooting and headed to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. 
There was a lot
of silliness and goofing off with wieners and smores, and also a lot of smoke
when I put a damp log on the fire.
We had to treat for a while at that point, but finished up a little smoky
but okay.
Brittany, Syndi, and I hung
out for a little bit but both actors were pretty sleepy and called it a night
early. I spent the night writing the script for the next day’s shoot that I was
supposed to have written on Friday night but was just too tired. I had so much writing that I couldn’t
stop and the script ended up being 18 pages, and with the hour approaching 2am
I didn’t have time to cut it down.
C2, a story about two sisters – Courtney and Caden Caldwell played by
Brittany Ann Whalen and Syndi Eller – who are the best bounty hunters in the
Criminally Cute Division of the Erinyes Agency, a public justice organization
that polices the mythic and folkloric communities. Their target is the crafty
and eccentric renegade Leshy known as Kasimir – played by Dan Zangerl.
For a script written while I was half asleep and one that none of the
actors had read before arriving on location, it wasn’t too bad. It was a lot of fun to film out at
Meadowbrook Park in a cool looking wooded area (happy Syndi?) on a nice and
sunny afternoon. It was a day
filled with breaking handcuffs, loaves of bread, sticky sticks, and the birth
of a new product line of nature based make-up and hair care products. 
And it also had one of the funniest scenes I have filmed in years where Brittany’s character, Courtney, has to “look sexy against a tree” and is supposed to think she’s doing a good job but is actually looking really stupid. Brittany was hilarious! I don’t think I’ve laughed that much since…well, filming Goddess Anonymous on that Friday, but before that since I gave Jen some action figures and turned the camera on her in an episode of Eidolon.
The one problem with the shoot was that I only have one battery for my
camera and even with a fully charged battery it won’t last through a whole
day’s shoot. So we ended up having
to take a break at McDonald’s to recharge the battery. The actors went over the script and
memorized most of their lines for the last big scene we had to shoot, but by
the time we got back to location and got all set up it was getting dark
quickly. We filmed as quickly as
we could, but it got too dark to film everything in the woods so we adjusted
the lines to be back by the car in the parking lot where there was at least a
little bit of light. I have now fixed this problem by getting a second battery
so it hopefully won’t happen again.
All the shoots were a blast and a half to be a part of and I had so much
fun at all of them. We ended the year with the annual SFF Holiday Party on
December 30th, watched a blooper video, and although there were less
people then in previous years, we had a fabulous time!
It was wonderful year for Sine Fine Films! Thank you to everyone who participated in making movie magic
and memories this year:
Rachel Anderson
William Chrapcynski
Syndi Eller
Bryan Kieft
Christine Komiskey
Harmony Komiskey
Nina Samii
Morgan Thomas
Andrew Thomas
Jen Weber
Kate Weber
Brittany Ann Whalen
Dan Zangerl
Dan Zangerl
Without all of you it would not have been possible to film at all and it
certainly wouldn’t have been half as much fun!
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