Survivor's Club - Who Needs Sleep?

Surviving on a Yibble set is more than just dealing with bad weather - sometimes it's about strength, stamina, and how much caffeine you can drink.  

WHO NEEDS SLEEP? 

Film Shoots That Go Past Midnight

The vast majority of filming takes place during the day, or on evenings and into the night.  Pretty much anything that takes place at night in a room with windows has to be filmed at night, so some night shoots can go pretty late.  Usually filming is over by 10 or 11pm. Some shoots can go as late as midnight but it’s extremely rare for shoots to go past that.  There are, of course, some exceptions.  Here are five film shoots that went very late into the night (or very early in the morning, I guess you could say).  I have no idea how late they actually went, so they’re listed in order of year of production.

MIND GAMES

Because all of Mind Games takes place in outer space, anywhere with windows had to be filmed at night, so there were a lot of night shoots for this movie.  But the first two shooting day went the latest into the night. 

The first day of shooting for Mind Games was in the summer of 1998 on the back porch of the Homestead.  Since there were windows and it was summer we didn’t start filming until around 8 or 9pm.  Although it was only one scene, it was a long scene with a lot of speeches.  Also it was the first time Edward Stasheff, the writer and primary director of Mind Games, had a chance to actually direct, so things took a little longer than usual.

As with most late night shoots, I have no idea what time we were actually done filming, but it was around or past 1am.  Luckily the actors had caffeine to keep them going.  Unluckily the caffeine was a mixture of cold coffee and coke, which had turned into sludge by the end (ewwwww - that gets a survival club sticker just for that!).  The actors, Annamarie and Rachel, were very goofy by the end as well – making colored pencils into antennae, using the (gimpy) filming lights to make shadow puppets, and reading through the scene as valley girls in space.

The next shooting day for Mind Games, which was over a month later, was a really long day (and night) of filming on location at Watterson Hall in Bloomington-Normal, IL.  It was a very long scene with multiple sections, lots of dialogue, heavy action sequences, and difficult acting scenes like having to go insane.  Edward was the director and I was the videographer.  I was used to working very quickly with basic shots and zipping through script pages.  Edward was more concerned with such silly things as quality and good acting and generally being a really good director – you know, the things I never bother with.  He didn’t have things blocked or set, he was just winging it (he learned to storyboard eventually and that made things much better).

The shooting started in the early afternoon (since we were filming in a basement) but went a lot later than anyone expected.  It was well after 1am – probably 2 or 2:30am by the time we finished. Well, actually we didn’t finish - Annamarie, Chris, and Rachel were pretty much fried by that point.  We were too tired to make it through the final section of the scene and ended up going back and filming it later.  I don’t know exactly when it was we called it a night, but I do know what time I got home – 4am.  However it takes about an hour to drive from Bloomington to Champaign and we got lost.

THE GIFT BEARER

The Gift Bearer had some very long shoots, but most of them were filmed during the day on weekends, with some night shoots here and there. However, one story arc (i.e. two episodes) was set almost entirely at night in the SIUC Student Center where many of the rooms, and almost all of the locations, had windows. It was probably not a smart plan to write it that way (but it’s a good episode so it was worth it).  There were two big shoots that covered the majority of the scenes, and both went very late.

The first one involved all the actors running around the Student Center being chased with guns, having asthma attacks, and sliding into/onto tables with magical statues.  Luckily it was November when we were shooting that episode so it got dark early.  However, there was so much to shoot that we didn’t get done until…um…well, let’s just say it was really late.  I filmed in sections by actors who needed to go home first, so Russell, Morgan, and Brittany drew the short straw and had to stay until the end, which was sometime after 2am.  I hope that was a weekend night, cause going to class that morning would have sucked.

The other really late night shoot was the “torturing Xavier” scenes where Russell spent pretty much the whole night tied to a chair covered in fake blood and make-up bruises (that gets a sticker right there).  Did I say “torturing Xavier”? I clearly meant torturing Russell. Anyway, there were several scenes set in the “torturing” room (aka the Video Lounge), and I filmed the scenes with the most people, and the ones who had to leave by a certain time, first.  That left the two main actors in those scenes - Russell Martin and Katie Johnston – as well as Brittany Ann Whalen who was directing those scenes, to finish up the filming (well, and me of course).  It was a long, late night filled with dialogue intense scenes and not a lot of chances to move around which lead to stiff and sore muscles which lead to a lot of jokes.  As always, I’m not sure how late we went but I think it was almost 3am before we wrapped shooting. 

                                    DREAM CHASERS

There was a very long scene (and dance number) for Episode 8 of Dream Chasers.  That production had a lot of late nights since we ended up filming eight episodes in about six weeks, but most shoots wrapped up by 11pm or so.  Morgan, Brittany, and Holly were real troopers through the whole thing, especially on this shoot which went way late – again I don’t know the time we finished but I think it was around 2am. The scene called for dancing, singing, playing Truth or Dare Jenga, lots of serious talking, and ended with a pillow fight. So even though it was a long shoot and a very late night, it was a lot of fun!

                                            EIDOLON

 There were many late nights while filming Eidolon, but I can’t remember one that went past midnight except possibly the night when we shot the glowing people dancing in blacklight in a room full of smoke for a montage.  I know that scene went late but I'm not sure how late.  Anyone else remember how late we were filming that?  There was also a late shoot for The Gift Bearer: Time After Time, but I’m pretty sure we were done by or close to midnight.  We didn’t get back to the farm, settled in, or fall asleep until much later, but I think the filming had ended by midnight. 

There are a lot of late nights involved on big, long shooting weekends when actors come in from out of town, or when a group of us travels overnight to a distant location.  However, the late hours in those cases are not from filming, they’re from hanging out and partying which may or may not involve alcohol, watching rushes, and finding strange new cures for allergies.

One of the featurettes on the 10th Anniversary DVD talks about the latest nights of filming. However in the video I somehow confused the two different late nights of shooting in Gift Bearer and thought they were one night, oops. 

Thank you to all the people who have stayed awake during the late nights/the wee hours of the morning in order to filming those last few scenes:

Rachel Anderson

Russell Homan

Katie Johnston

Chris Lamb

Annamarie MacLeod

Morgan Thomas

Holly Simons

Edward Stasheff

Brittany Ann Whalen

Here’s some warm milk, a soft pillow, and a fuzzy blanket – now go get some sleep.  Especially you Brittany!