Survivor's Club: The Right to Bare Arms

There are a lot of days when we film in bad weather - days so hot your eyeballs feel like they're frying, days so cold your hands might fall off, and rain pouring so hard you could almost drown on set. Each month we'll remember one of those horrible weather days and celebrate the survivors who braved the elements in order to film.  Why would we want to remember those days?  Because going through hell on set has a way of bringing everyone closer together when they can say they survived mother nature AND filming on a Yibble set.

THE RIGHT TO BARE ARMS

(But No Coat)

The first real film I made – using actual film – was made for a  school assignment in Film Production class at SIUC. It was shot on 8MM and that’s when I learned why lights and knowing about proper exposure settings are so freaking important when dealing with real film. I mean it’s always important, and I almost never pay attention to that, but having to reshoot something that’s too dark on video tape is annoying but okay.  Having to reshoot anything for any reason on actual film is not only annoying – it’s expensive.  It’s like really freaking expensive and my exposure problems with this film and The Long Take left me broke.

Speaking of exposure, let’s talk about one of the actors in the film – specifically Jacob MacLeod.  The basic plot is a woman running through the woods away from something (reality).  She ends up in a beautiful garden (Allerton) and doesn’t notice someone stalking her (Jacob) who throws roses at her from far away and leaves a trail of rose petals for her to follow.

The rose petals lead her to a meadow containing a large statue (the Sun Singer). When she walks up and examines it closer the statue comes to life and reaches out a hand to her.  She takes the hand and the statue – now a human man – steps off the pedestal and takes her hands in his. They end up back in the garden and she decides to stay with him instead of going back into the woods.  There’s no dialogue because the assignment was to make a silent movie. And yes, my subtly club was hitting the audience over the head hard with the symbolism on this one.

So what makes this shoot one of the Survivor’s Club? 

Well, Jacob had to look as much like the statue as possible without being too (ahem) exposed. 

Yeah, the Sun Singer is…

well…

He’s naked.

Totally naked.

Buck ass naked.

(he ain’t got no clothes on)

There was no way I would film Jacob wandering around Allerton park buck ass naked, so at the very least he needed pants. Wandering around Allerton in just pants would also look weird, and since it was a fantasy with fantasy costumes (because it’s me) I put him in a white satin vest with a big white belt as well as white pants. In the end the outfit looked pretty weird too, but it was better than nakedness. Aside from looking a little silly - something that happens all the time in SFF productions, and that Jacob was more than used to at this point - it wast that big of a deal, right? 

Well…it was November.

Early November, but still November.

In Central Illinois that means there’s a 50/50 chance of it being rainy and/or freezing cold.  It happened to be quite a cold day and Jacob had to run around outside with no sleeves, a half-naked chest, and a thin vest and pants for at least three hours.  I probably should have had him be shirtless so he matched the statue better, but I didn't.  I had some mercy at least. Luckily the goose bumps didn’t show up on film and since Jacob’s still alive, has both arms and all his fingers he didn’t die or succumb to hypothermia in any way. He may have caught a cold though.

It’s not the worst shoot he’s survived, but it definitely wasn’t fun and is worthy of a Survivor sticker. Thanks for being such a trouper Jacob!