Recently I’ve done several poll on the SFF Facebook group to determine the Top 5 of lots of different things. For the 24 days leading up to the 25th Anniversary (and the day itself, of course) I will be posting a new Top 5 list each day, using the highly scientific and unbiased results from those FB polls.
On Day 1 we began by taking about the things we liked least about filming. We started with the Worst, so let's end with the Best!
Top 5 Best Aspects of Production
Why do people film with me? I been asking myself that ever since I became stabilized on my medication. I have often asked the company members too. They’ve given many reasons over the years. Here are the top favorite things that keep the members filming with me over and over again (strangely enough masochism is not on the list).
#5 – Discovering New Places
There are many places I would never have seen or explored if I hadn’t been looking for places to film. Some places were recommended like Allerton Park and Fort De Chartres. Others places I found on my own such as the Planetarium and the Parthenon. Then of course were the places where I or company members lived such as the Homestead and the MacLeod Farm.
Every time I go somewhere that looks really cool I still have the urge to film there. There are many locations that I wrote into scripts just because I wanted to film there (like the Parthenon), and other places where for various reasons I was never able to film (like the Wilbur Mansion).
For most of the cast and crew there were a lot of places they would never have known about let alone been able to explore if they hadn’t participated in filming projects. Obviously the Parthenon is one, but there’s also the Allerton Conference Center which is usually not open to the public expect for special events so getting to film there allowed people to see inside a gorgeous mansion.
Also we filmed at Fort Massac in Southern IL back in 2001 however the recreation of the French fort was torn down in 2003 and rebuilt as the American fort that stood on the same spot, so the actors who filmed there (and me of course) were lucky to see it before it was torn down. Now if only we could film there again in the new one…
Amazing locations are not often found in your backyard (unless it’s the MacLeod’s backyard – they have a frickin' ship in their barn!) so we often had to hit the road and drive long distances, sometimes 20 minutes other times 1-2 hours, just to get to the location. But, as the company agrees, being able to film in unique and special places it one of the best things about filming!
#4 – Hanging Out with Everyone on Set
Filming can take a long time. We start early and go to late at night. Some film shoots are 3 hours some are 18 hours so there’s a LOT of downtime for many of the actors. Some of the actors are almost always busy – such as the three who played the Silverstone sisters in The Gift Bearer – so busy they may not even have time to eat unless I write it into the script. Other actors are only in a few scenes and may have hours on the set with nothing to do.
What do you do with all that free time? Well, you could read a book or do your homework (some did that in past when they were still in school), or you could just hang out with your filming friends, play cards, roast marshmallows, dance, frolic, explore, goof off, or just chat.
When filming first began with Destiny in the summer of 1996 all of the actors were friends of each other who mostly met through the Youth Summer Theater Program at the Urbana Park District. Because of that we were all from different schools and getting together to film was one of the few times you could hang out with friends you don’t normally see.
When we filmed while I was in college (The Curse, The Gift Bearer, and Dream Chasers) most of the cast members hung out with each other on and off the set. You didn’t have to film with me to hang out with your friends, but once people graduated and eventually moved away it became harder and harder to get together with your friends.
Eidolon brought my college friends to meet my home town friends. Let’s face it if you’re friends with me you WILL film with me at some point - not even a single one of my family members have been spared from this fate. Eidolon filmed all over the state in part because by then actors were located all over the state.
As the years have gone by it’s gotten harder and harder to get people together. I discovered about 15 years ago that the only way to get my friends together was to arrange a film shoot. People won’t drive three hours (or more) for a party (except Brittany of course) but they will travel to a film shoot! They know they will get to see people they can only see when they film and have a lot of fun catching up while hanging out on the set. The real reason I keep filming every year (or as many years as I can) is because it’s the only way for me to see people I don’t get to hang out with otherwise.
#3 – Watching the Finished Production
– and the Bloopers!
Hanging out is fun but you could just have a big party and hang out, so what makes people travel a long way just to film when they wouldn’t for a party? First of all a film shoot is at least two days – even if you’re filming multiple short films – so it’s more worth the time and gas. After filming is done for the day you get to hang out. But it’s not just getting together that’s fun. Filming is a different, unique kind of fun where people get to do things they normally don’t and make a tangible something at the end of it – a movie (or short film).
It’s not just photographs, there a whole production and a story edited that you can watch over and over again. Just as fun, if not more, as watching the finished production is watching the bloopers! Making the bloopers is great, but sometimes bloopers that aren’t funny at the time become hilarious five years later. The only problem with watching the productions and bloopers is that I still have SOOOOO MANY productions I need to finish editing…or re-editing so I can post them online and everyone can watch them. I promise you I am working on that.
#2 – Wearing Costumes
This is my personal favorite part of filming since everyone knows I LOVE costumes. I’m even dating a costume. I was very happy to see that so many people also enjoyed wearing costumes. YAY costumes! The best film shoots, in my opinion, involve costumes and it’s fun to walk into ordinary restaurants and stores while dressed up like a princess in a fairytale or a rebel from a dystopian future were everyone wears vests for some reason. We often went into places like McDonald’s for food and sometimes even air conditioning.
Wearing costumes when you’re cold can be annoying because I rarely have costumes that are warm enough to be comfortable in without a coat. Unless it’s really hot, then for some reason I make the actors where heavy Victorian clothing. That really happened. The hottest day of filming ever was over 100 degrees and I made the actors where Victorian clothes. I guess I wanted them to experience heat stroke. I skipped the corsets though so they could still breathe. I’m so nice.
You can put a coat on over your costume when it’s cold but you can’t film with it on so there are many times the actors are freezing in front of the camera. It’s especially annoying to them when they chose their costumes from their own wardrobe but it was for summer filming because I said we’d be done filming by September and we were still filming at the end of November.
Regardless of the weather costumes are fun to wear. It’s like Halloween when you’re dressed up for a film shoot but without the candy. Although I can bring candy if people want it. Maybe I’ll do that for the next shoot. Let’s see what else can I say about costumes? Well, they’re awesome. And pretty. And pretty awesome.
#1 – Making Great Memories
By far the best thing about filming for me and everyone else (according to the poll) is making memories. This one combines all the other best aspects and all the worst aspects as well like bad weather. Even if you’re freezing cold or sweltering hot you’re not alone in your suffering because your filming friends are right there with you. You can be miserable together and when you look back years later you can smile or even laugh at the memory.
Obviously there are a lot of bad memories as well as good, but most of the good memories outnumber the bad – at least for me and hopefully for everyone else. Hanging out in costume at an amazing location while watching your friends blooper themselves is a blast and a half you can’t get anywhere else.
We laugh and cry together. We freeze, sweat, and bleed together. Together we drink terrible coffee mixed with coke, try to cure allergies with vodka, jump into a freezing cold lake, run into a hedgerow of bushes and get scarred for life, get smoked out a tipi, learn a new dance, or try to fight with a broken sword because we don’t have a replacement on set.
We make jokes with each other, get frustrated when no one can remember their lines for take after take after take, or get stuck in an endless cycle of non-stop giggles. We explore new places together or get comfy in familiar ones. We wake up early or stay up way too late – or both in some cases.
You jump and run, dance and fight, and at the end of a long film shoot we collapse from exhaustion and hang out with our friends who are just as tired as you are. We film when we’re sick and get sympathy because everyone understands what’s it like to do that. We’ve all been there before.
We’ve been there for each other and sometimes against each other. We quarrel and make up, get frustrated, injured, or just break down, and when just when you think you can’t go on someone else comforts you - sometimes with words sometimes with just understanding silence – and you know you’ll be okay because you have someone who understands you, and yes I’m talking about myself here as well.
People who come back to film with me year after year do so because of the great memories we make together, to see the people who understand each other and have been through hell and back together on a film shoot. It’s the only time you can be with people who have known you for years. Even if you only see each other once a year or once every few years when you meet again it’s like no time has passed at all.
When we began filming most of us were in high school, a few were in middle school, and one or two in college. We grew up together. Some of us have lived together. Some have married people we met through our filming friends and others have brought their significant others to the set where we all know they will end up on screen.
We have gone from being children to having children and you know I am going to film with your kids at some point, right? We have gone our separate ways and moved all across the country from the West Coast to the East Coast, from Washington State to Maryland to Texas. Many of us have visited other countries, some have even moved to other countries and settled down there.
We have celebrated success for each other, celebrated weddings and birth, and shown compassion and concern when life is tough no matter how far away from each other we are. We have loved each other, been there for each other, and we have lost some of those we love such as Marilyn Whalen and Christopher Stasheff.
We’re together even when apart, bound to each other through countless film shoots. We all show up with one goal in mind: we film to have fun. We film to make great memories.
I hope those memories will last everyone a life time and I hope that as SFF celebrates 25 years that we can continue making memories for 25 more. Although we may have to be filming in wheelchairs by then…
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