Happy Holidays 2022 - Filming in a Winter Wonderland!

                    Happy Holidays for 2022!

Let's celebrate with a Winter edition

of Survivor's Club!

Over the years we have filmed a LOT in the cold.  Since most if not all of us were in high school, then college, for the first five years of filming it was natural to plan film shoots during winter vacation. In the later years when people were scattered across the country it was easier to get people together to film when they were home for a week at Christmas. That meant there has been a lot of filming in the winter which has to many frozen fingers and toes as well as more than one cold and/or flu.

However, there were not that many film shoots where there was snow on the ground, and even less when it was actively snowing. Just because there was snow on the ground didn't mean it was colder than on other days of filming, but it was a visible indication of just how cold it was that day.  So for an Xmas Survivor's Club post, let's talk about the times we filmed in a winter wonderland of bright white snow! 

The first time we actually filmed outside when there was snow - and when it was actively snowing - was during the big, long shoot for the last set of scenes in The Dragon & The Unicorn.  The scenes take place inside a house at an elegant dinner party so everyone is dressed in evening gowns (well, the guys are in suits, although if they had really wanted to wear evening gowns that would have been okay with me).  

The first scene we filmed involved Rachel Zoralee and Nina Samii coming inside from the cold and having a conversation by the door.  Although we don't really see the snow due to the bright light from outside, the actors had to come in and out multiple times and even wait outside while we get things ready between shots. At least they had coats draped over their shoulders (it took to long for them to actually take them off in the shot). 

This set of scenes includes a big fight between the hero Lily and the villain Asarai that takes them all around the house, up a spiral staircase, and even outside on a balcony.  They aren't outside for long but you can clearly see that not only is there snow on the ground (and the railing) it is actively snowing as well. It took probably about 10-20 minutes to film that short clip and although that's not a lot of time outside in the cold and snow, it still wasn't pleasant considering both actors were in sleeveless evening gowns and I think Nina might have been barefoot.  Yikes.

Later in the day we filmed a scene from earlier in the script. The light was just starting to fade and it was still snowing.  Annamarie, again wearing no sleeves, had to come in from outside for multiple takes, standing in the snow waiting for her clue and trying not to freeze her arms off.  You can see the snow from inside the windows, but it's easy to miss if you're not looking for it.  As winter shoots go it wasn't too bad, but still not great.  In fact, it was a very pleasant experience compared to other snow shoots!

The next time we filmed in the snow was a month or two later.  Before I was done filming The Dragon & The Unicorn I began another production, which was very typical for me at the time. The next production was a musical fairy tale called The King of Elflin's Daughter. Although most of the scenes take place in the beautiful spring and summer of Allerton Park - I mean "Elflin" - there are a handful of scenes that take place in the Mortal World.  

I wanted to contrast the two by filming the Mortal World scenes in the cold and barren winter landscape of a forest.  Well, I certainly got the cold part right.  The bare trees and grey sky were perfect.  There was even snow on the ground which added to the winter look.  However, the snow was mostly melted rather than blanketing the ground.  It was also muddy due to the melting snow, however the temperature must have been dropping during the day because despite the muddy ground it was freezing cold.  Muddy, snowy, and cold. Sounds like February in Illinois to me!

It has to be a certain temperature to snow, 32 degrees F to be specific.  If it's too cold or too warm it won't snow, but once it does snow there is no limit to how cold it can get and still have snow hanging around.  It was MUCH colder on the King of Elflin's Daughter shoot then it was when we filmed The Dragon & The Unicorn. It was definitely in the 20s when we filmed.  Bitterly cold is the best way to describe it.  

Unfortunately the costumes did not allow for coats(except for Melanie who needed one with her partially sheer dress - she got a cloak).  So I told the actors to layer up under the costumes and they wore coats between shots when possible.  I remember Annamarie MacLeod declaring to the camera that she had no hands at one point because they were so cold, and Ryan Segovich, who was on clapboard duty that day, announced "Really cold day, Take 1!"

It would be another four years before I made the actors film in the snow and boy howdy was it rough for them!  We filmed Dream Chasers in the late fall of 2002.  In late November there was a snow storm that blanketed the most of Southern Illinois where we were filming. That's a little too early in the year for that much snow, so I was not expecting it to say the least.  It was several inches, possible a whole a foot of snow, so a lot. As it often happens in Illinois in the winter once it snows then the temperature drops even more. Usually in November the snow wouldn't stick around for long, but this one did. 

Shortly after the snow storm we were scheduled to film the Council scenes in the little amphitheater on the side of the Student Center, so at least we were close enough to an indoor location the actors could warm up between scenes. 

Unfortunately the main Council scene is pretty long and - of course - the main actors were not wearing coats. They weren't even able to layer their clothing for continuity reasons. So all three girls were freezing their butts off.  Between shots they huddled together for warmth. Unfortunately I don't have that footage anymore because I lost the tape, so we don't get to see their desperate attempts to stay warm, which is sad because it was really funny to watch.  I'm such a sadist. 

The other actors weren't in as bad of a situation, except for Christi Gerrish who also couldn't wear a coat but could layer up a little. The actors who played the Council members were all wearing fancy robes and could wear whatever they wanted underneath - including coats - as long as it didn't look too bulky. Although the robes did not provide much warmth it was still far better than the leads had to deal with. 

The winner for warmth that day was Syndi Eller whose character always wore a black leather duster coat. The loser was Paul who had to fall backwards onto the snow covered ground in nothing but a short sleeved shirt. Oof, that was not fun to watch and even less fun for him to do.  I, of course, could wear a coat but I'm not sure I did since I sometimes ditch my coat in solidarity with the freezing actors.  Sometimes, but probably not that day. If I'm too cold I can't operate the camera.  Speaking of the camera I'm not sure if we had problems with it due to the cold, but I think it was okay. The actors were not and the leads gathered around the hot air dryers in the bathroom to warm up their frozen fingers after the shoot was over. 

We did go back out later to shoot a scene after the sun had set in the same place and another actor ended up falling into the snow, but he had a robe on and warmer clothes under it so it wasn't as bad for him. Of course he actually had to stay laying down in the snow for a while so...it was pretty bad, especially since it was even more cold at night. Despite the lack of sun during the day there wasn't any wind, however at night there was a bit of a breeze. 

Although I really didn't like the snow on the ground for asthetic reasons - I would definitely have preferred clear ground for it - I was happy to snow for the scenes we filmed the next day at Fort De Chartres. The setting was supposed to look abandoned and desolate so the snow worked well for that. Unfortunately that turned out to be the coldest day of filming on record to date - with it actually being colder inside the stone fort then outside by the snow!  You can read more about it in this the Survivors's Club post.

The last day of filming in the snow for Dream Chasers was several days later - and yes the snow was still around because it was still way too cold for it to melt. In fact it might have warmed up enough to snow again then the temperature dropped back into the early 20s or late teens.  I don't think we ever actually filmed outside in single digit temperature - yet. I'm not that cruel. Yet. It was a short scene with the actress playing pre-curse Maria throwing a tantrum and getting cursed. JR braved the cold and did a great job. She also got to wear a coat. I'm pretty sure she would not have agreed to do it without the coat. 

That was in 2002. The next time we filmed in the snow was in late December of 2009, so seven years later. That day we filmed Twisted Tales: Hulde in a blizzard.  We've never filmed in a blizzard before. It was an interesting experience - fun in its own way - but one I don't care to repeat. I pretty sure the actors feel the same way. It was so bad we didn't even manage to finish filming all the outdoor scenes because the actors ended up being too cold and the equipment quit. You can read more about the Hulde Blizzard in this Survivor's club post.

Exactly one year later we finally filmed the last scenes for Hulde, as well as filming Twisted Tales: The Stranger which is SFF's Christmas movie. I didn't plan on having snow of course - I can't control the weather as much as I really wish I could - but it was fantastic that it happened to snow one or two days early and dumped as much snow as the blizzard had the year before. It was perfect continuity for Hulde and a kind of needed for the script in The Stranger. Since The Stranger was a Christmas movie I am REALLY glad there was snow - and a lot of it.  

There were only a few outdoor scenes and we started with filming the last two for Hulde. The first was short and went well but the second had a little problem.  Annamarie ended up flinging herself into a pile of snow (it was her choice this time, I swear!) but since she was in a snow suit it wasn't a problem. The problem was that the scene takes place in the road and the road VERY icy. Jen Weber had the carefully drive the car and Annamarie had to navigate slipping and sliding on the ice to get from the side of the road into the passenger seat - having to go around the car to do it. 

While I was filming the previous scene with Julia Mayfair the other actors were actually dancing and skating on the ice minus the ice skates. That's how slippery it was.  Thankfully that was the only scene in the road. Given how icy it was I'm surprised we all made it safely too and from the MacLeod farm!

Most of The Stranger was filmed inside, so that was very nice for the actors.  The first scene outside involved Mark MacLeod, Annamarie, and the dogs but the dogs are Huskies so they love the snow and everyone else was wearing coats so it wasn't too bad. It took quite a while to film since working with animals is unpredictable and never easy, but we got it filmed in the end and then enjoyed a hot meal indoors.

The only problematic part of the shoot was when Annamarie had to transform into Mary and was basically wearing a curtain as a dress and a thin veil thing.  She was able to wear her snow pants underneath but the rest of her was freezing cold. She agreed to freeze her buns off for one short shot, but insisted that I only got one take and that was it. Oh and she was sick for the whole shoot so that was...fun. You can read more about this shoot in the Production Diary.

That was the last time we filmed in the snow. Once I moved out of Illinois to be near my niblings I rarely came back to Champaign.  I did live there again for four years but I was really busy with taking care of my parents and didn't do a lot of filming.  We did film Spoon River Anthology with two shoots - one in October of 2016 and the other in February of 2018.  That was the last winter shoot to date and obviously did not have snow.  Will we ever film in the snow again?  Maybe, maybe not.  It all depends on timing and the weather gods.  Filming in the snow has many challenges but it can be fun - as long as everyone gets to wear a coat. Which rarely happens. So it's probably better not to film in the snow again.

To all those who filmed in a Winter Wonderland of snow, ice, and frostbite, I thank you and salute you:

Rachel Anderson

Mike Baym

Danalyn Byle

Paul Costello

Ryan Davis

Morgan Dietkus

Syndi Eller

Christi Gerrish

Mike H.

Jenny Hart

Adam Herricks

Chris Hutchens

T.J.

Dan M.

Don.M.

Annamarie MacLeod

Jacob MacLeod

Mark MacLeod

Julia Mayfair

Virginia McCreary

James McKinley

Diana Neatrour

Joe Ojeda

Margaret Olson

J.R.

Nina Samii

Kieth Segovich

Ryan Segovich

Holly Simons

Edward Stasheff

Morgan Thomas

Melanie Travers

Jen Weber

Brittany Ann Whalen

Rachel Zoralee

Willow, Bone, & Lucy

Now here’s a blanket and some hot tea – go warm up inside. 

Jack Frost had been nipping at your nose long enough - go enjoy the chestnuts roasting on the open fire. 

25 Days of SFF: Day 2 – Top 5 Worst Weather Film Shoots

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. I’ll try to make these posts short but I’m pretty long winded and like to talk so…they’re probably all going to be pretty long. Enjoy? 

 Top 5 Worst Weather Film Shoots 

 The #1 thing people hate most about filming the weather, which is no surprise when you think about the kinds of weather I’ve forced people to film in. The fact that there is such a thing as the SFF Survivor’s Club which is mostly due to bad weather should tell you something about what the actors have to go through. In the poll I asked people which kind of weather they hated to film in the most. Some said rain, some said heat, but the majority said they hated to film in the cold. I ranked these terrible days of weather according to those results. 

 #5 – Together Again in Misery 

 I’ve made actors film in the rain many times before. Sometimes it’s just a drizzle, sometimes it’s a steady rain. However no thunderstorm has ever been as bad as the day we filmed scene for Episode 22 (Together Again) of Pandora’s Box. It was pouring rain, constant massive amounts of rain deluged the woods where we were filming and all the actors got drenched. 

 Read more about it here. 

 #4 – The Great Blizzard 

 Have you ever filmed in a blizzard? We have! I’m not talking about a few snowflakes either, I mean a full on blizzard – wind and snow tossing the actors around and making it hard to even see anything. Although it was cold while it was snowing it actually became colder once it stopped. Even the sun shining didn’t warm things up much. 

 Read more about it here. 

 #3 – The Hottest Day of Filming 

 Being over 400 lbs I have plenty of natural insulation so the cold doesn’t bother me as much as it does for other actors. I also am willing to take my coat off and suffer with them, just as long as my hands are warm enough not to shake the camera. However, I suffer just as much if not more in the heat. Hot days are the worst for and the hottest day of filming was when we shot scenes for The Gift Bearer movie, Time After Time, in the summer of 2012. I had often joked about making the actors dress up in hot Victorian costumes in the middle of summer but I never really meant for it to happen. But it did. You can see the actors sweating and I swear everyone had pretty much melted by the end. 

 Read more about it here. 

 #2 – A Bad Day to Die 

 What’s worse then being hot? How about being in hot costumes? Not bad enough? Okay, try wearing hot costumes on a day where the temperature is around 98 degrees and you have to do sword fights, karate fights, and run around in the blazing sun. Still not bad enough? Throw in lots of mosquitos and you have on hell of a terrible film shoot. The place we were filming in for Episode 24, The Final Fight, of Pandora’s Box was the beautiful Allerton park, but Allerton has a river running through it, it was the middle of summer, and I made half the actors lie on the ground covered in sticky sweet fake blood which just turned them into dessert buffets for all the mosquitos. Margaret Olson, Chris Hutchens, and Virginia McCreary had to film in a special kind of hell when I chose a location near a still and shallow pond in a place we nicknamed Mosquito Island. 

 Read more about it here. 

 #1 – The Coldest Day of Filming 

 The actors have had to film in a LOT of cold weather over the years but no set was as cold as Fort De Chartres on a frosty day in December of 2002. There was snow on the ground and although the sun was shining it was a watery winter sun that doesn’t really provide much warmth. It wasn’t even melting the snow. I don’t know what the temperature was outside but it was probably in the upper 20s or low 30s. That was the outside temperature which was bad enough, but inside the Fort it much worse. Possibly single digits. I shocked no one ended up with frostbite. You see Fort De Chartres is built out of stone, and stone holds in the cold. It holds it really well and had been sitting in the sitting in the snow soaking up the cold for several weeks. It was so much colder inside the building then outside of it that the actors actually went outside by the snow to warm up. 

 Read more about it here.

SFF's 24th Anniversary - Celebrating the Survivors!

Over the years there have been 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. I’ve posted about these kinds of days before under the title of Survivor’s Club.  

But what is the Survivor’s Club and how do you join?  

Obviously it’s not a real club, we don’t have meetings or anything, but it’s pretty easy to join – just film with us a few times and odds are you’ll be miserable on the set at least once. 

When it’s a hundred degrees outside, or during a blizzard, or torrential downpour – or film for 18 hours straight, until 3am, or when you have a fever and feel like you’re dying, well basically if you and everyone is miserable you’re a Sine Fine Set Survivor. 


Since many of those scenarios happen with alarming frequency, it doesn’t take long filming with us to join the club.  Survive three or more hellish film shoots and you’ll be a card-carrying member of the SFF Survivor’s Club!

Why would you want to join this club?  I have no idea. You must be a masocist or something. Although I will admit that filming in general is pretty fun and going through hell on set has a way of bringing everyone closer together – at least you’re not alone in your suffering.  You can look back at the filming with pride that you survived. 

That brings me to what I want to celebrate today.  For the 24th Anniversary of Sine Fine Films, I want to salute those members who have survived many shoots with a Survivor’s Club Award.

There are four different levels in the Survivor’s Club.  Each company member receives a survival number that is equal to the number of “Days from Hell/Bad Weather Days” they have participated in.  

Three to five days gets you a Survivor Award:

Six to nine days gets you a Super Survivor Award:

Ten to twenty days earns you the How Did You Survive Award:

Anything over twenty days gets you the How Are You Still Alive Award, and probably a hospital bill:

Survivor’s Club Award members will receive (at their next film shoot) a Survivor’s Club Member Card and a first aid kit.  The higher your award level, the bigger the kit will be. When you graduate to a new Survivor level, you’ll get a new kit!  

Thank you to everyone who has survived these difficult yet sometimes fun days with me!  

Survivor's Club: Don’t Bug Out

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.

Don’t Bug Out

Filming with Annoying Insects

When you film outdoors in the summer you bound to have some problems with bugs. When you film in Central Illinois near any source of water, you’re pretty much screwed.  

Allerton Park is a beautiful, magical place with amazing gardens, statues, and lovely flowers.  There’s also a river that runs through the park and a lovely little pond hidden in the woods but also somehow located near a parking lot.  I mention all this because the number of mosquitoes at Allerton is INSANE.

During Pandora’s Box we filmed at Allerton quite a bit, but the worst day was when we filmed scenes for the final episode.  The day was hot and humid and no matter where we were the mosquitoes were there, ready and waiting in a buzzing army of annoying little suckers. It was awful – and I wasn’t even in costume.  I can only imagination how hard it was for the actors.

The worst part was when we were filming the final scene for the day.  We filmed in a small, isolated parking lot that I did not realize was very close to the “hidden” pond in the woods.  The mosquitoes were so thick you could see them flying past the camera and landing on the actors. As soon as the line was finished the actors were swatting away the bugs so fast they almost looked like new dance moves. We called that location Mosquito Island and I made sure to NEVER film there again in the summer.

We filmed at Allerton again for Pandora’s Box a year later, in a place called the Buddha Pavilion and Fu Dog garden and had the same problem with mosquitoes we had before. They weren’t as bad as Mosquito Island, but what they lacked in number they made up for in viciousness.  By the end of the day everyone had multiple bites and Margaret had a particularly bad bite on her cheek. Ouch!

Allerton isn’t the only location where we had a mosquito problem though. We were filming scenes from Episodes 2 and 3 of Pandora’s Box at Lake of the Woods and there was a very picturesque river in the middle of a densely wooded area. Unfortunately the mosquitoes were crazy there and after filming that one scene we moved to a different and less buggy area to film the rest.

We went to Busey Woods for the first day of filming for Pandora’s Box and I guess I wanted to smell nice because I stupidly put on fruit scented body spray.  Yeah, not smart. I came home covered in mosquito bites and cursing my own stupidity.  We filmed there again the next summer. It had been raining a lot (and actually rained very heavily while we were filming later that afternoon) so the bugs were in full force and the mosquitoes were hungry. Margaret and Annamarie had to fend off the little monsters between shots and even the bug spray we brought wasn’t enough to keep them at bay.

Poor Edward had to do a death scene and lying on the ground in the middle of the hot, humid, and bug infested woods with his face covered in fake blood.  The fake blood I used was a mixture of chocolate syrup and red kool-aid so all the bugs saw was a big buffet.  Ed had trouble staying still and pretending to be dead with his eyes open because the bugs – especially the mosquitoes – were trying to devour him alive.  As soon as the scene was done Ed got the heck out of the woods.  He was probably glad that it rained soon after that!

 I probably shouldn’t have filmed there again but given how much rain there was any wooded area would probably have been just as bad. Although it was near Crystal Lake, now that I think about it, so yeah, filming near lakes and ponds in the middle of a Central Illinois summer is just a terrible idea.  

Mosquitoes may be the most annoying pests at any location, but they’re not the only bugs that cause problems.  During the filming of the King of Elfin’s Daughter there was a huge problem with cicadas.  Apparently there are two main cycles with periodical cicadas – 17 year and 13 years.  Every now and then the two sets of cicadas appear in the same summer and that summer was 1998, so there were a LOT of cicadas! The cicadas were SO LOUD it was unbelievable. You could hardly hear what the actors were saying in one scene were they were surrounded by bushes and trees full of them.  

The sound was more annoying then their physical presence, but they did start dropping from trees while we were filming at one point. Annamarie and the others even made one of them a mascot and named him Froedrick. He traveled with them while we filmed, but met a tragic end when it began to rain and he fell into a puddle and drowned. RIP Froedrick.

Then there's the problem of flies on the set. Most of the time they are just a little annoying, get swatted and eventually take the hint and go away. But during the filming of Twisted Tales’s Magic, Inc. they not only hung around the set, they tried to make a home in one of the costumes. Annamarie was wearing a dress with a taffeta underskirt and a chiffon overskirt.  Whenever she walked across the grass a bunch of flies would travel up the dress and get caught between the two skirts.  We had to continually lift up the overskirt and evict the flies whenever she stood up.  It was annoying but also pretty hilarious. 

There were a lot of bugs on set when we were filming at the Spillway for Episode 5 and 6 of The Gift Bearer. If you’re outside there are bugs and that’s fine – it’s just something you have to deal with and work around. But some actors seem to attract them more than others. For some reason all the bugs wanted to hang out by or on Morgan Thomas that day and she had to deal with several fanbugs throughout the shoot including bees, caterpillars, and spiders. Annamarie and Brittany Ann Whalen had to deal with them to, but they were especially fond of Morgan that day. 

The worst non-mosquito bug problem happened while filming flashback scenes for the movie The Gift Bearer: Time After Time.  It actually ended up being a dangerous situation.  Morgan and Brittany had to run out from a shed, slam the door, and lean against while someone (Drew Thomas) pounded on the door from the inside. They all had to stand inside (in the dark) while I set the shot and during that waiting time they discovered a nasty surprise in the shed – a wasp’s nest.  Poor Drew had to stay inside, in the dark, and pound on the door hoping the wasps (who were startled by all the noise of course) didn’t sting the hell out of him.  Oh, and it was also the HOTTEST day of filming ever for a SFF production, being over a 100 degrees the whole day.

To all those who have suffered with cicadas, were munched by mosquitoes, scared by spiders, and worried about wasps, I thank you and salute you.  There are too many to list since so many people filmed during the hot, humid summers for many productions, but each and every one of you is a real trooper!  

Here’s some bug spray and Afterbite, now get some rest in a cool and bug-free air-conditioned building!

Oh, and here’s some bloopers with bugs: