12 Films. 12 Weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer.

“Proposal” Post-Mortem & Pictures

Shooting on The Proposal wrapped shortly after sunset yesterday. And the upshot from the shoot very much mirrored Keith’s mantra for the day, because there were no chickens.

It is said that there are no small parts, only small actors and on this day every last actor came through in huge ways. Their professionalism, selflessness and gamesmanship turned a potential disaster into something that could be quite wonderful.

It was the plan all along to wait until late in the day to start shooting, since Keith wanted to shoot as much as possible in that perfect “violet hour” evening lighting. So we called the cast at noon, coffee-and-bageled, and applied sunscreen, and then rehearsed from 1-3PM on the roof, going over lines, blocking and the camera movements. We let most of the cast go until dinner at 4:45PM and shot an interior with Fauvell and Keith in the intervening hours.

After dinner, we shot a quick exterior with Christian Rosakiss and Madelyne Camera and at 6PM we began shooting the scenes on the roof – the scenes which would comprise the majority of the film. We had about 120 minutes until we hit 8PM, the “danger zone” – and about 20 shots to get. That is a lot of shots to squeeze into two hours, and as the minutes passed I seriously wondered if we would get enough to actually HAVE a coherent film. By the look in Keith’s eyes, I knew he was wondering the same thing. To make matters even crazier, as 8 o’clock approached, someone in their car spotted us on our roof, stopped their car, picked up a rock and threw it at the camera, missing DP Giuseppe Pugliese’s head by inches. They peeled off into the night and we manically continued shooting.

Evidence of the first attempted assault against 12in12!

As evening turned into dusk and dusk into dark, nature, the camera and the actors somehow cooperated perfectly and it was hard to not feel the hand of something larger than ourselves helping us out. We haven’t started editing the film, but that feeling of fighting against the dying of the light with the whole cast and crew working hard and fast makes me feel that we may have something special on our hands.

Stay tuned. Til Friday, enjoy these pics!

The Ensemble Hangs Out

Studs: Jamal, Josh, Adam, Shawn

Keith and Joe's minds meet, Sumi and Jenessa hard at work

Everyone shows off their new 12in12 shirt!

Posted by Mike