Damn, I f***ed up.

Day 10 - Our first day in the double digits was a spectacular one. We began at the Starlight Drive-In theater on Moreland Ave. For an establishing shot of the drive-in a world without cars, we lined up couples in the various parking spaces in front of a screen with the blood car smack dab in the middle. I didn't know how many extras we were supposed to have, but when I pulled into the parking lot of the drive-in I noticed dozens of cars and racks of clothing just inside the gate. I thought to myself, "Oh my god, we must have 40 extras and a full costume department. As I drove closer, I noticed that it wasn't for Blood Car, but for Starlight's weekly flea market. Alex bought a knee-length jacket once worn by the East German border patrol. Whoever wore it before him must not have been too much bigger.

While we were setting up for a blood gag in which one of the agents has his brains blown onto the window of the blood car, something spiritual happened to me. I sat just outside the concession building in the middle of an empty, wavy parking lot watching the setup down near screen three. I was listening to sad music and suddenly our 2nd Unit DP Hugh started throwing a bouncy ball to our DP Adam. They were at least 50 yards apart. It was so quiet and the air so temperate and calm that I wished I could freeze time and stay in that moment forever. We were making a film on a sunny day in an empty drive-in theater. It felt like a good bible story.

There were an inordinate number of ladybugs flying around and crawling on us at the drive-in. I'm not sure why, but I'm going to uncover the secret. Some man also showed up to throw away garbage at a nearby dumpster. His pit bull was with him and someone said he said it was a fighting dog. If that's true, I hope he goes to jail.

We then moved to a gas station in Stockbridge, which was nostalgic for some of us on the crew because we worked on Stomp!Shout!Scream! there last October. This scene featured the carjacker played by Mister Malt, who I've mentioned earlier. He is part of a burgeoning hip-hop group named The Scavengers. Never before have I met someone so humble and dedicated to a craft he knows nothing about. It was his first time and the jitters were evident, but he treated the scene like he must approach his music, with unfazed concentration, artistry and a critical eye. The heading for this post is a quote from Mister Malt, which he said almost every time he forgot a line. Despite his claims of nervousness, he nailed the scene with flying colors.

Earlier in the day, while our G&E crew was setting up a 20K on some scaffolding with the help of a small condor(a hydraulic lift on wheels), a representative of OSHA stopped by. He scolded us for having two people in the bucket of the lift without safety harnesses. He did not issue us a citation. I'm not sure if he was just driving by and was bored or if he was an asylum escapee in masquerade. A badge was flashed, however.

My quote of the day is from one of our extras: You got blood on my banana.