Break a Leg

Hello Swamblers and Swamblerettes --

We haven't had a fun blog in a while, so here I am, staying up late, pouring my heart out to you. But today's blog isn't just any blog -- today's blog has stories.

So, sit down, grab a charred marshmellow skewered on a broken down wire hangar, stick it between two graham crackers and a piece of chocolate and listen.

This sunday we shot one of our more stranger shoots. Now, you all know we have very odd stories to tell -- that's because we seem to be magnets for odd events. For example, it seems wherever we shoot, construction is happening. Literally, anywhere, inside, outside, anywhere we shoot, a house needs to be built or unbuilt or rebuilt. 

This sunday was no different. Well, it was, in that there was no construction. But, oh, the weird stuff!

This sunday we shot what we quietly and dauntingly called, "The Sewer Scenes." These are scenes that should take place in the sewers. We can't build or get actual sewers, so we must find the closest thing we can -- an abandoned, flooded World War II bunker on a hill overlooking San Francisco. 

Now, when we started getting this bunker ready, we suddenly realized that in the corner of it was a small bird's nest with baby birds in it. Cute, right? It was. Except that the mother bird, a sparrow, needed to constantly get in to feed the birds. Again, cute. Except, here's the thing -- when you stand in front of a bunker door that holds a mother bird's babies, its going to -- and I'm not sure if you know this or not -- circle around you madly and randomely dive bomb whoever is near.

It's just what they do.

So, weird occurrence number 1 -- mother bird needs to feed its babies and will dive bomb any who stand in her way. We, eventually, learned to live with her. When she needed to get in, we'd move, she fed the babies, flew out, and we continued to shoot. If the babies started squeaking, we'd say, "Shh, birds, shhh" and they'd stop -- presuming, I think, that we were its mothers.

Weird occurrence number 2 -- a photoshoot happens right behind our set. Like a model photoshoot. So, we do what anyone would do in that situation -- we dare Dustin (Mint) to go up to the photographers with his camera and start taking pictures of her too, while we film it.

He's Dustin. He is the man I used to give challenges to every time we drove through the Golden Gate Bridge toll booth (we went to college together, so it happened quite frequently) -- challenges like, singing everything he said or talking in a made-up language.

So, of course, to him, this challenge is a piece of cake. Observe:

Dustin gets ready to achieve his mission.

Dustin heads off. He goes up to that woman -- who has nothing to do with the photoshoot, and asks if he can take a picture, she says, "Sure!" Let me repeat that -- the random woman who has nothing to do with the photoshoot gives Dustin permission to take pictures there.

Dustin stays true to his word, and achieves his assignment with the ease of a veteran.

And.. possibly my favorite picture of all time -- Dustin receiving the look of death from one of the photographers. Seriously, look at the sheer fury in that guy's eyes -- if looks could kill, Dustin would've exploded seconds after that glare.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was our shoot. I'd like to leave you with something special, though. We're extremely happy with the footage we got at this shoot and, honestly, at a lot of the other locations which we painstakingly sought out. We're proud of how this episode is looking, visually, and I'd like to give you a tiny sneak preview of the scene with two pictures of the shoot.

You can, by the way, click on the pictures to enlarge them.  

Interest piqued?

Thanks for reading, guys. Stay tuned for the Pilot, Part 3 bloopers and perhaps another blog sometime this week.

-Yuri, that guy you sort of know in passing.