Final Days
Saturday, October 8, 2022
A long overdue update is finally here — just as gorgeous fall weather descends on us in the rogue valley. It’s mesmerizing. If you look closely and stare long enough, you can actually see the leaves turning red, orange, yellow in real time.
I started ABOVE THE TREES in the winter of 2021 — peak pandemic, when the branches were cold and bare. The big idea behind this project was to film a movie myself sporadically, organically — and other adverbs I’ve been told not to use — spontaneously, creatively, beautifully…all here in Southern Oregon.
In my previous blog posts, you can read about the motivation behind doing it this way. To summarize, it was to make another movie without rushing — to make the production ongoing and somehow existing in the fabric of our lives.
Sometimes we took off weeks and months. Some days we’d only shoot for two hours. Some weeks we’d film just one calendar day. On two occasions, we filmed four consecutive days.
None of our shoot days ever exceeded 8 hours.
And our lives never stopped. We worked our jobs and threw ourselves into other gigs, projects and responsibilities. We saw our families and our friends. We went on vacations. The schedule evolved and often changed at the last minute. It was never quite in stone and we never freaked out. We just went with the flow and trusted the process. We still expected a lot of ourselves and our work — but we stayed detached from it. We kept pivoting and embracing the challenge. And now we’ve reached the end.
While scripting, I wrote some of these roles for actors who live in town. Actors who I know, love and respect. Actors who were open to this big idea and trusted me enough to say yes. And not a reluctant yes, but an enthusiastic one. We are lucky to have many wonderful actors in this movie, but I have to single out my friends Luis Rodriguez, Danielle Kelly, Barret O’Brien and Danforth Comins for being the magnetic foundation of our cast. And for being so available and committed over an extended period of time.
If you’re a screenwriter, you know that it all happens first in your mind — the performances — but it was our entire cast who exceeded my expectations and made these performances better. And some of our cast came along on cue — surprising us with their availability and talents. Erica Sullivan, Mark Schnieder, Chris Butler and Julian Remulla took on roles at just the right time. Marlyn Mason, Theo Sharpe, Kirk Mckenzie, Teresa Cisneros, Levi Anderson, Troy Wohosky, Malaya Wohosky and Bob Burton. There were many others too — who fleshed out their characters from the page and brought them to life with their talent and personalities. They excavated new ideas and shades — new idiosyncrasies. New logic. And they made them live in real places I saw in Southern Oregon; hiking trials, creek beds, court rooms, swimming pools, restaurants, ambulances, parks, parking lots, hotel rooms, jails, boxing rings, hospitals, back yards, city streets.
We only have a few things left to shoot, so it’s not quite a wrap yet. But still, I wanted to say thank you publicly to our amazing, tiny crew and cast before it’s all over. Endless thanks to Luis Rodriguez and Annie Lundgren for producing with me on behalf of Joma Films and Between Buildings LLC. This movie wouldn’t exist without these two special and talented people. Thank you to Tia Reagan for helping out on so many shoot days with her artistry. And thanks to the many businesses and locations who supported us freely and let us film in their spaces. You know who you are and we’ll be calling out your generosity for the life of this film.
Finally, this kind of filmmaking couldn’t happen without our cast who embraced working in an unusual way and without a net. As I often like to say, there’s nothing more worthless than a screenplay after you’re done filming it. Because now it’s a living and breathing movie. And one day soon we’ll get to share it with you. 🎬
