At A Sad Bar...

The first scene that I remember filming (it has been 10 years so I will not swear on the chronological accuracy of everything recorded here) in the summer of 2007 was a scene titled "INT. SAD BAR". As I was only about 17, I had never been to a bar. I still do not know what would make a bar sad, but I guess it got the somber mood across.

As the day's filming began, there was a thunderstorm. It didn't change our plans, as we were only filming inside. I thought it would add to the atmosphere to have thunder rumbling in the background and raindrops hitting the roof, and it did. What we did not expect was for the power to go out right as we began filming.

When you are making a movie with no budget and using amateur performers, scheduling is not easy. So there was no way I was going to reschedule the day's filming. Instead, we lit the scene using candles and flashlights.  Thank goodness it was a sad bar and not a bright, happy bar.  It also meant that we had a limited number of takes since the camera batteries would not last forever.

The master performance of the day came from my friend Ross, who played the sad bartender. As I had written his lines, they were very bland and provided exposition to lead our main characters to the next scene. Ross did an extraordinary job injecting his own take on the character, which is exactly what I wanted. His sad bartender character is hilarious. He turned a minor character into a memorable one with just one scene.