Hotels and Restaurants

The title sounds like a hospitality review site, but it is actually the settings of the scenes filmed within one day.

My friend Rickey's family had a large guest room in their house. It had a pair of twin beds that looked like it could be a hotel room. Years later, I ended up cutting most of the hotel scenes, but they were still an enjoyable experience for my friends involved in the shoot. This was at a time when most consumer level cameras still recorded video on tapes. Each tape could hold an hour of video at most. For all the filming, we must have used about 25 tapes. I mention this now because one tape ran out in the middle of a career-highlight performance at this hotel setting. Not really, it was simply a shot of Slim trying to get into bed at the hotel. To change the tape, the camera had to be removed from the tripod, turned upside down, the first tape was then ejected vertically and the second tape fell into place.

Rickey's family also owned and operated a Japanese Restaurant (today they own and operate Yoshi Restaurant, which is the best Japanese restaurant in Maine). They were very kind to allow us to film at their restaurant before it opened for lunch. As a zero budget film, the important thing to keep in mind while filming at this unopened restaurant was that every other table was empty. We were careful (mostly) to aim the camera away from the other empty tables. Some carefully placed crowd sounds helped the illusion as well. The best part about filming at this restaurant was that we were given free food to eat as we worked. I cannot overstate how generous Rickey's family is.