Day 2 - January 10, 2011

Today began my first full day on set.  To say the least I was scared, nervous and excited all at the same time!  Call time was 8 a.m. and I know that I will never be late to set because I get picked up with all of the producers and directors so when they get there, they are on time no matter what time it really is.  The weird thing about Amsterdam this time of year is that even when we get to set at 8, it doesn't start getting light until at least 8:30 or 9 in the morning.  Imagine trying to get up for work at 7 in the morning when it looks like it is midnight outside, doesn't bode well for the snooze alarm.  That I can tell you. 

My official title and capacity on set is 2nd A.D. (2nd Assistant Director).  Which sounds somewhat scary but it treads the line of being the director and the assistant directors bitch to actually doing some important work.  But along with being 2nd A.D. I am also shadowing the man who is responsible for script supervising and continuity because there are several days in which he will be gone and ill be responsible for sitting in front of the monitor with the script and making sure the wounds, the hair, the props are all in the same spot they were before the scene started.  It requires constant diligence and I can only hope that I will be up for the task.

On the first day of shooting, first day for me that is, was shooting the limo and shooting scenes.  The limo had Thai guards and thugs coming out of it and entering a warehouse that was their hide-a-way.  Just that tiny scene took most of the morning because you have to get the shot from every P.O.V (Point of View) so you run the same three lines upwards of 50 times so you can get every angle so the editor has everything to choose from asthetically.  The second half of the day was an actor named Vince van Ommen who is a police officer who gets shot in the line of duty and has two squibs under his shirt that explode to look like gun holes with blood pouring out of it.  You see it in the movies all the time but to actually see it happen in real life was very, very cool.  We had to be extra careful because we only had one take because we only had one extra shirt.  It was a "get it right the first time" mentality or you're screwed.

All of the filming was very cool but it was VERY cold out.  I used a little brother hunting tactic and shoved hand warmers in my boots.  I am not sure how effective they were but I am sure I would be much worse for wear had I not had them.

One thing that pleasantly surprised me on set was how genuinely nice everyone was.  Regardless of the language barrier and the stress everyone is under trying to film a feature film in a month with a small crew, everyone seemed happy and energetic to be there and I feel like some of these wonderful people could become fast friends!

As chance would have it we wrapped early that day.  Whether it was because Amy and I were there doing a splendid job or because we just had a short shoot day, who knows but I would like to think it was the first one, we went out to eat at probably the only rib joint in the whole of the Netherlands. (Below is a picture of us all at the restaurant).  Since three of the six people that I am here with have or do live here, they knew of a little restaurant that served arguably the best ribs with the most mouthwatering baked potatoes.  The Dutch don't mess around when it comes to butter here, they use it and they use it a lot.  The butter on our pots were a garlic/chive butter.  Let's just say I could eat it by the stick and not feel bad about it.  After they took us out to dinner we had beer and spirits to follow.  But since I am not sure I would like to share the entirety of my pre-birthday night with everyone on the web I will just leave it at this, I was in bed by midnight.

Til Tomorrow,

-M