Day 4

Our last day of shooting!

Akasha Villalobos (Amy), Brian Villalobos (James), Alex Poncio (Benny)

Our final day of shooting was at a local gym in Southwest Austin.  Out of all the gyms that we contacted (10+), they were by far the most willing and accommodating to letting us shoot as well as the cheapest option.  The owners were nice enough to allow us to use their location in exchange for some videos that they wanted produced later for their gym.  One of the trainers even gave me and my actors a private training session to see what it's like to be personally trained!  We had found this location only a week or so before shooting, as some of our other options fell through.  So we ended up stumbling into a better-looking, cheaper, and friendlier gym.  Lucky, eh? 

DP Jeff Buras talks with Brian Villalobos. 

Scripty Melissa Porter with Huay-Bing Law

The Assistant Director position is one of the more stressful positions on set.  Or at least it should be.  Along with maybe the cinematographer, they're one of the only positions that is always working nonstop.  A good AD sets the pace and momentum of the set, keeps the production on schedule, and can motivate the crew to work hard without being an @$$.  Which is why I was EXTREMELY lucky to get Micah on board (who's been kind of a mentor of mine throughout film school).  He manages to fit all these critera and beyond.  One of the great things about him is that he's always trying to find ways to make everything run smoother, even if there hasn't been any problems so far.  If he's not directing crew around or pushing us to get our next set up going, you'll see him sitting to the side and trying to discover a potential problem to fix.

1st AD Micah Barber talks over logistics.  Huay's not happy.

My only beef with him is that he was always playing mind games with me - telling me that we were running late when we were actually on time.  But he said those tricks were always calculated; we always get everything we needed so maybe he's just got some major skills.

Reviewing the last take in Video Village.

Camera Assistants Evan Ho and John Anderson

Camera crew!  Jeff, with Evan Ho and John Anderson, did an amazing job.  It seemed like every time I turned around, camera was set up and ready to go and I had a monitor set up for me to watch.  I don't ever remember having to wait for camera dpt. once. 

Co-Actors and real-life husband and wife, Akasha and Brian Villalobos.

Make-up artist Brittany Ladolcetta working on Akasha.

The only photo of Huay smiling.

The G/E crew was crazy smooth and efficient.  And the reason I say that is because I never noticed them.  Jeff and his team lit every scene crazy fast without sacrificing anything aesthetically.  They moved fast and quiet, and got by with breaking only a few things.  (Just kidding, it was minimal damage and we have location insurance).

G/E Carlos Boillat and Gaffer Ben Oliver. 

Thank you to gaffer Ben Oliver, Mike, Diego, Rhett, Carlos, Taylors, Joe, Justin, David and anyone else who helped out in the lighting department.

Sound Mixer Isaac Hammons hard at work.  (Just kidding, he was super-pro on set.  I'm sure this was a posed photo)

Production Designer Katie McDowell.

I'll also give a shout-out here to production designer Katie McDowell, who did an amazing job set-dressing the house location.  There wasn't too much work for her to be done at the gym, but she was a major help on set even though she was juggling projects of her own at the time.  

1st AC Evan Ho with Huay-Bing Law

I can't say enough about the quality of my cast/crew on this set.  Everything ran 1000x better than I could've ever imagined.  Thank you to everyone for the support on and off the set, and hopefully those 4 days were as fun and rewarding for everybody there as it was for me.  

Most of the Merchant Prince Cast/Crew.  85%-ish.