After the location for the roadblock scene fell through last week, for various reasons, we were starting to get a little worried. This is a major, if not very long, scene in the film, and involves a lot of people. Rob had rounded up a good number of extras, so canceling would have been a major problem. Fortunately, Claire was able to do some scouting around for us, and eventually negotiated the use of a long drive through the woods, leading to the house of her friend, Lydia.

The new location was even better than where we'd originally planned on filming. The only catch was, I'd never been there (although, I had a ROUGH idea where it was), and Claire had to be in Northern Maine for the day. People started showing up in Dover around 9:30am, so it looked, at first, as if we had a chance of launching on time. (I'd planned on caravaning over around 11am and beginning filming shortly after that.)

It didn't work out that way, of course. By the time we had everyone together, including some stragglers, it was past noon. The first attempt at a caravan ended up with me and about half of the cars pulled over on the side of Henry Law Ave., waiting for the second half, which had been stopped by a light. Unfortunately, when the light turned, those cars proceeded to go forward and miss the turn onto Henry Law. Eventually, I took the half I was leading forward, while Erich went back to find the others.

I blew right past the entrance to the drive on Back Road, and had to call Claire on her cell to figure out where I'd missed the turn. That wasn't too complicated, and we found it fairly quickly, after that.

However, the others, having eventually found their way back to my apartment, and met up with Erich, were having problems of their own. They set out, but managed to get split up yet again - I think at the same light that foiled us the first time. Some found their way back to my apartment, but Rob's brother, Chris, and his friend, Sammi, were off in the Outback for a while.

In the meantime, Mark Landry showed up. We already knew he'd be late, due to work, but his arrival at this point just added to the confusion. By the time everyone was finally rounded up and at the location, it was close to 2pm.

In this area, at this time of year, the sun sets around 5:30pm, and really, the lighting starts to look dramatically different about an hour before that. So we had about two hours to get the scene shot. As it was, we went a bit longer than that, so the final shots have the sun a bit low in the sky.

Apart from getting lost, things went relatively smoothly, although the drive was so slick with ice, several of us fell down. Not me, personally, although I had a few close calls (while carrying the camera, no less!), but Kevin Barrett gave us a very dramatic and, I have to say, very funny pratfall while getting out of the "police cruiser". It's all on tape, so viewers will be able to enjoy his suffering in the outtakes. (No, he wasn't actually hurt.)

Rob also brought along his friend, Mike, who's been studying film at school. He ended up being my impromptu Production Assistant for the day, and he was immensely helpful. After the equipment he's been trained to use in his classes, our guerilla setup must have seemed crude, but hopefully he learned something from being on location with us. I certainly wouldn't mind if he joined us again on future filming days.

The footage came out great, although I was dismayed to see that the camera still introduces occasional digital artifacts. It will have to be serviced, if we can track down where to get that done. Fortunately, we still have the Canon XL2, as a backup.