"Our Pig Reece"

     Finding a restaurant to film in was a daunting task. In Los Angeles, property owners charge a lot of money to rent their space for filming and restaurant owners tend to be of the worst, because for whatever reason, a lot of scenes take place in restaurants. I tried many locations that were supposedly friendly towards independent film makers and realized it's easy to be friendly to someone when you're liquidating them of their savings. Eventually a friend came through and I can't thank him enough. He asked that the restaurant be nameless, so with that said, the information as to who he is and the restaurant we used will remain classified.

     The cinematographers for this scene were Winston and Aaron Tao.  (Aaron also did the coloring in post). They are motivated guys who are passionate about the process.  After seeing their previous work, I was stoked when they said they'd shoot this scene.  The camera we used was a Sony FS7. It's great for filming in low light.  A Movi, or Freefly Movi Gimbal Stabilizer,  was used for many of the shots.  It's a cage like apparatus you put the camera in that allows you to get moving shots without shaky footage.  (Similar to a steadicam).  With the Movi setup, the Tao brothers could hold the apparatus at opposite ends and run across the restaurant with the camera flying over the tables that passed between them. 

      Two new actors to this series were Shea Depmore and Alasdair Martin.  Shea came from the master class of renown acting coach, Howard Fine.  If Howard made her malleable and easy to work with, I thank him.  If not, I retract that thanks.  The Reece part was a little difficult to find.  You'd think more actors would be familiar with the part of a rich, entitled asshole who does way too many drugs, but they just aren't.  The reality is most actors don't have the kind of money where they can do whatever the hell they want, nor have they been acquainted with this type of spoiled sot, so they have nothing to base their performances off of.  This character does exist though and I have witnessed his/her vial shenanigans on more than a few occasions.  Because of this, I a difficult sell for the actors who auditioned for the role.  After boiling down the audition tapes to thespians that almost understood the part, it dawned on me to contact Alasdair.  I had never seen him act, but he had the right personality.  I was relieved when I saw his audition. 

     In addition to Alasdair and Shea, we had Lou Farber as Enzo, the Maitre D and Thad Kellum as the tough "old timer."  They were both new to the game, but acted well and I hope to see them in more parts.

      The assistant director was Glen GoLightly.  With a lot of background actors (who were very professional) and a shoot that ran overnight, he was a big help making sure the set ran smoothly and finished on time. 

      In post production we had an ace with Jamieson Tabb.

      Once again a web was made with a lot of folks giving favors and pay cuts.  A big part to getting these things done is deciding to do it in outlaw fashion - shoot first and ask questions later.