After two weeks of sleepless nights, I seem to have boundless energy. I think I may have tip-toed past the realm of exhaustion and entered the one labeled “giddy euphoria”. Maybe it’s relief. Denial. Maybe it’s the veal parmigiana I had at “Monte Carlo”. Regardless, my first project as director has wrapped principal photography and the weight has been lifted. And to further underline my derangement, I’ll say this: I didn’t want it to end.

THE MONEY SHOT

But let me ‘splain further. At 5:35 tonight, we were playing catch up. During our four days of filming, there were several scenes, beats, etc. that I felt were missing. As a result, we hurried over to a generic location inside Slate Run Park in central Ohio to snag those ingredients we needed to enhance the telling of “Untold”. As we cut on what I thought to be our last shot for the film shoot, I realized what was missing: our last shot for the film. THE last shot. The one that makes us feel all warm inside. That leaves us feeling like maybe the world isn’t such an armpit afterall, that just maybe there’s some cause for celebration in this sad and fragile world. Yeah, that last shot. Didn’t have it.

Now my intention all along had been to run back to this spot where we shot an earlier sequence; our lead character lost his hat while dashing down a hill. I thought “wouldn’t it be swell to have him pull his old body back up that hill, grab his hat, and saunter on over the horizon. Magical, si? Si.

But no, that location was a good hour from where we were tonight, and we had about ten more minutes of decent light before dark.

MAYBE IF I DON’T SAY ANYTHING, EVERYTHING WILL HAPPEN THE WAY I WANT IT TO.

Secretly I had hoped that Ed Vaughan, our lead, would chime in with a, “don’t worry, Sam. Wherever you need me to be at this time tomorrow night, I’m there.” Clearly, that wasn’t about to happen; this man had already given up four days of his time for no money. He had run through forests illegally for three straight days. He had walked into somebody’s front door who was not aware there was a film being shot on their property. Clearly this man had sacrificed enough for our little cause.

So I had to think of something excruciatingly fast. I thought of looking for another hill just like the one in our dashing sequence. Not a hill in sight. I thought of using footage we already had. Nothing sprang to mind. So, with about five good minutes of light left on our last day of shooting, I threw down the camera in the grass, we framed our actor up, and we shot him disappearing into the blades of grass. The sky above him fanned out an array of grays and blues, and in the distance a pale pink. It was marvelous. It was the most fun I have had on this entire project.

This project, as I’m sure you may have guessed from my last blog, was not all that fun for me. I had surrendered to panic. I was fondled by defeat. I was sodomized by sullenness (sorry, too subtle?). Here all these people were giving their weekends, even their weekdays to this project. And all I wanted to do was wriggle myself out of the responsibility of any of it.

But then we got that shot. That one that made me feel all funny inside, like the first time you french kiss (am I doing this right? Is this wrong? Is this one of the Ten Commandments?). That shot that made me feel like a pro. Like an old pro. Like maybe I’m not meant solely for great disasters.

What exactly I’m going to do with this newfound self-respect is anyone’s guess. Who am I kidding. Most likely, I’ll go back to the old ways. My comfort zone. To feeling like I should just stick with acting and wait for the SAG checks to float down from on high. Not to mention, I DO still have to edit this thing. To sift through all the mistakes. The soft focus. The weak lighting. The aspirations that fell a tad short.

But until then… giddy euphoria.

Ignorance, afterall, is bliss.

-Sam Jaeger

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