DAY 11
Friday, August 21, 1998

Cascade Elementary
0:30 AM Friday (can it be Friday?)
Quinn, Documentary Dude

So, we've been here three hours and I've already had to reschedule a stunt. That means setting up the pads for Enna's fall from the monkey bars on a separate day here at Cascade, but we only have one more day scheduled here.

It seems a strange comparision to my other important contribution which was figuring out a hook for the crossing gaurd's sign, so he could hang it on his belt. For a funny mental image, put in your mind the camera operators dilegently coming to grips with the new camera and the rest of us waiting. Slowly more and more of the cast is drawn to the large saftey mats for the aforementioned stunt. Flips turn to drops turn to prat-falls until a large group of people is taking turns flopping onto the mats. Not only my esteemed personage, but the director, a parent volenteer, our crossing gaurd, our sound director, and most of our actresses. Each one, or in small groups trying to one-up the fall or jump.

For breakfast, some of us had a bit of the bass (salmon) named Louie. I put him on the grill last night, hoping to salvage some bit of the tasty prop.

-Quinn

Cascade View Elementary
11:08 AM
Alice Holliston, Cast member: "Abbey"

We spend a lot of time here at Casade View Elementary. Nobody really refers to it as Cascade View Elementary, though. We just call it "the school." I don't even know my way to it; that is, I couldn't drive you there. And it's not just because I can't drive, either. To me, the school is just a number on a Locations map. I regret that. Snohomish is a very beautiful town. And it's small. The first day I came here I saw a couple of people wave to each other on the street and I freaked out. I started stage-whispering, "Did you see that? Did you see that? They KNEW each other!" That single thing made me feel more like a city-kid than almost anything. The only thing that beats it out is the view I get every day driving in: all those fields. And cows! I think I saw some cows today, too.

The thing about filming on location is that you can't just get up and leave if you get bored. You have to stay put, or the parent supervisor will get all paranoid and start freaking out. (Especially if the parent supervisor is my mom.) So we work out new ways to entertain ourselves. We play cards and board games and try to coax Jesse (the director) and Mr. Thomsen (the documentary adult) to tell us stories from their youth.

Also, the other members of the crew are very entertaining. Katherine, the continuity and script supervisor, and Charles, the make-up and costume manager, (also known as Script Witch and Powder Boy) have the funniest arguments and just today Jesse reinvented the ever-popular sport of mat-jumping. (For those poor benighted souls who do not know what mat-jumping is, I will explain it to you. You get 1 or 2 big thick squishy blue mats, and prop them up against a wall so they won't slide around. Then everybody takes turns thinking of new and inventive ways to jump on them. A brilliant sport, passes the time wonderfully.)

You may be wondering why we sit around being bored. Well, as you probably will have guessed during the time it has taken you to read these 2 sentences that there is, in fact, a reason. It is, quite simply, that often fewer than 3 people are needed in a certain scene. And while those one or two people are of course sorely missed and their absence is bemoaned throughout all of our psyches, we manage to make do without them. (In fact, one of the most popular pastimes is making fun of them behind their backs.) (Not really.)

Well anyway I do believe there is a chance I may be getting boring. I think I will turn the laptop over to Grace (Finally! ‹Grace) and go do some mat-jumping.

-Alice

Cascade View Elementary
11:20 AM
Robin Stewart, Documentarian

Well, here we are again at the school for the whole day. It's a great location because it's big, it has lots of things we need for the movie, it has a nice place for eating, and there's no one else here for the summer. Also, since we've been here a lot, we're familiar with where the shadows are (for lighting), how the sun moves in relation to the builings, etc., but we have gotten a little sick of the place after being here so often for so long.

The fog yesterday and the day before was pretty neat to look at, but we had to wait for it to clear before we could start shooting. I got some cool footage of people setting up for a scene in it, and a long shot that we can speed up with people moving around, setting up, rehearsing, and you can actually see the fog lift and the sun get more intense.

The documentary is coming along quite well, and as of today we have interviewed all of the actors at least once. George was able to be serious enough to answer our questions, but threw in a few little "George-isms" that really did add to his interview. ("Now THAT is an UGLY blue Dodge sedan.")

We (the documentarians) have been sleeping in a gymnasium in a church. Well, there's a first time for everything. We've gotten some logging (writing down what is on our tapes and where it is on the tape) done (using a TV that was conveniently sitting in the next room), but we still have something like 5 or 6 two-hour tapes to go. Next week the actors and some crew will be staying there too, and that will be interesting. (Fun, too, I imagine.)

The latest funny thing I got on tape was Charles (Makeup) asking Samantha (Props Mistress) and Cassy (Production Manager) a trick question. (Question: What was the president's name in 1970? Answer: Bill Clinton (What was YOUR name in 1970?) Charles, Charles. What a trouble maker.

Well, I guess I've been blabbing long enough. Back to the documentary!

Oh, by the way, if you have questions, comments, or anything else relating to the documentary (like what the heck a documentary is), feel free to email me. (robin_stewart@lakeside.sea.wa)

Cascade View Elementary School Gym
12:19 PM
Grace Cornell, Documentarian

Hello! Somehow we managed to get ourselves stuck at the school for another whole day. I'm sorry if I do not seem to be expressing a great deal of excitement at this prospect, but we are getting all too fammiliar with this building. (This keyboard is impossible to type on!) I think they may be shooting another scene with Enna (Alexis) outside on the monkey bars.

Today has gone pretty well. We have gotten an interview with Jeff (Deal), George (Nick - we got him to stay still long enough to actually answer some serious questions. He did a great job. We were planning to tie him to a chair but Samantha forgot to bring the rope, so we couldn't.), and Deems (Xing Guard/ The Man.) After that we've bee sitting around playing cards and, in my case, trying to make sure that I don't get grouchy and kill someone for no apparent reason. It may be lack of sleep, but I'm in a good mood now.

Last night we saw dailies, which were absoulutely incredible in every way. I will never take movies for granted again. The acting in THE LAST the end is amazing.

One thing has dissapeared during the course of the making of this movie, which is my concept of THEM (not to be confused with the THEM that says everything, i.e., "As they say..."). When I say THEM, I mean the actors and crew of movies. One always tends to think of the people who act in and make movies as seperate from the rest of the populace. They are usually famous, special, elite, etc. That dissapears when the THEM becomes US. A great majority of the actors in this movie are my really good friends. I've gone to school with them for years, sat with them at lunch, went to their birthday parties, laughed with them, cried with them, and on. They are normal kids, not elite professionals at all.

As to the crew, it disturbs the picture when the director or any number of people occupying professional and scary positions can be found, in their infequent breaks, jumping on the trampoline in Katrina's (Liza) backyard or running across a room to fall face down on a mat (See mat-jumping, Alice's entry, 11:08 AM.) However, though Steven Spielberg may not be found, during the shooting of Jurassic park, wrestling with the camera man, I think that this is the best way of making a movie, a variety of people with a variety of ages and a variety of experience in filmmaking. Personally, I don't think Steven Speleberg knows what he's missing.

Grace Cornell

CV Elementary
2:10 PM
Jesse P. Howard, Director

I must admit to a certain lifelong awe of nature and its EVER CHANGING WAYS! And while I do still feel such things, I am frustrated at the relationship that exists betwen our needs for certain weather and natures EVER CHANGING WAYS! We hold for our second change of plan for the day. Too sunny, give up on "the race" and go to "the monkey bars"... Too cloudy, let's go back to "the race." What next? (Disneyland...)

JPH

CVE gym, Snohomish
3:09 PM
Grace Cornell, Documentarian

I have a lot of free time today, so I thought I'd write again. Sam is dawdling, Robin is taping Sam dawdling, and I'm typing on this laptop. I wonder if there is a space between 'lap' and 'top'. Laptop. No, it doesn't look right at all. Well, despite the importance of this deep and philosophical question, I think I'll move on to a topic that people might actually be interested in reading about.

Perhaps I'll write about the town of Snohomish. The first thing that struck me about Snohomish was its size. 15 blocks by 15 blocks. Having visited Manhattan earlier this summer, Snohomish's grandeur didn't particularly impress me, if a town like Snohomish can be said to have any amount of grandeur. It's a lovely town, really, very quaint and extremely generous. I'm speaking of the generosity that a town can be said to have when it charitably submits to the type of polite abuse that is inherant in the trade of independant movie making, like having roads blocked off, passerbys silences, and churches, street corners, and shops taken over. This is not to imply that the people involved in THE LAST the end were anything but polite, reasonable, and sympathetic. The town of Snohomish was, as well, very polite, even if some of the people who were told not to start their cars for the next five minutes were not so.

The other thing that startled me was the amount of antique shops. There seemed to be four or more on every street. I wonder if the market for antiques in Snohomish is profitable enough to support the these numerous shops. There were seven on the street with city hall on it. There are also a suprising amount of churches.

The last thing was that, after a while, you couldn't go more than three blocks without comeing on some place you had already been. People actually knew each other. Frightening, very frightening. We went on a jog aruond Katrina's neighborhood, and it seemed like every one knew her. People in cars would wave to her. It was actually sort of scary.

Well I can't think of a poetic way to end this entry so I'll just say goodbye.

-Grace

CVE
4:07 PM
Todd Howard, Producer

Well. To say I wasn't feeling frustrated would be lying. I have the job of making sure that the money we have lasts. Period. The two things that make that job really difficult are A) We don't have all the money we need (we're short by a few thousand dollars) and B) ALL KINDS of miscellaneous and unexpected expenses continue to come up. Sure, sure, the life of a Producer. All kinds of age-old quips float around the film industry ethers to toss at any weary complainer in any job you can name on the film set, but the fact remains: One still has to perform the daily (hourly) act of making sure that the money we have lasts.

All in all, we have done quite well. We were able to raise over $15,000 in a month. Something everyone said was impossible before this community and the friends and family afar of the Home Movies partners (as well as the friends and families afar of many in the cast and crew - including parents of cast and crew) came together to manifest a chunk of change adequate enough to begin and continue filming. Well, now is the moment of truth. We are two days away from finishing our second week of filming, and the question is: will we have enough (i.e., will the money promised to us actually make it to the account - AND can we raise another $3,000+) money to finish principal photography? (The answer is 'yes ' by the way...)

This is the question that keeps me pacing the set with my ear pressed to the microwave tranceiving device commonly called a cell phone all day long.

All I know is that I love every person who has given their help to this project in time, coin or kind (and that's a LOT of folks) and I love the story of Tommy, Liza, Crossing Guard and the group of kids that round out the cast of THE LAST the end, and if I have to use sheer will alone to manifest the remaining funds we need, I'll do it! And by god we'll get this movie in the can!

It wants to be on the big screen. It is crawling in earnest to get there. If you could only see the footage! It looks absolutely beautiful. This will be the biggest hit at Sundance in the year 2000 - mark my words.

-Todd

Cascade View Elementary
7:58 PM
Jan & Sam, Mother & Father of Alexis "Enna"

Well, we must like this process...we decided to spend a portion of our 29th wedding anniversary here viewing THE LAST the end film dailies. Actually, it was the one way we could see our daughter, Alexis! We will certainly remember this one!!!

Otherwise, it's been both fun and informative watching a real film crew behind the scenes in the process of movie making. Watching the camera catch the coffee cup steam during Enna's interview was a moment of 'Oh' for me and seeing the sound man muffle the cup with tape so that it didn't distract from the dialogue was an added moment of enlightment. These are just a few of the eye widening, mind expanding experiences that came with having Alexis cast as "Enna." Oops, time to see those dailies. Excuse us...on with the show.

-J & S

The School - again
8:10
Katherine Loveall, Continuity/Script Supervisor

A certain sound person tried to knock me out with the boompole today....ended up going to the ER after much persuasion. How could I leave my script in the hands of anyone else??!! My head hurts and I can't feel my limbs but it's all in a day of Living in Oblivion. That's show business!

-Kat

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