Jasi and Pixie...yeah, I know there's a pussy joke right here but I'm gonna refrain. That's my couch....

Jasi's scene called for her to be just out of the shower, still wrapped in a towel. No nudity. (Rat Farts!) Jasi, I have to tell you, has a very nice body, she might be tiny in stature but she’s put together very well. She decided undies and a strapless sort of see through bra would be under the white towel I had handed her. (Gulp) Tim had decided that nudity in this production would be too much trouble, extra dough; extra worry about crew, direction and my groping, no doubt…Jasi also is steering away from nudity. Me, well, no one wants to see me naked so Tim never asked. I did have on special underwear just in case though. Long story short, the scene unfolded as such. I knock, Jasi answers in a towel, I bum rush her, sling her around, tear up her house off camera, freak out, realize she’s not the right gal and leave. But it’s how we get from the start to finish that was fun…and four hours of our time. Tim’s camera work was what impressed me early on. He was very meticulous with framing, angles and movement of the camera. We worked dialogue scenes over and over, allowing Tim as many different moods to choose from as we could. I played it pretty crazed, Jasi still wanted it rougher. I tried to oblige, I lifted her at one point over my head and slammed her on the couch, I felt her arm bend backward during when sling from couch to floor like a willow, she also pushed, punched, strangled and rode my back trying to persuade my character that she didn’t know what in the Hell he was talking about. The more heated it became, the better the scene got. We got comfortable, the acting got better. Jasi’s towel fell off, I got a little crazier. You know the drill. She was good, really good; she even mustered up some tears, then some really real tears when my wingtip ripped the top of her foot off. As the scene neared wrap-up, my strange ad-libbing with help from Tim Ritter’s dialogue came to a head when I apologized to her character rather frankly, asked for a “make-up dinner” then motioned for her to “call me.” She held a straight face till Tim uttered “Cut” we broke down laughing and I shot my exit, complete with a dramatic VCR busting move in front of my house followed by my stray cat Pixie cameoing brilliantly on the broken remnants as I drove away. Day 1, the first half, was in the can, Jasi got dressed, (grumble) we put my house back to normal and we headed to Mi Mexico, for a Negro Modelo, and some beans. Five pages down…Five to go. I think Jasi and I could have both hung out at Mi Mexico all day knocking back drinks and talking about bad music, strippers and scream queens with Tim, but we had to get moving to Joe’s for the second set-up. We took Jasi back to the Motel 6 for her car. She was paid her day rate, Tim shook her hand, I pecked her cheek and we said our good byes, I had given her a BOF t-shirt, a tape, some stickers and notepads. She gave Tim and I some pictures and such, we all agreed to do some more stuff together. It was Adios…we made haste to Joe’s.

Jasi checks out my barrel, (ahem) Director Tim Ritter looks on longingly.

The second half of the day would involve Heather or Laybea Minor as she likes to be called, why, I have no idea, as a character on the telephone with Kathy’s character. Joe and Heather are buddies, me, I had hardly ever spoken to her outside of “hey, how’s it going?” After her telephone scene she also had a small bit of dialogue with my character. When we got to Joe’s, Heather was there, both her and Joe were hung over, she had forgotten her “wardrobe” and makeup. In the script, her character was to be wearing a leotard and just fresh from exercising. But Joe’s house lent itself more favorably to a white trash kitchen scene. (Read: Joe's fucking kitchen was a huge fucking mess, he wanted to straighten up, I said "No!") Heather ran to get her stuff and Tim and I decided to look for something to shoot. We decided Joe’s house might make a decent locale to do a door kicking in scene. Initially the scene would require a specially built door for me to axe through. Tim had his father tryin gto fit one up for Day 3 of the shoot. We found a door at Joe’s and decided to see if we could make it work. Kathy was going to be in the scene as well. Tim set his camera, and ran through some different scenarios with the door and decided it would fly. Kathy and I got into wardrobe and we began shooting that scene while Heather was gone to get her stuff for her phone scenes.

Kathy and I had no dialogue together in this scene, just some old school chasing and me taunting her and then kicking in the door. We worked through it a few times then I kicked in the door. My motivation? Having to use the bathoom really badly. Tim captured it very convincingly; we watched it back in Joe’s dark basement hallway, agreeing, “It’s all 10-4.” Tim shot a couple reverse angles of Kathy coming and going, then me doing the same and I was off to escort Dick Cockburn who had driven into Lexington, over to Joe’s (the guy has the sense of direction of a blind kindergarten student...with asthma). Of course he passed me on the way to meet him and when I got back to Joe’s he was there, as was Heather.

Kathy Ritter doing double duty as script supervisor on teh first day, She's taunting me with that Gators shirt....grrrr!. On my couch even!

Now Heather, unlike Jasi, is more comfortable naked than unnaked, she opted for panties and a wifebeater for her costume…and that was all. The script called for her to have a conversation with Kathy’s character while Kathy’s character is driving. Tim and Kathy would feed Heather the phone dialogue. The guys sitting around Joe’s house would mainly just gawk at Heather’s boobs. It all worked fine through the phones scenes, but it was about 4 pages of dialogue, it took a while. Heather hung in there and just like Jasi and I, the more lines (of dialogue, we didn't have the budget for coke, what do you think this is a Oliver Stone production) she did the more natural it flowed, she embellished some lines, added some unique flavor and the character came to life. When she finished, we all grinned and her and I knocked back a beer and got ready to do our scene together.

The scene was pivotal to the script, but brief, with really just about a page of dialogue. Heather and I really didn’t know our lines together very well. We stepped on each other’s lines initially and sort of nervously bumbled. I blame her boobs; she probably blamed my baldhead. Go figure. But we began to get with the flow. Heather slowly vibed into a sort of near seduction scene with my wacko character who of course, would have no part of her somewhat forward moves. It put a different twist on what was a kind of straightforward dialogue scene. Tim seemed to like it, so we went with it. And after the mandatory, cover every angle of our conversation; we wrapped the scene and the day. Simultaneously, getting day one’s pages done and tackling day 3’s door busting stunt with both the filming and nullifyin the building of the door…a pretty good start for the first day. We had also managed to actually document some stuff with still photos, always a shortcoming of modestly produced films, not having enough hands to adequately cover stuff with photos, we made a concerted effort to actually get out our cameras take some pictures of each other.

Laybea Minor gives good phone...

By the end of the first day, really day 1.5, if you count our late night/early morning hotel shooting, I began to gradually get where my nutzoid Ernest T. character was going. I had squealed the word “TAPES!” with Jasi in our scene, almost crying to her that I was looking for “TAPES!” in her house. My character was obsessing on videotapes for some reason. That was my motivation. I was a guy who was brain struck on inanimate objects, more than a little off-filter, very capable of violence and unwavering in his dedication to complete his bent mission to retrieve these “TAPES!” Hey, that might sound a little heavy handed, but I need to think about him in those terms. Plus when people asked me I needed something to say. That's what us actors do...we act.

We all sat down is Joe’s living room and Tim popped in what I guess you could say were the dailies. We watched as I drove up to my house, slapped Jasi around, Kathy ran, looked frightened, I kicked in the door, Heather yakked on the phone, we squared off and we all laughed when we should of and nodded in approval, it all looked and sounded remarkably “good.” Credit…Director Tim Ritter. I decided then and there he should change his name to "Director Tim Ritter." File the dang paper work Ritter!

We loaded up from Joe’s, said out goodbyes and agreed that 10:30 a.m. would be the start of Day 2 of the script. I had to coach Under 10 soccer at 9 a.m. It was supposed to be rainy and stormy for the next 48 hours. Cockburn hung in there all evening but didn’t have much to do. He headed for his sister’s for the night, me, home, and Joe was already at home. Heather cranked up her pick-up truck and I followed her for a couple blocks to make sure she had brakes which at been buried in mud the night before after leaving the road during a rainy night on her father’s farm or some other "likely" story, Tim and Kathy, they split for their domicile. We all needed a little rest. Tim had been working for 30 hours straight…I had managed 6 hours sleep in the past 48. Joe was still hung over and had his big scene first thing the next day.

Here I am trying ot listen to what Laybea was laying down...

Joe’s character…well, in Tim’s script he was little more than plot exposition, but through our communication, I told Tim I thought Joe could really bring a bit of good old boy sleaze to the festivities. I has sat down a week earlier and worked from Tim’s script the exchange between Joe’s Sheriff and Kathy’s Angela Witt. He went from concerned officer of the law, to somewhat creepy opportunist willing to bend the rules of good police work if it meant potentially landing a female in his cruiser. It would be Joe’s real first job acting with written dialogue instead of the brilliant ad-libbing he’s known for around the BOF sets. The guy truly is the quickest wit around and he's hung like a...nevermind. The task was for him to bring that same sass to a scripted character.

See what I mean.

I arrived at Joe’s about 15 minutes late…Tim goes “figures the producer arrives on set late.” Mother Nature had decided to empty her bladder all morning on Lexington, and it seemed by the thunderstorms moving through the area, she had gotten a hold of a bad burrito, as well. Joe was bedecked in an all brown DickiesTM work outfit cum Sheriff’s get-up, he needed some Aviator style sunglasses and Tim had a badge for him. I made a quick donut and sunglasses run and was back, lickety split. Tim and I ran down a couple blocks at the dead-end of Joe’s street, it backs up to an old set of railroad tracks, it’s slightly wooded and for a scene requiring a female asleep in her car, harassed by and over zealous cop, it looked like it would work just fine. We returned to Joe’s grabbed the equipment, Joe, Kathy and Dick Cockburn and returned to the location.

Acting when you are not accustomed to it is a strange thing. You have to admire the good ones, the ones who can seem to really find themselves without 70-80 takes. As Joe prepared himself to chew up his dialogue, I felt a little relieved that it was he getting the day started instead of me. I also was feeling nervous for him since he is my homey. It seems like it should be the easiest fucking thing in the world. Just speaking lines naturally. Believe me it’s not. Kathy seemed confident about her character, me, I was just barely getting that grasp. Joe, well, Joe was getting his toe wet. MORE