Production Day 2: Prepping and Rescheduling

Provisions for the 2-day filming session in Atlanta, GA

With day one down, I quickly moved in to lock down interview days with the rest of the cast.  We were able to sync our schedules up with Laura Martin first for Thursday, February 9.  That put us down in Atlanta for a day.  I checked with Mark to see if he would be down with staying the night in Atlanta and he was good with it.  That meant I could reach out to Van Jensen to hopefully lock him in for Friday.  As luck would have it, he was available until 3:00 on Friday, so we would need to start early.  This is great for Mark since he is a morning person and we went a little late for him with Joey.

Van normally goes to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I reached out to the gym to see if we could film him in the morning, but they politely responded that they do not allow filming in the gym.  I feel like that will cause us to miss out on some good b-roll, but Van said it would be okay if we arrived before he leaves for the gym to setup while he is working out.

I was able to get with Sanford Greene at Charlotte Mini-Con to discuss scheduling some interview time with him.  Sanford is super busy and I hope to convey that in the documentary.  We discussed that Sanford would not have much time to film until March, but that he would make it work for us.  I've considered replacing Sanford in the documentary because of scheduling difficulties, but honestly, I don't want to, so hopefully the stars will align before it really starts to affect my planned release date.  I'm already pushing it back one event to assure it is the best I can make it.  I don't want to compromise on this.

Hourly comic strip by Andy Runton

Andy Runton has become as elusive as Sanford.  There a lot of difficulties that come with documenting Andy's life.  His dogs are rescue and are very temperamental, so we will not be able to setup crew on location.  Andy has agreed to travel to Greenville and film his interview and to assist us with picking up b-roll showing off his life by filming it himself.  I worry a little that this will negatively impact the cinematography, but I feel that it will most directly convey the story and that is what is most important.  Andy was scheduled to come up February 3, so that we could film with him on Friday and Saturday, but he had to take one of his doggies to an unscheduled trip to the veterinarian, which led to him canceling the trip.  Mark was not able to schedule that weekend anyway, since he would be out of town, however Micah Taylor agreed to step in for him.  I love working with Micah and I know he would have done a great job, but it may be best that we reschedule for a day that Mark can be available anyway.

All that said means that we have Laura and Van scheduled for later this week.  I have arranged for a hotel room at the Sheraton about 5 miles from Van's house.  The plan is to spend Thursday with Laura, move equipment to Van's for the night, crash in a nearby hotel, and then get an early start at Van's in the morning.  Here's to hoping that it goes as smoothly as that.