DONE!!!

We are DONE with shooting as of Sunday night. WOW. I can't believe it's over. Well, I can because we've been shooting for 2 weeks and have been on nights for the last week, but it feels f-cking amazing to be done. What an amazing experience we've all had. Here's a quick rundown of the last couple days:

HILLBROW--We were shooting in an apartment in the heart of Hillbrow for a couple days, both exterior and interior and rooftop, but the so-called "landlady" of the place (total bullshit) freaked out so badly that the head security had to, let me just say, put her in her place. Shame. She was a crazy bitch, though. As I was walking by with the camera equipment I thought she was going to sucker punch me, but I had about 6 Zulu security dudes backing me up. Pretty sweet. Now how often do you have security watching your back? Unfortunately the lift wasn't working, so my poor crew had to carry everything up 5 flights of stairs. And I was feeling bad for not going to the gym. I think 2 weeks of handheld makes up for that :)

ANOTHER DEAD BODY--Wow, that makes three. Thabo and I both try not to look, but it's near impossible not to. Eish.

CAR MOUNT--Finally happened without a hitch, (except for a couple of dings in our rented BMW prop/production car.) Can't wait to see the footage tomorrow morning at the telecine. We had Johannesburg Police escort...we felt so badass until they abandoned us at 4 AM in the middle of Hillbrow. Not a good place to be, but we managed just fine so long as we ran all the red lights.

TELECINE--We are over halfway done with the telecine, and we're uber excited!! So far no hairs in the gate. The operator offered us a free online today, as well as a free online correction for the trailer which a friend will be cutting next week. I don't know why they're being so generous, but I don't ask. Probably because our colorist mostly works on commercials and he likes my American...accent. Hopefully we'll be able to come back for the online.

WRAP PARTY--Everyone on the crew came. Amazing. I don't think I've EVER been to a wrap party where the whole crew came, down to the script supervisor and wardrobe assistant (who were totally rad.) The crew freakin' rocked--how amazing that only the DoP and Director were American and everyone else was South African. Goes to show that America still is the Super Power. Ha ha ha just kidding. We know we're just bullies...

Tomorrow morning Sam finally arrives, and then Thursday morning we're off to Cape Town!! Can't wait. The whole family is super excited to meet him. He arrives at 6:20 AM and then I'm off to telecine, but don't tell him so. Yikes.

I'll try to post stills from the production as soon as we get them, but I am so happy we're finally done! I swear this has been the most amazing film experience--I feel so blessed to be working with these South African filmmakers. They worked so hard to make it happen. I will miss them dearly.

Cheers,
Q