They say time flies when you're having fun, and I think someone was onto something when they spoke those words.  As I look at my last post updating work on "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry" I see it was already over a month ago.  So let me bring you up to date on all things Sperry...

No you're not seeing double - that's Rich Christiano on the right and his twin brother Dave on the left, with Jansen Panettiere in the center:

The second half of shooting went better for me than the first half as I became more and more comfortable with the SAG paperwork and got to know the other crew members better.  That's not to say the shoot wasn't challenging at times with weather and sound issues being a constant problem (a large portion of the movie was shot outdoors). 

One of our many outdoor scenes:

We also had some nights that went kind of late - it's amazing what a 12k HMI can do at faking sunlight:

In the end we had to shoot a couple extra days but things "wrapped" up nicely.  The last day of shooting was a half day with a rather skeleton crew.  Most of the normal crew members had to leave that day because of previous commitments so that left a number of us to fill multiple positions on the crew.  The 1st AD was gone so that meant I got to fill the shoes of both the 1st and 2nd AD that day.  It went fine and was kinda nice to be able to get on set and do something different for a change.

Rich and Phil Hurn the DP (he also shot Time Changer and Unidentified with Rich) pose with the slate for the last shot of the film:

One of the things I enjoy least of this great art of filmmaking is having to say goodbye to all your new friends at the end of the shoot.  We look forward to seeing them at the premiere next year though!

L to R - My wife Melinda, Yours Truly, Rich, Rich's wife Regina:

Now they're diving into the months of editing ahead and the rest of us go back to our normal lives (whatever that is...).  We'll keep you updated on when the film might be showing in your area sometime next spring or summer.

-Nathan

No matter how good one's intentions are about keeping a blog updated during a film shoot, the realities of a shooting schedule set in and days turn to weeks before you get back to it.  But here I am again...finally. The DP Phil Hurn at work: The last couple of weeks have been a blur of short nights, long days, call sheets, actor time reports, production reports, and the many other things that go along with being a 2nd Assistant Director on a film of this size.  Most of my day...

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"Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation."
        Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930)

It's sad but true in a lot of cases...except on a film set.  There's always more than enough to talk about when you have dozens of people all running around and working together to make a movie.  But today the weather was about all we were able to talk about.

The weather here in upstate New York was cloudy and rainy today.  Unfortunately we were supposed to be shooting a sunny scene outdoors.  And because our main actor doesn't come in until late tonight there was no indoor cover shoots we could use as a back up either.

The Director Rich Christiano conferencing on whether or not it would be possible to shoot today:

So the result was an unexpected day off which turned out to be a nice blessing for us.  We were able to rest, take naps, run errands, and go for a beautiful walk in Ellison Park.  Now we look ahead to an indoor shoot on Saturday, but for now we're enjoying some time off.

-Nathan

Wow! A lot has happened the last few days in the life of Nathan Webster.  On Monday morning I left the Upper Penninsula of Michigan to go home to Wisconsin after a nice but short family vacation. Only hours after getting home we then turned around and traveled with my wife Melinda, and Philip Leclerc through the night to Rochester, NY for the start of Rich Christiano's latest film project "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry". In the spring of 2005 I had the opportunity to work with...

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