Wrap day

Today we returned to the home in Mapleton that serves as Amelia Brown's family house. We were here pretty close to a year ago shooting the modern-day bookends for our last batch of movies. It was Christmas in July then, just as it was today. Fortunately, this scene involved only an interior -- no snowing up the outside of the house during a windstorm like we had to do last year.

We shot three scenes in the house involving Amelia, her father, and George the housekeeper. Each actor is very professional, and the day was completed a few minutes before 2 p.m., which also served as a wrap for the 5-day bookend shoot. Fast and furious, and it felt like we covered quite a bit of ground. Although you never fully know how well what you shot works until the final piece is edited together, it felt like we got what we needed, and many wonderful moments.

We had a really good crew as well. In our type of productions, it is important to have a crew on hand that knows what it is doing AND does it in a way that is conducive to what we're trying to do. Many times I hear somebody start to say something they shouldn't, catch themselves, apologize, then move on. At the end of the shoot, I had a number of people come up and say how refreshing and unusual it is to work in this type of environment where everybody is nice to each other and there is an atmosphere of respect. Although I don't have much experience in other types of sets, I still can appreciate what they mean and count myself greatly blessed.

No time to relax after the shoot, however. People are waiting on me for the script to "Jonah and the Great Fish," which is scheduled to go before the cameras in October. Although I have a rough idea of how I want to approach that, tomorrow, I begin work on that script in earnest.