I picked up Gil and Mun at the airport.
Now, I don’t realize it because Gil doesn’t set your gaydar off, but he’s gay. (and this will come into play in another funny story during HH)
So we’re driving out of the airport and some idiot swerves into my lane. I say, “Fucking faggot.” Gil and Mun laugh—I probably would have realized they were laughing just a bit too hard, but I had other things on my mind.
Later when we found out he was gay I remembered that and laughed. Hey, I’m a child of the 80’s. "Faggot" was the in-slur back then, and it's still a staple of my vocabulary.
Also, meeting Mun turned out to be a great thing, as he went on to shoot my next two features.
This is what the back of my parents' mini-van looked like--it's the poor-man's grip truck.
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August 5th, 1999
The D.P. and his camera assistant flew in, so I was to meet them at the airport at 7:26 p.m. I was using my parents' van for the week, so I went to pick it up. Meanwhile, I was frantically trying to find a wheelchair for the dolly shots.
I got to my parents' house and my head was still spinning from the list of things to do. I'd written tons of them down, not the least was to call the actors/actresses I'd need for the next day's shoot. Kiona, our Production Manager, helped out some, but I hadn't really given her much of a cast list to go from.
I was about to pull out of my parents' driveway when my dad said to hold on. He played with one of the tires and I just got a chance to hear "Looks like a...nail", before the tire began deflating rapidly.
It was about six o'clock and now I had to jack up the car, patch the tire, put the tire back on and get going. I'd meant to stop by my brother's house to pick up the special effects knife he made, but there was no time now.
I got it all done and picked up the guys at the airport. They turned out to be real good guys, amiable and understanding about the very-guerilla way of shooting that we ended up doing.
David Gil is the D.P.(Director of Photography), and he's done stuff for Fox, NBC and CBS, so he really knew what he was doing. The only reason I could even afford him was because he was trying to get some feature film credit for his demo reel. He's only 28, too, and Latino, but don't hold that against him. (Who loves ya, Gil?)
David Mun is the 1st A.C.(Assistant Cameraman), and really the only A.C. At 22, he's younger than Gil, but seems pretty knowledgeable. He's shot some shorts on his own and has his sights set on D.P.'ing a feature himself in the future.
We decided to go ahead and take the camera up to the theater that night, as we were going to catch a late showing of Mystery Men. We were going to try to get some footage of my friend James splicing film as a theater worker.
As we set up and just messed around, I saw how long it took to set up lights, test equipment, move everything, and the rest of the essentials. I could tell that I might as well toss my projected schedule into the paper shredder.
The Mystery Men was pretty good though, and we did discuss a few of the tactics we'd take to shoot some of the other movie scenes. I dropped them off at the luxurious hotel that I'd gotten for them(Motel 6) and headed off to get some sleep.
Good luck with that. I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep.
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