FINALLY, IT BEGINS

We have lights (enough for an airport runway), a Red Camera, and plenty of action. After months of planning and years of dreaming, writer and director Josh Cole is finally filming “Hold on Loosely,” an unfiltered black comedy set in the South. Think Coen Brothers, but with enough profanity to make Eminem blush. Josh's script is laugh-out-loud hilarious.


Snapshot premise: A trio of trailer-trash hoodlums run afoul of the local crime boss when they steal something precious to him. In the middle of the farrago are two strong-willed women who find their patience, and romantic relationships, sorely tested. Oh yeah, and there’s a Llama -- sorry, Alpaca -- involved.



The 10 days of filming are all night shoots, so we’ll be rolling film from dusk to yawn. Our first week of shooting is on location in La Vern, a town Northeast of Los Angeles that abuts a series of shoulder-to-shoulder mountains. The film set sits on an elevated prow on a hillside. From up here, the orange freeways and blinking city lights look like streams of running lava. You can see the nightly fireworks display at Disneyland over in Anaheim from up here. In daytime, the skyline of Los Angeles looks like a faraway Oz. As a journalist who is moonlighting -- literally moonlighting -- as production assistant, being on set is all very new and foreign to me even though TV and film are my beat.


Since we’re filming on a housing development, we’re fortunate to have a lot of privacy and quiet. This week’s scenes are being shot in and around a vintage Airstream trailer, a tin capsule that resembles a B-52 Bomber without the wings. Its quarters are more cramped than a submarine. Sometimes it feels as if the four actors, director of photography, and the focus puller are hanging out the windows. And, sometimes, they literally are. On her first day, lead actress Michelle Nunes has a scene in which she has to crawl in through the back porthole and tumble into the trailer. It ain’t easy, but then we don’t exactly have the budget to hire a stunt double. She gamely does her breaking and entering scene at least 5 times. Another scene that requires multiple takes, multiple angles, requires Michelle to walk up to a beer can and kick it in anger. Each take, Michelle delivers a punt worthy of Adam Viniateri.

Michelle (left), a former Miss Hooters International, recently joined the ensemble after the actress originally cast as Susie had to drop out. In hindsight, a blessing for the film since Michelle is a superb find.

For the shoot, Michelle's long locks are hairsprayed into a Morgan Fairchild. The trailer-trash trio -- Kevin Brenna (Winston), Travis Parker (Jimmy), and Timmy Perry (Cheese) -- sport outfits such as vests, alligator boots, cut-off shirts, and a T-shirt of Duane Allman (for Southern authenticity, of course). The trio (below) are freezing out here in the desert, casting envious eyes at the crew in their Arctic gear. Travis (above), who has the classic look of a leading man, conjures up deep reserves of energy even though he's barely slept and spent most of the day organizing production matters behind the scenes.


It’s a tough shoot. Come 3 a.m., small delays have slowly added up to put shooting behind schedule. Worse, the chilly wind has kicked up to sub-tempest levels and blown over one of the huge reflection screens outside. Everyone is still adjusting to the jetlag of an all-nighter. Afterward, we're all going to sleep like Rip Van Winkle. But tempers are on an even keel, helped, in large part, by the thorough pre-production planning. (As one crew member commented, she’d recently been on a $300,000 production -- 3 times the cost of this shoot -- and it wasn’t half as well organized.)

Out here at 4 a.m., the only sounds are frogs and dogs. And the sound of cast and crew chugging coffee and energy drinks. Outside, director Josh Cole and Assistant Director Danny Schrader huddle around a live-feed monitor as the lighting crew and sound guys hustle about their jobs.

The rush is on, however, to complete today’s ambitious schedule before the Eastern glow on the horizon. Will we make it? Find out tomorrow. Until then … Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

-- Stephen Humphries (production assistant)

Photos courtesy of Amanda Rowan (who plays Porsche in the film). More shots over at www.flickr.com/photos/amandarose