Liars and Lunatics :: Film Blog

Here are some photos from inside the Dance Factory where we filmed some dance studio scenes for Liars and Lunatics…

Running Around in Circles

James (Joseph Halsey) leads the girls dressed in fairy tutus as they run around in a big circle…

Watching James

The girls can’t help but laugh as James goofs off. You can’t see him, but he’s trying on one of the little princess crowns to go with a tutu that’s too small for him.

Ready, Set, Go

James is getting a lesson in how to do a pirouette. He doesn’t seem to be a very coordinated student! (You can see Paige laughing in the background)

Doin’ the Splits

James tries to do the splits. He’s looking a little uncomfortable right now.

One of the scenes in the feature film Liars and Lunatics had to take place in a dance studio.

We scouted several locations before we found the Dance Factory in College Point. We talked to the owner, Amy, and she got us a great group of kids to be in the scene.

It’s actually a flashback scene where James first meets Paige (she works at the dance studio). James comes in to one of her dance classes and proceeds to “help” teach her students… (except that James knows nothing about dancing).

We also had to shoot James standing on a busy street handing out tracts. So we populated the sidewalk in front of the dance studio with the parents of the young dancers. You can see some of them in the “filmstrip”.

P.S. This was one of our pizza days… The pizza delivery guy showed up in the middle of filming this sidewalk scene. He actually got into one of the takes, and we had to run after him to get him to sign a release form!

Spent the past few days fixing up little bits of the Liars and Lunatics movie. Most of it was spent in rendering the footage. (For all you non-techies, that’s what must be done before we can burn a DVD copy.) 

We have to render each section (usually 2-5 scenes blocked together) and then render the final movie as a whole. We’re still tweaking bits and pieces, trying to get everything ready for October’s premiere in Manhattan.  

This takes time of course. It actually takes about four hours to render the video portion of the full movie. And another 20 minutes to do the audio. And then we have to watch carefully for any glitches, mistakes, or otherwise.

We’re actually rendering a scene right now, which is why we have the time to write a few words in this blog.

Waiting is so much fun… 

One of the things all the filmmaking books warn you about is this: Be sure to have good food on set. Simply put, that basically means “Don’t order pizza for lunch every single day of the shoot!”

Well, we took this to heart. Our production people actually did a survey of sorts to find out all the food allergies of our actors and crew.

We had people allergic to fish. We had someone who was allergic to onions. Someone else couldn’t eat white bread or white rice. Another person who could not eat red meat, but could each chicken or fish (or something like that). Yet another person didn’t eat cheese.

That made for a bit of a juggling act, but our catering people came through for us and worked out the details (hopefully accommodating everyone during each meal. At least, our cast and crew were gracious enough not to say anything and ate what they could.) 

As for pizza. Well, we only had pizza once as a meal for the film shoot. Okay, maybe twice. Or was it three times? It couldn’t have been more than three times! (we think…)

Does anyone know that September is supposed to be “Be Kind to Your Editor” Month?

Guess that goes for film editors, too. Right?

Does anyone want to mention this fact to our computer? Because, so far, the computer does not seem to be aware of this…

{{ photo :: Editing a scene from Liars and Lunatics. }}

When we were doing up the shooting schedule for Liars and Lunatics (okay, so we’re using the term ”we” loosely here… it was actually Maria who came up with the schedule), we had to use military time. For example:

#	Actor	Character	On Set	Turnover
01	Joseph Halsey	James	11:00	11:15
02	Allison Lane	Frolick	11:00	11:15
05	Patrick Mitchell	Staples	13:00	13:15
08	Amanda Short	Avie	14:00	14:15
09	Hudson Chambers	Davie	14:00	14:15

This was all actually thanks to the Screen Actors Guild (aka SAG). That’s right, apparently we had to get our SAG actors to sign in using military time. Guess it had something to do with not being confused about whether it’s am or pm.

In Europe, they use military time anyway. And all those people in the military… well, they shouldn’t have a problem, either…

But for the rest of us? Well, it’s not as easy as it may seem. You’re always trying to do calculations in your head about the “real” time! So, it was no surprise when one of our production people (probably Maria again) got a phone call from one of the actors. “What’s my call time? 16:00?”

Yep! That’s 4:00 pm for the rest of us…

Made some changes to the Liars and Lunatics Trailer. Check it out…

View the old version and tell us what you think of the changes… Email us.

We spent Labor Day doing… what else? Work… (Isn’t that why it’s called “Labor” Day?)

We were cleaning up all the files on the computer. Putting raw footage files together; putting the trailer and behind-the-scenes files together; moving everything around on the different hard drives. It’s strange where some files end up…

And now the computer has to figure out (or rather we have to help the computer figure out) where everything is located. Which means more work. But hey, someone has to do it…