Production on Meme has been continuing for the last few months. Our shooting around schedules and working on the film mostly on weekends process has made the production a little extended, but the end of principal photography is in sight. Our most recent shoot days were Memorial Day Weekend in May (or as Producer/AD Carolyn Maher called it “Meme-orial Day Weekend”). Three fun days at some great locations. We returned to People Lounge in Manhattan for some key bar scenes. We shot some beautiful exteriors in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Then, we got some great footage at The Creek and The Cave and some exterior scenes in Queens. At this point, there are only two scenes left to do. They are important scenes, as they are the ones in which Jennifer (Sarah Schoofs) actually meets people from the Meme tape, but other than those two scenes we pretty much have the story. What else is there?
Well, first of all we’ve got to shoot our films-within-the-film elements. There is additional footage we need to get for the Meme tape and for another video shown in the film. There is also Beneath the Black Moon, a horror film that Jennifer’s boyfriend, Tommy (Shivantha Wijesinha), is looking for in Meme. We will be shooting Beneath the Black Moon the second weekend of July. It promises to be a really fun weekend. We’re planning to shoot a little bit more than what we need for Meme so that Beneath the Black Moon can also be released on its own as a short film. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
So, Meme is close to wrapping on principal photography and then we have all the fun of post-production to get through. I’m excited to share more of the film as that progresses. Below are some photos from our recent shoot days. I’ll share more about the Beneath the Black Moon shoot once we finish it. Follow Meme on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep up. Or subscribe to my newsletter for updates in your email.
But first … I’ve got an announcement on July 6th. Come back for that. It’s going to be pretty cool.
Getting setup for the first scene of the day May 23rd
Sarah and Lauren on the monitor
Sarah and Lauren at the bar and on the monitor
Sarah and Lauren between takes with just a little bit of Producer/AD Carolyn Maher
Sarah and Corinne Fisher standing in while we setup the shot
Tight quarters for the bathroom shoot
Corinne Fisher and Jamie Williford having some fun between takes
Sarah and Chaz shooting his final scene of the film
Producer, AD, bounce holder … Carolyn Maher does it all!
Setting up in The Creek and The Cave
Slate for May 25th!
Shooting in The Creek and The Cave
Rory Lipede shooting her final scene with us
Outside on The Creek and The Cave’s patio
Lauren getting her mike adjusted for her final scene of the shoot
Well, I was going to update about the progress on Meme on a much more regular basis, but keeping on top of the whole process and trying to stay on top of life beyond that has made that just not happen so much. Well, we’ve got almost 60 pages shot with only about 15 pages left to do. We’ve done all but a few of the major scenes. A friend of mine asked me the other day: “if you died tomorrow, could someone make a movie out of what you’ve shot?” I’d say, yes. We’ve got the major plot points covered and what’s left is mostly connective and thematic material that builds it all into a better story, but as of right now there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. Wouldn’t be much of a movie, but there would be something.
We’ve shot out several locations and we’ve had good days and we’ve had long days. We’ve had frustrations but we’ve also gotten a lot of great shots and seen some excellent performances from all of our actors. We’ve wrapped our male lead, Shivantha Wijesinha, who delivered consistently throughout the shoot and was always striving to bring his best even when the rest of the world seemed hell bent on us not getting our scenes shot. We also wrapped actress/producer Kitty Ostapowicz, who is always one of my favorite people to work with on set. She’ll still be with us on our future shoot dates helping behind the scenes, but she’s been great in front of the camera in all of her scenes.
What we have left to shoot are mostly bar scenes and exterior scenes. We’ve been waiting on the exterior scenes until it got warmer, as it’s been a little cold the past few months here in New York. We’ve shot some of our bar scenes already but we have some key ones still to shoot and are looking at some new locations (and, hopefully, affordable locations) for the bar scenes.
While we’re hoping to find some cool new locations, none are likely to be as cool as our March 15th shoot day at Singularity & Co. a Brooklyn genre-oriented bookstore that had shelves full of weird, fun stuff. Here are pictures from all of our shoot days since the last update. We’ve worked hard and we’ve had a lot of fun.
Anniversary party scene for character Lesley (Lauren A. Kennedy) and Andrea (Rory Lipede)
Aftermath of the anniversary party .
Jennifer (Sarah Schoofs) and Lesley (Lauren A. Kennedy) can’t find Tank Girl.
Sarah Schoofs and Shivantha Wijesinha really did a phenomenal job in this intense bedroom scene.
Me hanging out on set with Kitty Ostapowicz’s cat, Leon.
Director of Photography, Peter Westervelt, shooting the final scene of the film.
Sarah Schoofs, Lauren A. Kennedy, and Rory Lipede on the monitor between takes. SOMEONE is trying to stifle a laugh.
Sneaky shot of our lead actress Sarah Schoofs at Singularity & Co.
A shot of most of the cast and crew at Singularity & Co.
On the shelves at Singularity & Co. Such a fun place for us to shoot.
We built a wall of VHS tapes for the background of a scene we shot in late march.
Rubber chicken and an old CRT television. Can’t get much better set design than this.
We picked up shooting for Meme again on Saturday, January 17th. We’re shooting the film location by location as we can get schedules lined up and we decided that the first places we should try and shoot out would be those that had the most pages that needed to be covered. Those are scenes at Tommy’s (Shivantha Wijesinha) apartment and Lesley’s (Lauren A. Kennedy) apartment. Tommy is lead character Jennifer’s boyfriend and the two characters share an apartment. He is a VHS collector and the difficulties the two are having in their relationship are a part of Jennifer’s arc. Lesley is Jennifer’s best friend and the person that she turns to for support as she tries to cope with difficulties with Tommy and her clients (the scenes we shot back in November). Tommy’s apartment covers over 24 pages of script between living room and bedroom scenes. Lesley’s apartment is over 19 pages.
We chose to go with Tommy’s apartment first for several scheduling reasons and also it works as far as the story chronology. We focused our efforts on the Living Room scenes first as those are over 17 pages of script and also contain some pivotal moments in the film (one such moment is represented in the image at the top of this post). We had planned to also shoot the bedroom scenes in this block, but it just didn’t quite work out and we’ll be scheduling those for a future date.
Our location for Tommy’s apartment was wonderfully accommodating. The owner is a friend of our lead actress, Sarah Schoofs, and was happy to let us invade her apartment, rearrange her living room, take almost everything off the walls, and put up our own stuff. Then, she let us leave our set dressing up for the entire week between our first weekend of shooting there on January 17th and 18th and our last day of shooting in the space, January 24th. We remain very grateful for how accommodating she was for our project.
Shooting the scenes for Tommy’s apartment was a fun experience. Nothing ever runs perfectly and one of the key skills in working in film, I think, is just rolling with the issues that crop up and making the best of it. This is especially true when you’ve got no budget and are relying on the good will of a lot of talented people. That said, I don’t think we had any really major setbacks. There were complications but nothing that we had to create major workarounds for. In fact, cast and crew should be commended because we actually finished all of our planned shots for January 17th early and squeezed in shots planned for January 18th, which freed us up more on the 18th to stay focused on the scenes we ended up shooting that day.
January 17th and 18th had scenes that involved only our lead character Jennifer (Sarah Schoofs) and her boyfriend, Tommy (Shivantha Wijesinha), but when we came back on January 24th, it got a bit more complicated. We brought in Kitty Ostapowicz and Chaz Cleveland to play Tommy’s friends and fellow VHS collectors Carrie and Kyle. The scenes with four people also had a lot more movement and so blocking became a lot more time intensive than the previous weekend. In addition to that their scenes were longer. So, the 24th ended up being a long day and a fairly exhausting day for everyone. Still, cast and crew alike did a great job of bringing the energy needed throughout the day to make it a success.
I’ve only worked with Sarah Schoofs and Kitty Ostapowicz on set before these shoot days. Both of them originally entered my life for Meme back in 2013 and since then we’ve shot a few shorts together. Kitty has become one of my favorite people to work with and I’m eager to share our film, Time Signature, with the world soon. Sarah and I did some other small things and then, of course, she was on camera playing Jennifer back in November for Meme. It’s great to finally be working with them on the project that we met for back in 2013 and they’re both embodying their characters wonderfully.
Shivantha Wijesinha and Chaz Cleveland are new for me to work with. Shivantha was brought in for Meme back in 2013 and we just haven’t had a chance to work together until now. He’s doing a fantastic job with Tommy who rides a line of likability through the script. Shivantha is playing that perfectly and I’m so glad to have him with us. Chaz is brand new to acting. I met him on set while helping on a shoot for my friend, and new Art Director for Meme, Nicole Solomon. He was playing an extra. That was pretty much his first time on set. I liked him so much that I decided to see if he’d be interested in playing VHS collector Kyle, a role I’d been having some difficulty finding the person I wanted for. Chaz responded with interest but also telling me he had never acted before. I asked him to do a brief video audition and after showing it to my producer, Carolyn Maher, she agreed with me that Chaz just exudes the natural charm and positivity that we want for Kyle. So, we cast Chaz for Kyle. I am so happy with the work he did and he was great to have on set. He was very positive and interested in the process.
I could probably go into more detail on everything. I won’t for now, but I would like to make sure that I extend thanks to Peter Westervelt, Carolyn Maher, Erin Clayton, Diana Molina, Nicole Solomon, Kima Baffour, Cheryl Hampton, Warren G. May III, Ian Bibby, Jessica Mannion, Alley Scott, Sarah Schoofs, Shivantha Wijesinha, Kitty Ostapowicz, and Chaz Cleveland for all doing their parts to make our first weekends back shooting Meme a success.
When we complete our scenes in Lesley’s apartment in two weeks, I will post an update about how that goes.
Now, some fun behind-the-scenes photos:
DP Peter Westervelt and AC Diana Molina setting up the opening shot for the film.
Shivantha Wijesinha (Tommy) and Sarah Schoofs (Jennifer) goofing and chatting between takes.
DP Peter Westervelt, AC Diana Molina, Producer/AD Carolyn Maher, and PA Ian Bibby setting up for another shot.
Our “martini” (last set up of the day) for January 17th. A key scene featuring Sarah Schoofs.
First shot of the day for 1-18 featuring Sarah Schoofs.
Our “martini” (last setup of the day) shot for January 18th featuring Sarah Schoofs and Shivantha Wijesinha.
DP Peter Westervelt setting up the first shot of the day for 1-24. Shivantha Wijesinha and Carolyn Maher also pictured.
Me looking over the scene while Shivantha Wijesinha digs through a box of prop tapes.
Our slate from January 24th.
Me goofing around between takes on 1-24.
One of our boxes of VHS props from January 24th.
Lots of VHS props from January 24th.
Carolyn Maher, Warren G. May III, Erin Clayton, Kitty Ostapowicz and me while we set up for another shot.
Chaz took this selfie with the rest of us in the background including DP Peter Westervelt, Warren G. May III, Kitty Ostapowicz, and Me.
Shivantha and Kitty waiting while we set up the scene.
