La Turista Loca

I got to see the rough edit of Vegas Schmegas on Saturday (a rough edit means that there are still incomplete elements like music or segments still missing) but it can give you an idea of how a project is coming together. It looks great, Mark and Jon did a killer job editing. But it's running a little shorter than we would like. So we needed to add a couple of sketches. Now it's been a while since I wrote the original episodes and I knew we needed to incorporate more "Vegas" into the show (it is titled "Vegas Schmegas" after all.) But permits are expensive...okay, permits are cheap, insurance is expensive and we have already spent our insurance budget. So it's time for a little 'guerrilla' filming.

We came up with the idea that Jimmy Germano and I would pose as tourists and just improv about what we saw and did, and film it hand-held with my consumer video camera so that we wouldn't draw attention. Now we aren't the first film crew to do this. I saw a short film at a festival called "Flip" that took place in Las Vegas. They filmed all over the place. During the Q&A after the movie I asked the director how he got all the location permission and he told me he didn't (I don't think I'm breaking confidence here since he told the whole audience.) So whenever the guys would say "we can't film there, we don't have permits" I would think that since other people did it, why couldn't we? I don't want to break any laws but until the pilot is purchased, it's a moot point. When the pilot is purchased, it will either be sold as a 'concept', meaning what we filmed will never be shown publicly, or we will make more episodes with someone else's cash, in which case we can re-shoot those scenes with permits. So legally, we are covered under the same laws that cover any other tourist. Ethically it might be a gray area, but I'll just add that to my list of things I feel guilty about.

So last night Jimmy and I became "Gina and Dominick from Teaneck, New Jersey". I wore a Las Vegas t-shirt and those cheap plastic beads that they hand out at Mardi Gras (all the casinos give them away too.) It was pretty funny the way our crew handled the filming. Jimmy and I wore lav mikes (a wireless microphone pack you wear on your person with the wires concealed) which were connected to the big camera for sound only, the camera in Mark's backpack and he was listening to the sound from his iPod earphones so that if you saw him you would think he was just some guy listening to his music. Kelly walked ahead of us shooting still photos of us while Charisma strolled along with her consumer camera capturing us from a wide angle. We looked like random tourists who didn't know each other. Jimmy and I used my camera to capture our improv.

We filmed at the Fremont Street Experience. Fremont Street used to be just that, a street, kind of a main drag through downtown. My dad used to cruise Fremont during his high school days. But as "The Strip" became more of where the tourists went, downtown casinos fell out of favor. So they turned several blocks of Fremont into a covered, traffic-free area with lots of kiosks for shopping, street entertainers and the world's largest big screen on the canopy overhead where they play hourly music tributes and videos. It's like a big, permanent street fair with stores and casinos and gambling lining the way. It was definitely a great place to make fun of. People walk around with these giant "yard long' drinks or drinks in huge plastic footballs and act crazy. It's like Disneyland on acid.

Now I love improv and I have no problem looking like an ass in front of total strangers. I used to do an interactive dinner theater and found that the more obnoxious I got, the more people liked it. So that's how I was last night. And we had so much fun. I even had a crowd of people clapping for me at one point and taking pictures. (I am in so many tourist photos I should charge!) We even filmed inside one casino (I know it's a no-no but no one stopped us and I doubt many tourists know you aren't supposed to film inside if no one tells them). And we won $12.50 in a slot machine. All of this footage will have to be mined by the wonderful editor that Mark is to even know if we got the two to four minutes of comedy gold nuggets we need. The idea is to have whatever is funny go into a segment where it's the blog of a couple of tourists on their Las Vegas vacation. I think it will be pretty funny if it works. And I can't wait to go to the Strip to film there too.

But I want to put out there for the hundreds of people on Fremont Street last night that if you saw some crazy lady in a purple Vegas t-shirt who was loud and obnoxious and making a complete ass of herself and her 'husband'...it was an act. I'm an actor. I'm a normal person who does not usually dance in the middle of the street. I don't, as a general rule, make suggestive comments about shrubbery, ask strangers where the obtained their alcohol or loudly comment on other women's breast size. I usually am the girl no one ever notices. So I wasn't drunk or insane. It was an act.

But all the other people exhibiting the same bizarre behavior? Those were tourists.

It's (Almost) a Wrap and a Possible Career Change

After three weeks of intensive shooting, it's a wrap on principal photography on "Vegas Schmegas". Well, almost.

The motel location we were shooting at stands in the shadow of the Wynn Hotel. Literally in the shadow. Like so in the shadow that we lost shooting light at 3:30 and will have to go back and re-shoot some scenes so that all of the footage matches. And we still have a long list of things to do before we can finish editing on the project, including shooting some B-roll footage, recording some voice over, doing ADR, etc. But we are calling that "Second Unit" so that we could celebrate a wrap yesterday.

Thank you to all of the actors and crew who worked so hard to make this happen, we couldn't have done it without you. Most worked without pay and just did it for the love of being on set and working. That's what independent film making is all about. Let's pray that this project gets picked up so we can then reward everyone for their hard work.


So, after a really LONG shooting day on Friday (ten hour days on set are pretty normal, twelve hour days aren't uncommon but this one was fourteen hours long!) I may be considering a career change. How do you think I'd do as a dominatrix?
Yup, that's me in costume. The consensus on set was that the Graminator was right, I did look "nice". Although if the catcalls and whistles I got from the people driving down East Sahara were any indication, I could potentially make some money at it. It was warm all day on Friday, almost hot at points (about eighty degrees) but by the time we shot the dominatrix scene it was really cold and windy.


This is the most wonderful actress and person, Elly Brown, and me, huddled underneath Nathan's shirts in between takes. We were sooooo cold. I love Elly, she was a trouper, she was in every scene that day and was AWESOME. I want to write more stuff for her because she is so good. Usually, really beautiful women aren't all that great at comedy (they don't have to be, they are beautiful, duh) but Elly has great timing and killer comedic instincts. She's also so nice and really willing to do what it takes. And right now she's on a cruise with her husband basking in the sun on some tropical beach. I'd be jealous but she worked so hard, she deserves it!

This is Nathan Ferrier and Jimmy Germano as "Franke" and "Louie". They were great. Nathan is new to our band of merry players too, and he was awesome as well. Did I mention he's totally gorgeous but a nice guy to boot? (He's the one who gave up his own comfort to loan Elly and I his shirts on set when we were cold. He stood there in a t-shirt so we could get warm. Plus, he let us use him as a wind block.) He did a fabulous job this weekend and he's a great actor, he knew his lines and he was ready to work. Yesterday, we shot his scenes as "Stan the cab driver" and he made my lines sound even better than when I wrote them! It's hard when you are filming to see "the big picture" but the Stan scenes were really encapsulated so it was easy for me to see how great they are going to turn out, and damn is it good! It wasn't an easy part either, but Nathan pulled it off like it was no big deal. Plus he and Jimmy work really well together and I want to write them some more stuff.

It's amazing how creativity breeds the need to make more creative stuff but I thank everyone on set for giving me a 'creative energy boost'. I am fired up and ready to write. We all agreed that it was wonderful to be on set again. It is a blessing and a gift to the writer to hear their lines and see the scenes they wrote brought to life. So thank you to everyone who made this happen for the incredible gift you gave to me and to Kelly and to all of us who have been working for so long to get this project off the ground!

Mucho thanks and love to: Kelly, Mark, John B, Charisma, Denise, Jimmy, Marissa, Jon, Eddie, Zach, Elly, Nathan, Nicole, Shannon, Gary, Craig, Kelly's dad, the staff and patrons at My Cousin Vinny's, Irwin Kishner, the staff at the Somerset Motel, all the friends who showed up to play hookers and soccer moms and my family who covered for me watching the Graminator so that I could prep and be on set. No shoebox, you all are the best!

And thanks to you, Loyal Readers. Your support during this journey means more than I can ever tell you.