There's no business

I spent all last semester doing research for a feature film being produced jointly by BYU and First Light Entertainment. Shooting began once school let out and I was on set for the first two weeks of May for the stuff being filmed at the LDS Motion Picture Studio which has a fake western town on its back lot. The weather was a bit temperamental, but I wore my pith helmet, which kept off both sun and rain quite nicely. Here are my two props crew-mates Tara and Jessica who are really hard core. I worked in the mornings and came to set in the afternoon, but they put in twelve hour days every day and are still going now that we're shooting on location.


That said, I'm hard core in my own way. Written into the script are several dead animals, which count as props, and guess who was in charge of them. Me. That's how I came to pluck three dead chickens and bake two rabbits in the last couple of weeks. Is this a bathtub full of dead chickens? Scientists agree that it is.


Scientists also agree that if you don't want your house to smell like a wet hen you shouldn't pluck a chicken indoors, so the last two I did on set. Also, plucking chickens that you got for free from a farm because they died mysteriously is not the most fun. But everyone was very impressed that I was able to go through with it three times, including cutting their heads off. Hopefully I will never have to handle a dead chicken ever again.


The upshot to being on set was that several name actors agreed to be in the film, including Edward Herrmann, who you may remember from such films as Annie, Overboard, and Saint Maybe as well as the show Gilmore Girls. It was really unprofessional of me, but I couldn't help snapping a few (dozen) pictures of him when he wasn't looking. Margot Kidder of Superman fame also agreed to play a significant role in the film and was a lot of fun to have on set. And now a few extra pictures.

This is our smoky saloon complete with 1st AD and town extras.

The head of the Art department mixing drinks.

Our director Tom Russell with Edward Herrmann

All in all it was a lot of fun, but I'm glad to be done. It's nice to get to spend time at home to rest and cook and read and in general, relax without having to worry that chicken #2's bottom is turning a weird shade of green.

P.S. I forgot to mention that John Gries of Napoleon Dynamite and Real Genius was also in the film and he gave me a shoulder punch!