Mister Fish

Last Tuesday, the Endure cast and crew had the pleasure of filming at one of Lakeland's best known locations: Mister Fish. Using a crane for the shots outside the eatery, Director Joe O'Brien made sure to get one nice shot of the familiar Mister Fish sign. Let's hope it makes the cut.

Lakeland residents make the small corner restaurant a busy place during lunch. Add the public library, a film crew, and dozens of onlookers and Palmetto was a very busy street. The crew barricaded the street -- with permission of course -- to allow our drivers to portray background traffic.

We'd like to thank Mister Fish for letting us interrupt their day, the Lakeland Public Library and the Polk Museum of Art for loaning us a sizable portion of their parking lot, and all the businesses and homes for letting us inconvenience them to make Endure.

After the end of filming, we'll have longer thank you for all those who've helped with sets, street closings, and other inconveniences. Tonight we have to hide away in a basement.

Yes, there are basements in Florida. Here it is...

Looking On

For the first week of production, we had very few onlookers. The first few days were on a relatively busy street in the South Lake Morton district, but the scenes were indoors. A few cars slowed down, and we had more reporters than residents stopping to take a look.

That changed Monday. The production moved to a trio of homes near Lake Morton, and almost every scene was outdoors. Many of the Lakeland residents who follow this production blog and our Twitter updates figured out we were in the area and came by for a look.

Some seemed very interested in the production and some in the cast, but all were respectful to the cast and crew, and quiet during filming.

There were a couple of folks who didn't seem to be movie fans. One driver ignored road blocks and crew members to drive past the set. And one local resident wasn't about to let a film interrupt her daily walk. But they were far less an interruption than the bird who couldn't interrupt his love song for our crime thriller.

The Boom Mike operator tried to shoo him away, but he just jumped up one wire. Sound wasn't too perturbed. It's hard to blame a bird for whistling in Spring.

Photos by Chuck Welch

Update: Edited to remove errant sentence.

Lighting Fix

If you read the description of the first day, then the first week was

Day 2: ditto
Day 3: again
Day 4: more of the same
Day 5: Yet again

A commenter suggested we're not publishing cast photos because the Bale incident. I've seen nothing like that on this film. That isn't to say everything is perfectly smooth.

Sometimes planes fly overhead. Sometimes the camera doesn't reboot correctly and the sunlight never waits. Sometimes a light is too big...

The other morning, the lighting crew set up in a very small room that served as an important location for the film. It needed to be small, comfortable, and realistic. The room was perfect for all that, except one corner was too dark.

So the crew added a light that created the perfect mood for the scene. Everyone stood ready as the cameraman took the camera through the scene and found he could see the light in the shot.

All stood back while the lightening crew rushed to raise the light to the ceiling. Unfortunately, the next run through found the light still intruded on the frame.

Of course, it was an important shot that needed to be made now. The cast was ready. The director was ready. All were sympathetic, but no one could help the lighting crew solve the problem.

The crew found a smaller, more powerful light. Then they had to hand-fashion a filter to make the light fit the scene.

During the many minutes it took to fix the lighting problem it could have been easy for people to express frustration. No one wants to fall behind schedule. The cast gets geared up to act now, and doesn't like to wait. The crew was dancing well, but it felt like someone had thrown glue on the floor.

You could see crew and cast find what they could do to cope. Some worked ahead where possible. Others found a spot and relaxed. Some just stood ready to help.

Did no one feel anger, irritation, or exasperation? I can't tell you that, but all seemed to realize that expressing those emotions wasn't going to help speed the lighting fix.

I'm sure that was a testament to the experience and professionalism of all those involved.

Where are the behind-the-scenes photos of the cast?

According to Executive Producer Jim Carleton, the reason we haven't published any photos of the cast is contractual.

When your brand and your livelihood is your "look," you want to make sure you're always at your best for a photo. With actors concentrating on their parts, they don't have the opportunity to smile and pose for the silly behind-the-scenes photographer.

So the producers made a contractual agreement with the cast -- the photographer is given full access to the set to shoot freely. Any cast photo the producers might want to use for publicity, or DVD extras, is submitted to the cast member for approval.

Since the film is keeping much of the story and look of the actors under-wraps, the producers have decided not to publish any behind-the-scenes photos of the cast at this time.

That gives you a little hope, doesn't it?