We did it!

A little over a month ago, our team assembled to make FLY AWAY and fly we did! In just 14 days, each 12 hours long, we made something pretty special. The performances were dazzling, our brilliant cinematographer shot gorgeous footage, the cracker jack crew pulled rabbit after rabbit out of their illustrious hats and we got ourselves a movie! As Beth Broderick herself said (who has been on hundreds -- if not a thousand -- movie and television shows, and worked with that many crews), ours was one of the very best. The shoot was focused, intense, but happy. The only drama was on the screen! And after it was over, we all still liked each other! Well enough to hang out for hours after wrapping out of my back yard, over pizza, beer and fabulous champagne provided by our big hearted Associate Producer, John Yonover. John and his son, Matt (by the way, it was a requirement to either be named or related to someone named Matt to work on our film; we counted 6 of them on our crew!) flew in from Chicago, did great work as extras in our restaurant scene, and shared their generosity all day long. So now into the editing room! More updates soon. And thanks to each one of you for all your support.

Yours,

Janet

Photos: Day Ten, Eleven, and Twelve

Hi everyone,
We've reached the home stretch. Only a couple of days left. For me the end of a shoot is something that is always both highly anticipated as well as somewhat dreaded. While it's definitely nice to have some time off, I'm always a little sad when the cast and crew splits up and goes their separate ways. Even if you're planning on working with many of the same people again, the crew will never be exactly the same. Having said that, I think it's nice that at the end you'll always have a movie to remind you of all of the good times you had working on the production. Many of these fun moments can be seen in the below pictures.
-Pete

What could make a mother more proud?

Directing my first feature has been filled with profuse and profound blessings and delights. But one of the biggest was getting to direct my own son in a scene! My child, Matt, is now 16. Hardly a child anymore. At five feet, eleven inches, I'm looking up to him. And not just because of his height. His incredible courage, tenacity and sweetness inspires me every day, as does his amazing transformation into a confident, competent, engaged young man. Who could happily hang out on a bustling movie set, swirling with a crew of gaffers and grips, waiting hours for the 15-20 minutes it took to shoot his actual role! Ten, five, even 3 years ago, I would never have imagined last Tuesday. For either of us! Matt played the part of a Server at NICE CREAM (a fantastic gelato store on Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice---run don't walk!), where our two main characters share one of the lighter moments in our story. (You can see photos of this happy event in DAY 9 of the daily blogs.) By the way, NICE CREAM gelato is not only totally organic and delicious, but incredibly low in calories. The owners, Laura and Christian Neilsen, not only donated the location to our shoot, but Laura appears in the scene. As well as my mother! The morning became even happier, when the crew got to sample the product. Nice, indeed!

And now...onto the home stretch. The last 4 days of our shoot, Saturday to Tuesday.

Janet

Photos: Day Nine

Here's the photos for day nine. Be sure to check out my awesome headphones.
-Pete

Photos: Day Seven and Eight

While I'd love to tell how tired I am after a long day of production, I thought I'd post a photo gallery instead. After all, if a picture's worth a thousand words than 29 of them has to be worth at least 29 thousand words (also I'm too tired to blog). No amount of coffee can prepare you for the quantity of loading and unloading of trucks that each day requires. Having said all of this, making movies is awesome and I wouldn't want to do anything else.
Enjoy the pictures,
-Pete

Photos: Day Six

Since it took me so long to post the last two days worth of photos, I figured I'd upload todays photos today!
-Pete

Photos: Day Four and Five

Hi Everyone,
Here's the pictures from tuesday and wednesday. I thought I had posted these a couple of days ago, but clearly that was not the case. Things have been so hectic lately I didn't even realize they weren't up until just now. Sorry about that. Anyway, in a surprising turn of events, tomorrow marks my professional acting debut. Indeed, because Fly Away is such a micro-budget production, many of the crew members are actually doubling as extras. While I've done a very small amount of "acting" in the past, this will be my first feature and as such, I plan to spend the rest of the night getting into character.
wish me luck,
-Pete

Still flying

We wrapped our first week of photography on Wednesday night at 7 p.m.. In five, 12 hour days, we covered 56 scenes and didn't go into overtime! An amazing accomplishment, due to the talent, dedication, focus and integrity of this group. The cast is amazing. Not only are the performances truly astonishing, but their all-in team work, and flexible, good humored adaptation to this close to the bone shoot is inspirational. And the crew is phenomenal; warm spirited, highly skilled and tireless, they really have formed a community. Not only does it take a village to make a movie, they became a village in my backyard, under tents! Someone once said that second to love, the greatest gift one can give is labor. I am grateful and humbled by the contributions of the cast and crew to this labor of love.

Now...Onto week two! Which Pete will continue to report with breezy charm.

Yours,

Janet

Day Three: Photos

Heres the photos from day 3. More to come tonight!
-Pete

Day Two: Photos

Photos from day two have arrived! Here the lovely ladies from our multitalented production office can be seen standing in for the actors while the camera, electrical, and art departments set up the shot around them. Having worked in the production office for the last week or so, I can assure you that getting these people to stop working and sit still for any amount of time is next to impossible. I am constantly in awe of our AD's ability to get them to do so.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures.
-Pete

Day One: Photos

Hey everyone, here's some photos from yesterday.
-Pete

Production Begins.

The time has finally come. Production is upon us. We've been at it since 6:00 AM this morning, and aside from a quick bit of rain, things have been running as smooth as possible. All of our time spent planning in preproduction is finally paying off. Unlike preproduction which is nonstop work, production is very stop and go. Whenever the camera starts rolling, everything else has to stop. As Christian Bale will tell you, even the slightest movement or sound can ruin a shot. This means that there's a lot of down time quickly followed by an intense period of work. Speaking of which, I should probably get back to it. I gotta go collect some walkie-talkies.
-Pete

Moving In

We're almost there. I'm going to keep this somewhat brief, since today has been a long day full of moving heavy objects, but I thought I'd at least take the time and give you a quick report as to what's going on. As you can see, this place is finally starting to look like a movie set. Walls have been painted, c-stands erected, and the craft services table has been piled high with everything from soda to soy sauce and wasabi flavored walnuts. I'm always somewhat surprised by how much stuff a group of people can actually move in a day. What started as a backyard has quickly become a fully functioning set. Literally everything that you see in this picture wasn't there more than five or six hours ago.

Well, I've got some more stuff to do.

Be sure to check back tomorrow. I doubt you'll be able to recognize anything.

-Pete

Autism The Musical

Hey everyone,
I thought I'd share this trailer with you.



For those of you who don't already know, Janet helped to produce this film. I highly recommend those of you who are interested in it, check out its own website for more information. Autism The Musical not only does a great job bringing attention to the struggle inherent in confronting autism, but in doing so it depicts how love, commitment, and the human spirit can help overcome anything. It is in this vain that we are hoping to create Fly Away.
-Pete

Office Tour

Howdy,

I don't have a whole lot to share today, but since I promised to update the site on a daily basis I figured I'd take you on a quick tour of our production office. Here it is!

While it may not the biggest place in the world, it helps you get to know everyone pretty quickly. More than a couple times today I've found myself awkwardly leaning over someone in a misguided attempt to grab something off of the printer. Also worth noting is the chicken that lives next door. While her clucks may annoy some, I've always found them to be somewhat entertaining. I was unaware that people actually kept chickens as pets (since it's been here for a few days, I'm assuming it's a pet and not dinner). Anyway, If I'm ever lucky enough to record it with my phone, I'll be sure to post that on the site.

UPDATE
Here's the chicken. The recording's a little quite so turn up your volume.

-Pete

Day One: Production Meeting

Hello World Wide Web,
having just returned from my first first day of pre-production, I can now officially state that we have a really great crew working on this film. While avid readers of this blog will likely recall that I may have said something to a similar effect in several of my previous posts, the truth is that I really hadn't met any of them in person before today. While they seemed nice in E-mail form, for all I knew they could actually all have been complete jerks. Today I can confirm, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is absolutely not the case. From the first second I stepped foot into the production office, it immediately became clear to me that our crew is not only a well oiled movie making machine, but also a great group of people. Despite having never actually encountered someone on a film that I didn't like, I'm always excited to learn that I'm going to have an easy time getting along with my fellow crew members.

Having said that, today's main event was a large crew meeting between all of the various department heads ensuring that everything was going to be ready for production when the camera starts rolling on saturday. Together, they meticulously went through the production schedule and made sure that every prop, costume, location, and camera angle was decided upon and accounted for. If there's going to be a shot of Mandy watching TV, what show is she going to be watching? If she is watching a show, will it actually be playing, or will it be added in later during post production? If it is going to be added during post production, will the television screen be overlaid with a green screen, or are you simply just going to place tracking marks on the screen? These are the kind of questions that are constantly being asked to ensure that even the most finite of details be ready, so that when the director yells action, everything is good to go . While no amount of preparation can make production run perfectly smoothly, if you can eliminate all of the potential problems that are able to control, than that's half the battle right there. This is especially true on a lower budget film like Fly Away, since every additional second you spend in production costs extra money.

Thats it for now,
Be sure to check back in tomorrow for more.
-Pete

Independence Day

Hi everyone,

Welcome to July. We're just one week away from production, and I've finally arrived in Los Angeles. As a native Philadelphian and a graduate of a small university in Connecticut, I've spent most of my life living on the east coast. Although having been here only a day, I don't have much too report as of yet (that is, aside from being mildly disappointed by my first taste of In-N-Out Burger), I can tell you that I'm looking forward to seeing what this strange new land has to offer. Rest assured that when I do find something worth sharing, I'll be sure to do so right here on this blog. For better or for worse, you can expect to find a new post here, at the very least, on a daily basis. This being the website for Fly Away, I'm going to try my best to keep things as on topic as possible, but don't be surprised if you find the occasional aside about Los Angeles, or baseball, or pastrami sandwiches, or any of other random things of that are constantly coursing through my brain. Judging by the amount of traffic that our cast page is getting at the moment, I'm sure that you'll be excited to know that it is in this vain that you can also expect to find blog posts from the rest of the cast and crew as well.

Anyway, I look forward to keeping you informed.
Happy 4th,
-Pete