Day One of Principal Photography on The Family Crystal Web Series

We finished shooting our first day on our web series, The Family Crystal, which I'm starring in. Talented people and a brilliant script came together to create magic. We have only 5 days to shoot 26 episodes for the Internet... some as short as a half minute or as long as 5 minutes.

It didn't start out great. My call time was 7 am. The I-170 was smooth sailing as you would expect that early in the morning, but when I hit the I-5, it was bumper to bumper crawling. That was because they had closed one lane, then a second, then a third -- the three right lanes. But worse than that, they closed the ramp I was planning to exit on. And the next ramp. So there I was, going to a place out in what I considered the boonies, where I had never been to, and they closed the two adjacent ramps. I don't have any fancy GPS. So I was worried about whether I had overshot the street I was looking for when I got off and circled back After all, who knows whether the freeway angles. Turns out I didn't overshoot the cross street I wanted but I had to go to the very end of the street before I knew that. And of course, I panicked before then, calling the producer and asking, have I gone too far.

Once inside, the first place you deal with is the makeup room and the costume room. I have 30 costume changes in the 2 seasons of 13 episodes each. Obviously we will have to use some of these things more than once. The picture to the right shows you some of my costumes -- the unwrinkable tops are in the suitcase beneath the ones hanging up.

Then when we tried to shoot the first scene, we kept blowing fuses, so we'd lose a camera or sound -- we were shooting three cameras at a time, the master and two closeups. So we lost at least an hour while the crew brought in extension cords and latticed the plugs around the house until we could run everything we needed without blowing fuses.

To the left is Leah Allers, who plays my sister Rhonda, getting made up by our wonderful make-up and hair lady, Mindy. And Leah, once she's ready to step in front of the cameras.
With all the delays that were unexpected, we were only about to shoot about 10-12 pages rather than the fifteen director Elaine Zicree wanted to accomplish.

What follows is a few pictures from the shoot to give you a flavor of our set. Elaine had rehearsed us so well that our performances went exceedingly well... and quick. We only had about 3 or 4 takes a scene. And only a couple of pickups. I'm sure that made the crew as happy as we were.

I don't want to spoil the fun or suspense for you when the series hits the web, so I won't say much about the actual plot. However, Leah and another actor, Eric Rubin had a stunt, choreographed by a real working stuntman (from the show Criminal Minds) so they wouldn't get hurt, that yours truly here would have been too chicken to try.

When it gets up on the Net, and you have a chance to view it, then I'll give some behind the scenes tidbits.

As you can see, a set is a busy place. But it isn't all hard work. We do get a chance to play as well.

Barry Alexander who plays my brother-in-law, Eric, Rhonda's husband, goofs off first with Mindy, the makeup and hair guru and then with me.

Tomorrow we will be shooting day 2, but this time my call time is at 8 am... a much more civilized hour... better to have to get up at 6 am than 5 am...