Day of the Dead...Zio Luigi!

October 31, 2009

Today our cast and crew brought Uncle Louie back from the dead. No, we didn't just get an injection of cash to prevent the shutting down of production.  Rather, our cast and crew raised our favorite dead uncle from the grave. It was only fitting that we shot this segment on Halloween.  Utterly accidental and serendipitous was the timing. We swear. 

Of course it all started with the work of our makeup artist, Vroula; she made Louie look appropriately cadaverous.  But that was just the beginning. Louie's burial suit was covered with grass stains, tufts of dirt, and dusty soil by the time she was through with him. Then presto! Our gangster ghost arrived, a bloodless and startling apparition, fresh from the laborious work of pushing up daisies.




November 1, 2009

Today was about stamina, and it showed us what we were made of. There were periods of the filming day that were fraught with frustration, but when it was time to wrap up, we held fast to our hopes.  And with good reason.  Many of the scenes  we played back on the monitor were as good or better than we imagined.  Particularly satisfying was a high shot of Uncle Louie enjoying wine and anti-pasta on our dining room table; conceived by the director and the DP, this shot involved a strenuous set up and hand-held work by camera operator Kyle Mayer. The quiet, contemplative scene captures the solitary bliss of one of life's simple pleasures: the consumption of good food and wine.