Sunday in the park with the core

We've started Neutrino Twin Cities with a small crew of five people, known as "the core." The core consists of Eric Knobel and Mike Hadley, our producers and starter-uppers, as well as Rita Boersma, Hannah Kuhlmann (your bloggers) and Troy Zimmerman. We decided to call ourselves the core because we love Hillary Swank.

Today the core met at the Bryant Square Park for some practice with the camera. We've discovered that directing is much harder than we thought it would be (well, actually we've discovered that everything is much harder than we thought it would be), so Eric has stayed behind the camera to let Rita, Mike and I focus on learning how to improvise on camera.

Of course we had to eat a meal and discuss tons of stuff before actually rehearsing. That's how we roll. Mike's improv gets exponentially better after he's had a beer, and we can usually rationalize dining on rehearsal time as "scouting locations." Sadly, we found out during today's location scout that Galactic Pizza has an open mic music thing during our show... so we probably won't be able to shoot there. :(

After experimenting with forced perspective to make it look like Mike was a hobbit drinking out of a cave troll-sized glass, we took to the streets and shot some scenes.

Here's what we learned today: Watching people have realistic conversations on the street is fucking boring. We were happiest with the scenes in which we got broader and less reality-grounded, while staying committed. We also tried our first "person on the street" cameo. A gentleman with a large number of missing teeth was watching us shoot outside Rainbow, and earned himself a close up and a line of dialogue.

TOOTHLESS GUY: Are you shootin' a movie scene or something?
ERIC: Yeah, we are.
TG: Oh my god, you blew my mind.. and I didn't even have a part.
ERIC: Do you *want* a part?
ME: yeah, you can be in our movie!
TG: Oh, I don' know...
ERIC: Just say "There go two lovebirds," and look at those two walking away.
TG: I don't even have a key, what's my key?
ERIC: Um... your cue is when I say "Action!"
TG: ahh, okay, I can do it.
ERIC: Action!
TG: There goes two lovebirds... ah HEH HEH HA ha ha... (big grin at the camera)

It was awesome. Toothless guy added something to the scene that I think I will call "Neutrino Magic." Eric made the point that the audience will enjoy watching us take risks like that, and will really enjoy it if we take risks and it pays off.

We need to find a house or apartment to film in. We came to that conclusion for the millionth time today. Should we place a Craig's List ad? Should we rent a cheap studio? Should we focus on getting all three cameras first, and then worry about locations?

The adventure continues...