TROUBLE WITH THE COPS...ALMOST

Erin playing "Happy Dead Girl"--one for the blooper reel

Ann went off with our daughter Erin, her boyfriend John, and James, a friend of theirs, to shoot some additional footage to give the director Juha Lindroos a few extra options while editing the movie.

The scene involves two people hunched over a body in the middle of rubble, during the Ambergrisian War of the Houses. So they found a nice rubble-strewn, grass-sticking-through-pavement-crumbling-building-in-background area and set up for the shot. Erin and John were to hunch over James, who would play the dead guy, and then Ann would do three or four different approach shots: running at them from a distance, walking at them from a distance, and then strapping the camera to a skateboard and getting a ground-level view, closing in fast.

Unfortunately, as they were setting up, a cop drove by and thought that what was going down was a murder--James was being too good a dead guy and Erin and John apparently looked too predatory. So Ann had to quickly run over before the cop called in back-up and James the Dead Guy had to quickly rise from the dead to reassure him no crime was being committed (except the possible crime against Art).

Ann still managed to get the shoot done and then take some stills of all three for possible consideration for the photos of dead people part of the movie.

Really, the funniest part of all this is that James didn't even know what he'd been roped into until they all go over to our house. He'd thought he was going to have to help John move furniture or something. Nope--we need you to play a dead guy, we said. "Oh--no problem," he said. "I've got lots of experience. Or near experience."

This continues to be an interesting experience. And it was certainly a great story for father's day--Stepfather almost gets daughter in trouble with cops...

Jeff