This year’s movie was an action & adventure family film, filled with some added special effects and some clever twists on this years script. ( we’ve done this story several times before..always changing it up ) The Movie featured 12 of our Dallas Young Actors Studio™ student actors ages 10- 18 yrs old. They were in a special Movie “boot camp” for actors, where they had only 1 week to learn the script & complete filming of it. It was an hour long Movie produced by Dallas Young Actors Studio™.

Hey all! Southlake did a great article on the movie. Here’s the link to the article…

Click here for the Article

Enjoy!

Friday-Saturday behind-the-scenes video can be viewed by clicking “VIDEOS!!” in the LINKS section to the right of this page OR click here.

For youtuber’s here is the code to add to your page:

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For youtuber’s here is the code to add to your page:

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We had a good filming day today. We were at the Sherrill’s house again in Southlake to film a variety of scenes. The day was slated to start at 6:30AM and end around 10:00PM – a full day’s worth of filming.

We had to figure out a way to make the front entry way of the Sherrill’s house to look like it was “pitch-black” night at 6:30PM, when the sun wasn’t due to set until 8:30PM. Blacking out the front door area outside of the house was a challenge with our limited resources and we went through a few set-ups to accomplish the task…and we finally successfuly blacked out the front of the Sherrill’s house to make the “night effect”. Don’t ask how…it’s movie magic. hehehe

The make-up montage turned into a make-up and dance montage. The girls had a blast! We had a reporter/photographer with us today from Southlake. He enjoyed being with us and was impressed with our set-up. We filmed alot of the birthday party scenes, “love triangle” scenes, and “Chuck and Carla” scenes today. The cast did a great job today. And of course we had a great crew! Thanks Zane for being the “can you set-up this…. and can you get this…” and being the official “energizer bunny” crew member of the week…….Zane..she’s keeps going and going! Also thanks to Nichole Harris for coming up from Houston, just to crew for movie camp! What a commited crew member!

Other things to note: This camp had quite a few scenes that demanded some of the most elaborate equipment set-ups. In addition to regular lighting, we had alot of equipment dedicated to, again, black out rooms and areas of the house to make it look like it was at night. Also we had to be creative with our placement of lights around the house so that we could easily film multiple angles without having to re-adjust the lighting – a time save in the long run, but takes some planning and set-up time on the front-end. Here’s a nice shot from today….

Technical Trivia for this movie camp:
> the most c-stands ever taken on-location
> the most lights ever taken on-location
> the most grip equipment ever taken on-location (sand bags, stands, apple boxes, scrims, grip clips, etc)
> the most backdrops ever taken on-location
> this camp was the first movie camp where we have used wireless mics (and we love them)
> the most elaborate set-ups to make DAY scenes look like they were at NIGHT
> the first time (in a long time) that we used a DAY light fixture outside
> the fewest crew members on a movie camp (in a long time) for a few of the filming days
> the first time we have used the new windscreen for the shotgun microphone
> this camp has the most music montages in any camp (maybe tied with Those were the Days)
> the most cars in a movie camp caravan (6 cars)
> the first blog ever done for a movie camp
> the first time we have posted “almost” daily behind-the-scenes videos

Please comment if you found any of this technical geeky stuff interesting….. thanks

Also, special thanks to Danielle’s dad for fixing my car’s oil leak…. what an awesome guy! Those Sherrill’s are amazing people! Thanks again for letting us film at your house! We appreciate all of your hospitality Brigitte!

-Brad

Most of the crew has been awake since 5:00AM ish and we just got back to the studio now (11:20PM)….and will probably leave the studio sometime in the next 30 minutes…maybe.. we’ll see. It’s been a looooong day! Goodness! We filmed in Southlake (Danielle’s house) all day… well actually a hurricane of a storm came through Fort Worth then Dallas this morning, so we had to wait at the studio before leaving for Danielle’s house. We didn’t actually leave the studio until 9:00AM – when the storm finally passed through.

A very quick summary: Driving to Danielle’s house in the rain… 6 car caravan… We filmed some of the interior “Love Triangle” scenes first – because it was still raining. Danielle was technical script supervisor for her first movie camp… very cool. Good job Danielle and welcome to the fun!

Then….The rain stopped and so we went outside to film the treehouse scenes. We had a last minute script modification of the first scene in the movie with Ashton, Alexis, Harrison, and Maddie. Due to the location of the treehouse, Director Linda Seto got creative, lines were modified, and new blocking/direction was given. It’s now very more “Spy Kids” style of a scene now. It’s going to be one of those parts of the movie that you’ll want to play a few times over.

At night, bugs galore…bugs in maggie’s t-shirt… last scene of the day made the whole crew laugh…and Brad laughed so hard, he cried…. we enjoyed moving the “moon” around for the night scenes…. conducting the crickets, conducting the leaf blower….. construction workers that only started working EXACTLY when I said “Action” and stopped working when I said “CUT”… very strange and I think someone said I was cursed because it happened for a few hours like that. Hard to believe, but it’s true.

We all ate pizza at Danielle’s house and some of the kids (Maggie included) played Guitar Hero for a few minutes. hehehe..

Extra special thanks to Danielle Sherrill’s mom and Maddie Earhart’s mom! Also thanks to Blaise for guest appearing in the movie today! You did great!

Aaron plays an absolutely hilarious “Jose” character….and on a random note…today was the most actors “watered” in ONE day (either hit with water balloons or sprayed with water guns…Wow)

Okay…time for some sleep…nite, nite. By the way, there will not be a Thursday behind the scenes video tonight…maybe tomorrow. See ya tomorrow.

For youtuber’s here is the code to add to your page:

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that’s all that I can think about…. Since we will be so far away from the studio on Thursday and Friday, we will be “moving” the studio to Danielle’s house…. I don’t think the Sherrill’s know that yet. I gave the order to bring “everything”. So we will have to take over a room or two at the Sherrill’s and call it Studio C and D…and the treehouse in the back can be studio E. haha The caravan’s car count just increased by 2-3 cars just to bring equipment. (JUST kidding) All I have to say is….. Danielle, can we stay at your house? I call the the floor! Just kidding…sorta. so a reflection of today’s filming…. well, I think this is the first time we have used a real powerful light on location for an exterior shoot (car scene)…but it was needed. I also heard rumors that the temperature got up to 100 degrees…..yeah…we felt it. We took numerous drink and “air conditioning” breaks to stay healthy. But at the end of a long day of nothing but exterior scenes in the 100 degrees….it is exhausting to say the least. I’m sure Maggie will be filling you guys in on the rest of today’s excitement and stories. Good luck to the cast and crew tomorrow!

To put the 2nd Video LINK on any web page….use (the video is on our website and thus MUCH BETTER QUALITY):
http://www.dallasyoungactors.org/aws

OR to put the 2nd Video on your MYSPACE page…. use (video on youtube):

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We had our 1st FULL day and Night filming!…. It went pretty smooth, even though it did rain for about 30 minutes. (see Brad’s Blog) On Location Filming with the Cast; Danielle Sherrill, Jane Marie Jenevein, Madison Poe were “Baking” and it took 30 minutes or more just to “make ready” the dinner table with actual food ( thanks Danielle’s mom Bridgett who provided several items and then Maggie’s mom, who in real life IS a gourmet cook, helped us “decorate the Chicken entree or more like a cornish hen??)
Everything looked delicious, but since it WAS props, we couldn’t eat them…

Hailey Ortiz, Alexis Sillaway & Ashton Armstrong were filming their ” Pet Sitter Business scene”. Elise Armstrong ended up provided us with her (real) dog, who’s quite energetic and we did have a real fish too. …who knew that Edna ( of ASK EDNA ) lived in the SAME neighborhood and would drop in for pet sitting services…. wow..its a small world..

MOMS BUSY in the Office…… finally the front office is being organized…ok..it’s in the PROCESS of being organized and anyone who’s worked in the office knows just how BIG a job that it!!…. Maddie’s Mom, Kim and Alexis’s mom, Jennifer plus Penny ( back in town- yeah!!) were doing a GREAT job! It’s part of our “getting ready for a REALLY AWESOME year ahead for YAS!! We are planning already for the 2008-09 year events & activities..etc.

Another BIG day of Filming tomorrow- so I hope it doesn’t rain.. and now we’ll have TWO newspapers coming out this week to interview the talent & take photos!!…coool! Everyone keep up the TERRIFIC WORK!!