Note: This is Excerpt #19 in Diane’s Diary. If you would like to read previous excerpts, you can find Diane’s Diary 1-18 here.
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It’s finally travel day! We had rebooked the trip from August 2019 to October 2019 because hurricane Dorian messed up our plans. I was on an early flight so I could get fly from California to Florida and still be there at a decent hour. I picked up my rental car and then headed to the hotel. Theresa (our local producer) had found us a reasonably priced hotel in between Erin and Kaitlyn’s house and the neurologist’s office where we would be filming. I had to rent rooms for my crew and me since they were driving down from a few hours away.
Originally, Theresa was going to be in town for this shoot and we had a Production Assistant (PA) lined up. But the PA fell through too and we were going to need snacks (very very important). Theresa was still working on getting a PA whose job, among other duties, was to purchase the snacks. I didn’t want to take a chance and be stuck without snacks and water for the crew on Friday, and I offered to do the food shop. I also wanted to make sure we had what I wanted. (Did you notice that I just spent a whole paragraph on snacks?)
I messaged Erin that I had arrived and met Mike, my local director, and right-hand-man for dinner.
Marcos, the cameraman joined us so we could all get on the same page. They asked me technical questions that I couldn’t answer about how I wanted the film to look. They wanted to make sure I got the footage that I want, but because I’m not a seasoned filmmaker, nor have I had any formal training, I couldn’t properly answer the question. I’m not looking for anything fancy. But I am going to learn what I need to know to make this look as good as possible.
I took a film class in 2018 that mostly teaches about the business aspect of self- distribution, but I did learn a bit about centering subjects in the frame or 1/3 of the way, but I don’t know if I have a preference so I’m going to leave it to them.
I also learned that it’s a good idea to have two cameras so we could get a variety of shots. Three cameras would be awesome, but we’ll be fine with two. I was pretty tired from travel and getting up for an early flight and fell asleep around 11:30.
I set my alarm for Friday at 5:30 am so I could stretch, meditate and shower to be ready to leave by 7 so we could be at the hospital by 7:30. (Remember that I’m from California so it was 2:30 am in my body when I got up. I have to say, I was pretty excited about the day and didn’t feel tired at all.) The hospital contact met us at the entrance at 7:45 am to escort us to the doctor’s office where we would be filming. After buzzing us in she showed us his office and said we could also use the conference room next door. His office was small, and we had two decent sized cameras on tripods and 3 additional people to fit into the room, so we decided to use the conference room.
The conference room was too plain, so we got permission to “dress” the conference room to recreate his office.
Fortunately, there was an empty bookshelf in the conference room identical to the one in his office that we could dress. I took a photo of his bookshelf before we touched anything so that whatever we took down, we put back exactly the way we found it. We borrowed a few of his framed diplomas and awards, journals and notebooks, family photos, and his stethoscope and other instruments and styled up an impromptu office.
Marcos looked at it through the camera viewfinder and suggested we find a plant. There were no big plants in the office, but one staff member wasn’t at work that day and they had two nice desk plants in their office which we borrowed (thank you!) along with a table to give the background some life. I have to say, it looked great. (When the film comes out and you watch this interview, you’ll know that the background during the interview isn’t really his office!)
More about what happened that morning in the next diary excerpt.
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