Teaser film shoot and photo shoot day

The teaser for Old Dogs & New Tricks is shot this past weekend. I Got there at 11am to start the set up for the day. As is always the case, there are already a couple of hang-ups. The dry cleaners misplaced the table cloth for the scene which had Laurence caught up in picking up supplies. Luckily, after he told the dry cleaner that the table cloth was a $350 piece, it miraculously appeared.

But Laurence eventually showed up with a spread worthy of his catering background. As he would say, it is his Jewish heritage that will have us all well fed. Quite a variety of catering and craft services for the day. I was taken aback by the frosted animal crackers. I came for the chips and cold cut wraps, I stayed for the frosted animal crackers.

The original camera for the shoot broke this morning as the crew was heading to set so an emergency camera had to be acquired for the shoot. The quality shouldn’t suffer with the “new” camera but it caused things to get started a bit later than initially anticipated. All things considered, it was a pretty impressive thing to conjure up a backup camera at a moment’s notice. Suddenly I am hearing the Beatles: “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Curt Bonnem (Brad) arrived early straight from an audition in the area. Jim J Bulluck (Ross) arrived shortly thereafter. Gotta love actors showing up early. Jeff P Olson (Muscles) arrived few minutes later and Leon Acord (Nathan) was already here to help in the usual producing duties. First thing is lunch (great gig huh?) for the cast to schmooze and bond a little before the shoot. They have only all met each other briefly at callbacks.

There is no question they are getting along swimmingly. Like old friends. Of course since chemistry was always an important quality in who was cast, that makes sense.

It is a good thing we are doing rehearsals. Mainly so we can all get our cackles out of the way before the camera is rolling. Get these “characters” around a table and hilarity ensues. Several times it seemed a shame the camera WASN’T rolling already—at least to grab some outtakes. But there will probably be a few of those anyway. I have no doubts that there will be plenty of outtakes to put together quite a collection once we begin filming the series itself.

A couple of the funnier moments came when we began to run out of beef on the character’s plates in the dinner party scene and “wine” in the glasses. That is when some creative improvisation had to be utilized. Luckily we had the aforementioned spread of food that we could borrow from to fill up the dinner plates again. The wine became a clever (if I do say so myself) concoction of different drink flavors to produce desired color of a wine-like substance (the taste was not so desirable however). Some of my favorite parts of the movie making experience.

After the fim shoot, it was on to the photo shoot. The photo shoot was in the same location in the lawn area where there is plenty of gardens and trees for backdrop. Just give these guys some drinks and voila! Magic! The pictures are up on the site and the facebook page already.

The teaser will make its debut at the “Carved In Stone” reunion performance on April 3 if you would like to be among the first to see it. Carved In Stone, for those unfamiliar, is the afterlife comedy that Lauralee Entertainment produced in 2009. It enjoyed a 12 week extended run and stars several of the actors who will also be starring in “Old Dogs & New Tricks”. Leon Acord, Curt Bonnem, Amanda Abel, and myself.

Visit the Old Dogs & New Tricks facebook page to find out more details and 'like' the page to keep current on what is happening with the production.