nov. 22: the final countdown

we did it!

a feature-length movie in eleven days, and most of those in a mine!

today was the final stretch, the anchor leg, and as such, everyone was in good spirits, even as things were dragging and taking far too long.

i ride to work with ian, the camera operator i'm assisting, and he loves photography like i do.  we've been leaving fifteen minutes early every day to take pictures on the way to work.  this morning i saw the best shot i've seen all week, but we were already pushing it for time, so i didn't say anything.  oh, how i wish we could have stopped for two minutes....  (editor's note: we got the shot from a better angle on the way out of the valley the next morning.  happy times.)

shantell the awesome wardrobe girl gave me a "thanks for being awesome" card today, noting that she only gives them to her favorite people.  that helped get me going through the rest of the day.

despite it being near the very end and a crazy decision protested by nearly all the crew, we moved to another mine for our final shots this evening.  as i was coming out of the war eagle mine (where we'd been all week) and loving the idea of never having to go back in there, i realized that it was about the time that the coldplay concert was starting in utah.  so i did the next best thing and volunteered to drive the four-wheeler to the next cave.  racing that through the desert under the stars was a pretty great consolation for missing chris martin singing "clocks" and "life in technicolor" and "42" and.... well, anyway, it was a blast.

at the wrap party tonight, the best idea for a crew shirt i heard was to list all of the hazards, dangers, and wrong things we did on this show, starting with shooting 120 pages in 11 days, including one 17-page day.

this is one we'll be telling stories about for a while.