The Cabin.

Originally, when I wrote Zimbabwe and Noah back in February it was a stoner comedy that starred only my friends as the four leads, we were going to use a beach house (located in Los Osos, California) that was available to us. In the following five months, I ended up replacing two of the main actors. We found a cabin in Pine Flats, California that we would use instead of the beach house. And the stoner comedy aspect of the movie was downgraded to only a few scenes, leaving the relationship angle of the movie as the main shit.

And last week, when I shot the bulk of Zimbabwe and Noah, this is how it worked.
Monday, July 19th, 2010.

Matthew Wolfe, Raudel Gonzalez and I showed up at Marleen Lindsey's house to pick her up. She literally saved the movie after our previous actress dropped the movie two days before. Now, we were on the way to the cabin after we prayed with her mother.

In a building in California Hot Springs, I started freaking out because there was no reception within 30 miles. This meant the other car filled with people didn't know where we were. We parked the car on the edge of the street and waited for them to pass. About 30 minutes later, they did, and we were on the way to the cabin about 3 miles from there.

This was Friday. We watched what we shot.

At about 4:30, Riley Martin showed up. We did the first shot for both him and Marleen.
The scene is the most intimate in the movie, I think. Levi is consoling Vivian, asking her to get over Zimbabwe's hatred for her, convincing her that everything is cool while clutching her from behind.

Fun fact: Ryan Mann (lights) made a makeshift boom pole for us about 40 seconds before shooting. It was a lawn hoe and a paint brush.

We waited for the sun to go down and shot Marleen's last appearance in Zimbabwe and Noah.
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010.

At about 1:00 AM, Andrew Folsom showed up.

Andrew works, he's the only one of us with a job. This made things complicated, but do-able.

Andrew works from 7 PM to 11 PM. This meant, Andrew got off of work, drove to the cabin (about a 90 minute drive) and begun to shoot with us. He would leave at 2 PM, go back to Bakersfield and eventually, back to work and then back to the cabin. This would continue for the next 3 days.

It was the dinner scene, the height of uncomfortableness for the characters. This is where they stop hiding their feelings for each other. Andrew ate half of an old uncooked potato without me having to ask him to do it.

The dinner scene. Look at that grub.

At about 6 AM, I let Riley and Marleen go to sleep because we had to wait for the sun to come up to shoot the following scene.

For the next couple of hours, Andrew, Matt and I played Scrabble.

At 9AM, I woke up Riley and Marleen to shoot the "board game scene".

This lasted until noon, where I let everyone sleep.
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010.

At 1 AM, Andrew and John Meneses showed up.

We focused on the Y2K scene. This scene required a lot of broken glass. Vivian freaks out, smashes glasses to get attention. Zimbabwe, in a state of extreme paranoia brought on by learning about the apocalypse, rips the table cloth off of the dining table sending all the plates and cups to the ground. Everybody heads towards the basement, and Levi finds himself begging Vivian to stay with him, warning her that it's not safe out here.

When the sun came up, we shot the pot stuff.


Madhatter is a hybrid super-drug. Noah got a hold of it from his old dealer, Mordecai, four months before. He's been saving it until this moment, but Zimbabwe is not happy about that. He smashes him into the wall, screaming at him about keeping the Madhatter from him for so long.

During the day, into the night, I shot Matt running all around the cabin, holding dollar bills.

We watched James and the Giant Peach, The Kid, and Bring it On while we waited for the sun to go down. We went hiking and drank water from a stream.
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010.

There was two scenes that required re-shoots. The first was Vivian leaving the cabin, furious. Levi follows her and she refuses to stay unless Zimbabwe apologizes for how he's been treating her. It wasn't difficult but the first time I shot it, I was rushed and running on empty (all of us had been up for more than 24 hours by that point).

The second was everybody going to the basement, the acting was good the first time but I realized my original preference to shoot it hand-held was wrong, so I did it again in set-ups and without lighting. It was perfect and I think it's going to be one of my favorite scenes.

Zimbabwe, high, in the bathroom is the next thing we shot that morning (probably about 4Am).

I let everyone sleep about 4 hours. I stood outside and shot the sun coming up through the thick trees, thinking of a different ending.

We woke up at 8Am, in a rush to get Marleen done. There was a catch in casting her: she was only available for 3 days. She had to be home before 2PM, this day.

The scene seemed easy: Levi and Vivan are driving through the forest, to the cabin. I borrowed Ryan Mann's car for this scene (Toyota Camry's haven't really changed a lot since '99, especially the interior). They argue about the music choices and change the channel. Ryan was still asleep when I took his keys.

Noah, in an intoxicated state, stumbles out of the woods into the road and is hit by Levi who is too busy arguing to pay attention to the road.

The brutality of this shot ended up being much more vicious than I could have ever imagined. I won't talk about it, explain it, or show pictures, but it was good. Really good.

Riley and Marleen left that day, and then I only had to shoot with Andrew and Matt. Andrew left at 2.


For the first time, we weren't busy. We slept comfortably because there was no alarm.
Friday, July 23rd, 2010.

In the morning, we woke up and started cleaning the cabin. There was only one shot I needed: Matt stumbling through the forest, a set-up for him being hit by Levi.

We did this and once we figured out what to do about Ryan's car, we went home.