The plan of the day was to head down to Riverside, where our producer Joel O'Neal lives. In addition to the promise of inexpensive shooting permits, he thought it might also fulfill my wish that the locations not look specifically like Los Angeles - anywhere USA of you will. I've never been to Riverside, so I had no idea what to expect.
Amy McDonald and I started out around 10:00am, praying for no traffic. Although we got our wish, we ended up experiencing a different challenge: as soon as we passed San Dimas, we got a taste of the the Santa Ana winds. I'd heard the term before, but had never considered what it actually meant. What it meant was winds so strong that you could actually feel the car rocking as we barreled down the freeway. As we pulled into the dusty flatlands of Riverside, it meant we were also greeted with the eerie sight of empty lots and decrepit wooden buildings being hit with clouds of dust. As we waited on a red light, a tumbleweed actually rolled past the car, and later up the road, a tree had fallen across the freeway, creating a small traffic jam.
While Amy worried about trying to drive in this mess, I worried about how constant a factor these winds were. This would render a location shoot in Riverside impossible. Without inexpensive permits, we were left with a possible guerilla shoot, which is harder to pull of in Los Angeles than just about anywhere else, outside of NYC.
We finally arrived at Joel's house a little after eleven. Joel might, in fact, be the only friend of mine who lives in a house and not an apartment, probably due to the fact that he's married with children. They have a fantastic 1950's era home with one of those sunken entertainment rooms and a glass enclosed balcony, now converted into an art studio; scattered around where dozens of unfinished paintings, guitars, drums, and his editing suite.
Over coffee and cigarettes, Joel assured me that the winds where not all that constant, and didn't often extend to the area's he would be showing us that day. Moments later, a crackling sound reverberated across the wooded valley behind his house, and we were all greeted by the sight of a very tall tree splitting at the base and falling to the ground.
With Joel's partner Monica, the four of us then took off the first location; a run down part of town that Joel thought might yield some interesting location possibilities.
After passing through an upscale neighborhood filled with Victorians and a fantastic stone bridge, we suddenly found ourselves in a flat, sleepy and economically depressed area which looked to have block after block of closed businesses. Or so it would seem. Further investigation revealed that most of them were in fact open, but just appeared to be otherwise at a passing glance.
Looking at the pictures later, I realized this area would be perfect for one of my favorite dream sequences; where Greg imagines a missing persons poster for himself posted to a telephone pole on a lonely and desolate street.
From there, we headed off to downtown proper, a complete 180% turn; upscale, filled with boutiques, theater's, and a very large and historical hotel.
From this, I think we might have found our bus stop. Off the main street a bit, was a bus stop that had no overhang (one of my conditions), and was in front of a brown, brick building that actually housed a bail bonds business. We'd need a different street for the reverse view point, as I thought the actual view from the bus stop had too many tree's, and I need something more urban. However, those are shots that can be done without any talent present, and shouldn't be a problem.
Our last stop of the day was about twenty minutes away, in what was probably a bustling shopping district in the early 60's. Although initially there to find a bus stop (I hadn't yet decided on the bail bonds location), I found that the whole block was highly compelling as a filming location. On one side were a series of mom and pop businesses, built with the kind of irregular stone paneling that has been out of fashion for the last four decades. Across the street was a medium sized strip mall, including a 'futuristic' angular shaped diner and a shop claiming to be 'your hearing aid center!'. Best of all was a pet food store, another location that was on my list, as the lead character in The Ride works at one. In fact, the store front reminded me slightly of the REAL pet food store that I worked at in the early 2000's.
We snapped a series of pictures, but didn't have time to inquire at the pet shop about our shoot, as we had one more location to check out before Amy and I headed back to Pasadena so I could attend a holiday training meeting at work.
The last thing on the list was to find a dirt road, preferably surrounded by overgrown, yellow grass for one of the final dream sequences. However, although we found a few dirt roads, they had rows of orange groves surrounding them, so no go. However, driving through the orange groves at sunset was one of the most scenic things I've experienced since moving to la la town, so it wasn't a complete loss!
At this point, we had to get Joel and his wife home so we could beat the traffic. We'll be heading that way again to continue searching for our desired dirt road, and Joel has a few spots in the mind that we didn't have time to check out. To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment